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Comment by loourr | Hacker News Reader

Yes. Covid will continue to mutate to become more contagious and less deadly. This is the natural progression of endemic viruses, they don't want to kill their hosts and they want to spread.

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By the time people die of covid they've already spread the virus. Generally by the time people die they've cleared the virus. It's the inflammatory response that kills them. There's really no evolutionary pressure for covid to become less virulent since people can spread it prior to being symptomatic.

There absolutely is pressure because you spread it for longer & to more people if you’re not horribly symptomatic or dead.

Please give us an example of an endemic human virus that naturally progressed to become more contagious and less deadly?

the common cold or the flu

Viruses have no agency, will or desires.

The one imperative they do have, in effect, is to replicate. That imperative translates into the real world into analogues of action that replicate to equivalent observable effects.

This kind of anthropomorphism is acceptable, it's not like the poster doesn't understand how evolution works... I'm pretty sure "experts" have used the phrase as well. The gist of the comment is correct though.

A variant could emerge which is more contagious and more deadly.

"Want" in this case is clearly understood to mean the option that is evolutionarily favorable.

Per this site's guidelines: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

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