SARS-2 is a RNA virus. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_virus>With
high mutation rates and short generation times, these acute infections
typically evolve like wild. It happens that the betacoronaviruses
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betacoronavirus>also have a
"spellchecker" or "proofreader"
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-020-00468-6> that often corrects
such mutations.
That inherent characteristic hardly puts us in the clear, however, if
the present pandemic doesn't offer us pause enough.
As we approach anything from
<https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.07.20148460v2>50 to 500
million people infected, a variety of strains are likely to emerge. Most
mutations that the spellchecking misses will have little effect or make
matters /worse /for the virus. But we're trafficking in such numbers
that rare improvements from the virus's vantage point bend toward
inevitable.
The worry about the resulting fallout is two-fold:
That the strains will engage in what's called "interdemic selection".
<https://dragonflyissuesinevolution13.wikia.org/wiki/Interdemic_selection>
The various strains emerging might compete at the level of host
population until one beats all the rest and spreads out again from its
point of origin, out from underneath whatever herd immunity we
develop—natural or vaccine-derived.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/45306108
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