the maoster:
Heard an interview on Virgin this morning with the scientific editor of The Times, he claimed that some London school of virology is saying that the peak of Covid in the U.K. was back in December. They say that they postulate that up to 60% of the UK population has had this virus, some people with little or no symptoms and some with “seasonal” symtoms which would explain the tickly coughs that many have experienced over winter.Apparently they are working on producing an antibody test with which to test vast swathes of society to either prove or disprove their theory…
He went on to say that any virus which kills the host is in fact a pretty rubbish virus as when the host dies the virus dies. The only purpose of any virus is to exist, dead people don’t cough!
It’s a bit more complicated than that.As shown by the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1919.It’s a balance between virulence and not killing ‘too many’ of the host.
The big question in this case is why would nature want to limit a ‘zoonotic’ virus to mostly targetting only humans.When there’s a whole world full of different species which increase its options of survival and transmission.