Re:The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a natura...
by sudosysgen on Saturday July 18, 2020 @08:15AM
(#23880870)
You're confusing virulence and infectivity. Virulence is specifically how severe a virus is. For example, one might say that Hepatitis is more virulent than the common cold.
Re:The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a natura...
by bananaface on Saturday July 18, 2020 @08:19AM
(#23880903)
You're right, I am. I should have focussed on the point that asymptomatic transmission and lack of severity may be a feature in an engineered virus, not a bug.
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CoV-2 is way more virulent than SARS, as evidenced by the fact it's spread across the entire world. SARS might spread more easily from contact, and it does more damage once it's inside you, but that's only one component of virulence. MERS is also not really comparable - it's very difficult to transmit between humans.
I get what you're saying but practical effects just matter more than isolated metrics. Viruses that transmit asymptomatically are more likely to be virulent, because you can't isolate patients. If you're trying to engineer a virus, you want to make it transmit faster than it kills people and you want to make it hard to quarantine.