Nadelige effect van maatregelen op virus evolutie

[Hoofdstraat]

Het is een artikel van mei vorig jaar maar die stelde toen al de lockdowns in vraag met betrekking tot de virale evolutie. Een virus wordt minder dodelijk omdat het daardoor beter kan verspreiden, het is een simpel evolutionair systeem waarbij je zieken uit de weg gaat en dat niet doet bij mensen die niet ziek zijn. Daardoor wordt het virus minder dodelijk.

In het verleden zag je die ook met andere virussen, SARS 2003 is bv nog steeds onder ons maar is veel minder dodelijk geworden door die virale evolutie.

Een lockdown en maatregelen houden dat echter tegen want je benadert zieke en niet-zieke besmette mensen gelijk, het virus heeft dus geen evolutionair voordeel meer om minder ziekmakend te worden.

In Japan was er geen interne lockdown in 2020, het virus zat overal en toch waren er minder doden dan een normaal jaar. Dit ondersteunt alvast de theorie dat maatregelen de voordelige virus evolutie in de war stuurt en voorkomt dat het virus minder dodelijk wordt.

Freedom Day zal ons wat meer leren al is dat ook nog geen volledige vrijheid vanwege de pingdemic die ook weeral een invloed heeft op die virus-evolutie.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/...us-more-deadly

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Covid’s metamorphosis: has lockdown made the virus more deadly?

All viruses mutate. Typically, a rapidly spreading virus tends to become less harmful as it changes because this helps it survive. If the virus kills too many of its hosts, it is more likely to die out. If it becomes milder, it spreads further. Unlike some viruses that spread slowly and can be fairly quickly suppressed by case isolation, Sars-CoV-2 spreads quite easily. We know that it can evolve, because it has recently colonised humans.

In contrast, the particles that cause more severe Covid-19 disease will be spread less since the people who feel worse will circulate less. Hence the evolutionary effect: more severe versions of a new virus tend to decrease quite quickly over time, because the milder versions get spread around more. But change the circumstances — change the environment in which the virus exists — and it could go the other way.

Think about the lockdown. We have substantially reduced the number of people circulating in the community. If lockdown is working, and stopping the spread of the virus, it might be reducing the circulation of milder versions among the population, while at the same time concentrating people with the most severe disease in hospital wards. It is an assumption that those admitted to hospital have severe disease because they mainly have underlying conditions. But what if some of them also have slightly ‘nastier’ virus particles? We are bringing them together in one place where they can infect staff and vulnerable patients. We are giving an advantage to the ‘nastier’ particles in the hospital environment. Despite protective measures, we are helping them circulate at the same time as we slow the circulation of the ‘milder’ particles.

So, lockdown might actually be slowing the tendency of this new disease to get milder with time. Which raises an important question: might the lockdown be causing more harm than good.

All of this raises an important question: might lockdown be frustrating a helpful evolutionary tendency of the virus, as well as economically hindering our ability to deal with it? The epidemiological models are silent on this. Most studies so far suggest that this virus is not mutating in a way that meaningfully changes its nature. But we are learning more about Covid all the time.
(ondertussen weten we dat het virus wel volop muteert en evolueert)

Should we be rapidly reversing lockdown to help the virus help us? In this view, spread of the virus by people with no symptoms is a good thing because it helps the virus get milder more quickly. We have embarked on a drastic path without even considering the possibility. Now, more than ever, we need robust and open discussion about whether we are on the right course.
(wat dus niet gebeurde)