I admire the informed thinking of scientist, doctor, and professor John Lee of the UK so much I’ve got to share more.
In a column “Could the lockdown have side-effects no one has considered?” Lee explains why viruses tend to mutate so easily which has to do with their extremely tiny size* and how “COVID-19 is caused by a single–stranded RNA virus, a type particularly susceptible to copying errors.”
Dr. John Lee
As the virus replicates “copying errors” are so great “that viruses of this group are often referred to as ‘quasi-species’ because they are so variable. It’s likely that some particles of this virus infect their victims with a slightly less severe form of COVID-19, making them less ill. And so, on average, those people will be more likely to continue with their normal daily activities outside of a lockdown, going to work or out shopping. In short, they will be more likely to spread the virus to others.”
“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.”
…might lockdown be frustrating a helpful evolutionary tendency of the virus…
“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. There we can find the perfect viral storm, containing everything needed for rapid evolution: huge numbers of reproducing units (the virus), an environment for rapid reproduction to take place in (patients and staff), and selection pressures (things that alter how the virus spreads, such as density of people, severity of disease, or length of survival).”
“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?”
* “To understand why it is still evolving further, you have to grasp just how small a virus is. Imagine a birthday balloon. A virus is smaller than this by roughly the same amount that the balloon is smaller than the earth (think about that for a moment: balloon, earth; virus, balloon). When a person is infectious with a virus, it is estimated that they may excrete 10-to-the-11th power [100,000,000,000 – 100 billion] virus particles a day. Even if 99.99 percent of the particles were destroyed on contact with the air, there are still a huge number of infectious ones left.”
Could lockdowns be keeping COVID-19 more deadly?
In a column “Could the lockdown have side-effects no one has considered?” Lee explains why viruses tend to mutate so easily which has to do with their extremely tiny size* and how “COVID-19 is caused by a single–stranded RNA virus, a type particularly susceptible to copying errors.”
Dr. John Lee
As the virus replicates “copying errors” are so great “that viruses of this group are often referred to as ‘quasi-species’ because they are so variable. It’s likely that some particles of this virus infect their victims with a slightly less severe form of COVID-19, making them less ill. And so, on average, those people will be more likely to continue with their normal daily activities outside of a lockdown, going to work or out shopping. In short, they will be more likely to spread the virus to others.”
“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.”
…might lockdown be frustrating a helpful evolutionary tendency of the virus…
“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. There we can find the perfect viral storm, containing everything needed for rapid evolution: huge numbers of reproducing units (the virus), an environment for rapid reproduction to take place in (patients and staff), and selection pressures (things that alter how the virus spreads, such as density of people, severity of disease, or length of survival).”
“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?”
* “To understand why it is still evolving further, you have to grasp just how small a virus is. Imagine a birthday balloon. A virus is smaller than this by roughly the same amount that the balloon is smaller than the earth (think about that for a moment: balloon, earth; virus, balloon). When a person is infectious with a virus, it is estimated that they may excrete 10-to-the-11th power [100,000,000,000 – 100 billion] virus particles a day. Even if 99.99 percent of the particles were destroyed on contact with the air, there are still a huge number of infectious ones left.”