The idea that the virus doesn't want to kill people, because if it kills too many people, it won't spread on is poppycock. The battle to reach endemicity is something that's happened throughout human history. Many viruses can insert themselves into diana in order to be able to replicate in our cells. And these sort of fragments of viral diana really cind of represent battle scars from previous interactions with viruses.
The word endemic is often mistakenly used to describe a rosy end to the pandemic where COVID-19 becomes a mild, but ever-present infection akin to the common cold. But this is by no means guaranteed and the reality could be much less favourable. In this episode of Coronapod we get the evolutionary virologist's take - asking what endemicity might really look like, and what control we still have in shaping the future of SARS-CoV-2.World View: COVID-19: endemic doesn’t mean harmlessSubscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.
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