Grr. [ranty, evolution]
Feb. 9th, 2021 09:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebeccmeisterSo this article does contain some important information about how the new, more contagious and/or dangerous coronavirus variants can arise:
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/02/05/964447070/where-did-the-coronavirus-variants-come-from
However, it bugs me in that it is written in such a way that it sounds as though the virus has agency, doing diabolical things to thwart the infected person's immune system.
As an educator I have to spend so much time and energy teaching students that evolutionary processes are NOT goal-oriented. Yes, they can be optimizing, but that doesn't mean the same thing as directed.
But in reality, this portrayal and this finding isn't particularly surprising. (which, of course, means it would be harder to write a story with a tantalizing headline) New mutations arise as a result of mistakes during the viral copying process. So if a person hosts a chronic infection due to a weakened immune system, there are more opportunities for more effective variants of the virus to get a toehold and then start to spread to other people, simply because there's more time for the virus to replicate and make mistakes.
This does suggest the need for better scrutiny of the timeframe after which and/or methods by which we decide to declare people no longer contagious. So in that regard, it's important to know about.
And unfortunately I can't say that I would expect any better from NPR, when it gets down to it.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/02/05/964447070/where-did-the-coronavirus-variants-come-from
However, it bugs me in that it is written in such a way that it sounds as though the virus has agency, doing diabolical things to thwart the infected person's immune system.
As an educator I have to spend so much time and energy teaching students that evolutionary processes are NOT goal-oriented. Yes, they can be optimizing, but that doesn't mean the same thing as directed.
But in reality, this portrayal and this finding isn't particularly surprising. (which, of course, means it would be harder to write a story with a tantalizing headline) New mutations arise as a result of mistakes during the viral copying process. So if a person hosts a chronic infection due to a weakened immune system, there are more opportunities for more effective variants of the virus to get a toehold and then start to spread to other people, simply because there's more time for the virus to replicate and make mistakes.
This does suggest the need for better scrutiny of the timeframe after which and/or methods by which we decide to declare people no longer contagious. So in that regard, it's important to know about.
And unfortunately I can't say that I would expect any better from NPR, when it gets down to it.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-09 02:34 pm (UTC)I don't know why you'd expect anything better from NPR. It is like the liberal version of Reader's Digest. Better written, of course. But then more liberals go to college. 😊
no subject
Date: 2021-02-09 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-09 03:09 pm (UTC)My particular angle of rant is that all this reproducing on the part of the virus is possible because the Anglosphere by and large utterly bungled its COVID response. This is why you take novel pandemics seriously; it can always mutate, and there's no reason for it to mutate into something less awful. (A whole lot of people seem to believe the pathogen mutates inevitably into something less awful, rather than that sufficient generations of selection produce a less-vulnerable population. (Or an extinct population. Ask an American Chestnut.))
no subject
Date: 2021-02-09 03:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-09 03:14 pm (UTC)It surely does.
There are so many politicians I want to put to work digging graves. (By hand, with shovels.)