alt Hacker NewsI was wondering about that with the hantavirus, whereby if it's got a higher fatality rate then it's less likely to be easily transmitted.
Is that like a general rule, or pure bunk? (I'd probably assume the answer 'depends').
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From COVID-era discussions (when virologists were briefly the stars of every talk show) I remember one explaining that it was less about fatality rates per se and more about the length of time you could carry the virus around and be nearly asymptomatic while still able to infect others.
I understand the jury is still out on whether a virus can be considered "alive" but, like us, it is capable of replicating itself and mutating. In that sense, it benefits from the same evolution strategies as more complex beings: a strain that gets its host very sick very quickly gets a lower chance to spread to a new host and multiply.
This creates an evolutionary advantage for strains of that virus that are less aggressive or at least develop the worst symptoms more slowly and more covertly.
I don't think it's just fatality rate, but also how long it takes to kill you. HIV is a great example of a disease that (untreated) has near 100% mortality rate, but can spread because it takes years to kill you.
Definitely, but the hantavirus incubation period ranges from 1-8 weeks after exposure.
Plague, Inc (an iOS game where you control the parameters of a pandemic and try to get a 100% infection rate) will give you a really good feel for the math behind this.
The most successful strategy is to make a virus that spreads fast, with few visible symptoms until the late stages of the disease. A deadly virus, early will just cause borders to be locked and the international research community to swarm on a cure.