Just in case some of you don’t understand how viral evolution works, it’s very simple.
Viruses that kill you too quickly are not passed onto other people. Because when you’re dead and buried, the virus can’t spread to anybody else.
Viruses that don’t kill you quickly are passed on to more people because you are walking around, coughing, sneezing and touching things.
So let’s review. Viruses strains that kill you quickly soon end up 6 feet underground. Being 6 feet underground is an evolutionary dead end for a lethal strain of virus.
Viruses that don’t kill you quickly end up being passed to other people. So viruses that are LESS lethal spread more widely and are able to reproduce.
It doesn’t matter whether the virus “wants” to become more deadly or not, the deadliest strains end up being passed on to fewer people. The less lethal strains end up being passed on to more people.
The only type of virus that spread faster despite being lethal are zombie viruses.
And zombie viruses are not real.
In most zombie books that say, an experimental vaccine is the cause. If it started with a single zombie it wouldn’t spread very far. Biting isn’t that great a form of transmission. So in most books that bring it up, the overwhelming majority of humanity gets the vaccine because the virus is so deadly. So in a short period of time most people turn into zombies and the survivors are greatly outnumbered.
Sorry, I’m a geek.
You are very accurate. I remember an interview with the pervert Steven King talking about the research he did for the Stand. He said the problem with really creating a killer virus is everything you just explained. So the good news is, he said, the Stand would always be fiction.
I mean, unless you made a killer vaccine. That would definitely do it.