Survival of Fittest

Something you need to know and understand

Oct 10, 2022

This post is NOT about the TV show Survivor.

This post is not about who has the best exercise routine.

This post is about getting a better understanding of the past 3 years so you can make more learned decisions about your health moving forward.

So let’s get to it.

people walking on sidewalk during daytime — Photo by Eugene Zhyvchik on Unsplash

Living things keep adapting/evolving to survive in an ever and always changing environment.

The fittest and/or most accustomed to survive in their environment lives, breeds and increases in number.

Those that can NOT keep up with the changing world environment, unfortunately do not.

Survival of the fittest applies to people, animals, plants, bacteria and yes, even viruses. So let's discuss by going back a few years when the world was a much different place.

Let’s start the discussion with an original or let’s call it a novel supposedly never before seen virus. Actually there are doubtfully true novel viruses as new viruses had to come from something else, usually a mutation from an existing previous virus. I have not seen a magician magically create a totally new virus. I don’t think even one of the smartest people presently on the planet can make a new virus from scratch. Maybe next time I see Elon I’ll ask if he knows how to make a new virus, but he is probably too busy putting spaceships and astronauts into orbit.

What’s a Common Sense Health and Wellness Post without a great nature pic?

Viruses that change or mutate to enhance their survival is beneficial for their viral evolution. Some mutations harm their survival but we don’t hear much about them because, well, they are no longer here as they did not survive. Their evolution took them over a cliff. So evolution can go either way but we mainly concern ourselves with evolution that gives survival and transmission benefits to a virus that can cause us illness. Hey, no one likes being sick!

In science, if a previously mild virus acquires a new trait that makes it more harmful, we call this a “gain of function”. This gain of function can happen naturally. This gain of function can also happen in a laboratory, but this is frowned upon and many governments have laws against this, not that that stops them. But that is not the topic for today.

For sake of argument/discussion today, let’s start with “Novel virus”. Novel Virus spreads and will make susceptible people it comes in contact with ill. Butt, and this is an important butt, more important than even J-Lo’s or any of the Kardashians,

the Novel Virus will not make non-susceptible people ill.

This is why many people get exposed to viruses but don’t seem to get sick. Don’t you find it interesting that one spouse gets sick, the other cares for them and nurses them back to health but never gets sick? A Mom sleeps next to her sick child yet never gets sick.

Not getting sick does not mean that they avoided the virus getting into their body.

Not getting sick does not mean they hid in their basements or wore space suits.

Not getting sick when exposed to a virus more likely means you had a healthier less damaging response to the virus and did not get ill from it. Another example is how some people get ill from eating dairy or gluten while others can eat a deep dish thick crust pizza with extra cheese every day (Lucky people I must add), and keep on smiling.

Why are these people so lucky?

It's not really about luck. It's more likely a combination of genetic predispositions, lifestyle choices and environmental impacts each person has experienced in their lives.

Non-susceptible people may have well functioning immune systems that are better adept at fighting off viruses.

Non-susceptible people may have already fought off the same or a similar virus in the past and have learned how to better fight it during the next go round.

Our immune systems are like elephants in that they never forget. This is good for future protection of pathogens, but not always so good if you have an Autoimmune disorder.

Susceptible people, on the other hand, can get mildly to severely ill dependent upon many health factors including their own unique co-morbidities. Older people, people with dysfunctional immune systems, as well as people with poor metabolisms seem to be more susceptible in general to infections. Think about who has a harder time with Pneumonia or Flu. It's not the healthy young and fit people, is it?

When a virus gets into your body:

you either clear it quickly and you stop transmitting it to others
you clear it slowly over a week or so and stop transmitting it to others
you unfortunately get severely sick and even worse you could die., and stop transmitting it to others

The end of each of the above scenarios puts an end to the transmission of the virus as it needs a host to infect, reproduce and then spread (transmit) to other viable hosts.

So a Novel virus will usually spread through a community until it runs out of new hosts to infect. At that point the novel virus either goes away and we no longer have to deal with it, OR, and this is important, it mutates or slightly alters itself in its new host into a different strain that can avoid peoples built up immunity or previous host defenses. So this new mutation/strain can now evade protections that have developed in the community and once again spread. This is why common colds which mutate often continue to spread year to year. This is why there has never been a successful vaccine for the common cold, some of which are indeed similar to Coronaviruses.

So I hope you now understand that many viruses, especially Coronaviruses can mutate quickly to avoid our immune defenses as well as medical treatments we use, to continue to spread.

Let's now take a real world example.

person holding clear glass ball — Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

Hmm, any ideas of a real world example???

Anyone???

OK, I'll choose.

COVID

The original virus responsible for COVID that was first noticed was the Wuhan strain named for where it was first brought to the world's attention. It was probably elsewhere spreading in the world prior to Jan 2020 in Wuhan, but I will leave that for the epidemiologists to debate in the future, when we can discuss this hopefully more freely.

The next big mutation from Wuhan gave us Delta.

There were others in between as well but they did not take over or at least did not get as much press as Delta.

Both the Wuhan and Delta strains appeared to have an affinity to infect the lungs, causing pneumonia-like illness which can be life threatening in susceptible people.

After Delta we had either a big mutation that gave us Omicron, and it’s many different numbered strains which I like to call the “Moronic” strains. Some researchers believe that Omicron was a separate virus altogether from Wuhan mainly sharing a similarity in that they are both Coronavirus. If Omicron was actually from a different lineage, but close enough to Delta in other ways, as well as more transmissible, it could have overtaken Delta and Wuhan and rid us of those tough strains. In terms of fatality rates that would be a good thing as Omicron is far less deadly. As far as transmission, Omicron spreads much easier which is why just about everyone I know has had it by now. If they haven't it is probably because they have a good immune system and cleared the virus without having any symptoms. They have been exposed and mounted a defense, they just did not know it. Omicron luckily or perhaps by intent, is less likely to hit the lungs and stays more in the upper respiratory tract, which makes it less deadly.

Generally if you were infected with Wuhan you were not that susceptible to Delta. But when Omicron came around, neither Wuhan or Delta immunity protected that much. So you could get Omicron even if you had Wuhan or Delta strains.

Now a question that is still being debated is "Did the COVID “vaccines” help against Omicron?"

The original COVID vaccine and original boosters were made to work against the Wuhan strain. Delta and Wuhan were fairly similar so if the vaccines were effective it probably helped protect against those two initial strains. But once Omicron came to be....????....

There are vaccine advocates who argue that the COVID vaccines decrease the spread of COVID as well as make it more mild, regardless of the strain. Honestly I have seen research that agrees and refutes this. In true science though nothing is ever fact if you can prove it wrong just once. So think about that just a bit.

There are also scientists who believe that the COVID vaccine has quickened the pace of COVID mutations. Here is that scenario.

The COVID vaccine appeared to work very well at protecting people from the original COVID Wuhan strain. While the side effect profile was something that should not be ignored, the vaccine was effective against Wuhan strain.

But these scientists believe that while it protected against Wuhan it sped up the natural “escape” mutations that occur often with a Coronavirus, and as mentioned previously, mutations occur that allow the virus to not only survive by evading past protections, but also to potentially be more contagious. Think about this a moment.

What virus will infect more people?

Virus A that is slow to spread and quickly kills its host decreasing its spread

Virus B that quickly spreads and rarely kills its host, thus allowing the host to spread it even more?

Well if you read that last sentence I think I gave you the answer. If not, then either re-read that last paragraph again or since this is a long post, drink some caffeine and be more alert next time you read it. {Sarcasm- do not try this at home}

Most viruses naturally mutate and evolve to be more contagious and less deadly, that way they can infect more people.

So the debate, if it is allowed to happen, is whether the COVID vaccines, while helping with the original Wuhan strain, increased the speed of the virus mutations allowing it to continue to survive and spread now, almost 3 years later.

Another question is whether the new bivalent COVID mRNA treatment they are calling the new booster, will potentially do the same, and increase the speed of the evolution of ever new escape variants that are even more contagious. Some say it is like playing Russian Roulette over and over again and thinking you will actually win. Just like bacteria develop antibiotic resistance, so do quickly mutating viruses develop resistance to vaccines and other medical treatments.

One more question is where would be right now had we not had a COVID vaccination?

Would more people have died? This is very well possible and may be why they rushed the COVID mRNA treatments out to the world. Well also so Pfizer and Moderna could make some $$$, but I will not get in to that now.

Would the pandemic have burned out earlier and not had as many mutations? If so would the “pandemic” we have been told we are in been over earlier?

These are all questions that should be openly debated and discussed. I don’t think anyone knows the correct answer. No one owns the truth. That is why we need open non censored, non-threatening, non-coerced discussions and debate. That is what science is all about. This is what advances science.

Science is not about opinions.

Science is not about politics.

Science should not be about corporate earnings.

Science is definitely not about a political bureaucrat who calls himself Science.

Science should be used to advance civilization, not as an instrument to scare us, reset us, control us or to sway public opinion.

Instead science should be used so everyone can make their own decision on how best to protect themselves from whatever the world throws at them. This means you should be allowed to question anyone and anything. We all learn from asking and answering questions, especially if we have an open mind to what others are saying.

As always, questions and comments welcome.

Common Sense Health and Wellness

Survival of Fittest

Something you need to know and understand

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