[ExI] possible explanation of what happened

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 
...

>...This virus morphed into a variant which doesn't do much, but we know it is highly contagious (it is STILL making the rounds at the high school) and has side effects.  ...But all this gives me an idea.  Give me a few hours to think.  spike



OK this idea took longer to cook than I anticipated, but it is ready to serve.

In nature a virus evolves to become more contagious but usually less harmful to its host.  This makes sense for in that way it becomes more fit by becoming better adapted to its environment, which is really what evolution is all about Charlie Brown.

The later variants of covid evolved and have become waaaay less lethal, but the critical factor is that each variant conferred upon its hapless host an immunity against the previous variants which sent those variants into extinction.

OK now suppose a researcher wanted to create a mild virus which conferred immunity from corona virus by accelerating that evolution process several orders of magnitude, preferably without unleashing a planet-shattering plague and slaying millions of proles.  

Noting that I am an engineer and not an immunologist, not even a hobby plague creator, but I read about serial passage, wherein one accelerates the evolution of a virus in the following way.  Find a host beast, such as bats in the case of coronavirus, poke a bunch of them with a virus known to infect both humans and bats.  The virus spikes way up, the bat's immune system reacts, bringing the virus load back down a coupla days later.  

So now, instead of leaving the bats in merciful seclusion, the researchers poke the flappy bastards again, reinfecting the hapless beasts with a virus load similar to what it was at the peak infection.  The second time there is already a lot of antibodies, so the virus load quickly drops off, so they pop the suckers again.  And again and again and again.  The bats don't care for this a damn bit.  But the result is that instead of a million virus hours per bat, the tortured creatures experience perhaps trillions of virus hours, accelerating viral evolution.

In some of the bats, the virus might mutate into something way more severe, which of course slays that bat and any others he infects, but those are removed and disposed of.  The researchers watch and continue with the dwindling population of hapless creatures, needling and needling until the surviving test subjects eagerly await the first opportunity to flap out of that wretched cage and bite your fucking nose off.  

The researchers would richly deserve this of course, but with this accelerated technology-assisted evolution, perhaps a mild variant of covid can be developed with out actually accidentally unleashing the whole planet shattering pandemic, slaying millions and such unpleasantness as that.

OK then.  Now suppose those dead bats were disposed of by incineration, but some needle-jockey instead took them over to the local meat market and sold them for making bat soup, resulting in that unpleasantness described in the previous paragraph.

If so, then Dr. Fauci would be telling the truth in a very loose-fitting sense.  He could argue that he did not fund gain of function research in China, just the opposite.  He funded loss of function research.  The planet-shattering pandemic was merely a by-product, an unfortunate and unintended consequence.  He had to outsource it to a country where people actually devour the revolting rodents because such research isn't legal in less...eh... hungry places, by reason of collective reluctance to risk releasing murderous plagues.

By that line of reasoning, Dr. Fauci kinda sorta told the truth, in a sense. 

Have we any surviving virus hipsters among us who might elaborate or refute such a notion?

spike