• The_v@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      30 days ago

      Airborne respiratory viruses in humans tend to decrease in lethality. This doesn’t really transfer anywhere else. The decrease in severity in is due to selection pressure from human quarantine behavior.

      Killing the host is normal in single celled organisms. The most common method viruses leave the cell I by causing it to burst open.

      Killing the host is also common in the plant world.

    • expatriado@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      yes, killing the host is considered a jerk move in the microbial community, but some still take the suicidal path, it’s a bacterial insanity issue

        • 0ops@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          30 days ago

          “I didn’t kill you. I put an ax in your ribcage so that the bloodloss would kill you”

          /s, but only kinda. Whether HIV kills directly or indirectly, at the end of the day the host is still dead and poor HIV has nowhere to live 🥺

    • jjagaimo@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      1 month ago

      Cancer is a prime example of op message

      Also viruses started somewhere. A lot had to mutate to get them to be so deadly to begin with for deadly ones.

      • confusedbytheBasics@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        30 days ago

        Uh… Cancer is not an organism with its own genes. Cancer is you baby, you’re just just getting out of control. Viruses sometimes start deadly but they almost always get less deadly over time.

        • Richard@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          30 days ago

          Not true. As the other commenter noted, bacteriophages (which are viruses) are released from the infected bacterium through the lysis of the bacterium in question. The death of the “host” is literally essential to their multiplication.