<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">On Aug 9, 2020, at 3:10 AM, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo <mail@webthatworks.it> wrote:<br><div dir="ltr"><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><span>Then, please, explain how not limiting replication of a virus can decrease its mutations.</span><br></div></blockquote><div><br></div>Ruben’s no longer on conspire, but you’re not wrong.<div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><span></span><blockquote type="cite"><span>He is wrong about that, flatly. There is only one disease that has ever</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>been wiped out and that was smallpox, which has only human hosts, and it</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>too nearly a century.</span><br></blockquote><span></span><br><span>SARS, MERS?</span><br></div></blockquote><br></div><div>SARS has only been rooted out of the human population. There could be a future outbreak of them. SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV also have a lot in common, though I haven’t paid attention to whether or not they’re believed to have a similar origin fairly recently or whether they diverged further back. SARS (10% infection fatality rate) and MERS are far far more deadly, so it’s just as well that COVID is the pandemic form.</div><div><br></div><div>MERS, well, that outbreak is still ongoing.</div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Middle_East_respiratory_syndrome_outbreak">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Middle_East_respiratory_syndrome_outbreak</a></div><div><br></div><div>Deirdre</div></body></html>