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I bring this point up with a lot of non rationalists. I know nothing about epidemiology, myself, but the point you said makes sense. However, I get a lot of push back from people. People who claim to know more than I do about this stuff tend to think that there's no predicting whether a virus will become more deadly and spread less well, or become less deadly and spread better. They think both are likely, and I'm not sure why. However, they do agree that a virus that is less deadly will necessarily be more contagious and vice versa.
Maybe they're not thinking about the fact that both new variations might arise, but only the one that spreads easier one will outcompete, which will result in the quick demise of the other. Is there any merit to what they're saying? On what basis should I argue back against them? Are there any papers which show this phenomenon, or is there some scientific principle I could point to about it?
Layman: This is true on average, but viruses have avenues to become more deadly without hurting spread. For instance, Long Covid does not penalize the coronavirus at all, because it happens after it has already propagated. Anyways, viruses can become more deadly and spread worse, then they just ... spread worse. They can still spread for other reasons, for instance immune escape.
Regardless, it's important to keep in mind that viruses are never selected for killing the host, it just happens as a side effect that sometimes (short incubation) has pressure to avoid it. All the killing that viruses do is coincidence to begin with. That's one reason why viruses may become more deadly, because it's a random walk to begin with.
Not just Long Covid, but so long as the majority of spread occurs at the presymptomatic phase, then there is little selection pressure at all.
One notable example of Covid evolving to become deadlier was the Delta variant, which is deadlier than the ancestral strain.
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If you are only interested in convincing people to your arguments, give them the image that you are a serious high status person who knows what he is talking about. Arguments and papers and principles don’t convince people, the image does.
On a side note, I am interested in knowing if there has ever been a recorded respiratory infection that turned more deadly and contagious at the same time via mutation and selection. I feel like the covid complex would definitely point to such an example endlessly so there probably isn’t one.
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