why do viruses try to kill the thing keeping them alive?
In: Biology
To add on to u/TheJeeronian ‘s correct answer, if you think about it, most lethal viruses *weren’t originally human viruses*.
Smallpox came from rodents. HIV came from chimpanzees. Covid 19 came from some animals too.
The lethality is because the virus is evolved to be essentially a cold *in some other animal*. But humans aren’t the same as those other animals, so a virus’ “attempt” to give another animal a cold is enough to kill a human.
Eventually, after the virus stays with humans long enough, the trend is for the virus to become less lethal since lethal ones kill their hosts and then themselves. We saw this recently with Covid variants becoming less lethal over time.
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