The coronavirus actually wants infected people to stay alive. Here’s why

It may seem as though the coronavirus is playing Duck Duck Goose with the lives of millions of people around the world, but as vicious as the invisible killer might seem, the virus actually prefers to keep us alive.

That’s because it needs us, experts say.

So far, more than 11.5 million people worldwide have contracted the novel coronavirus, with the U.S. leading the pack.

Meanwhile, more than 535,000 people globally have died, with Americans making up nearly 130,000 of them, according to a Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracker.

But what appears to be an unfair battle pitted against humans is actually a two-way struggle for survival.

“You have to understand that the virus doesn’t want to kill us. It does not want to be deadly,” Dr. Andria Rusk, an assistant professor specializing in infectious disease at Florida International University’s College of Public Health and Social Work, told McClatchy News. “It wants for the human host to survive and be symptomatic for as long as possible because that perpetuates itself. The longer it’s able to keep us contagious, the better off the virus is.”

Viruses rely on the cells of other organisms to survive and make copies of themselves, so killing or making their host really sick means they are eliminating their chances of a long life shared with many.

“When you get sick, you tend to stay home. You don’t move around much. You look sick, which means other people are less inclined to get close to you,” Suzanne Sadedin, an evolutionary biologist at Monash University in Australia, wrote in Quora. “From the perspective of the virus, all of this is thoroughly annoying: how is it supposed to go forth and conquer new hosts, when you’re sniveling in bed?”

Viruses don’t intend to make us sick, that happens by accident, Marilyn Roossinck, a professor of plant pathology and environmental microbiology at Pennsylvania State University, wrote in the Conversation.

When something new enters the human body like SARS-CoV-2, the immune system, which acts as a bodyguard, allows the intruder inside because it has never recognized the pathogen as a threat before. This makes the host sick, Roossinck explained.

In some cases, this accidental reaction works in the virus’ favor.

Take the common cold, for example. The viruses that cause it, which are also a type of coronavirus, specifically infect the upper respiratory tract, “where [they] can easily be coughed and sneezed out,” Sadedin wrote in Quora.

It’s these viruses that have been in a host for a long time that are less likely to cause disease or serious illness because they have learned to keep us alive and trigger symptoms that can aid its spread.

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SARS-CoV-2 has been in the human population for about six months, but has already infected millions. Many countries have reached record case counts in just the last several weeks.

“You can tell which viruses have not been very well adapted to humans because those are the ones that kill us really quickly,” according to Rusk, who points to the rare but deadly Ebola virus.

The World Health Organization says the average case fatality rate for Ebola is around 50%, with rates soaring up to 90% in past outbreaks.

“Unlike the common cold, these viruses actively infect a wide range of tissues; their strategy is basically to turn you into a gigantic leaky bag of virions, as quickly as possible, and hope that you drip on somebody else,” Sadedin wrote in Quora.

“It actually isn’t a very good strategy, especially in the modern world, since people tend to avoid fluid exchange with Ebola patients.”

Many experts agree it’s a tough decision for viruses to make, theoretically.

“In evolutionary terms, there is often a trade-off for a virus between replicating and doing harm to the host,” Lotti Tajouri, an associate professor of biomedical sciences at Bond University in Australia, wrote in the Conversation.

“A virus that replicates like crazy and kills its host very quickly may not have an opportunity to spread to a new host. On the other hand, a virus that replicates slowly and causes little harm may have plenty of time to spread.”

Sexually transmitted diseases are an example of viruses that present discreet symptoms, ensuring their survival by going largely undetected.

“Interestingly, syphilis has evolved within historical time to become less aggressive in this way,” Sadedin wrote. “Early accounts describe it as a rapidly progressing and horrendously disfiguring disease, whereas today many syphilitics go for years without even knowing they are infected.”

In contrast, the novel coronavirus is running rampant in the human population, so even though it may not want us dead, it can still make that happen — as the numbers have shown — because it’s doing what viruses do: adapting to its environment, one victim at a time.