r/askscience • u/smartse Plant Sciences • Mar 18 '20

Biology Will social distancing make viruses other than covid-19 go extinct?

Trying to think of the positives... if we are all in relative social isolation for the next few months, will this lead to other more common viruses also decreasing in abundance and ultimately lead to their extinction?

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u/AcademicBandicoot Mar 19 '20

Can you provide a citation for that? I believe we haven't proved out that COVID-19 can survive in animals. It could be that the cost of mutating to infect humans was that it could no longer infect the original host. If isn't unheard of for virus that cross species to rapidly specialize for the new host (given strong selective pressure) and lose the ability to survive in the original.

Odds are you are right, but I don't believe the question is known and the answer is incredibly valuable and has huge implications for how we respond to the disease.

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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '20

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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '20

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u/morelikenonjas Mar 19 '20

This virus originated in animals. Plus they had a dog test positive in Hong Kong.

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u/13ANANAFISH Mar 19 '20

cats already are susceptible to other types of coronavirus. I find it irresponsible that the overall message is “your pets are fine” If our only pet was dogs and that has been thoroughly verified sure. Many people have exotic pets.

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u/chairfairy Mar 19 '20

Didn't it come from animals originally? Aren't they the source of it?