Survival of the fittest: Coronavirus vs Human Being
With the coronavirus apocalypse looming ahead, people from every community are trying to understand the concept of "Survival of the fittest" given by Charles Darwin.
Darwin’s theory of natural selection is as fundamental to Biology as Newton’s laws to Physics. School teachers tasked with teaching Darwin’s evolutionary theory skip the subject or deal it with disdain. With the coronavirus apocalypse looming ahead, people from every community are trying to understand the concept of “Survival of the fittest” given by Charles Darwin.
According to the theory, organisms with genes better suited to the environment are selected for survival and pass on to the next generation. Natural selection acts as an evolutionary force to increase the frequency of strains with beneficial mutations.
In the context of coronavirus pandemic, who is the “fittest”? Is it the mutating virus exploiting its new host explosively or the most evolved species, Homo sapiens / Human Being?
The coronavirus is mutating every hour as the variants selected by nature support the existence of the virus. Mutations occur randomly. The more individuals in the population, the more likely a mutation will occur. To make matters worse, single-stranded RNA is more prone to new mutation and can mutate up to a million times faster than a stable DNA-based virus.
Humans have an effective immune response against the virus. With Covid-19, the “Fittest” are individuals with a balanced immune response that clears the primary infection without mounting excessive inflammation.
Environmental factors and socio-behavioral factors play a vital role in making human beings efficient. Vaccines provide specific immunity at large is worth mentioning.
Precocious coronavirus and human being with competent immune systems art both struggling for survival in the next century and beyond. The hand of natural selection will be at work.
Once again it’s time to witness the authenticity of Darwin’s theory. “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change”.
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