Humanity’s collective immunity to the virus is growing, which means the next variants we encounter might be better off taking a tack that relies a lot more on stealth. There’s a tipping point when immune evasion becomes a bigger fitness advantage than transmission. No one yet knows exactly where that tipping point is, just that we will probably, eventually, collide with it.This transition will mark a new stage in our extended parlay with SARS-CoV-2. Viruses depend intimately on their hosts, & the global population no longer looks or acts as it did when this one was a fresh threat. A large fraction of us, especially in vaccine-wealthy countries such as the US, now have some degree of immunity, simultaneously suppressing the pathogen’s ability to pass among us & pressuring it to circumvent those shields. Our defenses are upping the ante for the virus. The virus will likely rise to meet it.
At www.theatlantic.com
