ReviewBiologia futura2023
Do pathogens always evolve to be less virulent? The virulence-transmission trade-off in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Review in Biologia futura, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Review
- Antigenic Variation and Immune Recognition Inference From the COVID-19 Pandemic: An In Silico Comparative Analysis of Spike T Cell Epitopes From the SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern.Influenza and other respiratory viruses · 2026Article
- The spread of non-native species.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- Virulence evolution of a salmonid virus following a host jump.PLoS pathogens · 2025Article
- The PTP4A3 inhibitor KVX-053 reduces Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virulence, inflammation, and development of acute lung injury in K18-hACE2 mice.Respiratory research · 2025Article
- Navigating the Fitness Landscape: Host Density, Epistasis, and Clonal Interference Drive Divergent Evolutionary Pathways in Phage Qβ.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Evolution into chaos - Implications of the trade-off between transmissibility and immune evasion.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2025Article
- Utility of compartmental models to test the competing hypotheses of pathogen evolution and human intervention.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- In silico prediction of pathogen's pandemic potential using the viral trait assessment for pandemics (ViTAP) model.PNAS nexus · 2024Article
- Dominant HPAIV H5N1 genotypes of Germany 2021/2022 are linked to high virulence in Pekin ducklings.Npj viruses · 2024Article
- Modelling COVID-19 mutant dynamics: understanding the interplay between viral evolution and disease transmission dynamics.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Fungal primary and opportunistic pathogens: an ecological perspective.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2024Review
- COVID-19 Outcomes in Kidney Transplant Recipients in a German Transplant Center.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
- Do disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs increase the burden on ankylosing spondylitis patients with mild-moderate COVID-19? evidence from a retrospective cohort study.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The direction the evolution of virulence takes in connection with any pathogen is a long-standing question. Formerly, it was theorized that pathogens should always evolve to be less virulent. As observations were not in line with this theoretical outcome, new theories emerged, chief among them the transmission-virulence trade-off hypotheses, which predicts an intermediate level of virulence as the endpoint of evolution. At the moment, we are very much interested in the future evolution of COVID-19's virulence. Here, we show that the disease does not fulfill all the assumptions of the hypothesis. In the case of COVID-19, a higher viral load does not mean a higher risk of death; immunity is not long-lasting; other hosts can act as reservoirs for the virus; and death as a consequence of viral infection does not shorten the infectious period. Consequently, we cannot predict the short- or long-term evolution of the virulence of COVID-19.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.