@loweel
Interesting Cell article touching upon selective pressure on Covid by social distancing.
Among other things, it seems plausible lockdown is selecting for mutations that facilite transmission, is reducing the pressure on selecting less virulent strains (although that was weak already and outweighed by the advantages of social distancing).
Also will reduce the selection for strains with higher asymptomatic fractions among the infected.
Lastly, by flattening the curve, social distancing allow selection to act over a longer period of time thus favouring the appearance of mutations that increase the length of the pre-symptomatic phase)
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(20)30847-2.pdf
Very interesting indeed. Just nitpicking, to prevent sensational conclusions from this, the stress in your summary shall be on it seems plausible part. As I understand it, the Cell article is putting these hypotheses forward based on simulations, not observations. They also caution in their conclusions that this provides a framework for further work, but is not conclusive in itself. Interesting nevertheless.
@FailForward @loweel
Agree. Also, 1 single paper never means anything, as general rule.
But since loweel mentioned similar reasoning lines before, I highlighted them as remote follow up of that discussion