Be a virus, be resilient!

Newly emerging variants that gain dominance through even a slight fitness advantage are now increasingly losing their evolutionary capacity for growth and diversification. This is due to a growing convergence of mutations toward a progressively narrower set of genetic sequences
(e.g., XFG: https://x.com/dfocosi/status/1909594846643327338?s=12). While this convergence may accelerate the short-term dominance of a newly emerging variant, it is also likely to accelerate its eventual decline.
What continues to astonish me is the remarkable resilience of the human immune system in mitigating the impact of the steadily increasing intrinsic infectiousness of the virus and its continued transmission by a growing number of chronically infected individuals in highly C-19–vaccinated populations. Although it no longer effectively controls infection or transmission, the host immune system continues to adapt, exerting sufficient pressure on the virus to make its transmission increasingly difficult.