Not that I’m about to start campaigning for #virusrights, but I’m uncomfortable with the ‘evil genius’ narrative. It doesn’t clarify anything; in fact, I think it comes close to being a mystification of natural selection. https://twitter.com/PeterKolchinsky/status/1246975275021348865

One of the reasons coronavirus is so keen to spread itself is that in evolutionary terms it’s one rung up from extinction. It doesn’t have the genetic liberty or the environment to mutate to more stable forms: it can only keep going until it finds that environment.

This is evolutionary brute force. It’s not genius in any sense.