Yeah the hot take seems to be "quit it with the hot takes" which is something, I guess. I dunno. I think the world would be a much calmer place if everyone read The Hot Zone. Or The Andromeda Strain. Or anything about any pandemic. Because in general? Evolutionary adaptation means "more infectious, less severe". Not always? But successful pathogens are the ones that spread without invoking heroic measures like vaccines, quarantines, masking, etc. Odds are, the Russian Flu Pandemic killed a million people. A hundred years later, the bug that caused it is about 10% of colds worldwide. That's not the population of Bukhara being pussies in 1889, that's OC43 getting better at virusing. My fervent hope is the astonishing adaptability of COVID-19 will aid it in achieving ubiquitous harmlessness faster than any pathogen in history.