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One universal antiviral to rule them all?

(www.cuimc.columbia.edu)
331 points breve | 1 comments | 26 Aug 25 14:07 UTC | HN request time: 0.406s | source
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mcculley ◴[26 Aug 25 18:38 UTC] No.45030508[source]▶
I always wonder this and maybe people in the comments here know the answer: If humans had the technology to eliminate all viruses on Earth, what would be the outcome? Do viruses keep other bad things in check? Would there be bad consequences if we eliminated all viruses?
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1. Lalabadie ◴[26 Aug 25 20:19 UTC] No.45031827[source]▶
Eliminate all viruses: Population issues in other organisms down to bacteria is my guess. We break a link in a significant food chain, basically.

Eliminate human-tropic viruses: We have to monitor for outbreaks when new viruses mutate and jump species to successfully infect humans. If there's zero mass immunity across the population at every outbreak, we're still in a high-risk situation.