The transmission phase of SARS-CoV-2 typically precedes host death, suggesting that host mortality is not the primary limiter of viral evolution.

“And so this is something people have been very concerned about with vaccines because the argument is that vaccines are preventing more...they're preventing people from dying from COVID-19, and therefore, they're going to allow the virus to have a chance to mutate into something that is more virulent. Again, it has to mutate into something that's more transmissible, virulent hitchhikers alongside of that. But if you look at the deaths in COVID-19, people that are unvaccinated, or just generally speaking, people usually die much later than the transmission phase. They die, you know, days and days and days after actually becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2. And so the transmission phase is well over before people are even dying.”