COVID-19 hijacked people’s lives, families and jobs. And it hijacked their bodies and minds in ways they may not even be aware of.
As we can see, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is a kind of zombie virus that does not turn people into dead and wiped. By interfering with our body’s normal immune response and blocking pain, the virus keeps the infected on their feet and spreads the virus.
People typically view zombies as the stuff of science fiction. But in the biological world, there are zombies everywhere, from the Ophiocordyceps fungus that continues to exist by zombifying ants; to Toxoplasma gondii, a unicellular parasite that completes its life cycle by guiding rodents into the jaws of predators. Zombie viruses are also a real thing that affect the behavior of their host in ways that improve the evolution of the viruses.
One of us is a professor of psychology. The other one is an emergency physician. Both are researchers of evolutionary medicine. And we suggest you that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is another zombie virus, a master manipulator that works under the radar. This pandemic may have unleashed a horde of sick people: infected and unconscious victims of a manipulative virus.
How the virus makes us sick
These are the ones that spread the virus the easiest. About 40% of those with SARS-CoV-2 are asymptomatic distributors and never show symptoms. And those that do show symptoms are most contagious in the two days before symptoms appear. Why people do not feel sick earlier – or are not sick at all – may be part of the evolutionary strategy of SARS-CoV-2.
A peek under the hood of the virus reveals more about that manipulative machinery. SARS-CoV-2 interferes with a person’s immune response; this is why people do not necessarily feel sick and withdrawn as in a typical viral infection. Instead, SARS-CoV-2 silences the body’s alarm signals that would otherwise orchestrate anti-viral defenses. It blocks interferons, a set of molecules that help fight viruses. Interferon activity makes people feel more depressed and socially withdrawn – so if the novel coronan virus interferes with interferon activity, your mood will increase, social traffic will increase and you will feel less ill.
The virus also reduces perception. Normally, pain motivates us to take off when we need to heal. But SARS-CoV-2 blocks this response by preventing the transmission of pain signals. This is why people feel good even when they are teeming with viruses before the onset of symptoms.
At the same time, SARS-CoV-2 attenuates the body’s response to infection. It inhibits pro-inflammatory cytokines, molecules that help stimulate the immune response. It also makes hosts feel better than they should. When we feel sick, it usually helps our body to prioritize healing by reducing our energy expenditure. With SARS-CoV-2, unhealthy hosts have the energy to do as much as ever, maybe more.
An evolutionary leg up
How SARS-CoV-2 evolved to manipulate humans is still speculation. The virus could first have developed in other mammals, such as pangolins. There, he may have acquired his immune-evasive, manipulative machinery before jumping on humans.
No intention or thought is involved; SARS-CoV-2 is not going to take over your body. It’s just evolution at work, nothing personal. The virus develops due to variation and selection. And in a pandemic involving hundreds of millions of infections and trillions of viral replications, many genetic variants can provide an evolutionary approach.
More research is needed to determine whether new variants make people feel unfit for longer. This, of course, will make it even easier for the virus to spread during the asymptomatic phase. For example, an article in the Journal of Transnational Medicine reported that the GZ69 variant is associated with high poisoning rates in asymptomatic patients, meaning that people are highly contagious even when they are feeling well.
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It is possible that SARS-CoV-2 can make people feel even better than without infection by the virus. One study found that people did not reduce their time in public, even if they had COVID-19 symptoms. If anything, they went out more. Any variant that does this has an evolutionary advantage when it comes to transmission. Using surveys and data on social media, our research team is now testing whether people are more social during their most infectious days.
Things to consider
We need to take seriously the possibility that the virus is enlarging us – changing our behavior in a way that helps it persist. By making people feel good if they can spread the virus, SARS-CoV-2 spreads under the radar, more like a sexually transmitted disease than a respiratory virus.
Many of us have unknowingly acted as vehicles for its distribution, with amazing implications. Our behavior may not be in our own evolutionary interest. Instead, the ailments can control the virus.
Researchers often ignore the impact that viruses can have on our moods and behaviors. But like ants and rodents, humans are not free from the neural and behavioral forms that are widespread in the natural world.
We believe it is critical to consider the possible ‘antisymptoms’ of this virus: temporary reduction of pain, feeling more energetic than normal and even wanting to be more than usual in humans. With all of this in mind, here’s some advice, probably the most ironic you’ve heard in the past year: if you’ve been feeling surprisingly good these past few days, you could do a COVID-19 test.
This article was published from The Conversation, a non-profit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Athena Aktipis, Arizona State University and Joe Alcock, University of New Mexico.
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The authors do not work, consult, do not own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that benefits from this article, and have not disclosed any applicable commitments outside of their academic appointment.