Status Updates From Вірусосфера: від застуди до...

Ivory tower strikes again. The world does not need prettified, "more inclusive definitions" of freaking viruses, my guy. Refusing to use "genetic parasite" (factually true) in favor of the dressed up phrase "obligate symbiont" is completely pointless--as the author pointed out himself, everything on our planet is an obligate symbiont. Nothing lives completely independently. He wants the opposite of a definition.

"...[V]iruses have contributed in vitally important ways to the evolving genomes of their hosts, and to the ecological cycles of host survival and death." Yeah, and so have landslides.

Rosy glasses 2.0: playing permanent host to EBV virus when it is latent in our B-lymphocyte cells is a good thing according to the author, since you can never be re-infected with EBV. Uh....

"Let us remind ourselves that viruses are not sentient--they do not think ahead and plan a course of action."
'Sentient' means the ability to FEEL (physical sensations, like hot, cold, pain, etc., and/or emotional, such as fear or joy)--sense perception. Sentient **does not** mean the ability to plan ahead or think about the future.

Rosy glasses are FIRMLY in place.
"Parents will be familiar with the anxiety that comes with childhood rashes and fevers...That worry, is perhaps, a residuum of a fear from times only recently gone by when unpleasant things really did happen in the dark of night...How fortunate we are now that our families are protected by antibiotics/vaccines/antivirals"--as if nowadays no child ever dies of these illnesses????