Are lockdowns justified?

[FlatAssembler]

Viruses reproduce, but they don’t ‘breed’ in the conventional sense.

If two viruses infect the same cell, they do breed, in the same sense as bacteria conjugating is breeding, right?

They are self-replicators, so inbreeding isn’t an issue.

But... self-replication is even worse than inbreeding. Self-replication means all harmful mutations that existed in the parent will exist in offspring, whereas inbreeding means at least some of them probably won't.

Even if it were, I don’t see what moving from one species to another would have to do with it.

Moving from one specie to another means entering an eco-system where nobody of your specie, or probably even a closely-related specie, exist.

HGT tends to increase genetic diversity, not stifle it.

I do not understand what you mean.

Viruses don’t mate with each other in a way that would result in inbreeding.

This makes about as much sense as saying that, since female turkeys (or bees...) do not need males to procreate, turkey as a specie could survive even if all males were killed. No, self-replication leads to harmful mutation building up even more so than inbreeding does.

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Virus reproduce in a manner of speaking, but they don’t breed.

They breed when they infect the same cell. At least in the sense that bacteria breed when they conjugate.

Hence they don’t in-breed.

Of course they do. Or do you think in-breeding cannot happen in bacteria when they conjugate? If so, why?

They are not like you or Donald trump.

Right, they are like turkeys or bees or bacteria. Some reproduction can be done without breeding. But a specie cannot be sustaned that way due to the build-up of harmful mutations.

Also, inbreeding would potentially be a problem amongst breeders only if the genome is larger than a certain size

Why?

carry different versions of genes for many different proteins

Correct me if I am wrong, but bacteria also do not.

and potential for certain genes to be expressed or repressed

Why?

Organisms with very simple genomes wouldn’t have the room to suffer harmful effects from inbreeding.

Why? If anything, they should be even more vulnerable to it.

So I doubt inbreeding can do yours or The Donald ‘s line much harm.

I am not sure what you mean.

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If Trump asked, Why are cats called felines when lions go roar?, you can guarantee an automobile assembler is going to make an ass out of himself.

What do you mean? Do you mean that I unconditionally accept anything Donald Trump says? Not at all.