Is the coronavirus developing and is it becoming more or less deadly?

By Graham Lawton

A person with Covid-19 connected to a ventilator in the Tver Regional Clinical Hospital in Russia

Sputnik / Science Photo Library

"FORTUNATE" is not a word that is frequently used in connection with the coronavirus pandemic, but it is true in one way. In the nine months that the virus behind covid-19 was widespread, it has barely mutated.

"We're lucky that the virus doesn't mutate quickly," says Sudhir Kumar of Temple University in Pennsylvania. A rapidly mutating virus could develop into different, possibly more virulent, strains. "So it's good to have low diversity," he says. However, this could be …