A May 1st letter to the American Society for Microbiology’s Journal of Virology identifies “An 81 nucleotide deletion in SARS-CoV-2 ORF7” which the authors say may potentially reduce viral fitness. So, who knows? since mutations are random and not teleological.
to read the letter click on PDF at https://jvi.asm.org/content/early/2020/04/30/JVI.00711-20
Wow, I think studying Russian was easier than trying to read that letter. And I was TERRIBLE at Russian.
Is this a brand new very bad virus, or formalization of the two types S and L that have been reported on for over a month? S may have been the first Covid and the one found in Washington state. L called “lethal” may have been the one that went to Italy and has hit the east coast US hard.