You have a fundamental error.
“how things evolve for maximum survivability”
Viruses are not alive. They don’t die. They don’t survive.
They don’t eat. They don’t excrete.
They don’t “mutate”. There is no action on their part. Their genetic material inside an infected cell causes that cell to create more of that genetic material, and that creation is not perfect. It has variance in structure. Largely random. Then it bursts through that cell membrane and floats around in the lung until it bumps into another cell, or is exhaled.
It doesn’t care if the host survives or dies. It doesn’t care about anything. It’s not alive and is not trying to survive.
RE: Viruses are not alive. They don’t die. They don’t survive.
Yes, but they do MUTATE and the NATURE of such mutation is to infect living hosts, and that’s where Mueller’s Ratchet comes in.