Jerry Coyne emphasizes that COVID-19 is EVOLVING.

[Towlie]

See The EVOLUTION of the Covid-19 virus on Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True website. Lots of good info there on COVID-19 and viruses in general, but his primary point is this:

... the e-word is rarely mentioned on television, perhaps for fear of offending the many Americans who are creationists.

and at the end...

All I’m trying to say, but then got bogged down in my pedantry, is that the Covid-19 is a good example of evolution by natural selection.

I had already noticed the marginally-correct use of "mutate" myself. I've learned a lot about biology and evolution from Dr. Coyne's website and books, and from books by Richard Dawkins, and it bugs me that even the most respected scientists on TV seem afraid to say that COVID-19 has evolved and instead say that it has "mutated".

It would be nice if President Biden said "evolve" instead of "mutate" to stress his respect for science, but I guess that wouldn't be compatible with his stated goal of bringing us together.

[DeminPennswoods]

1. A distinction without a difference

imho.

[Towlie]

2. You need to read Jerry Coyne's post, but you obviously didn't have enough time to have done that.

 
?

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Coyne's ambivalent about it

He says both 'I was startled when a report on the new “highly spreadable” variants of Covid-19 mentioned “the evolution of the virus.”' and 'often on the news they refer to the appearance of a new mutant variant as “the virus evolving”'. So is it startling, or something that's said often?

If you're studying the biology, then the distinction between 'mutate' and 'evolve' is important. If you're President Biden talking to the public, it isn't, really. 'Mutate' is correct; saying it's also evolving, ie some variants are becoming more frequent, is not something that most people will pick up just from the word 'evolve'. So you'd have to explain that anyway, and it turns into a lesson on biological terminology, which might be instructive, but a bit of a distraction from the main message which is how to stay safe, help others, when things may change and so on.

[Squinch]

3. But with more people getting the vaccine, there will be fewer opportunities for it to mutate.

So there's SOME blue sky ahead.

[roamer65]

4. Human behaviors are the key in the natural selection process of this virus.

Our behaviors influence the spread of it and for which variants of it are given priority over others.