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One thing to be careful about is using a influenza as reference. Influenza is a segmented virus. The viral genome is composed of 8 separate segments. In the wild new strains occur due to reassortment where the RNA sequences from two separate strains are shuffled to produce a third. That makes influenza annoying because it's regularly swapping in RNA segments from bird and swine influenza viruses. Makes developing an universal vaccine impossible and occasionally you get nasty novel strains like in 1918.

Single stranded viruses are a lot more stable.



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