I believe a nearly perfect virus would be one that hides. My virus’s name is the marine cordata virus or MCV. the term marine refers to any organisms that live in saltwater/the ocean. Cordata is the phylum classification of fish and a variety of maine and non marine vertebrates, lancelets, and tunicates. it essentially refers to an orgasim who at some point developed a notochord, dorsally situated central nervous system, and gill slits. The reservoir hosts of MCV is shrimp but can infect a variety of different fish with little to no symptoms including salmon, tuna, and tilapia.
About 3.2 billion people in the world rely on wild-caught or farmed seafood as their primary source of protein. That is not including the portion of the population that consumes fish on occasion. The most frequently consumed fish around the world is tuna, salmon and shrimp. A virus that can infect these fish and spillover into humans will immediately infect a large portion of the population with speed and ease.
The only diseases known to infect fish and spillover into humans is salmonella, salmonella is a bacteria that originates in the organisms intestines and can be present in the feces of that organism. It is contracted by a person consuming an undercooked infected fish, consuming contaminated water or touching a contaminated fish and touching your mouth or eyes. Majority of ailments that inflict fish are typically bacteria. But fish viruses do exist. Viral Haemorrhagic Septicaemia is a virus that has caused several large scale death in both marine and freshwater fish, it is present in aquaculture and in the wild. This virus is a negative-sense single-stranded RNA virus.
It would be very difficult for a virus that evolved with fish to be able to infect humans. But MCV is highly varalient. MCV can infect humans through consumption of an infected fish or crustacean. The virus takes many months before causing any server symptoms, it essentially stays dormant but is still spreadable during this time. The symptoms that it does cause during this time is mild fatigue and dry throat causing a mild cough. It spreads from person to person from contact with salva, meaning it can spread from sneezing coughing. It can spread to a large part of human population before it can be noticed, because of its monthly dormant stage.
Sever Symptoms include severe fatigue, stomach cramps and nausea. The victim dies of dehydration a week or so after these symptoms start to show. The virus’s genome is made up of RNA.
For the virus to die out a vaccine could be made and adminstuded to the healthy portion of the population. Another prevention would be to catch it early, if anyone had a dry throat and a mild cough they should be checked immediately and couranteen precautions should be made to prevent further spread. A patent could also serve the virus with a consistent IV drip to prevent death by dehydration.