Error thresholds for RNA replication in the presence of both point mutations and premature termination errors.

•Premature termination of RNA replication generates short non-functional strands that replicate faster than the polymerase.•The polymerase can survive in the presence of fast-replicating parasite strands due to spatial pattern formation.•The error threshold for termination errors is much less than for point mutations if replication rate varies inversely with strand length.•If binding of a polymerase to a template is slow compared to polymerization, the two error thresholds become equal.