Can we at least agree that if infected, as a vaccinated and asymptomatic carrier, there is a higher chance of transmission than if I were unvaccinated and symptomatic? This seems like common sense to me, but I recognize it goes against the Covid orthodoxy.
Also, when you say “inconvenient,” what do you mean exactly? To me, total restriction on movement and segregation from society based on medical status seems like more than an inconvenience. Maybe I’m just an anti-vaxxer, a victim of misinformation… if only I could think for myself.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/03/hawaii-coup...
A lower viral load means a lower probability of a mutation happening, given that the number of mutations is proportional to the load over time.
There's some small chance that the opposite is true, and vaccines will mean deadly strains are more easily spread since the person is more likely to be asymptomatic or low-symptoms and will therefore not isolate.
But on net we expect vaccines to prevent variants.
That situation doesn't obtain with SARS-CoV-2. The vaccines are pretty good at preventing deaths but don't reliably prevent infection or transmission. And most mammal species can transmit the virus; cases have been confirmed in dogs, cats, minks, deer, tigers, etc.
This is a fact vaccine-zealots never address (I am double vaccinated by the way).
If the end game is 100% vaccination in human population (including the enormous unvaccinated reservoir of the developing world, since the rate in those countries is often single-digit percentages) we will _still_ get novel variants which bypass the latest vaccines. Are we really supposed to forcibly administer vaccines every n-months to the entire human population for the rest of eternity? It seems utterly absurd.
I don't see why the "just build more hospitals" commenter was down-voted/flagged in this thread. It at least seems more economically viable. Mobilize the national guard to do it if it comes to that. Treating those who develop covid seems a way better route than attempting the futile game of "prevention" via a vaccine regime.
We will never get to Covid eradication. It's just not possible. Yet, most of my vaccinated compatriots seem to buy into that delusion.
It's sad that "I'm vaccinated..." became the 2021 version of, "I'm not a racist...".
https://twitter.com/santiagokique/status/1465014078938628099
It has been shown time and again that the covid jag does not prevent infection/re-infection/transmission so your talk of eradication smacks of propaganda, not science.
> Historically, the vaccine has been effective in preventing smallpox infection in 95% of those vaccinated. — https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/vaccine-basics/index.html
(Other sources have numbers from about 90% to 97%). However, this imperfect protection, in enough people, was enough to do the job.
At extremely low levels, we can begin to contemplate elimination/eradication.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-variants-ma...
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsb2104756
Edit: Another piece, specifically addressing immunocompromised + covid + vaccines:
"Studies have shown that immunocompromised people are more vulnerable to being hospitalized or dying from COVID and less likely to develop strong protection from vaccination. But there are also some hopeful signs: additional doses of some COVID vaccines, strategic timing of immunosuppressive treatments and prophylactic COVID treatments may boost protection among some immunocompromised individuals—and restore at least some of the freedoms they have lost."
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-immunocomprom...
Maybe I'm missing something, but the vaccinated population is the one that has introduced an additional evolutionary pressure, so wouldn't we expect to see mutations (that affect vaccinated people) in that population? Vaccine tolerance is no advantage in unvaccinated hosts.
If your immune system takes a long time to do this, because eg. you didn't have a vaccine so it hasn't got an antibody template to work from, then the virus has much longer to evolve in the host, under a bunch of weird and wonderful new types of antibodies that get thrown against it.
If there's already vaccine exposure then the body just needs to ramp up the antibody production, which is much faster and will result in total virus eradication to each virus as the antibodies encounter them, not halfway-measures which might leave half-functioning viruses which might self-repair in mutagenic ways.
1. There would be fewer cases compared to unvaccinated people to give it the chance to mutate. It doesn't have any more chance to mutate among vaccinated people. It has less chance. Just a lot of mutations that still look like the current virus will get killed off by antibodies.
2. Randomly making changes to the spike protein, this virus's most important part, is likely to reduce the virus's danger.
If you understand natural selection, then this assertion makes zero sense. Where in the genome do we see the accumulation of mutations in all covid variants seen so far? In their S-protein. Where does Omicron have 30+ mutations? In its S-protein.
What is the single protein that the mRNA vaccines code for??
Yes, if you reason from first principles, it is trivial to see that it is in fact the throngs of the vaccinated who are driving the evolution of SARS-CoV-2!
We might get more mutations from unvaccinated people, but since the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission we'll get much more virulent mutations from the vaccinated people.
The new breeds made by the unvaccinated are necessarily less dangerous and virulent, just based on the relevant evolutionary pressures (the more dangerous breeds that make people bedridden don't spread).
The new breeds made by the vaccinated, on the other hand - those have zero evolutionary pressure to become less dangerous, and can just as easily become more so (someone with a mutation that would make an unvaccinated person bedridden feels no effect and spreads it everywhere they go).
If COVID becomes less deadly but more widespread, and becomes part of the yearly flu season, blame that on the unvaccinated. But if COVID mutates to become more deadly and resistant to vaccines, blame the vaccinated.
This is not a given. The virus is known to mutate more in unvaccinated hosts and this can make either more contagious or more lethal variations. There would be an advantage to have a longer incubation period.
On the vaccinated the same things are beneficial - longer incubation periods and the ability to infect others who are vaccinated. With a lower viral load, there will be fewer variations in vaccinated hosts, translating into fewer differences from the baseline virus.
True, should've said "much more likely".
> The virus is known to mutate more in unvaccinated hosts and this can make either more contagious or more lethal variations.
Of course vaccinated and unvaccinated can produce largely the same mutations. But that's not the point.
As I said, it's the evolutionary pressure which is the problem. If two people, one vaccinated and one not, get the same mutation, then maybe it's a strain which is dangerous enough for the unvaccinated person to go be sick in bed for a week. (Yes, incubation period - but that's the same both ways so it doesn't change the probabilities.) In this case, then because the vaccine mitigates the symptoms, the vaccinated person can go on with their daily life while sick with that more dangerous strain.
The fact that both groups produce similar mutations isn't the point, it's that the people have different reactions to the virus which changes how the mutations are able to spread.
It's not that there's a lower viral load. It's that the vaccinated are transmitting at all which is the problem, because there's no pressure for them to go be sick in bed when they're carrying around a mutation which could kill someone.
Citation?