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Would a greater percent of the population being immune lead to a greater chance for mutation since we're creating a higher barrier for survival of the virus?
by hanniabu 7y ago
Would a greater percent of the population being immune lead to a greater chance for mutation since we're creating a higher barrier for survival of the virus?
- salawat 7y agoNope. Viruses can only evolve within a host. I.e. while they are infected. If you've go the right vaccine, there won't be enough time for a virus to get a strong enough foothold to make that evolutionary leap, since mutations are always a shoot of the dice. Remember, there is no intelligence to evolution. Only happy coincidence. An immune population has the same probability of having a virus mutate in a particular infection, but has many, many fewer cranks on the mutation slot machine lever before the virus is eradicated. Where you run into problems is with things like dengue fever, where multiple strains can all provoke a single immune reaction, but the other strains aren't crippled as much by the antibodies as the original, and can actually use the immune response to increase the severity of the infection. I've read no papers that suggest that is a factor here.