A couple of comments: > [...] vaccines reduce the chance of severe (symptomatic) illness but do not necessarily prevent infection and transmission. My underst

A couple of comments: > [...] vaccines reduce the chance of severe (symptomatic) illness but do not necessarily prevent infection and transmission. My understanding is that at least the RNA vaccines are sterilizing when titers peak, i.e. in the first weeks (months?) after full vaccination. This is due to the presence of a certain type of antibody in the mucosa of the respiratory tract. We also know that levels decrease over 6-12 months, at which point you can get infected, but illness will be mild due to T cell activity. (assuming the immune system of a young, healthy person). > My understanding is that this is a relatively new and perhaps highly understudied phenomenon. I don't have the impression it's understudied. With the widespread prevalence of genetic sequencing we have a pretty good understanding of the mutation activity. Once a variant has an evolutional advantage it is studied quite closely whether it is a fitness escape, an immune escape or both. E.g. Delta is mostly a fitness escape but fortunately only a slight immune escape. > or just trade relevant links with others who are diving into primary sources as a way to form an educated and well rounded opinion. The best resource I can give you is a German podcast with two of Germany's leading virologists [1]. Personally listening to experts in their field in a long form interview has been orders of magnitude more insightful. It's one thing to read an article in Vanity Fair whether the virus has escaped from a lab, it's a totally different thing to listen to an expert that actually knows how to do gain of function research. Maybe it's worth translating the transcriptions? [1] https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/podcast4684.html https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/podcast4684.html