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The western greed might actually backfire. What are the chances that if we let the virus spread unchecked in the poorer countries for a few more years, the viru

The western greed might actually backfire. What are the chances that if we let the virus spread unchecked in the poorer countries for a few more years, the virus accumulates more mutations on the spike protein making the existing vaccines ineffective?

minikites 5y ago
>if we let the virus spread unchecked in the poorer countries It's spreading unchecked now in the USA because people are refusing the vaccine. The scenario you describe is absolutely going to happen, but it won't be because of poorer nations, it will be because of selfish people in rich nations.
- leesec 5y ago
  Pretty baseless to assume where a variant is going to spread or why. It's not like every country other than USA would have 100% vaccine uptake either.
  - minikites 5y ago
    I think it's reasonable to place more of the blame on people who choose not to help (refusing the vaccine) instead of the people who don't have the means to help (unable to get a vaccine).
    - __s 5y ago
      The original comment was laying blame on the cause of people unable to get a vaccine, not the people themselves. Incidentally that puts them in agreement with you: selfish people in richer nations
libertine 5y ago
This has been a period of constant backfires on a global scale - starting from WHO themselves right at the start of this whole thing when dealing with the first breakout in China, especially having experience with dealing with China (SARS). They knew information was being withheld. So will this backfire be worst then all the other backfires, or other potential backfires? Honestly we have no idea. I'm still baffled why the leadership of WHO hasn't been renewed yet... I get that in times of crises leadership shouldn't be changed, but they are stretching it. WHO lost a lot of their soft power during this pandemic.
newbamboo 5y ago
Every year a new flu shot is needed. Would antibiotic resistant infections evolve in the absence of antibiotics?
- f6v 5y ago
  The antibiotic resistance most likely predates widespread pharmacological usage. We didn’t invent penicillin, it was discovered.
  - criticaltinker 5y ago
    > The antibiotic resistance most likely predates widespread pharmacological usage This is absolutely not true, see this very accessible peer-reviewed primary source for many historical examples of antibiotic resistance driven by modern medicine [1]. Here is an excerpt from [1]: - "After a new drug is introduced, drug resistance can rapidly evolve, leading to treatment failures [12]. For instance, most Staphylococcus aureus isolates in British hospitals were resistant to penicillin just 6 years after the introduction of the drug [13]" [1] Why does drug resistance readily evolve but vaccine resistance does not? https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2016.2562 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2016...
    - f6v 5y ago
      > This is absolutely not true I’m not saying modern medicine didn’t put a ton of evolutionary pressure on antibiotic resistance. However, there’s some evidence of AR genes being present in the microbiomes of previously isolated tribes [1]. So we didn’t promote the “invention” of AR by bacteria, but likely just accelerated the selection of AR strains. 1. 10.1126/sciadv.1500183
      - criticaltinker 5y ago
        I see, thanks for elaborating and providing the citation - very interesting paper indeed. "This is absolutely not true" was not a charitable/informed interpretation of your comment, my apologies. > So we didn’t promote the “invention” of AR by bacteria, but likely just accelerated the selection of AR strains Well put, we are in agreement.

minikites 5y ago

>if we let the virus spread unchecked in the poorer countries It's spreading unchecked now in the USA because people are refusing the vaccine. The scenario you describe is absolutely going to happen, but it won't be because of poorer nations, it will be because of selfish people in rich nations.

leesec 5y ago
Pretty baseless to assume where a variant is going to spread or why. It's not like every country other than USA would have 100% vaccine uptake either.
- minikites 5y ago
  I think it's reasonable to place more of the blame on people who choose not to help (refusing the vaccine) instead of the people who don't have the means to help (unable to get a vaccine).
  - __s 5y ago
    The original comment was laying blame on the cause of people unable to get a vaccine, not the people themselves. Incidentally that puts them in agreement with you: selfish people in richer nations

libertine 5y ago

This has been a period of constant backfires on a global scale - starting from WHO themselves right at the start of this whole thing when dealing with the first breakout in China, especially having experience with dealing with China (SARS). They knew information was being withheld. So will this backfire be worst then all the other backfires, or other potential backfires? Honestly we have no idea. I'm still baffled why the leadership of WHO hasn't been renewed yet... I get that in times of crises leadership shouldn't be changed, but they are stretching it. WHO lost a lot of their soft power during this pandemic.

newbamboo 5y ago

Every year a new flu shot is needed. Would antibiotic resistant infections evolve in the absence of antibiotics?

f6v 5y ago
The antibiotic resistance most likely predates widespread pharmacological usage. We didn’t invent penicillin, it was discovered.
- criticaltinker 5y ago
  > The antibiotic resistance most likely predates widespread pharmacological usage This is absolutely not true, see this very accessible peer-reviewed primary source for many historical examples of antibiotic resistance driven by modern medicine [1]. Here is an excerpt from [1]: - "After a new drug is introduced, drug resistance can rapidly evolve, leading to treatment failures [12]. For instance, most Staphylococcus aureus isolates in British hospitals were resistant to penicillin just 6 years after the introduction of the drug [13]" [1] Why does drug resistance readily evolve but vaccine resistance does not? https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2016.2562 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2016...
  - f6v 5y ago
    > This is absolutely not true I’m not saying modern medicine didn’t put a ton of evolutionary pressure on antibiotic resistance. However, there’s some evidence of AR genes being present in the microbiomes of previously isolated tribes [1]. So we didn’t promote the “invention” of AR by bacteria, but likely just accelerated the selection of AR strains. 1. 10.1126/sciadv.1500183
    - criticaltinker 5y ago
      I see, thanks for elaborating and providing the citation - very interesting paper indeed. "This is absolutely not true" was not a charitable/informed interpretation of your comment, my apologies. > So we didn’t promote the “invention” of AR by bacteria, but likely just accelerated the selection of AR strains Well put, we are in agreement.