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Assuming this is in good faith, the answer is it does apply evolutionary pressure on covid to develop a spike protein that can avoid the immune system. Convale

Assuming this is in good faith, the answer is it does apply evolutionary pressure on covid to develop a spike protein that can avoid the immune system. Convalescent people do have a more diverse immune response, to other parts of the virus. And after a vaccine actually have even stronger responses still. The immune response to covid and the spike protein in immunized people is very uniform and the antibodies we produce are very similar (although not identical.) But the specificity of the spike targeting was chosen for a reason, it is VERY unlikely there is another spike protein that will work as well and entirely evade the immune system. Studies have been done and threatening spike mutations have been checked, and it doesn't seem like there are good alternatives.

didibus 5y ago
> it does apply evolutionary pressure on covid to develop a spike protein that can avoid the immune system The way you say this, it seems to imply some kind of intelligent mutation, is that true of viruses? I was under the impression that they would simply accidentally evolve around it as they reproduce themselves over and over. Thus if you limit their ability to reproduce, you'd limit their chances of mutating in ways that avoid the immune response. Where as for bacteria, my understanding was that, while it similarly accidentally evolves around it, by abusing antibiotics, you kill the bacteria that isn't resistant, thus the resistant bacteria will proliferate in its place, and possibly eventually become the dominant strain. While if you'd left the body deal with the bacteria, this would not happen, and so you should only resort to antibiotics in cases where the person's immune system is losing the battle.