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Sure but Delta is now the dominant strain everywhere. Evolutionary pressure still applies.
by cletus 5y ago
Sure but Delta is now the dominant strain everywhere. Evolutionary pressure still applies.
- jsnell 5y agoYour initial point was "It's almost like the existence of vaccines places evolutionary pressure on a mutating virus". That is implying that the existing observations could be explained by evolutionary pressures, not just that it might be happening in the future. Delta would have been the dominant strain everywhere without the vaccine as well. Most of the reproductive advantage of Delta did not come from antigenic drift. Blaming vaccines for it like you did is completely, 100% false. In a world with no vaccines, antigenic drift would happen just the same way, and still gain a reproductive advantage, just from evolving against disease-conferred immunity rather than vaccine-conferred.