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Because the risk of transmission is understood to be significantly lower, and since unvaccinated people are more likely to cause the virus to mutate it's in the

Because the risk of transmission is understood to be significantly lower, and since unvaccinated people are more likely to cause the virus to mutate it's in the governments best interest to get people vaccinated, a way of accomplishing this could be making life inconvenient for the uncompliant.

nradov 5y ago
The current thinking is that new variants are most likely to evolve in immunocompromised patients who experience prolonged infections. While I encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated, the vaccines aren't very effective in people with malfunctioning immune systems. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-variants-may-arise-in-people-with-compromised-immune-systems/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-variants-ma...
- adamiscool8 5y ago
  The link references a specific response to remdesivir, but I don't see how the selective pressure isn't the same in the broader case of low-level or asymptomatic illness persisting in a vaccinated person, particularly when they'll be mingling more and taking less precautions.
  - angelzen 5y ago
    A paper, while not specifically addressing vaccination in immunocompromised patients, documents pretty clearly the phenomenon of runaway mutation chains in such patients. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsb2104756 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsb2104756 Edit: Another piece, specifically addressing immunocompromised + covid + vaccines: "Studies have shown that immunocompromised people are more vulnerable to being hospitalized or dying from COVID and less likely to develop strong protection from vaccination. But there are also some hopeful signs: additional doses of some COVID vaccines, strategic timing of immunosuppressive treatments and prophylactic COVID treatments may boost protection among some immunocompromised individuals—and restore at least some of the freedoms they have lost." https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-immunocompromised-people-without-strong-vaccine-protection-are-coping-with-covid/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-immunocomprom...
nazinazinazi 5y ago
Actually the vaccines themselves are causing the variants. The more you know! :)
TechBro8615 5y ago
Hm, so a vaccine that does not stop transmission does not create selective pressure on the virus? Wouldn’t that be unusual from an evolutionary biology standpoint? Can we at least agree that if infected, as a vaccinated and asymptomatic carrier, there is a higher chance of transmission than if I were unvaccinated and symptomatic? This seems like common sense to me, but I recognize it goes against the Covid orthodoxy. Also, when you say “inconvenient,” what do you mean exactly? To me, total restriction on movement and segregation from society based on medical status seems like more than an inconvenience. Maybe I’m just an anti-vaxxer, a victim of misinformation… if only I could think for myself.
- lillecarl 5y ago
  The point is vaccinating everyone, just like we did with Smallpox. Which is essentially dead because of vaccination.
  - mythrwy 5y ago
    This is an entirely different situation then smallpox though. The modes of action are not the same.
    - TechBro8615 5y ago
      Also, the CFR of smallpox is 95%.
  - nradov 5y ago
    While I encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated, you're not making a valid comparison. We were able to effectively eradicate smallpox (except for a few lab samples) because the vaccines are highly sterilizing and there were no animal reservoirs. That situation doesn't obtain with SARS-CoV-2. The vaccines are pretty good at preventing deaths but don't reliably prevent infection or transmission. And most mammal species can transmit the virus; cases have been confirmed in dogs, cats, minks, deer, tigers, etc.
    - 5y ago
hncurious 5y ago
Leaky vaccines can make viruses more virulent, though. See Marek's disease: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15757475/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15757475/
marginalia_nu 5y ago
> unvaccinated people are more likely to cause the virus to mutate Maybe I'm missing something, but the vaccinated population is the one that has introduced an additional evolutionary pressure, so wouldn't we expect to see mutations (that affect vaccinated people) in that population? Vaccine tolerance is no advantage in unvaccinated hosts.
- mminer237 5y ago
  It would put pressure to avoid the vaccine. However: 1. There would be fewer cases compared to unvaccinated people to give it the chance to mutate. It doesn't have any more chance to mutate among vaccinated people. It has less chance. Just a lot of mutations that still look like the current virus will get killed off by antibodies. 2. Randomly making changes to the spike protein, this virus's most important part, is likely to reduce the virus's danger.
- mlazos 5y ago
  “Evolutionary pressure” doesn’t really exist if the virus doesn’t get a chance to replicate. The virus is trying to find a mutation which bypasses the vaccine, the more chances it gets the better. This is why people talk about animal reservoirs and immunocompromised individuals. The chance of a beneficial mutation occurring increases the more the virus is able to replicate within an organism. It replicates more in unvaccinated organisms.
- snovv_crash 5y ago
  Every single person who's immune system eradicates the virus causes evolutionary pressure. If your immune system takes a long time to do this, because eg. you didn't have a vaccine so it hasn't got an antibody template to work from, then the virus has much longer to evolve in the host, under a bunch of weird and wonderful new types of antibodies that get thrown against it. If there's already vaccine exposure then the body just needs to ramp up the antibody production, which is much faster and will result in total virus eradication to each virus as the antibodies encounter them, not halfway-measures which might leave half-functioning viruses which might self-repair in mutagenic ways.
generalizations 5y ago
> since unvaccinated people are more likely to cause the virus to mutate We might get more mutations from unvaccinated people, but since the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission we'll get much more virulent mutations from the vaccinated people.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  Hence the need to isolate the unvaccinated, to protect them so they don’t get these new breeds and don’t make new ones based on them that reinfect the larger population.
  - generalizations 5y ago
    > and don’t make new ones based on them that reinfect the larger population The new breeds made by the unvaccinated are necessarily less dangerous and virulent, just based on the relevant evolutionary pressures (the more dangerous breeds that make people bedridden don't spread). The new breeds made by the vaccinated, on the other hand - those have zero evolutionary pressure to become less dangerous, and can just as easily become more so (someone with a mutation that would make an unvaccinated person bedridden feels no effect and spreads it everywhere they go). If COVID becomes less deadly but more widespread, and becomes part of the yearly flu season, blame that on the unvaccinated. But if COVID mutates to become more deadly and resistant to vaccines, blame the vaccinated.
    - rbanffy 5y ago
      > The new breeds made by the unvaccinated are necessarily less dangerous and virulent, This is not a given. The virus is known to mutate more in unvaccinated hosts and this can make either more contagious or more lethal variations. There would be an advantage to have a longer incubation period. On the vaccinated the same things are beneficial - longer incubation periods and the ability to infect others who are vaccinated. With a lower viral load, there will be fewer variations in vaccinated hosts, translating into fewer differences from the baseline virus.
jyscao 5y ago
> and since unvaccinated people are more likely to cause the virus to mutate If you understand natural selection, then this assertion makes zero sense. Where in the genome do we see the accumulation of mutations in all covid variants seen so far? In their S-protein. Where does Omicron have 30+ mutations? In its S-protein. What is the single protein that the mRNA vaccines code for?? Yes, if you reason from first principles, it is trivial to see that it is in fact the throngs of the vaccinated who are driving the evolution of SARS-CoV-2!
- kmonad 5y ago
  groups of people who know just a little about a subject tend to cease questioning their reasoning, and a dunning kruger is born. groups of people with more knowledge tend to ask more questions before accepting a new position. therefore, a dunning kruger is born more frequently among the former group. however, migrating pesky dunning krugers then tend to persist in either group.
disambiguation 5y ago
> unvaccinated people are more likely to cause the virus to mutate Citation?

nradov 5y ago

The current thinking is that new variants are most likely to evolve in immunocompromised patients who experience prolonged infections. While I encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated, the vaccines aren't very effective in people with malfunctioning immune systems. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-variants-may-arise-in-people-with-compromised-immune-systems/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-variants-ma...

adamiscool8 5y ago
The link references a specific response to remdesivir, but I don't see how the selective pressure isn't the same in the broader case of low-level or asymptomatic illness persisting in a vaccinated person, particularly when they'll be mingling more and taking less precautions.
- angelzen 5y ago
  A paper, while not specifically addressing vaccination in immunocompromised patients, documents pretty clearly the phenomenon of runaway mutation chains in such patients. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsb2104756 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsb2104756 Edit: Another piece, specifically addressing immunocompromised + covid + vaccines: "Studies have shown that immunocompromised people are more vulnerable to being hospitalized or dying from COVID and less likely to develop strong protection from vaccination. But there are also some hopeful signs: additional doses of some COVID vaccines, strategic timing of immunosuppressive treatments and prophylactic COVID treatments may boost protection among some immunocompromised individuals—and restore at least some of the freedoms they have lost." https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-immunocompromised-people-without-strong-vaccine-protection-are-coping-with-covid/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-immunocomprom...

nazinazinazi 5y ago

Actually the vaccines themselves are causing the variants. The more you know! :)

TechBro8615 5y ago

Hm, so a vaccine that does not stop transmission does not create selective pressure on the virus? Wouldn’t that be unusual from an evolutionary biology standpoint? Can we at least agree that if infected, as a vaccinated and asymptomatic carrier, there is a higher chance of transmission than if I were unvaccinated and symptomatic? This seems like common sense to me, but I recognize it goes against the Covid orthodoxy. Also, when you say “inconvenient,” what do you mean exactly? To me, total restriction on movement and segregation from society based on medical status seems like more than an inconvenience. Maybe I’m just an anti-vaxxer, a victim of misinformation… if only I could think for myself.

lillecarl 5y ago
The point is vaccinating everyone, just like we did with Smallpox. Which is essentially dead because of vaccination.
- mythrwy 5y ago
  This is an entirely different situation then smallpox though. The modes of action are not the same.
  - TechBro8615 5y ago
    Also, the CFR of smallpox is 95%.
- nradov 5y ago
  While I encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated, you're not making a valid comparison. We were able to effectively eradicate smallpox (except for a few lab samples) because the vaccines are highly sterilizing and there were no animal reservoirs. That situation doesn't obtain with SARS-CoV-2. The vaccines are pretty good at preventing deaths but don't reliably prevent infection or transmission. And most mammal species can transmit the virus; cases have been confirmed in dogs, cats, minks, deer, tigers, etc.
  - 5y ago

hncurious 5y ago

Leaky vaccines can make viruses more virulent, though. See Marek's disease: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15757475/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15757475/

marginalia_nu 5y ago

> unvaccinated people are more likely to cause the virus to mutate Maybe I'm missing something, but the vaccinated population is the one that has introduced an additional evolutionary pressure, so wouldn't we expect to see mutations (that affect vaccinated people) in that population? Vaccine tolerance is no advantage in unvaccinated hosts.

mminer237 5y ago
It would put pressure to avoid the vaccine. However: 1. There would be fewer cases compared to unvaccinated people to give it the chance to mutate. It doesn't have any more chance to mutate among vaccinated people. It has less chance. Just a lot of mutations that still look like the current virus will get killed off by antibodies. 2. Randomly making changes to the spike protein, this virus's most important part, is likely to reduce the virus's danger.
mlazos 5y ago
“Evolutionary pressure” doesn’t really exist if the virus doesn’t get a chance to replicate. The virus is trying to find a mutation which bypasses the vaccine, the more chances it gets the better. This is why people talk about animal reservoirs and immunocompromised individuals. The chance of a beneficial mutation occurring increases the more the virus is able to replicate within an organism. It replicates more in unvaccinated organisms.
snovv_crash 5y ago
Every single person who's immune system eradicates the virus causes evolutionary pressure. If your immune system takes a long time to do this, because eg. you didn't have a vaccine so it hasn't got an antibody template to work from, then the virus has much longer to evolve in the host, under a bunch of weird and wonderful new types of antibodies that get thrown against it. If there's already vaccine exposure then the body just needs to ramp up the antibody production, which is much faster and will result in total virus eradication to each virus as the antibodies encounter them, not halfway-measures which might leave half-functioning viruses which might self-repair in mutagenic ways.

generalizations 5y ago

> since unvaccinated people are more likely to cause the virus to mutate We might get more mutations from unvaccinated people, but since the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission we'll get much more virulent mutations from the vaccinated people.

rbanffy 5y ago
Hence the need to isolate the unvaccinated, to protect them so they don’t get these new breeds and don’t make new ones based on them that reinfect the larger population.
- generalizations 5y ago
  > and don’t make new ones based on them that reinfect the larger population The new breeds made by the unvaccinated are necessarily less dangerous and virulent, just based on the relevant evolutionary pressures (the more dangerous breeds that make people bedridden don't spread). The new breeds made by the vaccinated, on the other hand - those have zero evolutionary pressure to become less dangerous, and can just as easily become more so (someone with a mutation that would make an unvaccinated person bedridden feels no effect and spreads it everywhere they go). If COVID becomes less deadly but more widespread, and becomes part of the yearly flu season, blame that on the unvaccinated. But if COVID mutates to become more deadly and resistant to vaccines, blame the vaccinated.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    > The new breeds made by the unvaccinated are necessarily less dangerous and virulent, This is not a given. The virus is known to mutate more in unvaccinated hosts and this can make either more contagious or more lethal variations. There would be an advantage to have a longer incubation period. On the vaccinated the same things are beneficial - longer incubation periods and the ability to infect others who are vaccinated. With a lower viral load, there will be fewer variations in vaccinated hosts, translating into fewer differences from the baseline virus.

jyscao 5y ago

> and since unvaccinated people are more likely to cause the virus to mutate If you understand natural selection, then this assertion makes zero sense. Where in the genome do we see the accumulation of mutations in all covid variants seen so far? In their S-protein. Where does Omicron have 30+ mutations? In its S-protein. What is the single protein that the mRNA vaccines code for?? Yes, if you reason from first principles, it is trivial to see that it is in fact the throngs of the vaccinated who are driving the evolution of SARS-CoV-2!

kmonad 5y ago
groups of people who know just a little about a subject tend to cease questioning their reasoning, and a dunning kruger is born. groups of people with more knowledge tend to ask more questions before accepting a new position. therefore, a dunning kruger is born more frequently among the former group. however, migrating pesky dunning krugers then tend to persist in either group.

disambiguation 5y ago

> unvaccinated people are more likely to cause the virus to mutate Citation?