COVID-19 Mutation Risks

I don't think odds of a new variant are lower. Vaccines turned out to not be effective against infection after a few months (they are very effective against severe disease). People who are vaccinated might clear the infection faster but as long as there is viral replication there will be mutations. At the same time, evolutionary pressure to evade vaccine protection is increasing as more people are vaccinated.

Yeah give the virus the chance to mutate so that vaccines are ineffective or it starts killing young people. Most people in favour of keeping everything open ignore the fact the virus mutates so more people are infected the larger the chances of a deadlier strain or a virus against which the current vaccines are ineffective.

From lioeters comment, supporting the argument:> "They might serve as sort of a breeding ground for the virus to acquire new mutations."Vaccines Could Drive The Evolution Of More COVID-19 Mutants - https://text.npr.org/965703047

That assumes that this virus doesn't mutate quickly, mitigating the effectiveness of herd immunity and vaccination.

It does answer the question. Evolution is the result of mutations propagating through reproduction. The more copies of a virus replicating, the higher chances of mutation causing a more deleterious and/or virulent variant of the virus. As the number of viral copies and replications approaches zero, the chances of a worse strain of the virus spreading also approaches zero. Vaccines reduce viral load and spread, thus reducing the chances of mutation and spread of worse variants.An example

I would assume any sort of attack, if it's not able to outright kill the virus, would accelerate mutation. The experts have conceded for a while now that the vaccine has been proven to reduce symptoms, but not necessarily reduce spread, so probably the right environment for mutation.

I have no clue, I'm not an expert. I just don't see any discussion on this topic and it concerns me. Historically, I don't see any vaccine which was effective against such a virulent virus, unless it had a much higher rate of immunity. I'd gamble on 5% odds if the reward was high enough, so 95% immunity sounds good but it's only half as strong 97.5% immunity, for example.I do know that the immunity may only be temporary--1 out of 20 cases of the most virulent strains

I'm afraid that this is one of the expected outcomes of lowering and even outright eliminating preventative measures, such as mask mandates and social distancing, and placing all the chips on the current generation of Covid vaccines being sufficiently effective in lowering covid-related deaths.If the virus is allowed to run rampant throughout the population then the odds that an unfortunate mutation happens is far higher, as it's proportional to the number of infected hosts, and the

The influenza virus mutates faster than SARS-CoV-2 on a per infection basis. But over the past two years we've had far more people infected with SARS-CoV-2 so the total number of mutations worldwide has been high. Over time we expect the rate of new mutations to decrease as more people gain some level of immunity and the virus approaches it's evolutionary maximum potential. We already see that the Delta variant is fairly stable and is successfully out competing all other variants in th

Though the article says:>[Health Secretary Matt Hancock] said there was "nothing to suggest" it caused worse disease or that vaccines would no longer work.I do wonder in general about the "herd immunity" strategy and the likelihood that a worse strain or one that's resistant to the current vaccines comes along.I assume that the probability of mutation is basically proportional to the number of people who are infected by SARS-CoV-2. So, in addition to all the