[throwaway4good]

My worry is this: If you take a population where a virus is widespread and start vaccinating then the likelihood for a mutation that escapes the vaccination is much higher, had you instead taken a population where the virus not widespread and vaccinated there.

Is this correct?

UK has a widespread ongoing outbreak and is the first nation to deliver vaccinations at a big scale.

[gerdesj]

"first nation to deliver vaccinations at a big scale"

Yes, we are getting into it but something like 300K first jabs for a two jab vacc in two weeks is not going to set the world on fire. The logistics behind delivering the jab are absolutely breathtaking.

Here in the UK we are rich and have the science etc. We are a small, comparatively, densely populated place. We have a country funded health service and a fairly well funded military with experience and gear and man power. I think the UK represents one of the best possible case studies for mass vaccination.

60M people at 300K per week is 200 weeks or nearly four years - this is a very artificial example and only an illustration. To get 60M people jabbed, twice, in a few months is going to need a few resources!

[therealx]

The US is on target to have everyone that wants one jab'ed by June.

[torben-friis]

I'm not sure I follow.

Why would vaccination increase the likelihood of new mutations, or mutations surviving better?

The only way I can see that reasoning working is that the mutation was somehow vaccine resistant but not resistant to the immune reaction we get after being sick with the comon corona, but it is not obvious to me that it would work that way, I would assume the opposite.

[Volundr]

Yeah this is sort of true on it's face, but doesn't really change anything. Of course if a virus is widely spread it's more likely to have vaccine escaping variants out there. If you vaccinate that population those vaccine escaping variants become dominant. Obviously this is less likely in a population with less cases. But you have to vaccinate that high case population eventually and the sooner you do it the better. No sense giving the virus more time to mutate.

[AntiImperialis2]

>Why would vaccination increase the likelihood of new mutations, or mutations surviving better?

Our immune systems are general enough to face a wide variety of viruses, infections and strains.

When one is vaccinated, it gets prepared for that particular strain of a particular virus. The cost is that it could become more vulnerable to other infections... it's the cost/benefit of specialization vs generalization. Reference: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14970928/

The reason is that the immune system is highly optimized and it is optimized to be flexible enough to save enough individuals for the next generation. It is not optimized to save each and every individual against all possible infections. That is unnecessary, as far as evolution is concerned.

Having said that, vaccines generally don't weaken individuals to a slightly different variant of the same virus. It should rather strengthen it. The immune system expects the virus to mutate so it prepares for the mutations to an extent. In fact, a category of vaccines called live-attenuated vaccines are basically weakened strains of the same virus (these can sometimes mutate into dangerous strains, eg. https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/polio-vaccination..., but that's a different discussion).

[saberdancer]

If "normal" variant is more virulent, it should spread faster than other variants and will be dominant. If you vaccinate which eradicates "normal" variant than those less virulent strain which may be vaccine resistant will get opportunity to spread. That is if such variants exist.

Problem is that there is no alternative. You either vaccinate or let it run through your population. With IFR of 0.5-1% that is really hard choice to make.

[dehrmann]

> With IFR of 0.5-1% that is really hard choice to make.

I'm getting the sense that there's little public appetite for waiting another 6-9 months for a new vaccine. This might change as more people get the virus, but there's a good chance 10-15% of Americans have already had or currently have the virus, so if that didn't scare people already, I'm not sure if another month of full ICUs will.

[saberdancer]

This is the biggest problem. People are losing faith in the restrictions and are starting to believe into various conspiracy theories. Most of this is due to inability to distinguish between accurate and false information.

Another problem is that CDC and other agencies at first were openly lying and trying to downplay the virus or say how masks were not effective. This leads to people not trusting what they say because everyone can remember how they were against masks and now are in favor of masks. Then you add in politicians with mixed messages and you get highly doubtful public.

IFR is around 1% in the western world. That is incredibly high for something that could become as seasonal as flu.