[mullingitover]

I'm not so sure that a less effective vaccine is better than no vaccine at all. If the virus has a less-effective immune response, it could have a better chance of mutating into something that's resistant to the vaccine, in which case all the work creating the vaccine goes out the window.

[andybak]

I vaguely remember reading something along the lines of "You're thinking of antibiotics. Vaccines and viruses are different".

Anyone got any solid insight into this?

[mullingitover]

I found the article.

> “My concern, as a virologist, is that if you wanted to make a vaccine-resistant strain, what you would do is to build a cohort of partially immunized individuals in the teeth of a highly prevalent viral infection,” Bieniasz told STAT. Even rolling out the vaccine at all when there is so much transmission occurring is far from ideal, he said, suggesting it would have been safer to beat down the amount of virus in circulation before beginning the vaccine deployment.

>“You are essentially maximizing the opportunity for the virus to learn about the human immune system. Learn about antibodies. Learn how to evade them,” he said.

[1] https://www.statnews.com/2021/01/04/britain-takes-a-gamble-w...