[incrudible]

How is that relevant? The question is: How effective are these vaccines really against that variant? In the real world, not in the lab.

If half the cases are in vaccinated individuals and only half the people are vaccinated, how can the vaccine be 80%-90% effective? That's a mathematical impossibility.

In the case of the deaths, it might be possible because the vaccinated are far older on average and likely over-counted.

[baq]

i disagree fundamentally about the question.

for me, the question is: how can we prevent the virus from mutating enough to escape vaccine- and covid-based immunity with another variant? the answer is to stop the virus from infecting a host in which it can mutate freely and from which it can escape. we don't know these people, so we should aim to vaccinate as many as possible before it finds another person who walks around with the virus for multiple months with no symptoms, accelerating natural selection thousandfold.

[incrudible]

> i disagree fundamentally about the question.

Maybe you're in the wrong thread, then?

> for me, the question is: how can we prevent the virus from mutating enough to escape vaccine

Probably not with a vaccine that is not quite strong enough to prevent spread, but simultaneously strong enough to put selection pressure on the virus.

> the answer is to stop the virus from infecting a host in which it can mutate freely and from which it can escape. we don't know these people, so we should aim to vaccinate as many as possible before it finds another person who walks around with the virus for multiple months with no symptoms, accelerating natural selection thousandfold.

The scenario you are describing is the immunocompromised person whose body can't quite kill the virus, but also puts selection pressure on it. Such cases have been described, but whatever mutation would come out of that is not necessarily going to be much more effective at overcoming the defenses of a normal immune system.

The Sars-CoV2 virus will almost certainly stick around and it will keep mutating, even with the best of vaccination efforts. Nature finds a way. We'll have to get used to it.

[baq]

> Maybe you're in the wrong thread, then?

maybe. or maybe the thread is pointless and i'm just pointing it out.

> The scenario you are describing is the immunocompromised person whose body can't quite kill the virus, but also puts selection pressure on it. Such cases have been described, but whatever mutation would come out of that is not necessarily going to be much more effective at overcoming the defenses of a normal immune system.

i'd wager more than 99% of those mutations won't be more effective. i'm worried about the tail risk in the remaining 1%. i don't know how many mutations are needed for the virus to become sufficiently different for human immune system to stop being recognized and this scenario is the best way to find out.

> The Sars-CoV2 virus will almost certainly stick around and it will keep mutating, even with the best of vaccination efforts. Nature finds a way. We'll have to get used to it.

no disagreement about that. in the long run we're all dead anyway. my issue with just letting it run its course is timing and cost - the argument is that it gets much easier much quicker for all of us with the best vaccination effort compared to alternatives.