[CarelessExpert]

> a. Take the vaccine and be naked when the vaccine resistant variant eventually emerges.

First, this is deeply deeply misleading, to the point of being misinformation. The idea that a version of COVID will pop out that renders the current vaccines completely useless is founded in nothing but alarmist speculation. Could it happen? Maybe. But we have a virus now that's known to be dangerous, for which we have a vaccine that's very effective. To not take that vaccine, now, based on this speculative fear is completely nonsensical.

Second, it's a false dichotomy:

c. Take the vaccine, get a mild breakthrough case of covid later that builds even stronger protection.

[angelzen]

This is also a possibility. The open scenario is: take the vaccine, don't get a breakthrough case (vaccines work as intended and quickly suppress it), but do get a vaccine-resistant infection later on.

If there is more information on the long-term behavior of the immune system conditioned on vaccines and/or natural immunity and/or mutations, please share. My understanding is that nobody has a complete understanding and a reliable prediction model. Everybody is making educated guesses in the dark, though I am very open to learn more from credible sources.

[CarelessExpert]

> Everybody is making educated guesses in the dark,

We are absolutely not.

Are there many things we don't know about the function of the immune system?

Sure.

Are we "in the dark"? This couldn't be more incorrect, and again, borders on deeply misleading misinformation.

Frankly, this smells a lot like the kind of climate change denial we used to hear. i.e., because there was uncertainty, we therefore can trust nothing and know nothing. And that "logic" was just as flawed, then, as it is now.

[angelzen]

Did we know ahead of time if mRNA vaccine immunity is stronger / weaker than post covid-infection natural immunity? For each strain?

Did we know ahead of time when/where Delta will arise? Did we know ahead of time its infectiousness / virulence parameters?

Do we know when / where the next strain will arise? Do we know if it will be more/less infectious than Delta? Do we know if it will be more/less virulent than Delta? How about per age group?

Do we know whether vaccines protect against potential future vaccine resistant strains? Admittedly an oxymoron, but such is the ridiculousness of this conversation.

What we do know is that the virus is likely to mutate to avoid the narrow spectrum mRNA vaccines. We don't know when / where / how.

That's what I call educated guesses in the dark.

PS. Please do us a favor and keep your ad-hominems for yourself. It may feel good in the moment, but it doesn't strengthen your arguments.

[sjg007]

The virus will mutate no matter what regardless of vaccine. It's not the vaccines that are driving mutations. The vaccine basically programs a set of immune system regex stream filters. Maybe some mutants get past it, well then the immune system will generates another response to it as it goes on to infect other cells in the body etc...

Some of the original variants are thought to have arisen out of immuno-compromised pre-vaccinated patients. Maybe they got IVIg, monoclonal antibodies, or convalescent plasma.

[sjg007]

Umm. Presumably you've had the chickenpox vaccine, the TDAP vaccine, and a bunch of others as a kid as a condition to go to school. These have been well studied for decades.

> but do get a vaccine-resistant infection later on.

This is a redherring.

This would be the equivalent to have never encountered covid and getting infected by that variant then. So you know maybe a new kid born in the next few months or something.

It'd also be equivalent to someone getting chemo that wipes out their immune system and now gets covid after they recover.

[angelzen]

We are taking an open bet: will the vaccine resistant covid strain(s) that are likely to emerge be more/less virulent than Delta or not? I don't have a crystal ball, but given that we know that for <20s the risk of complications from Delta is vanishingly small, why take the bet?

[sjg007]

All signs point to lambda being more virulent/deadly etc…. Still has nothing to do with the vaccines.

If covid mutates sufficiently fast, say as fast as HIV then we will have a big time problem.