[beagle3]

The vaccine is leaky. It doesn’t stop infection or transmission.

It’s not clear yet if it is putting any evolutionary pressure towards vaccine evasion (some people expect it to).

But SA is no more a breeding ground than anywhere else.

The well-documented breeding grounds are the immune suppressed, and it is incredibly unlikely that omicron developed in one of them.

[tremon]

The vaccine is leaky. It doesn’t stop infection or transmission.

No one ever claimed it would, except for the anti-vax crowd. Infection, transmission, and immunity aren't binary, and over 99% of domain specialists are in agreement on that. So why would you open your post with that claim?

[beagle3]

GP I was responding to claimed SA was a breeding ground for variants. Unless he has a new explanation different from the other hundreds of people with this claim, it eventually rests on a non leaky vaccine.

And that’s why I started with this claim. Now, if you have an explanation as to why SA would be a better breeding ground for variants, I would love to hear it.

If you read my post in context, you would likely have noticed that, so I’ll wait till you do and if you have more questions I’ll consider answering them.

[zamalek]

This is not news on how vaccines work. Even the smallpox vaccine had this problem, difference is: nearly everyone got vaccinated.

[beagle3]

Smallpox vaccine did, in fact, prevent infection and transmission with estimated 95% efficiency and is thus considered sterilizing.

The Covid vaccine is very leaky, and Marek’s disease and it’s vaccine in chicken is an interesting comparison.

And I did not claim it was news - all I said was that there is no reason to believe SA is a variant breeding ground (any more than any other place) and explained why.

[spurgu]

Yeah I'm wondering what the chances are (something like Marek's disease). To put humanity on a path forever dependent on vaccines. If one shot is enough for life then fine, but two shots per year forever? Scary thought.