I tend to think in evolutionary terms; it seemed obvious to me that in our hubris and our desperation for a silver bullet, all that we may be achieving is a eugenics program to breed a new race of superviruses….
 

The problem with that concept is that whether we like it or not, on the individual and population scales it will happen, and we believe current variants of concern like Alpha and Delta already did in the former way. They were both first detected in October 2020 in the U.K. and India respectively, when their only possible vaccine related origin would have been from the rare individuals in clinical trials, as populations both countries were far from having enough immunity, natural or vaccine, to supply an ecological population selection pressure.

The theory here, and I'm told it's been observed in real life, is that an ecological battle in an individual can arise where the best variant wins and manages to propagate beyond that individual. Specifically we now know that at location 681 in the spike protein, the Original Formula classic Wuhan proline there can be replaced with with amino acids that cause the protein to fuse much better with ACE2 receptors (although I just came across this paper which echoes some of my other reading that more than just a mutation there may be required).

And thus Alpha and Delta are sequentially more transmissible, in turn Alpha first generally replacing classic Wuhan, and Delta now replacing Alpha. This despite Alpha also being significantly more lethal than classic Wuhan, and that's looking to be true for Delta compared to Alpha, both variants are overall more "fit." Vaccinate people or not, there's nothing we can do to stop this mechanism of variant creation for the foreseeable future.

We can envision immunity getting enough prevalence that classic evolution at the population level occurs, the virus starts hitting brick walls and "evolves or dies." As transmissible as Delta seems to be, it would seem likely this would happen without vaccines, although that's not an "experiment" we can run in the real world. Thus while there are dangers, it doesn't seem axiomatic that speeding up the point in which we get there by vaccinating large fractions of the human population is going to make a qualitative difference, and the benefit could in the long term be much less morbidity and mortality for those who get vaccinated.

Which is also true for those who had mild enough cases of classic Wuhan before Alpha became dominant, and in turn the same for Alpha and Delta. They may in fact have better overall immunity to Delta because unlike current Western vaccines natural immunity includes attacking other viral proteins. Unfortunately they are per my reading ones hidden beneath the virus' envelope, meaning they can only be attacked in already hijacked cells, which is also a requirement for CD8+ cytotoxic T cells. Whereas enough good neutralizing antibodies to the spike protein can prevent viruses from ever attacking cells. And we can of course in the future include one or more of these proteins as antigens in future generations of vaccines.

In the long term there's no reason to believe the virus won't run out of tricks, and we'll eventually have an "eternal" vaccine for it just like we have for other RNA viruses that mutate at much higher rates like the ones that cause measles and the mumps.

(As for masking, you are generally speaking sense as far as I know.)

Replies: @Wild Man, @Raches, @MeaCulpa

He’s too stupid to draw fucking breath. Every article reaches new heights of rank stupidity. Let’s arm his feeble, effete ass and put him under the command of a Samantha Power and John Bolton. I would wager my net worth that this idiot has never been so much as punched in the face. Funny how those least acquainted with violence are the first to clutch their pearls and send their countrymen to be killed and maimed.

With any luck, this human filth and his like will have us waist deep Syria, fighting alongside jihadis to destabilize and topple Assad. Nothing like an Alawite, Christian, Yazidi genocide to salve this woman’s delicate sensibilities.

These people seem too stupid to be genuinely stupid. They have to know better and be genuinely evil.
We need to reinstitute the draft, with no exemptions. This piece of trash is English, but we have enough of our own chickenhawks. Would be interesting to see the political calculations change if their own little darlings were to start coming home in body bags.

Replies: @MeaCulpa

Actually, viewing a foreign policy omission as a prosecutable crime is so fundamentally stupid that it must have its roots pre-Trump. Who/what is the source of a legal duty to intercede in even a planned atrocity from 5,000 miles away? I never read this guy before - looks like my instincts are good.

Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @MeaCulpa, @Tom Rogers