It speaks to the more serious problem with vaccine hesitancy - the more virions (individual virus 'particles') that exist, the greater the chance of a mutation that finds a way around our defenses. It's just basic evolution.
The variants arise randomly and proliferate with the current major strains. The infected population adapts to reduce the transmission of the most virulent/contagious strains. Selective pressure (tug of war between infecting people and people fighting off the infection) increases on the new variants until one or a few maintain or exceed the transmission of the progenitor strain.
That's the problem with the, "I'll get over it/I'm not worried/My segment of the population doesn't die from it" mentality. The more infections - subclinical, asymptomatic, severe, fatal, undetected - the more rolls of the dice. We (humans) are selecting variants that are worse for us, hoping we can snuff out the infection before some key mutation that eludes our immune system and/or testing develops.
Two other thoughts with internal conflicts/points worth mentioning - First, recovered patients should be more resistant to new strains. Their immune systems threw everything at the virus to defeat it, so their response will be more diversified than those with mRNA vaccines targeting a specific protein sequence. (The magnitude and usefulness of the variations in immune response can negate that advantage.) Second, the reasons that a 'novel' virus is dangerous are that we, as a species, don't know if we can (naturally/innately), and we don't know how much the virus can change in protein sequence (to evade our defenses) or our response to infection.
Anyways, I'm rambling. Not a virologist, but a PhD (and as such, I think I know more about stuff than a really do) and that's how I think about it. :)
> That's the problem with the, "I'll get over it/I'm not worried/My segment of the population doesn't die from it" mentality. The more infections - subclinical, asymptomatic, severe, fatal, undetected - the more rolls of the dice.
The vaccines we're currently using don't prevent infection as they do not provide sterilising immunity. To quote[1] Sunetra Gupta[2], infectious disease epidemiologist and a professor of theoretical epidemiology at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford:
> The vaccines that we currently employ appear to be highly effective in preventing life-threatening illness but do not meaningfully contribute to the maintenance of herd immunity.
> …we find ourselves trapped by the superannuated conviction that vaccines must block infection as well as disease.
Given that, how is contrasting those who've had vaccines with those who haven't of any relevance? We have other comments in the thread (like this one[3]) pointing out that it could be immuno-compromised people that are the main source of new variants. Right now, they're among the least likely people to have been vaccinated.
> We (humans) are selecting variants that are worse for us
I believe this to be a very common misconception. Evolution selects variants that are better at replicating. It does not follow that those are the worse for our health.
Imagine a variant that would effectively be very lethal to us: wouldn't it go extinct if the bearers die or even stay home sick before it can spread?
On the other hand the vaccines could be causing more stress on the virus as they generally aren't very good. I'm saying this as someone who had the virus then the vaccine.
I'm putting this delicately, but if we're worried about things that might cause cancer, we might want to look at the past 40 years of novel chemicals approved in household or environmental products.
I'm not saying short-term, high-intensity FDA et al. EUA is ironclad, but it's a helluva lot more stringent and reviewed than what the EPA approves (or fails to ban) due to "economic considerations."
So, if we're in the worrying mindset, prioritization seems important.
The variants arise randomly and proliferate with the current major strains. The infected population adapts to reduce the transmission of the most virulent/contagious strains. Selective pressure (tug of war between infecting people and people fighting off the infection) increases on the new variants until one or a few maintain or exceed the transmission of the progenitor strain.
That's the problem with the, "I'll get over it/I'm not worried/My segment of the population doesn't die from it" mentality. The more infections - subclinical, asymptomatic, severe, fatal, undetected - the more rolls of the dice. We (humans) are selecting variants that are worse for us, hoping we can snuff out the infection before some key mutation that eludes our immune system and/or testing develops.
Two other thoughts with internal conflicts/points worth mentioning - First, recovered patients should be more resistant to new strains. Their immune systems threw everything at the virus to defeat it, so their response will be more diversified than those with mRNA vaccines targeting a specific protein sequence. (The magnitude and usefulness of the variations in immune response can negate that advantage.) Second, the reasons that a 'novel' virus is dangerous are that we, as a species, don't know if we can (naturally/innately), and we don't know how much the virus can change in protein sequence (to evade our defenses) or our response to infection.
Anyways, I'm rambling. Not a virologist, but a PhD (and as such, I think I know more about stuff than a really do) and that's how I think about it. :)