The vaccines work through the human immune system, its not a third party agent in your blood stream that acts directly on the virus.

If you have some significant percentage of the population that is immunized against one specific variant but susceptible to others, which then causes those other variants to spread more readily than they might otherwise, then what difference does it make whether the vaccine is working directly or indirectly?

The point is that the human immune system will always provide selection pressures vaccinated or not.

Creation of variants is random, as mutations are random (in reality mutations aren't exactly random, but for all intensive purposes we can assume they are) .

However, vaccines that modify the immune system to fight the virus (or specifically from the viruses perspectives inhibit its ability to propagate) would put tremendous selective pressure on the virus to evolve mutations that evade vaccine induced modifications. The same with any other therapeutic.

So basic theory of mutation, national selection and evolution would support the argument that mass vaccination would put tremendous selective pressure on the virus to mutate to evade vaccines. And all else being equal, we should predict this is exactly what is going on with current Covid evolution, with no strong evidence to invalidate this hypothesis.

**This is all assuming vaccines are actually putting strong selective pressure on the virus. Ironically, if you believe the vaccines never worked anyways, than the logical extension of this is that they never put pressure on the virus and would have little impact on virus evolution.

**Another interesting side point is basic theory of pathogen evolution would predict that once it became endemic the virus would evolve to spread better, which normally entails becoming less virulent, and again this seems to be what is happening. A corollary to this side point is that the vaccines themselves may be part of the process pushing the virus to be less virulent, as modifications to evade the vaccine could mechanistically make the virus otherwise less effective.

Remember, the viruses modus operandi is merely to adapt to its current environment and survive, within the bounds set by random mutations and laws of physics. There is no ulterior purpose/manifest destiny it is working towards.

Vaccines don’t “modify the immune system” any more than being infected does. The vaccine has greatly reduced the number and prevalence of variants by slowing the spread of covid and reducing the total number of times the virus has replicated. For all “intensive purposes” nothing really to duspute any of that.

Vaccines and being infected both definitely modify the immune system. That is the entire premise of adaptive immunity. You are technically correct, but for all the wrong reasons.

Your second statement is not supported by either the theory of evolution or empirical history of the last 5 billion years of biological evolution. Indeed, it is when the environment rapidly changes putting strong selective pressure when you would expect the most evolution, as all else being equal the vast majority of mutations are negative or neutral at best.

This is supported by the historical record, which indicates very long periods (millions of years) with little biological evolution on a global scale, interspersed with periods of rapid evolution brought on by dramatic environmental change.

Hasn't basically everyone gotten covid at this point?

I think he is conflating genotype and phenotype. Ironically, even if you are talking about genotype, he is still wrong. As immune cells undergo irreversible genetic modification precisely to "find" genetic rearrangements to fight pathogens better. Technically, every mature T and B cell clone in your body has a unique genotype that is distinct from every other immune cell and your somatic genotype.

It should be noted these modifications aren't technically heritable, as the DNA in your germ line cells dont carry the specific modifications. However, your somatic genotype does specify the bounds of possible modifications of what adaptive modifications can take place. So basically, some people will heritably be more likely to have better secondary immune responses than others, and this is definitely heritable and can be selected for under the right evolutionary pressure.

September 6, 2022
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1...AHA.122.059970
Associations were stronger in men younger than 40 years for all vaccines. In men younger than 40 years old, the number of excess myocarditis events per million people was higher after a second dose of mRNA-1273 than after a positive SARS-CoV-2 test (97 [95% CI, 91–99] versus 16 [95% CI, 12–18]).

Vaccines aren’t rapidly changing the environment. They are based on the same adaptive immune system found in all mammals and is hundreds of millions of years old. There is good evidence vaccines have reduced variants as delta and omicron first mutated and spread in areas with low to 0 vaccination rate.

Vaccines absolutely are changing the environmental landscape for the virus. I dont know what to tell you. You have a interesting combination of very strong beliefs that dont seem to be open towards any challenge, and at the same time they are completely wrong.

The idea that mass vaccination isn't changing the environmental landscape for the virus is analogous to me arguing there is no such thing as gravitational force or we would all be sucked into the sun. It is just completely wrong.

There is the concept our half-assed attempts at mass vaccination could have created an environment that would actually facilitate viral evolution. Basically, part of the population is getting vaccinated, which is putting selective pressure on the virus to escape the effects of vaccination, while part of the population isn't; allowing the virus to propagate, spread and mutate in the first place.

But semi mass vaccination altering the environmental landscape of the virus, potentially driving adaptation and evolution is still part of this concept. Even if Omicron initially "evolved" independent of mass vaccination (I dont know this to be true but for the sake of argument lets say it is) the most logical explanation for why it quickly became the dominant strain in populations that had been mass vaccinated was its ability to evade the immune modifications the vaccines caused.

They aren’t very strong beliefs, it’s just a basic summary of the state of affairs. I don’t think there is any point discussing crazy, idiosyncratic views with a nonsense poster so I’ll stop now.

I’ll just leave this here for anybody else, but it’s not really something that can be discussed in detail on this forum.

COVID-19 vaccines dampen genomic diversity of SARS-CoV-2: Unvaccinated patients exhibit more antigenic mutational variance

I have read specialists in this segment argue otherwise.

For instance if you create a good vaccine that slows down the spread of Alpha, that clears the way MORE for Delta (and other variations) to outcompete and become dominant.

If you create a good vaccine that slows down Delta, then Omicron (and other variants) can more easily become dominant.

Thus while you cannot say for sure the Vaccine had an impact on which strain became dominant NEXT, you can say it handicapped prior strains in a way that almost ensures they will be outcompeted and lose their place.

Thus the vaccine is playing an active role in blocking others from winning and allowing others to go by mostly unobstructed to become dominant.

Think about the start of a Marathon and you, I and 10 others all grab one participant and stop them from running effectively or we slow them down greatly. We are not directly picking who wins but we are impacting who wins very directly. Sure you can argue they may have won regardless but you cannot deny the impact we had on the race regardless.

Just because a variant becomes "dominant" doesn't mean it will just as dangerous. To use your marathon example, if everyone in the race is just out for a "fun run" except for the one you harass, the world record is now in no danger of falling.

There is a big assumption in the bolded which i do not think can be defended.

Omicron was more efficient than both Alpha and Delta in spread, if i recall right. Can anyone say definitively if we had no vaccines we would not have had a less virulent form of Alpha or Delta, that may have taken up enough bodies to stop Omicron emerging? Or another strain of Omicron that was less spreading than the one we got?

we are speaking to multiple probabilities based on big assumptions. If there was no vaccine and both Alpha and Delta remained more in competition, we cannot say the total numbers they infected would be more than Omicron did.

This is more of a 4X4 relay race where the baton is handed off to the next runner. Alpha to Delta to Omicron with no real pause in between. Alpha or Delta inhabiting more bodies as Omicron or some other variant was trying to become dominant might have equalled less rapid spread for a period, as it might have taken omicron longer to find the host bodies free of covid to get to R1 and beyond.


What i think the vaccine did was allow less serious variants replicate and become dominant quicker which is a good thing, even if more people were catching covid and it made illness less on top of that.

agreed, See my last post.

But to deny the vaccine has a role in what 'wins' or becomes dominant is not accurate. We may not be picking the winner, and the winner might be the same, but we still impacted the road way to clear the way for the winner by taking out other competitors. Ones that could also evolve and perhaps outcompete the 'winner' if they were not slowed in the race.

For instance can you say had no vaccines been found, Delta not slowed, that another variant of delta and not Omicron would have become dominant next? Can anyone speak definatively and say 'Omicron or New Delta variant' would have been the more efficient/spreading/dangerous? We do not know. We do know Alpha and Delta were pretty effectively taken out of the race though.

Just read the preprint I posted. If you disagree with what they say fine, but nobody here probably cares and this is not a place to debate scientific articles.

The premise of the article is that vaccination is exerting selecting pressure on viral evolution, in this case by restricting escape pathways and lowering overall diversity. That article is completely compatible with my argument, and incompatible with your understanding of viral evolution.

Also, it is very possible (probable?) vaccination would drive the virus to evolve into less virulent forms. As the mutations the virus would have to undergo to evade immune detection would likely make it less virulent.

This is believed this is what happened with HIV. The mutations HIV evolved to evade therapeutics also made it less deadly over time.

I said "The vaccine has greatly reduced the number and prevalence of variants by slowing the spread of covid and reducing the total number of times the virus has replicated".

You said that "is not supported by either the theory of evolution or empirical history of the last 5 billion years of biological evolution."

Now you're pretending like a paper saying The benefits of the vaccine "include stemming of rampant viral evolution" somehow is compatible with your view and contradicts mine.

We're apparently not allowed to engage in protracted discussion here anymore so I'll just leave it at that.

Did you read the actual paper, or just the title? The authors explicitly state that in their opinion their data suggests that vaccination is driving escape variants against B cell (but not T cell) protection, AND reducing overall viral variation.

Regardless, central to their thesis (and congruent with our entire understanding of evolution and immunology) is the idea that acquired immune responses in the human population (due to natural infection and vaccination) is driving virus evolution.

Interestingly, they hypothesize that as the virus seems to be better at evolving escape from B cell than T cell protection; that vaccines that augment T cell protection more (relatively) may be more effective over time. Which actually is an interesting concept.

I read it. Obviously you didn’t if you think it backs up what you’ve said. And you aren’t understanding what they are saying about B and T cell immunity either but again this isn’t the place to discuss any of this so I’ll stop now before this all gets nuked.

How is this not the place I wonder?

Why would this get nuked? Browser specifically said several times that this type of back-and-forth is fine and dandy like cotton candy.