elbows
Well-Known Member
Well going on about that stuff has been a major focus of the WHOs words for a long time now. Too many powerful countries do little more than pay lip-service to the concepts though, so its a long hard slog. I might hope that more is done by countries like the UK once their own establishments 'needs' for securing a huge chunk of supply are different, but I have my doubts.
As for the notion that large unvaccinated populations are where the main threat from future variants comes from, this subject is all fucked up these days, there is double-think and contradiction aplenty that rhetoric does not take proper account of. The actual reality seems to be that there are multiple different sorts of theoretical mutation risks. For example, evolutionary theory that considers 'natural selection pressures' implies that when it comes to vaccine-evading mutations, that pressure actually increases when you have a highly vaccinated population but still huge numbers of ongoing infections. ie in order to still thrive, random mutations that can bypass immunity will end up with a big advantage that could eventually result in their dominance. So arent countries like the UK still a massive threat on that front? Other possibilities exist too, and perhaps we will get lucky eg if the virus runs out of possible mutations that make a huge difference, or those differences also change disease severity in a positive way. But I'd certainly suggest that any country which stops trying to reduce the number of infections is theoretically increasing the risk.
There might be other factors too, eg if a huge chunk of those genetically susceptible have already been killed off. And the picture of individual immunity is probably far more complex than current understanding can properly deal with. eg partial immune escape, whether thats from vaccine-induced immunity or immunity stemming from previous infections, may not be enough to prevent reinfection but may still permanently change the risk of hospitalisation and death. Not completely, but enough to stop the possible number of hospital admissions so easily and rapidly breaching the thresholds that force authorities to impose heavy restrictions.
As for the notion that large unvaccinated populations are where the main threat from future variants comes from, this subject is all fucked up these days, there is double-think and contradiction aplenty that rhetoric does not take proper account of. The actual reality seems to be that there are multiple different sorts of theoretical mutation risks. For example, evolutionary theory that considers 'natural selection pressures' implies that when it comes to vaccine-evading mutations, that pressure actually increases when you have a highly vaccinated population but still huge numbers of ongoing infections. ie in order to still thrive, random mutations that can bypass immunity will end up with a big advantage that could eventually result in their dominance. So arent countries like the UK still a massive threat on that front? Other possibilities exist too, and perhaps we will get lucky eg if the virus runs out of possible mutations that make a huge difference, or those differences also change disease severity in a positive way. But I'd certainly suggest that any country which stops trying to reduce the number of infections is theoretically increasing the risk.
There might be other factors too, eg if a huge chunk of those genetically susceptible have already been killed off. And the picture of individual immunity is probably far more complex than current understanding can properly deal with. eg partial immune escape, whether thats from vaccine-induced immunity or immunity stemming from previous infections, may not be enough to prevent reinfection but may still permanently change the risk of hospitalisation and death. Not completely, but enough to stop the possible number of hospital admissions so easily and rapidly breaching the thresholds that force authorities to impose heavy restrictions.
There were other examples including the USA for a time but people found various ways to quibble about that, and I dont think there is much room for that sort of quibbling with the Hong Kong situation.
