The evidence was already there: 1000x + more viral load compared to last year's version, and sky high transmission rates R0 ~7 compared to ~1-2 from last year. It's like the nuclear version of the virus has taken over. How much can it adapt further. Also does 1000x higher viral load also mean 1000x higher mutation rate ?
I was wondering why other viruses like Chicken Pox or Measles haven't mutated into terribly contagious or dangerous strains? Why haven't there been variants of these viruses that have required new vaccines?
Presumably because SARS-CoV-2 is novel, it's early in the process of adapting to humans. Perhaps measles did similar things when it started out as rinderpest jumping to humans as long as 2.5 millennia ago, but medicine and science weren't at a level to notice the progression.
1) Vaccination efforts have been spread out over a rather long time, which is kind of a worst-case. This isn't a unique worst case (natural immunity is sometimes similar), but we kind of picked the worst-case schedule.
2) We have a situation where ~50% of the world is vaccinated and ~50% is unvaccinated, which is kind of a worst-case.
3) Vaccines produce a much stronger response than natural immunity.
Normally, with a high-spread virus like COVID19, everyone in a community would catch it, some would die, and we'd all develop natural immunity at roughly the same time. From there on, there would no longer be much selective pressure, since there wouldn't be much virus to mutate.
With vaccinations, we have a giant pool of virus (in the unvaccinated) right next to a giant pool of immune individuals (the vaccinated) for what's likely to be years. The vaccinated individuals, at least in my community, are taking literally no precautions against spread -- even casual ones.
What makes this worse is the ability of vaccinated people to spread the virus and show symptoms.
Easing masks mandates was a mistake imo, we are reacting way too slow, especially since we have always been lagging behind EU. They were struggling with delta weeks ago, so now it is our turn.
This was entirely predictable. Viral variants are always more infectious (easier to spread) than the initial virus. Those variants, however, are also always weaker (less damaging) than the initial virus. It is true in every case of viral variants.
