Re: On Covid Misinformation
If you want to get pedantic, sure, mRNA vaccines aren't "traditional" in that they don't use a dead or weakened version of the virus. However, the fact that they are aimed more at preventing severe disease and death, not infection, is what I was going for when I said "traditional."
As for their efficacy, they are still remarkably effective. Since this is a novel virus we don't really have any data on how the long-term effects work, so researchers are using the one thing they can measure: anitbody levels. High antibody levels means your immune system is on high alert for any foreign invaders, or maybe is even fighting off something. However, antibodies are really only the first-line of defense for your immune system. There's also various kinds of T-cells, which can maintain a memory of how it fought off the same virus before, and NK cells. It's pretty high level, but you should check out the Cells at Work anime on Netflix. It actually does a pretty good job of describing how the body reacts to various things.
Finally, not all viruses evolve, or mutate, at the same rate. Plus, vaccines like MMR have been mandated for so long that finding someone who hasn't gotten the vaccine is pretty rare. That creates a situation where, even if there were a giant cloud of Mumps virus floating around your area, it may infect people but their immune system would know how to take care of it quickly and they may not even know that they were ever infected. That doesn't give the virus much time in which to multiply and spread. And even if it spreads, it just finds another dead end in a vaccinated host. The thing that sets viruses apart from bacteria, is viruses need a host to survive and multiply. Some can survive outside the body longer than others, but eventually they all die. Covid is a particularly fast evolving virus, and when you literally have millions of little laboratories all over the world, the idea that a new strain emerges is simply logical.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
