This really needs a simpler summary that I can digest -- I think I understand but there where many points that I couldn't wrap my head around. I get the comparison with the overuse of antibacterials ... can someone dumb this down for me?
So has anyone else with the requisite background engaged with this argument? It sounds somewhat dubious to me but I can't pretend to have sophistication on this subject.
I think highly of this concern about selecting vaccine-escaping variants due to exposing a lot of immunized people to a lot of infected people, to the extent that I've posted about it myself[0].<p>However, the author is wrong about there being no attention given to these issues, it's a very active research topic in general (although AFAIK not some specifics he mentions like NK vaccines). Vaccine escaping, its consequences, and how to beat it are not obscure topics, but seem to be considered and explored on virtually every scientific endeavor in the last months.<p>Vaccination efforts aren't necessarily informed by those, and more attention to real world risks is warranted IMO. But that effort should build on the growing awareness and datasets about vaccine escaping. And probably it should avoid presenting a solution (NK vaccines) to a problem (vaccines actually making the immune response weaker when escaping happens) that is AFAICS construed from first principles as opposed to experimental data.<p>I have issues with this particular effort, but welcome it if it's a way to foment evidence based, non-alarmist discussion on possible vaccine-escaping and what can be done to avoid it. It might result in opposite decisions to what the author argues, like for instance we may have to massively speed up vaccination in key countries, maybe funded by other countries, or escaping becomes much more likely. There are many ideas around, and fortunately there's a lot of science being made on this.<p>[0] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26071768" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26071768</a>