'The worst version' of COVID is spreading. Can we update our vaccines in time?

[Epaphroditus]

Selective pressure is the term.

The serious issue here is a "leaky" vaccine that (let's presume the 'vax' does as claimed) reduces serious illness (but doesn't prevent infection or transmission). The result is more deadly strains can thrive.

Generally, even with effective transmission reduction strategies, the selective pressure promotes increased transmission. With increasing numbers of the "herd" (lovely choice of dehumanizing 'scientific' language) developing immunity the new strains have nowhere to go except those with ever increasingly effective infectious abilities.

[TrappedinCalifornia]

This is a natural outcome from putting transmission barriers in place such as masks, social distancing, sanitizing etc.

Remember Jurassic Park? Life finds a way. The harder you make it for the virus to spread, the more that natural mutations with increased transmissibility will become dominant, because they're the only ones that can evade the barriers we set up. Same thing with natural immunity, which is why the common cold comes back around every year or two. Only strains which evade the natural immunity generated by the previous strain have a chance... therefore, those are the strains that manage to succeed in latching onto a new host.

The difference is, we typically don't erect these kinds of barriers for the common cold, so it doesn't have to work that hard at it. We put up barriers for Covid, so naturally it is "working harder".

Unfortunately, I guess TPTB didn't see the movie... Newsletter: Essential California Week in Review: A new mask mandate for L.A.?

...L.A. County on verge of indoor mask mandate.

Sustained jumps in cases and hospitalizations fueled by the hyper-infectious BA.5 subvariant pushed Los Angeles County into the high COVID-19 community level Thursday, a shift that could trigger a new public indoor mask mandate by the end of this month unless conditions improve.

Stunning spread of BA.5 shows why this wave is so different.

The proliferation of the coronavirus subvariant is becoming a growing focus of scientific scrutiny, with experts saying it may replicate itself far more effectively than earlier versions of Omicron. Meanwhile, weekly COVID-19 deaths reported in L.A. County are rising fast...

As author Dan Brown incorporated into one of his books...

What we don’t understand, we fear. What we fear, we judge as evil. What we judge as evil, we attempt to control. And what we cannot control…we attack.

You don't suppose that... someone... could be using that thought in conjunction with COVID for some purpose?