The virus didn't mutate into less aggressive strains, everyone got T-cells through vaccination or infection, which made subsequent infection less severe.

Which is borne out through the higher death rate in Republicans who didn't get vaccinated, compared to Democrats who did.

And we had situations like Hong Kong which got absolutely hammered by Omicron, even though that strain was supposedly "less severe", because of the low levels of prior infection and vaccination when Omicron hit there.

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OCASMv2 4 days ago | parent [-]

> Which is borne out through the higher death rate in Republicans who didn't get vaccinated, compared to Democrats who did.

Or because republicans never took the threat seriously and didn't took effective preventive measures like reducing social contact, increasing their exposure risk.

> And we had situations like Hong Kong which got absolutely hammered by Omicron, even though that strain was supposedly "less severe", because of the low levels of prior infection and vaccination when Omicron hit there.

Hong Kong focused all its efforts in preventing the virus to even get there. Once it broke through they were unprepared to deal with it, hence the bad outcome.

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lamontcg 4 days ago | parent [-]

> Or because republicans never took the threat seriously and didn't took effective preventive measures like reducing social contact, increasing their exposure risk.

Everyone got exposed eventually. Republicans who didn't vaccinate died at a higher rate when they got exposed.

> Hong Kong focused all its efforts in preventing the virus to even get there.

Yes, that's why it produced a good example of an immunologically naive population, late in the pandemic.

> Once it broke through they were unprepared to deal with it, hence the bad outcome.

Which was Omicron, and it turned out to be just as deadly. Which completely falsifies your argument that mutation led to less deadly strains.

We can see in Hong Kong that it was just as deadly.

In the United States it wasn't, and the difference is due to immunity from vaccination and natural infection.

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OCASMv2 3 days ago | parent [-]

> Everyone got exposed eventually. Republicans who didn't vaccinate died at a higher rate when they got exposed.

Again, due to differences in risk behavior not limited to anti-covid measures.

> Which was Omicron, and it turned out to be just as deadly. Which completely falsifies your argument that mutation led to less deadly strains.

Not really since there's no mention of the treatment or lack thereof used there. You assume the outcome is due to lack of previous exposure when it can just be poor management.

But hey, at least is nice to see people who admit natural infection confers protection. That wasn't the case during the pandemic.

	▲	lamontcg 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		> But hey, at least is nice to see people who admit natural infection confers protection. That wasn't the case during the pandemic. That is incorrect. Nobody with a passing familiarity of the human immune system would claim that natural infection didn't confer immunity. It just also carries a substantially higher risk of death and disability compared to vaccination.