green_flash t1_j2fqvfx wrote
Reply to comment by Spector567 in Canada will require COVID-19 testing for flights from China as virus surges | Globalnews.ca by EternalPinkMist
If a new variant emerges, it will find its way. Selective travel bans never had any effect. Not for the original strain, not for the Delta variant coming from India, not for the Alpha variant coming from the UK, not for the Omicron variant coming from South Africa.
Besides, new variants can emerge everywhere.
At the moment, it's more likely that immune-evasive variants emerge elsewhere than in China. If you don't understand why that is, read this:
> However, with the virus given relative free reign to spread in an immune naive population, the pressure for it to develop evasive qualities – the sort which could bypass our body’s protective defences – does not really exist.
> “A variant borne of high transmission in a naive population will not be immune evasive,” said Meaghan Kall, an epidemiologist at the UK Health Security Agency, on Twitter. “It does not need to be. It will not succeed in a population with lots of immunity of different flavours.
> She pointed out that an immune-evasive variant could realistically emerge over time from any country with high levels of transmission and the presence of immunosuppressed individuals, who are capable of maintaining an infection for months on end.
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