Laymen here. Maybe there are some biologists out there to answer this question.
Let's assume:
1, Right now, most states are approaching an international problem (a pandemic) on a national level. Therefore, there are states in which a very high percentage of people are vaccinated while there are other states in which very few people are vaccinated. That on the other hand means, there are states in which the virus can reproduce (and mutate) pretty well and there are states in which the evolutionary pressure on the virus is high but also well defined due to the very limited amount of different vaccines. "Normal" variations of the virus aren't able to reproduce well there, but if there arises a mutation that's immune or at least pretty resistant to the vaccination, it has a huge selection advantage against other variations and thus becomes prevalent there. (Isn't this exactly what happened when the Delta variation jumped from India to England?) Mind: this is not necessarily the case in countries where fewer people are vaccinated since other variations can reproduce themselves and compete in the struggle for existance, too.
2, Now, we divide the population of a state into two groups: people who belong to a risk group and people who don't. Of course, this oversimplifies things, but let's say people in the risk group are dependent on an effective vaccination while people who don't belong to it aren't (as much). "Dependent" means: they have a high risk of becoming seriously ill or even die from the virus, for example very old and/or ill people.
If we combine 1, and 2, it becomes questionable if it's really an act of solidarity to get vaccinated since we basically breed virus variations which are more resistant to the vaccination and thereby reduce the protection of people who are really dependant on an effective immunisation, doesn't it?
Let's assume:
1, Right now, most states are approaching an international problem (a pandemic) on a national level. Therefore, there are states in which a very high percentage of people are vaccinated while there are other states in which very few people are vaccinated. That on the other hand means, there are states in which the virus can reproduce (and mutate) pretty well and there are states in which the evolutionary pressure on the virus is high but also well defined due to the very limited amount of different vaccines. "Normal" variations of the virus aren't able to reproduce well there, but if there arises a mutation that's immune or at least pretty resistant to the vaccination, it has a huge selection advantage against other variations and thus becomes prevalent there. (Isn't this exactly what happened when the Delta variation jumped from India to England?) Mind: this is not necessarily the case in countries where fewer people are vaccinated since other variations can reproduce themselves and compete in the struggle for existance, too.
2, Now, we divide the population of a state into two groups: people who belong to a risk group and people who don't. Of course, this oversimplifies things, but let's say people in the risk group are dependent on an effective vaccination while people who don't belong to it aren't (as much). "Dependent" means: they have a high risk of becoming seriously ill or even die from the virus, for example very old and/or ill people.
If we combine 1, and 2, it becomes questionable if it's really an act of solidarity to get vaccinated since we basically breed virus variations which are more resistant to the vaccination and thereby reduce the protection of people who are really dependant on an effective immunisation, doesn't it?
