in general, are virus mutations generally more virulent from what they mutated from, or less virulent?

I have no idea...just trying to gain some knowledge.

herd mentality can't answer.

The idiot actually spewed the term "herd mentality" last night in the ABC town hall because apparently his addled brain couldn't come up with "herd immunity".

Not the right word, but a word.

1. lots of dead people
2. it will be longer if vaccines are a fail or ignored
3. there are new victims every day.

And we don't know enough about COVID-19 yet to know if it's possible to develop effective herd immunity to it. It may not be possible. Common colds are a type of Corona virus and there's no effective herd immunity and there's no vacccine. It's possible COVID-19 may be similar...and much more deadly.

Baaaaaaaaaaa!

herd immunity has actually occurred. So Trump and his band of killers want to kill millions just to see if herd immunity has teeth. And besides, it's a lazy way to execute policy while it's an easy way to kill off millions.

What we DO know is that variables can interrupt any useful field experiments. Let's think of just one: anti-body shifts. What we do know is that anti-body defenses against COVID-19 are NOT permanent. Anti-body defenses do weaken, and a once well-defended human can become vulnerable over the course of time. Without a vaccine, people can become vulnerable again and again, just like the flu. So "herd immunity", based upon just this one factor, can never be achieved.

In some respects, Europeans developed what you could call "herd immunity" to smallpox. It was still deadly, and could spread rapidly, but by the 17th Century or so, it was what you could call manageable. Meanwhile, in the 15th-18 Centuries the European incursion in North America led to untold millions of deaths throughout native populations, largely due to diseases like smallpox.

By the 19th Century, people had learned lessons of isolation and sanitation that could slow the spread of smallpox and other contagions, but it wasn't really 'eradicated' until vaccines were developed in the 20th Century.

"Herd immunity" basically means you determine an acceptable level of infection and death and live with it. Most civilized countries find that unacceptable.