More Metaphors--Wet Wood and Poison

 I posted earlier on nuclear reactions as a metaphor possibly explaining the rise in murders recently.  The key point is the reactivity--when the population becomes younger for whatever reason (baby boom, oldsters observing lockdowns, oldsters dying from covid) the interactions among people change a bit without the cushioning effect of the older.   A similar logic could apply to the pandemic--as more people are vaccinated, the reactivity goes down.

I came across a new metaphor today in a discussion of the effects of the vaccine.  The metaphor is wood, as in forest fires.  If the wood is very dry it catches fire easily, if there's been rain it doesn't. From that perspective the vaccine has the effect of dampening the wood.

A separate metaphor was poison--in a Post story explaining vaccination, the point is that the vaccine isn't binary, like shutting the door on the virus.  It's more like a poison.  So when the body is infected, the virus attacks and is multiplying, but then it starts to encounter the poison (as the immune system ramps up).  The virus starts to be poisoned, reducing its reproduction rate.  So testing may give a positive test during the time the virus is in its struggle with the immune system, as hopefully it's in its death throes.