PT23 · S3 · Q13 In 1988, a significant percentage

Because this idea isn't expressed comparatively, we don't know if this is something different or similar for the Baltic seal population. As we've all now seen from COVID, when a viral infection is afflicting a population, most of the deaths will be among the sicker and more elderly, so we would assume that most of the death of the Baltic seals were also old or unhealthy. More importantly, this answer isn't giving us any sense of what's causing the difference in death rates. If we knew that most of the Scottish deaths were the elderly while most of the Baltic deaths were not, that might help a little in terms of suggesting that there must have been something additional (like pollutants) going on in the Baltic situation in order to explain the higher death rate among a less vulnerable population.

This seems to say something so obviously true to common sense that it's like it's saying nothing. "The virus overwhelms impaired immune systems much more quickly than it does healthy immune systems". Cool, that's not news. That's not something that's a specific quirk of the virus in the Scottish sea. Every sickness will overwhelm an impaired immune system much more quickly than it would a healthy immune system.

There are a lot of wrong answers that have been written for Strengthen and Weaken that have this sort of incredibly weak, wishy-washy style: - things fluctuate - differences exist I can't figure out how "slight fluctuations" would make this a stronger, more compelling argument. None of us were assuming that every single Baltic seal's pollutant level was identical, so it feels like we're being told nothing to learn that different seals had different levels.

This could potentially strengthen (or weaken) depending on whether the pollutants found in the Baltic are more injurious or less injurious to seals. All this answer says is that they're "different", so it's not clearly helping or hurting. If we knew that Baltic pollutants were much more harsh on marine mammals than are Scottish pollutants, that would strengthen. But if we knew that Baltic ones were much more benign, that would weaken.