COVID-19 variants that evade protection could emerge if more people don't get vaccinated

Photo: CNN

For everyone who needs the reminder. Getting the sinking feeling that this will get worse, and the societal rift between those taking precautions and anti-vaxxer crowd will never heal.

COVID-19 vaccines are protecting more than half the U.S. population from current strains, experts say. But if too few people get vaccinated, the virus will be allowed to continue to spread -- and the result could be an even more dangerous variant, Dr. Anthony Fauci said.

"Then all of us who are protected against delta may not be protected against zaida (zeta)," the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said in a Q&A with USA Today published Sunday.

If an overwhelming majority of the population is vaccinated, the virus will disappear in the country, Fauci said. But having only a partially vaccinated population means that smoldering levels of infection will carry into the fall, be confused as the flu in the winter and pick back up in the spring, Fauci told USA Today.

And if the rest of the world isn't vaccinated over the next couple of years, more circulation could mean more variants, Fauci warned. (Read more)

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