Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPHVerified account

So let’s talk about where variants ARE coming from and under what circumstances Variants arise when infections run wild And selection pressures lead to dangerous mutations that can then thrive Remember, every infection creates opportunities for “errors” – or mutations 2/6

Most mutations are meaningless They will have no real clinical implications But every once in a while, a set of mutations will lead the virus to become more contagious, more lethal, or improve its ability to escape our vaccines So where are the variants coming from? 3/6

UK, South Africa, Brazil –and possibly US (LA variant still being sorted out) Each of these countries had large outbreaks even before their variants took off So what are implications if we ever want to end this pandemic? We have to bring pandemic under control everywhere 4/7

Letting virus run wild, like US, Brazil did, endangers everyone Imagine this Some nations are largely vaccinated But outbreaks are surging elsewhere What might happen? We might see rise of variants that eventually escape the vaccines And make everyone vulnerable again 5/7

In a future where US is vaccinated but others are not We could see rise of variants that can infect, cause outbreaks here and other vaccinated places Requiring us to update our vaccines and vaccinate everyone again It’s the nightmare scenario of a never-ending pandemic 6/7

There is only one solution to put this nightmare pandemic behind us Get outbreaks under control everywhere How? Put in place virus control policies, get people to wear high quality masks, have more testing AND Vaccinate the world Now As quickly as possible 7/9

This is what makes herd immunity advocates (remember Great Barrington Declaration?) so naive They literally advocated for virus to have more chances to mutate And what makes U.S. isolationist policies so naive Because we live on one planet And variants travel 8/9