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Originally Posted by punch it in
Is there anyone else on this board that cares to explain how and why widespread vaccination can stop mutations and new strains ? My head hurts.
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Widespread vaccination and mask use reduces the rate of infection. The more infections, the higher the chance the virus mutates, and variants develop. So reducing infection is essential to reduce the chance of variants. Pretty simple concept actually.
Problem is that we‘re not alone in the world. So high infection rates anywhere encourage variant development. And a new variant can spread quickly as we‘ve seen with delta.
One more thing. The “original” virus (alpha) is not likely to be hosted (carried) by vaccinated people, so they were not likely to spread the virus. Not so for Delta. It has a potentially high viral load even among the vaccinated, therefore masking and distancing is again recommended even for fully vaccinated to help limit the spread.
Sorry about the length of my post, but the short first paragraph answered your question.