Just in time for Winter, a new variant arises that appears resistant to both vaccines and prior infection.
It is not widespread yet, but it is 39% if cases in Colombia and spreading rapidly in Central America. One thing for sure, Biden needs to close the southern border to buy time for Moderna and Pfizer to prepare a tweaked vaccine.
They could do it in a couple of weeks, but the FDA will likely drag out availability until a couple of hundred thousand more people die.
It’s still not too late for that drone strike on FDA headquarters.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
The Mu variant has been detected in 49 states, most prevalent in Hawaii and Alaska. Those two states are not even close to any problem borders.
Migrant problem at border is not a significant risk. Those infected are quarantined and vaccinated and the “wait in Mexico” policy is still in place. Perhaps the smarter move would have been to send and help deliver a few hundred million doses to South and Central America.
We have the money, the vaccines, the masks, the outreach. There are few good excuses for us to keep surging, but we are nonetheless.
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I wonder sometimes whether SARS-COV-2 is unusual in its mutation. Does it mutate faster than other viruses; does it mutate differently?
I have read there are tens of thousands of known variants. A year or two seems too short a time for so much variation, or else the virus may be too changeable to be managed by vaccines alone.
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COVID has infected 222 million or so worldwide and killed about 4.5 million. It did so in less than two years. Is there another virus of recent vintage with similar stats? I don’t think so. The Petri dish for mutations is global. Warm climates, cold climates, rich, poor and in between, every single ethnic and racial population pool. Not surprising to have mutations. Lots of them. Some useless, some deadly. Most insignificant.
Like the old joke about an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters (told you it was an oldie) that would write all the great books.
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RE: “Is there another virus of recent vintage with similar stats?”
The Smanish flue of 1918 is recent enough for comparison, with 25-100 million dead.
I don’t buy the argument that the petri dish is large. Current government proposals are calling for vaccine booster shots every 5 to 8 months. Such short cycles are unprecedented.
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