by Megan Redshaw at LifeSite News
According to research published last week in Scientific Reports, vaccinated people may play a key role in helping SARS-CoV-2 variants evolve into those that evade existing COVID vaccines.
The researchers concluded three specific risk factors that favor the emergence and establishment of a vaccine-resistant strain. They are: a high probability of initial emergence of the resistant strain; high number of infected individuals; and low rate of vaccination.
However, the analysis also showed the highest risk for establishing a resistant strain occurs when a large fraction of the population has already been vaccinated but the transmission is not controlled.
Virologists have a name for variations of a virus that slip past vaccine- or illness-induced immune defenses — they’re called “escape mutants.”
“When most people are vaccinated, the vaccine-resistant strain has an advantage over the original strain,” Simon Rella of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, told CNN.
“This means the vaccine-resistant strain spreads through the population faster at a time when most people are vaccinated,” said Rella, who worked on the study.
The data is consistent with a study released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which showed vaccinated people may transmit the Delta variant — now responsible for 80% of COVID cases in the U.S. — just as easily as the unvaccinated:…
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