How many it gonna take I wonder?

@Senecaa I honestly have no idea but it does make me wonder 🤔

@dontbekoi if virus variants keep changing n we have to keep vaccinating against them it could do our bodies a lot of harm couldn't it?

@Senecaa No, really not. It's the virus that does the harm.

You get a flu shot every year - no one dies of the accumulated effects of it.

@Senecaa Mutations naturally happen randomly. Many of them are less virulent and will just die out naturally. Others are more virulent or spread more easily. These are the ones that become the variants we are familiar with, because they have a competitive advantage and will outcompete the existing virus. The more people infected, the more likely variants will occur, which is one big reason that vaccination helps by reducing the number of infected.

@windinhishair Here is a chart showing the changing proportions of different variants:
[quote]Figure 5. Frequency of the 10 most abundant lineages across Denmark within the last 6 months. The frequency is calculated as a centered 14-day rolling average. Weekly increase: 2, 4, 7, 13, 20, 30, 47, 66, 75, 85, 93%. Source: Danish Covid-19 Genome Consortium, 17 March 2021, https://www.covid19genomics.dk/statistics. Accessed 19 March.[/quote]
From https://covidreference.com/variants

It's out of date but shows the principle that new variants arise and if they are fitter then they crowd out the older variants.

@ninalanyon Thank you for this. It is a perfect illustration of natural selection in action in the real world.