New COVID variants are raising concern in these states

David Souleles, MPH, Director of the COVID-19 Response Team at the University of California, Irvine tells us, “Viruses mutate as part of their evolution to stay alive and those mutations can occur when the COVID-19 virus is transmitted from person to person. So, as long as the virus that causes COVID-19 is able to spread from person to person, we run the risk of new variants emerging that may be more transmissible, less susceptible to current vaccines, and more harmful.  That is why the new bivalent booster was developed, to target the omicron variant strains better than the original vaccine.”