Why variant are coming on, hard and fast.


Very simple: The number of people infected with COVID far exceeds anything that has happened in recorded history.
With that kind of base, the probability of more virulent variants increase by an order of magnitude, compared to what has happened in the past.
Thankfully, work on vaccines and other measures against this new enemy goes across national boundaries in order to speed up and reinforce our response.
At the beginning of WWI it was generally thought that it would be all over in a couple of months. The carnage lasted for 4 years plus another couple added on for the 1918 flu pandemic.
That might be a realistic timeline this time around as well.

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