Evolutionary biologists aren’t surprised that this is happening.

A vaccine is a novel selection pressure placed on a pathogen, and if the vaccine does not eradicate its target completely, then the remaining pathogens with the greatest fitness – those able to survive, somehow, in an immunized world – will become more common….

Viruses and bacteria change quickly in part because they replicate like mad.

Three days after a bird is bitten by a mosquito carrying West Nile virus, one milliliter of its blood contains 100 billion viral particles, roughly the number of stars in the Milky Way.

And with each replication comes the opportunity for genetic change. When an RNA virus replicates, the copying process generates one new error, or mutation, per 10,000 nucleotides, a mutation rate as much as 100,000 times greater than that found in human DNA.

Vaccine failures caused by vaccine-induced evolution are different. These drops in vaccine effectiveness are incited by changes in pathogen populations that the vaccines themselves directly cause….

Viruses and bacteria also recombine, or share genetic material, with similar strains, giving them another way to change their genomes rapidly Continue reading →

Clynick received the second dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on June 13 and died in his sleep on the night of June 15, the outlet reported.

“He passed away in the middle of the night at home,” Clynick’s aunt, Tammy Burages said.

After receiving his second dose, Clynick exhibited common post-vaccine symptoms, such as fatigue, fever and a stomach ache, according to Burages. But, she said that the symptoms were not severe enough to cause concern. Continue reading →