We must dramatically reduce the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 through adoption of public health measures and getting people vaccinated ASAP. Unfortunately, continued significant transmission is also leading to an increased number of variants.
The original infections out of Wuhan in

2019 were the D614 variant. Then we saw the D614G variant arise in Europe and it has become the dominant strain across the world, including the U.S. though more contagious, it appears that our therapies work against it and the vaccines protect against it.
Next is the B.1.1.7

variant that arose in the U.K. It has spread to the US, and many of us believe that it will become the new dominant strain in the US perhaps as early as March. It appears to be 56-70% more contagious. Republican legislators in the Idaho Capitol appear to have volunteered to allow

us to study how fast these strains transmit among them by offering not to wear masks or physically distance.
The next variant is the 501Y.V2 (South African). It appears to be about 50% more contagious. We have some evidence that the vaccines will likely protect against this

variant, but if you are bot vaccinated and get sick with it, it appears that convalescent plasma and monoclonal antibodies are far less effective against this particular strain. The latest, and most worrisome variant yet, identified just this month, is P.1 in Brazil, but a

traveler has already taken this strain to Japan. We don’t know much yet, but it appears that the vaccines may be effective against this, but natural immunity to prior strains may not. Many people in Brazil are becoming reinfected.