PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — For many months, we have heard stories about the coronavirus variants. Much has been said about the UK and Brazilian strains of the virus.
University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine Microbiology Department Chairman Dr. Frederic Bushman said he is finding those strains in patients right here in Philadelphia, relaying why vaccinating everyone worldwide is so important.
"We are sequencing viral variants in our area. It's now all variants of concern, or variants of interest. 95% in our last batch are the B117, the UK-derived strain or the Brazilian-derived strain or others," he said.
"It's changing fast. We have seen multiple times now where the virus has evolved in ways immeasurably to allow it to grow better and spread better between people. Some of the variants like the B117, the UK-derived variant, seem to be more pathogenic. They are more likely to harm you if you get infected. Same with the P1 Brazil derived strain."
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Because of these variants, Bushman emphatically recommends that everyone get vaccinated.
"For now, the vaccine works against all the variants that we have," he said.
"Boy, I favor bringing the battle to the enemy. Get vaccinated. Do everything to try to drive the virus to really low levels so it can't evolve to grow efficiently on people."
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Bushman shared the challenge many in our country face to overcome the hesitancy to get vaccinated.
"It's understandable that people want to know if it is safe or not," he said.
"However, we are building up a lot of experience now that the vaccines really are quite safe and that they are really quite effective. This disease is really bad. It's killed half a million Americans so I would urge people to get vaccinated."