The Perfect Host: How COVID-19 Variants Could Thrive With Low Vaccination Rates In Idaho

By Sasa Woodruff

Published September 14, 2021 at 1:33 PM MDT

FILE - In this Monday, Dec. 14, 2020, file photo, a vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for COVID-19 sits on a table at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Conn. New research suggests that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine can protect against a mutation found in two contagious variants of the coronavirus that erupted in Britain and South Africa. Those variants are causing global concern. They both share a common mutation called N501Y, a slight alteration on one spot of the spike protein that coats the virus. That change is believed to be the reason they can spread so easily. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File)

The delta mutation is causing a surge in COVID-19 cases, here in Idaho and across the country. This is not the first variant to spike infections — and it won’t be the last.

Idaho Matters is joined by Andrew Pekosz, a Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, to understand how viruses thrive and evolve.

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Sasa Woodruff

I moved to Boise in the fall of 2019 to run the Boise State Public Radio newsroom as news director. I help shape the local stories you hear with a phenomenal team of reporters and hosts.

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