Unvaccinated individuals not only risk their own health but also pose a risk to everyone else if they contract the COVID-19 infection, say infectious disease experts.

The only source of new variants is the body of an infected person. Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said that individuals who are not vaccinated act as potential variant factories. Schaffner added that more the unvaccinated individuals, more the chances for the virus to multiply. At times, a virus develops a random mutation that provides it an advantage of better transmissibility, or efficient replication, or the potential to infect a greater diversity of hosts. Viruses that have an advantage tend to outperform other viruses, and then constitute the majority of virus particles infecting an individual. If the infected person transmits the virus to someone else, he passes along the mutant version… (CNN, July 4, 2021)