One of the students in my evolution course asked a great question about whether vaccination will make it more likely that resistant variants will evolve. Here was my answer. 🧵

Super short version:

No, vaccines don't cause variants. (And antibiotics don't cause resistance). That's not how mutation and natural selection work.

2/n

Longer version:

To answer this question, we need to consider that there are two different and independent processes at work. Then we can talk about the circumstances that make for a higher risk of new variants evolving.

3/n

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T. Ryan Gregory

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