Viruses are mutating constantly. Some turn out to br harmless, some lethal. We never know in advance what the mutations will be.

Studies are showing present vaccines still effectively

I live on an island with a near zero daily average case count. It's a good place to be!

We have been restricting travel by requiring a 10 day quarantine or a 2nd test after a 3 day quarantine. I feel fairly safe here. But beginning April 5th, we will be opening up our island to travel with only 1 negative test prior to travel.

That will still let in a percentage of infected travelers unknowingly spreading the virus to those they interact with. We currently have 15% of our residents vaccinated, and the grand hope is that most visitor facing residents will be vaccinated by the end of March. (That might include me, since I work closely with visitors, usually without masks.)

I'm trying to gauge exactly when I'll get vaccinated - I figure sooner is better than later when it's my turn - but I am also kind of glad for the wait because my county is allowing some choice in which vaccine and I'd like to see if there is either more information about how the existing vaccines battle the newer variants - or if there will be an adjusted vaccine for the new variants - or a booster for one or all of them planned for the future.

We get a lot of visitors from high risk locations, and many of the folks traveling for pleasure during the pandemic are virus deniers and anti-maskers, not caring too much about how their travel puts the residents of our near zero case count island at risk.

By getting as many of our residents vaccinated before travelers start arriving, we've got a good plan, to get our economy back up and prosperous, but these new variants might be a curve ball we weren't expecting. Still going to be careful when the visitors start arriving. The CDC still says even vaccinated travelers shouldn't travel just yet.

Hopefully it will be okay. They are working on a booster shot.