What you need to know about COVID-19 variants

So far, roughly 213 million COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the United States, with more than a quarter of the nation fully vaccinated. The virus is still spreading, with cases rising in many parts of the country. Each time the virus transmits is another opportunity for a mutation to occur, potentially creating a new — and possibly more problematic — strain of the virus. The Biden administration recently allocated $1.7 billion to fight these troubling variants. Earlier this month, Rush University Medical Center in Chicago launched an advanced molecular lab dedicated to monitoring a...