As long as there’s a significant population of unvaccinated petrie dishes out there within which the virus can mutate, we’ll be in this pickle.
This country invented the vaccines and has unprecedented access to the vaccine. Yet, we are currently #19 in the world after steadily falling from #2 in the world on May 23. (source: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-12-16&facet=none&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&Metric=People+vaccinated+(by+dose)&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=ARE~PRT~CUB~CHL~ESP~SGP~KHM~URY~KOR~CAN~CHN~IND~USA~IDN~PAK~BRA~NGA~BGD~RUS~MEX~JPN~ETH~PHL~EGY~VNM~TUR~IRN~DEU~THA~GBR~FRA~TZA~ITA~ZAF~KEN~OWID_WRL)
I realize even if the US was 100% vaccinated, if the rest of the world was not vaccinated, the mutations would continue… but still, we’re not exactly leading by behavior.