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The Delta coronavirus variant, which destroyed India and forced the UK to delay the removal of the rest of the coronavirus restrictions, is on the rise in the US. What it means to you depends entirely on who you are and where you live.
Experts say we will be watching the emergence of COVID “two Americas”: one with high vaccination rates, where the Delta coronavirus variant poses little threat; the other, those with low levels of vaccines, who will be vulnerable to the new flood of fatalities. This division is largely driven by partisan politics, with higher vaccination rates in liberal cities and lower in conservative strongholds in the deep South and in rural areas across the nation.
“I call it COVID nationwide,” Peter Hotez, a vaccine researcher at Baylor Medical University in Houston, told BuzzFeed News.
At all low vaccination rates, the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, increasing the risk of new and more dangerous variants appearing. With the vaccine around the world Very backward from the USIt is likely that the Delta variant will be followed by others.
The Delta variant, also known as B.1.617.2, was first seen in India at the end of 2020 and is believed to have been promoted from that country A tremendous rise in COVID-19, which began in March. It has since spread More than 80 countries worldwide, including the U.S. – the CDC officially named him on Tuesday “variant of concern“.
Public Health England data indicate that it is among the Delta variants 40% and 60% more pollutants Rather than the Alpha variant, it is also known as B.1.1.7. It was first identified in the UK and is now the most common variant in the US, the Alpha variant is much more transmissive than previous forms of coronavirus.
So far, the vaccines seem to be in place providing good protection against most variants. The Delta variant appears to be able to escape partial immunity to coronavirus. Although it seems that people who are fully vaccinated are still well protected, those who have been given a single shot of the two-dose vaccine remain weaker.
A study in the UK found that two doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine were 88% effective against the development of a COVID case with Delta variant symptoms – not the 93% efficacy observed against the Alpha variant. After a single dose, only about 33% of the vaccine was effective against the Delta variant, more than 50% against Alpha. There is no clear natural immunity to a previous infection to protect people from the Delta variant.
There are indications that the Delta variant can cause more serious illnesses. An examination cases in Scotland it was reported this week that the risk of hospitalization with the Delta variant has doubled compared to people infected with the Alpha variant.
“This is a nasty virus,” John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, told BuzzFeed News.
With the Delta variant now think about the account In more than 90% of new infections in the UK, and cases and hospitalizations are on the rise again, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Tuesday delay Restrictions on coronaviruses remaining in England, scheduled for June 21, to be removed for at least four weeks. (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland set their own health rules, but have made similar moves.)
In the U.S., the Delta variant now appears to be expanding faster than the Alpha variant as it rises to dominance, according to data outbreak.info, A coronavirus monitoring project led by Scripps Research researchers in La Jolla, California.
It is not clear how quickly and completely dominate Delta as it has done in the UK, where the Alpha variant has replaced an almost entirely affected occurrence. In the U.S., as more competing variants are circulating, it’s harder to predict what will happen, computational biologist Bette Korber of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico told BuzzFeed News. But Delta hopes to become the most common variant in the U.S. in a few weeks. “It’s moving really fast,” Korber said.
Health experts say the U.S. can largely protect against the Delta variant by rapidly boosting vaccine rates. it has slowed in recent months. But they are afraid that some people who have not yet been vaccinated will be able to study what happened to the Alpha variant and decide to wait and see.
In late March, when COVID was piling up in Michigan and cases began to grow nationally, CDC director Rochelle Walensky described her “sense.”close conviction”About a fourth wave of US coronavirus caused by alpha strain. But it had a short run and short duration.
Given the expected speed of the spread of the Delta variant and the fact that one dose of vaccine is not sufficient to provide good protection, it is dangerous to decide to delay the vaccination. “Some of these people will suffer a bad surprise,” Bob Wachter, president of the Department of Medicine at the University of San Francisco in California, told BuzzFeed News.
Few vaccinations in the south and in rural areas across the country are the most vulnerable to the Delta variant. “I think there are great opportunities coming up in the winter or fall and there will be significant increases and people who have barely been vaccinated will go on strike and strike in regions with low vaccination rates,” Wachter said.
But it might be difficult to convince people who have so far refused to be vaccinated, as skepticism seems to be driven by largely strengthened political allegiances. According to one CBS News / YouGov survey It was published this week that only 52% of Republicans have been partially or completely vaccinated and 29% say they have no intention of getting vaccinated. Among Democrats, 77% said they already have the vaccine and 5% said they have no plans to shoot.
Vaccine-wide data released at the regional level show a close relationship with the vote in the 2020 presidential election.
“Somehow, we need to break this idea of loyalty to conservatism and the Republican Party by not getting vaccinated,” Hotez said. “It’s very worrying.”
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