in all of America and Europe, Argentina is now the fifth country where people are less contagious

The “summer” of cases of coronavirus in Argentina, it is spreading. We don’t know for how much. Some consider that by vaccination level the country is achieving, the situation should no longer get out of hand. But the delta has already hurt other countries even with high rates of vaccinated populations.

For now, the situation today finds Argentina situated as the second country in America and Europe with the fewest infections per capita over the past week. He had 174 per million people and it was only surpassed by Paraguay (23), Haiti (42), Ecuador (95) and Nicaragua (102). All the rest of the American and European continent exceeded this figure.

A lower density of infections can be found, on the other hand, in Asia, Africa and Oceania. Cases have again marked a decline in Argentina over the past week, dropping from 20 percent. Although this decline is sufficient for our country to position itself as one of the places on the planet with the fewest new cases of Covid, the downward trend had a slight slowdown.

It could have to do with the Delta variant go slow but go. As reported Bugle This Wednesday, this version of the Covid was detected over the past 15 days in nearly 9% of new samples analyzed by the Malbrán Institute during this period. What’s the forecast for what’s to come?

Experience from other countries indicates that once the Delta variant has passed the 1% threshold of recorded cases, it suffices 4 or 5 weeks to reach 20% prevalence. This has happened, for example, in Mexico, South Africa, Spain and the United States, countries which had similar vaccination levels to the current ones of Argentina. Then it took them 8-10 weeks to get over 80 percent.

Argentina appears until the last epidemiological surveillance report, the threshold of which was October 4, with a prevalence of 1.91% Delta cases concerning community traffic. This means that for the legislative elections of November 14, the country could reach this 20%.

How does Delta differ from the currently predominant variant, Gamma? It is estimated that its transmissibility increases between 79 and 117 percent with regard to the Wuhan strain, and a 60 percent with regard to Manaus, because it has mutations in the peak which give it more affinity to bind to the ACE2 receptor of the human cell.

In addition, in a Canadian study, people infected with Delta had more than twice as likely to be admitted to the hospital, almost four times more be treated in the intensive care unit and over double risk of dying from Covid. This study has been ratified and published by the US CDC.

The viral loads of vaccinated people who were infected with Delta were higher compared to other vaccinated people who were infected with other strains of coronavirus. People infected with this variant have approximately 1,000 times more particles viral infections in their upper respiratory tract than people infected with other strains of coronavirus.

In a study published in the Lancet Journal on August 27, it was reported that the risk of going to the emergency room or being hospitalized was 1.5 times higher for people infected with the Delta variant compared to the Alpha variant. This is the largest survey to date, in which more than 40,000 cases of coronavirus England between March 29 and May 23, 2021.

The Delta variant has in total 13 mutations specific. Four are located in the region of the virus spicules and are the most relevant. They are associated with increased transmissibility, an escape from the neutralizing antibody response, an increased affinity for binding to the cell’s receptor, and a decrease in the recognition capacity of the immune system.

PS