CDC document warns Delta variant appears to spread as easily as chickenpox and cause more serious infection

And she said everyone in schools – students, staff and visitors – should wear masks at all times.

“The measures we need to get this under control – they’re extreme. The measures you need are extreme,” Walensky told CNN.

She said the data in the report did not surprise her. “It was the synthesis of the data in one place that was sobering,” she said.

The CDC’s presentation says the Delta variant is about as transmissible as chickenpox, with each infected person infecting an average of eight or nine others. The original line was about as transmissible as the common cold, with each infected person transmitting the virus to about two other people on average.

This infectivity is known as R0.

“When you think of diseases that have an R0 of eight or nine, there aren’t many,” Walensky told CNN.

And if vaccinated people get infected anyway, they have as many viruses in their bodies as unvaccinated people. This means that they are as likely to infect someone other than unvaccinated people who are infected.

“The bottom line was that unlike other variants, people who were vaccinated, even if they didn’t get sick, were infected and shed the virus at levels similar to unvaccinated people who got infected,” Dr. Walter Orenstein, who runs the Emory Vaccine Center and has viewed the documents, told CNN.

But those vaccinated are safer, the document said.

“Vaccines prevent over 90% of serious illnesses, but may be less effective in preventing infection or transmission,” one reads. “As a result, more breakthroughs and more community spread despite vaccination.”

It says vaccines reduce the risk of serious illness or death by 10 times and the risk of infection three times.

The presentation also cites three reports that indicate that the Delta variant – initially known as B.1.617.2 – could cause more severe disease.

The CDC, the document advises, should “recognize that the war has changed.” It recommends vaccination mandates and universal mask requirements.

The virus is once against the outbreak in the United States – especially in areas where fewer people are vaccinated.

The United States has averaged over 66,900 new daily cases over the past week – an average that has generally risen since the country hit a 2021 low of 11,299 daily cases on June 22, data shows from Johns Hopkins University.

“The number of cases we have now is higher than any number we have had on any given day last summer,” Walensky told CNN.

As of Wednesday, cases increased in all but one state in the past seven days compared to the previous week, according to Johns Hopkins.

“The only thing I will say is that I have been encouraged over the past couple of days to see more people taking action in response to the fact that it’s bad – more organizations, businesses, States, localities are taking the necessary steps to get us out of this, ”Walensky said.

The CDC paper reviews new “communication challenges” resulting from groundbreaking infections, as well as the need to reorganize public health messages to highlight vaccination as the best defense against the Delta variant.

The agency should “improve (the) public understanding of breakthrough infections” and “improve communications around individual risks among vaccinees,” he said.

“This is an American tragedy. People are dying – and will die – who don’t have to die. If you aren’t vaccinated, you don’t have to die,” Biden said in remarks at the White House. . “Read the news. You will see stories of unvaccinated patients in hospitals, as they lie in bed dying from Covid-19, they ask, “Doc, can I get vaccinated? The doctors have to say, ‘Sorry, it’s too late.’ “

This story has been updated with additional reports.