Delta spreads ‘like wildfire’ as doctors study if it makes patients sicker

LOS ANGELES – With a new wave of COVID-19 infections fueled by the delta variant hitting countries around the world, disease experts are scrambling to find out if the latest version of the coronavirus is making people – mostly the unvaccinated – sicker than before.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned that the delta, first identified in India and now dominant in the world, is “likely more serious” than earlier versions of the virus, according to an internal report released to the public Friday.

The agency cited research in Canada, Singapore and Scotland showing that people infected with the delta variant were more likely to be hospitalized than patients earlier in the pandemic.

In interviews with Reuters, disease experts said all three papers suggest a higher risk of the variant, but the populations studied are small and the results have yet to be reviewed by outside experts. Doctors treating patients infected with the delta have described a faster onset of symptoms of COVID-19 and, in many areas, an overall increase in severe cases.

But experts said more work is needed to compare results among a larger number of individuals in epidemiological studies to determine whether one variant causes more severe disease than another.

“It is difficult to determine the increase in severity and population bias,” said Lawrence Young, virologist at Warwick Medical School in the UK.

In addition, it is likely that the extraordinary rate of delta transmission is also contributing to a greater number of severe cases arriving in hospitals, the experts said.

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It’s like a forest fire, it’s not a smoldering campfire. It’s full of flames right now.

–Dr. Michelle Barron, Senior Medical Director of Infection Prevention and Control at UCHealth of Colorado

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Delta is as contagious as chickenpox and far more contagious than a cold or the flu, according to the CDC report.

Shane Crotty, a virologist at the La Jolla Institute of Immunology in San Diego, said the clearest indication that the variant may cause more severe disease comes from the study in Scotland, which found that the variant delta roughly doubled the risk of hospitalization compared to a previous version.

The majority of hospitalizations and deaths from coronavirus in the United States occur in unvaccinated people. But there is some evidence that injections are less effective in people with weakened immune systems, including the elderly.

For vaccinated, otherwise healthy individuals, there is a good chance that if they contract COVID-19, they will only suffer from asymptomatic or mild illness, said infectious disease expert Dr Gregory Poland. at the Mayo Clinic.

“But they can pass it on to family members and others who may not be so fortunate,” Poland said. “We have to be vaccinated and masked or we will, for the fourth time now, have another flare-up and worse variants will emerge.”

“Living flames”

The rate of serious illness, especially in areas with low vaccination rates, is once again straining healthcare workers on the front lines of the pandemic.

“It’s like a forest fire, it’s not a smoldering campfire. These are flames right now,” said Dr Michelle Barron, senior medical director of infection prevention and control. at the UCHealth of Colorado.

Research in China suggesting that the delta variant replicates much faster and generates 1,000 times more virus in the body than the original strain highlights the greater danger of this new wave, Barron said.

“It’s hard to say if they are sicker from the delta variant or if they would have been sicker anyway,” she said.

Other doctors have said that patients infected with the delta appear to get sick faster, and in some cases with more severe symptoms, than those they treated earlier in the pandemic.

“We are seeing more patients requiring oxygen earlier,” said Dr. Benjamin Barlow, chief medical officer at American Family Care, a chain of emergency care clinics in 28 states.

At his clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, Barlow said about 20% of patients test positive for COVID-19, up from 2-3% a few weeks ago. Patients are assessed at this time for possible hospital admission and oxygen support.

David Montefiori, director of the AIDS Vaccine Research and Development Laboratory at Duke University Medical Center, said the delta variant is more contagious and causes the disease to develop more quickly – especially for the unvaccinated.

“Frankly, there is a severity that comes from this variant that is a bit more severe,” Montefiori said during a webcast last week. “It’s not only easier to pass on, it makes you sicker.”

Contributing: Joséphine Mason and Julie Steenhuysen

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