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The American medical system is overwhelmed.
COVID-19-related hospitalizations in the United States last week topped 100,000 for the second time since the start of the pandemic, an increase of almost 500% from two months ago. New UK analysis adds to mounting evidence that suggests the delta variant is to blame, as the hyper-contagious mutation comes with not only an increased risk of transmission, but hospitalization as well. . Indeed, studies now suggest that the delta variant makes unvaccinated people sicker.
The study published last Friday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases looked at more than 40,000 cases of COVID-19 between March and May 2021, when the delta variant took hold in Britain, and compared hospitalization rates to B.1.1.7 (or alpha) a variant. This is the most detailed and extensive study to date of the impact of the delta variant on the pandemic, as it is based on the medical records of people whose samples have been genetically sequenced.
Seventy-four percent of study participants were unvaccinated, 24.2 percent were partially vaccinated, and 1.8 percent were fully vaccinated. The researchers found that 80 percent of study participants were infected with the alpha variant, while 20 percent of them had the delta variant. . After adjusting for age and various factors, the researchers concluded that hospitalization was more than twice as high with the delta variant.
“The results suggest that patients with the Delta variant had more than twice the risk of hospitalization compared to patients with the Alpha variant,” according to the UK study. “Emergency care attendance combined with hospital admission was also higher for patients with the Delta variant, showing increased use of emergency care services as well as hospitalization of patients.”
The United States admits an average of 11,533 patients to hospitals each day, down slightly from the previous week, according to the CDC’s seven-day average report. Yet during the peak of the pandemic in the first week of January 2021, an average of 16,492 people were admitted to hospital each day.
The UK study’s findings align with early Scottish research which suggested in June that infection with the delta variant also doubled the risk of hospitalization.
“Together, these two studies suggest that outbreaks of the delta variant in unvaccinated populations may lead to a higher health burden, especially compared to prevalent SARS-CoV-2 strains,” the study authors wrote. . “The findings are critical for resource planning and policy decisions aimed at mitigating the impact of the delta variant in the UK, where the delta variant now dominates, and in other high-income countries where the rapid spread of the delta variant could occur. “
In particular, the study showed how the number of hospitalizations varied according to vaccination status. Among patients who were not vaccinated or who had received the first dose of a vaccine only, those with the delta variant had a higher risk of hospitalization than those who had contracted the alpha variant. Among those fully vaccinated, there was no significant difference between those who had breakthrough cases with the two variants.
However, the researchers concluded that the fully vaccinated group was too small to be analyzed on its own.
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“This study confirms previous findings that people infected with Delta are significantly more likely to require hospitalization than those with Alpha, although most of the cases included in the analysis were not vaccinated,” said Dr. Gavin Dabrera, consultant epidemiologist at the National Infection Service, Public Health England, in the statement. “We already know that vaccination offers excellent protection against Delta and as this variant accounts for over 99% of COVID-19 cases in the UK, it is essential that those who have not received two doses of the vaccine do so. as soon as possible.”
While the study, and previous ones, imply that the delta variant makes people sicker, there has been some scientific debate as to whether this is because the delta is more transmissible or because the mutation itself is. more virulent. Regarding the latter possibility, this study caused a change in the theories of many experts. In a series of tweets about the studyDr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, suggested that the higher viral load of the delta variant could be the “culprit.”
As Topol previously explained to Salon, the delta variant “has different mutations and is now linked to 1,000 times more copies of the virus in infected people compared to the first strains, so it’s a much larger version. contagious virus; this is the main problem. “
In a separate Twitter feed by Public Health England senior epidemiologist Dr Meaghan Kall, agreed.
“This study found twice the risk of hospitalization for the Delta variant; this suggests that Delta is not only more infectious, but also potentially more virulent,” Kall said on Twitter. “It is possible that the increased risk may be explained in part by confusion due to factors that could not be adjusted in the model, such as the lack of information on co-morbidities.”
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