Coronavirus Live News: Higher Risk of Hospitalization with Delta Variant, Study Finds; Australia registers 1,035 cases | World news

September will be a key month for monitoring Covid-19 as students return to school in Englandsaid Dr Mike Tildesley, member of the government’s advisory body, Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modeling (Spi-M).

Speaking on Times Radio this morning, Dr Tildesley said it “remains to be seen” how things might change when people start to mix more.

I think the main thing for me is actually what’s going to happen next month.

The kids are going back to school, people are coming back from their summer vacation and I think monitoring what that does to the data – and not just the cases, but monitoring hospitalizations and deaths very carefully – will really dictate, I think. , what will happen in the fall.

He acknowledged that the country is in “a whole different place” than it was a year ago.

Obviously we have the Delta variant which is more transmissible, we have a pretty high prevalence, a lot of cases, but of course on the other side we have a very good and effective vaccination campaign.

So I think it remains to be seen how they’re going to trade against each other and what that will do when September rolls around and people start to mingle a bit more.

India reported 46,759 new cases of Covid on Saturday, the highest daily number of recorded cases in nearly two months and the third day in a row the number of cases exceeded 40,000.

The southern state of Kerala, which celebrated the local Onam festival last week, accounted for 70% of the new cases, reports Reuters.

India has also recorded 509 additional deaths, bringing the official death toll since the start of the pandemic to 437,370.

The Delta variant doubles the risk of Covid hospitalization compared to the previously dominant Alpha variant, a new study has found.

The analysis – based on data collected in England – suggests that Delta variant outbreaks are likely to put additional strain on health services, especially in places with low vaccination rates.

The Delta variant is already considered to be much more infectious than the previously dominant Alpha variant which was initially detected in Kent. This analysis highlights Delta’s ability to put people in the hospital once infected, especially those who have not been vaccinated.

In the study, researchers analyzed health data from 43,338 cases of Covid-19 in England between March 29 and May 23, 2021. Only 1.8% of cases had received both doses of the vaccine, 24% had been vaccinated once and 74% were not vaccinated.

After taking into account key factors such as age, ethnicity and vaccination status, the researchers found that the risk of being admitted to hospital was more than doubled with the Delta variant compared to the Alpha variant (a 2.26-fold increase in risk), according to the article published in the journal Lancet.

Dr Gavin Dabrera, one of the study’s lead authors and consultant epidemiologist for Public Heath England, said:

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.

Vaccination is already known to provide excellent protection against Delta and as this variant accounts for over 98% of Covid-19 cases in the UK, it is vital that those who have not received two doses of the vaccine do so. as soon as possible.

Hello and welcome to The Guardian’s continued coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Leonie Chao-Fong.

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