[ad_1]
Then a new, more infectious coronavirus entered the scene on the left, sweeping through poorly vaccinated southern states, then engulfing the country. Masking in public spaces has returned. Amid the headlines of skyrocketing infections and hospitalizations, especially among children, it has been delta, delta, delta.
In a 45-minute press conference on Tuesday, Dr John O’Horo, an infectious disease expert from the Mayo Clinic, answered questions from national and local media about this new variant.
RELATED: Update August 10: What We Know So Far About Southeast Minnesota Mask Mandates
What will the coming weeks and months look like? Will we one day be freed from masks? What are the chances of emergence of a variant more infectious and harmful than the delta? And should there be a state fair?
Overall, O’Horo’s post was optimistic, but he insisted on the need for people to get vaccinated if they haven’t already.
(This Q&A has been edited for length.)
What makes the delta variant different from the first COVID strains?
The main difference between the delta variant and the earlier strains is that it appears to be more infectious. It’s a little more “sticky”, so to speak, with this spike protein. So less virus is needed to cause this initial infection. And once it’s there, it divides faster and creates a more rapid course of the disease.
It is not transmitted fundamentally differently, but it does mean that there is less room for error when it comes to our other protective measures, especially in settings where we are dealing with unvaccinated or immunocompromised people.
What do we know about the effectiveness of current vaccines against the delta variant?
The effectiveness of vaccines highly depends on what you watch. Existing vaccines remain very effective against hospitalizations and death. Where most of the discussion of reduced efficacy (is focused on) is people who are infected but don’t know it, as they have an asymptomatic infection that is more common with delta than with previous variants.
But it’s not really a vaccine failure. This indicates how much we can trust the vaccine to keep others safe during times of high transmission.
Which demographic group is most affected by the Delta variant?
With the delta variant, we find that it infects people who are younger than some of the previous variants. It is not entirely clear whether this is because this variant is really more contagious to young people or, more likely, because we have vaccinated a greater number of older people, so the more susceptible tend to be younger.
But what we are seeing is that being young is not protection against COVID-19 with this delta variant, especially for those who are too young to get the vaccine.
What do groundbreaking cases (like what happened in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where vaccinated people were infected) say about vaccines?
(Breakthroughs) most often refer to someone who has an infection with COVID-19 despite being vaccinated. I think the definition is too broad because many people who get vaccinated have little or no symptoms. This gives the impression that vaccines do not necessarily work as well as they should. What vaccines were really designed for and what they do in a very admirable way is to reduce the incidence of serious illnesses, that is, those who are hospitalized.
We are seeing revolutionary hospitalizations where a person is vaccinated and still contracts a serious illness. In most of these cases, the illness probably would have been worse if they had not been vaccinated in the first place. But we’re also finding that these groundbreaking hospitalizations tend to occur in people who we believe have weaker immune systems and may not have the same lasting protection from the vaccine.
If you were to organize the State Fair, would you keep it open?
General guidelines given by national and local public health authorities have always been consistent enough to try to maintain masking where appropriate. And I will once again emphasize the role of vaccines here. It might be a little late for the fair, but when you look towards any other type of gathering that is going to take place in the early fall, the more people vaccinated, the less serious the risk will be for this genre. events.
Do you see an exit ramp, given that COVID is likely to become an epidemic respiratory disease?
I think masking in general areas is going to be a relatively short-term thing for this push of the delta variant. Advice offered by the CDC and others has linked the need to mask those vaccinated with local transmission, which will likely follow this drop we’ve seen in other countries.
Now it is likely to become endemic, which means that in areas where you work with people who are immunocompromised or unable to get vaccinated, or have weakened immune systems, such as in healthcare facilities, we will probably need to have it. different precautions and mask longer.
Our plans for normalcy always seem to be turned upside down with the emergence of new variants. It is a very opportunistic disease. What is your fear that there is another variant more dangerous and infectious than the current one?
The more people we see vaccinated, the less opportunity there will be for these kinds of variants to emerge. We will have to remain vigilant as a company for new variants that require additional measures and require additional vaccines. But at this point, the real thing to remember is that vaccines are a way to prevent complications, to reduce the susceptibility of communities and individuals to these variants.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’ve seen these variants arrive in the Northeast and Midwest, where we have some of the highest vaccination rates, much later than they arrived in the states of the United States. South, where we saw the higher initial rates of (unvaccinated). So, protect your community and protect yourself against these future variations. Get the vaccine.
[ad_2]
Source link