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But trends in Israel and the UK – where the variant became dominant a few weeks earlier than in the US – hold out hope for a less deadly and less severe surge than others that came before. And connoisseurs say that progress in vaccination will be the most critical factor in preventing worse outcomes.
In Israel, the average daily cases are twice as high as in mid-April when the first cases of Delta were identified in the country. At that time, there were an average of five deaths per day in Israel. But despite the rise of the Delta variant – which now accounts for over 90% of new cases in the country – average daily deaths have remained consistently below that. In fact, Israel has recorded an average of less than two Covid-19 deaths per day since the last week of May, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
In the UK, cases and deaths are higher than they were when the Delta variant became the dominant strain in the country in mid-May, but cases have increased exponentially faster than the death. Average daily deaths in the UK are around double what they were when the Delta variant became dominant, and cases are around 12 times what they were.
But trends in deaths from Covid-19 are a few weeks behind case trends, so the latest death data should be more in line with case data from a few weeks earlier. And even three weeks ago, the UK’s average daily cases had increased more than the most recent daily deaths.
While Israel and the UK point to some optimism about Delta’s trajectory in the US, experts say Israel’s results have been more broadly positive due to their substantial vaccination rate.
“In my mind, vaccines are the most important factor” in the fight against the Delta variant, Becky Dutch, virologist and chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry at the University of Kentucky, told CNN.
When the first cases of the Delta variant were identified in Israel, around 56% of the population was already fully vaccinated, according to Our World in Data. But in the UK, only 2% of the population was fully vaccinated when the Delta variant was first identified there, reaching just 50% vaccination in the last week.
“There is reason to be moderately optimistic – with the caveat that the reason deaths and hospitalizations have not increased so much is that there is fairly high immunity to vaccination and natural infections in those most at risk, “Justin Lessler, professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina, told CNN.
In a statement on Monday, the Israeli government said its analysis showed that the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine offered 64% protection against infections caused by the Delta variant but was 93% effective in preventing serious illness. and hospitalizations, compared to research in May which reported it must be 97% effective.
“If we were to choose an influenza vaccine that is as effective as the current mRNA vaccines appear to be against Delta, we would be happy. They are only slightly worse against Delta than the original circulating strain,” he said. Lessler said.
“The problem is the places in the United States that haven’t seen a lot of Covid and the vaccination rates among the high-risk population are low.”
Overall, vaccination rates in the United States fall somewhere between Israel and the United Kingdom. About 16% of the population was fully vaccinated when the first cases of Delta were identified in the United States, and about 48% are fully vaccinated now that the variant has become dominant.
And vaccination rates vary widely across the country. Less than a third of Alabama residents are fully vaccinated, compared to about two-thirds of Vermonters, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The United States is now a patchwork,” said Dutch. “It depends on where you live. If you live in a place with high vaccination rates and you get vaccinated yourself, I am not too worried about you. But if you are sitting in one. region of the country with the vaccinated population and you are not vaccinated, I am much more worried. “
And while there is some evidence that the virus can evade natural immunity against previous infections and slightly reduce the effectiveness of vaccines, experts say these findings are something to pay attention to, they are not. nothing to panic.
Instead, Lessler says the increase and spread of the Delta and Alpha variants is a “warning that the virus will continue to evolve and continue – in this evolution – to find ways to bypass existing immunity,” but that the hope is that vaccines will “virtually eliminate serious disease” for some time.
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