What does the Delta variant mean for fully vaccinated people?

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The United States is seeing an increase in COVID-19 cases driven by the Delta variant. How dangerous is it? Here’s all you need to know.

What is the Delta variant?

The Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 – the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 – was first identified in India in December 2020. After ravaging India and sweeping Britain, the Delta variant is now the dominant strain in the United States, accounting for over 83% of COVID-19 infections.

Is Delta more dangerous?

The World Health Organization calls Delta the “fastest and most suitable” variant, and it doesn’t take it as a compliment. The Delta mutation altered the spikes of proteins that the coronavirus uses to attach and infect cells, and these mutations make it at least twice as transmissible as the original strain. Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called the Delta variant “one of the most infectious respiratory viruses known to us and that I have seen in my 20 years as a child. career”. The Delta strain does not appear to be inherently more deadly, but people infected with the variant have a 1,000 times greater viral load than those infected with previous mutations, according to preliminary research, and they shed more virus over a longer period of time. . The massive amount of virus means more chance of infecting a person’s cells, and the more the Delta variant spreads in a community, the more likely an individual will come into contact with infected people and get explode with an amount of coronavirus that will make them sick.

Are vaccines still working?

Fortunately, yes. All three vaccines approved for emergency use in the United States – Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson – and others not yet approved – have been shown to be extremely effective against the Delta variant. Vaccines appear to be around 90% effective in preventing serious illness and hospitalizations, and 99.5% of COVID-19 deaths in the United States this year have been among unvaccinated people. But the vaccine isn’t 100% effective and it’s not an impenetrable shield against COVID-19, especially when the virus is spreading freely.

Should vaccinated people worry about “breakthrough” infections?

The CDC no longer tracks mild or moderate “breakthrough” infections – cases in which vaccinated people contract the virus – so we don’t know exactly how common they are. But the CDC follows strict infections among fully vaccinated Americans, and as of July 12, there were 5,492 reported cases, including 1,063 deaths. That’s a tiny fraction of the 159 million Americans vaccinated, but revolutionary infections are happening – and are expected to happen. At the same time, “they tend to be mild – they tend to look more like a cold,” says Dr Carlos del Rio, infectious disease epidemiologist at Emory University.

These charts illustrate the difference in death rates between waves of COVID-19 infections before and after a country’s significant vaccination.

Honestly, “I think we are misusing the term breakthrough,” says Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “If someone who is fully vaccinated is subsequently hospitalized or killed by the virus, this is a revolutionary case,” but in the overwhelming majority of cases, “the vaccine still does what it was designed to do – keep people out of the hospital and out of the morgue. “

Do people who have been vaccinated have to wear masks?

The consensus among most public health experts is that wearing a mask can’t hurt, especially in situations where the risk of transmission is higher, such as overcrowded confined spaces, or if you are immunocompromised. . “Avoiding crowded spaces and wearing a mask when you’re indoors and don’t know the immunization status of those around you is a good idea,” Tara Parker-Pope writes at The New York Times. On the flip side, the CDC, citing limited evidence, says vaccinated people are less likely to infect others than unvaccinated people with asymptomatic cases. This would make sense, because people who have been vaccinated generally have a lower viral load, which “makes it less likely that you will transmit – not impossible at all, but less likely,” says Dr Monica Gandhi of the University. from California to San Francisco. .

What about the booster injections?

The Food and Drug Administration has not authorized a booster of a COVID-19 vaccine, and health experts say it won’t be necessary to counter the Delta variant or any other likely mutation in the near future. But on Friday, the Biden administration announced it had purchased an additional 200 million doses of Pfizer in case the data proves otherwise and boosters become necessary in the fall or spring. A CDC advisory group has expressed preliminary support for giving booster shots to some immunocompromised Americans. If a future variant thwarts the current vaccines, a new booster vaccination may be necessary.

Is this likely to happen?

It’s hard to say, but experts are worried. The Delta variant is also found in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Europe, and “the more uncontrolled the spread, the greater the risk of even more dangerous variants,” says Dr Tom Frieden , former director of the CDC. “The variants remain the wild card for the trajectory of the pandemic. Delta may not be the worst strain the virus is treating us.” Public health experts will be closely monitoring hospitalization data over the coming months for signs of an increase in the number of vaccinated people becoming seriously ill, which could indicate a change in the virus. “Right now it’s Delta,” says MIT’s medical director, Dr. Cecilia Stuopis. “In the fall, it may be Kappa or some other fitter variant. We cannot be complacent. We will be living with this virus in one form or another for the foreseeable future, but our actions right now can determine what that future will be. “

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