R&I – TxPAT ***
The dangerous Delta variant of the coronavirus is spreading so quickly in the United States that it’s likely the mutant strain will become predominant in the nation within weeks, according to federal health officials and a new analysis.
At a White House briefing on COVID-19 on Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health said 20.6% of new cases in the U.S. are due to the Delta variant. And other scientists tracking the variant say it is on track to become the dominant virus variant in the U.S.
“The Delta variant is currently the greatest threat in the U.S. to our attempt to eliminate COVID-19,” Fauci said.
The variant, first identified in India, is the most contagious yet and, among those not yet vaccinated, may trigger serious illness in more people than other variants do, he said.
Another reason to get vaccinated
“It definitely is of concern,” says William Lee, the vice president of science at Helix, which is under contract with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help track the variants.
“Just the fact that it’s so transmissible means that it’s dangerous,” Lee says, “and so I think you’ll see outbreaks of Delta around the country and more people will get sick from it.”
So Fauci says the rising threat posed by the Delta variant makes it more urgent than ever that more people roll up their sleeves to get vaccinated, especially given how close the country is to finally getting back to normal.
“We have the tools so let’s use them and crush the outbreak,” Fauci says.
At the beginning of May, Helix researchers spotted a drop in the prevalence of the Alpha variant, a contagious strain first spotted in the U.K. that had quickly become the dominant variant in that country and the U.S.
The researchers discovered the drop in relative frequency of the Alpha variant in their spot checks of strains circulating in the U.S. was due to a rapid increase in two other variants: the Gamma variant, first spotted in Brazil; and the Delta variant. The Gamma variant may be slightly better than the original strain at outmaneuvering the vaccines, researchers say.
But the Delta variant is two to three times more contagious than Gamma, indicating it would quickly become the dominant strain, Lee says.
RandyMarsh
Article URL : https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/06/22/1008859705/delta-variant-coronavirus-unvaccinated-u-s-covid-surge