As the world takes the vaccination path, albeit slowly, new evidences suggest that the Delta variant of Covid-19 is capable of infecting fully vaccinated people “at a greater rate than previous versions”, Reuters reported several health experts as saying.
“The biggest risk to the world at the moment is simply Delta,” Reuters quoted microbiologist Sharon Peacock, who runs Britain’s efforts to sequence the genomes of coronavirus variants, as saying. He called it the “fittest and fastest variant yet”.
Public Health England said on Friday that out of a total of 3,692 people hospitalized in Britain with the Delta variant, 58.3% were unvaccinated and 22.8% were fully vaccinated.
In Singapore, where Delta is the most common variant, government officials reported on Friday that three quarters of its coronavirus cases occurred among vaccinated individuals, though none were severely ill.
Israeli health officials have said 60% of current hospitalized Covid cases are in vaccinated people. Most of them are age 60 or older and often have underlying health problems.
In the United States, which has experienced more Covid-19 cases and deaths than any other country, the Delta variant represents about 83% of new infections. So far, unvaccinated people represent nearly 97% of severe cases.
“There is always the illusion that there is a magic bullet that will solve all our problems. The coronavirus is teaching us a lesson,” Nadav Davidovitch, director of Ben Gurion University’s school of public health in Israel, told Reuters.
Pfizer, one of the most effective vaccines against Covid-19 so far, appeared only 41% effective at halting symptomatic infections in Israel over the past month as the Delta variant spread, according to Israeli government data. Israeli experts said that this information requires more analysis before conclusions can be drawn.
“Protection for the individual is very strong; protection for infecting others is significantly lower,” Davidovitch said.
A study in China found that people infected with the Delta variant carry 1,000 times more virus in their noses compared with the ancestral Wuhan strain first identified in that Chinese city in 2019. “You may actually excrete more virus and that’s why it’s more transmissible. That’s still being investigated,” Peacock was quoted as saying.
Virologist Shane Crotty of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in San Diego noted that Delta is 50% more infectious than the Alpha variant first detected in the UK. “It’s outcompeting all other viruses because it just spreads so much more efficiently,” Crotty added.
Genomics expert Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California, noted that Delta infections have a shorter incubation period and a far higher amount of viral particles. “That’s why the vaccines are going to be challenged. The people who are vaccinated have got to be especially careful. This is a tough one,” he told Reuters.
Meanwhile, with 39,361 new Covid-19 cases in India in the last 24 hours, the daily positivity rate jumps up to 3.41 per cent from Sunday’s 2.31 per cent. For 34 consecutive days till yesterday, the daily positivity rate in the country was less than 3 per cent. Presently, the active caseload of India is 4,11,189. At least 416 deaths were also reported in the last 24 hours. The death toll of India now stands at 4,20,967.
As per the Union Ministry of Health, 35,968 patients recovered during the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative recoveries in India to 3,05,79,106. Presently, the recovery rate is at 97.35 per cent.
Under the Nationwide Vaccination Drive, 43.51 crore doses of Covid vaccines have been administered so far. As per the ministry, a total of 45.74 crore Covid tests have been conducted in India so far.
WITH AGENCY INPUTS