U.S. officials are concerned about the coronavirus mutation originating from India, known as the Delta variant, that is more transmissible and possibly more dangerous for unvaccinated people.
The variant, also known as B.1.617.2, was first detected in India last fall and has since reached about 60 other countries, including the United States. The mutated virus has driven a devastating surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths in India. It has also become the dominant strain circulating in the U.K., and Britain’s Health Minister Matt Hancock said earlier this week the strain is likely “around 40% more transmissible” than the B.1.1.7 variant first detected in Britain last year.
Public health experts in the U.S. are getting nervous about the strain making its way stateside, with a growing number of health officials reporting infections in residents who are unvaccinated.
For instance, New Orleans health director Dr. Jennifer Avegno warned city council members on Wednesday that too few people in the state are vaccinated, particularly in rural areas. The state health department does not currently track new cases by variant, but officials reported 469 new cases in total on Thursday.
“We’re not out of the woods, by any means,” Avegno said. “The more we allow it to fester in our state, the more we’re just inviting those variants that are going to outsmart the vaccines.”
In Chicago, the Delta variant has caused at least a dozen new infections in unvaccinated people, according to Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady.
“The good news is that, at this point, we have not seen concerns with variants making people significantly sicker here or the Delta one being very widespread,” Arwady said.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts health officials have recorded more than 150 cases of the Delta variant, while Illinois has recorded at least 107 cases.
Federal officials, such as Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, have warned about the rising prevalence of this strain, especially as vaccination rates slow to about 1.12 million shots administered daily over the past week.
“The news about the Delta variant is evidence of really why it’s so important for us to get vaccinated as soon as possible,” Murthy said on CNN Wednesday.
Officials have ramped up pressure to get vaccinated over the last couple of weeks. The available vaccines in the U.S. protect against the new variant, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, who said the variant now accounts for about 6% of new infections in the U.S.
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Indeed, the two-dose Pfizer vaccine generated a strong antibody response to the variant after the second dose, according to infectious disease experts in the science journal Nature.
“To date, there is no evidence that virus variants have escaped [Pfizer-BioNTech] protection from COVID-19,” researchers reported. “Therefore, increasing the proportion of the population immunized with current safe and effective authorized vaccines remains a key strategy to minimize the emergence of new variants and end the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Fauci and other White House COVID-19 Response Team members implored vaccine holdouts this week to get both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna shots, as only one dose will afford partial protection against the Delta variant. Fauci said a single dose of the Pfizer shot was about 33% effective at protecting against the variant, compared to 88% effectiveness after both doses received three weeks apart.
Most infections due to the Delta variant confirmed in the U.K. are occurring in young people 12 to 20 years old, Fauci said. That age group has only recently gained access to the shots in Britain. The U.K. Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency expanded authorization to include 12- to 15-year-olds last week, whereas U.S. health regulators had already authorized the shots in that age group this time last month.
