The Delta variant has put us in a worse place than a year ago.

[madaboutharry]

So much more contagious, so much more severe, and less than half the country fully vaccinated.

The real tragedy is that there was no reason for this.

I heard yesterday that in a few weeks we might be back to 200,000 infections a day.

[tanyev]

1. With so many refusing to get vaccinated, we were always going to end up here.

If not with the Delta variant, then the next one that came along.

[Peppertoo]

13. We are worse off than we were before delta but not worse off than a year ago

The vaccines work.

In areas where vaccine intake is high, hospitalizations and deaths remain low.

[Initech]

22. My brother is an ER doctor (Sacramento area).

He's said that since March the only people who he's admitted to the ER have been people who have refused getting a vaccine. He's seen like maybe one breakthrough infection, but it was like nothing.

[roamer65]

38. My doctor just told me same this AM.

She said very few breakthroughs and my county which contains two major state universities is doing rather well.

Why?

IMO...more educated, thus a lot less anti-vax nuttery.

[lapfog_1]

2. no reason for this

of course there is a reason...

The body count (and the economic impact) have to be as bad as the last year under Trump's mismanagement... or they lose the narrative.

[hedda_foil]

3. I'm afraid you're right.

[madaboutharry]

4. Well, yes that.

No reason other than malice preying on foolishness.

[Johnny2X2X]

5. We are not in a worse place.

The vaccine still offers a lot of protection for the Delta version, and even 1 dose helps. We're at 57% with 1 dose. And having the virus does provide some natural immunity from it too, perhaps 1/3 of the unvaccinated have some protection because they've had Covid already.

And perhaps more importantly than all of that, the most vulnerable parts of our population are vaccinated at rates much higher than everyone else. We're at 85%+ vaccination among those over 65 in most states. So deaths aren't going to spike as much as new cases.

I don't think we'll get back to 200K cases a day, but 100K is a sure thing. But between the elderly being more vaccinated and younger healthier people still being able to get over the virus easier, the death counts just won't soar like before.

And look to the UK, they had a peak from the Delta already and it was very brief and is coming down fast for cases, and didn't come with a corresponding spike in deaths.

It's depressing, it's frustrating, it's completely unnecessary, but it's not worse than we were last year. I had my check up yesterday and discussed all of these things with my doctor who also happens to have a PHD in Microbiology. He siaid this will be around for another year or two, but the US is definitely well past the worst of it no matter what happens with Delta.

[LeftInTX]

11. Availability of at home tests and Delta cases with fully vaccinated numbers might appear lower

Cases are milder and people are just staying home and dealing with their symptoms.

My daughter has Delta (diagnosed with an at home test) and I'm sick with something. I called her and she says, "Mom, you sound worse than me".

My at home test was negative, but took a PCR test yesterday. Won't have results for several days. I feel like crap. Hubby was also sick. He probably picked it up at work. He had two Covid tests both were negative. However, he was convinced he had Covid. Now I've got this crud.

We're all vaccinated....

[Maru Kitteh]

47. In our section of the country we are having a lot of people sick with

Noro and some other kind of krunk going around.

Vaccinated people, that is.


The unvaccinated are dropping like flies from Delta.

[LeftInTX]

48. If my labs come back negative, I'll chalk it up to RSV or parainfluenza.....

Hubby and I sure are sick. I kinda blame it on all the isolation.
Get sick for the 1st time in 2 years and bam.....


My little granddaughter started early childhood classes (special education) and is now miserable sick. It's not Covid or the flu, but she's miserable. Has never been in a class setting or day care before...

[OnDoutside]

39. There are far worse places but in the context of how much of a head start the US had on most

countries, it isn't great. Here in Ireland, we're now at 70% of the adult population with both doses, 85% with one dose, and they're registering 16/17 year olds with the 12-15 year old group to follow by this weekend. It's something like 98% amongst the Over 70s who are fully vaccinated. The Government are already talking about preparations for a booster shot for the elderly and health workers in late autumn. Realistically that's where the US should have been by the end of last month.

[RockRaven]

6. Speaking of a year ago, it's time for the Sturgis motorcycle thing again in a couple of weeks...

And this one is supposedly going to be the biggest one yet. Consider how it fueled cases last year but make it bigger and add in Delta...

[Mariana]

7. Has there been any evidence that Delta is "so much more severe"?

Is it actually more likely to cause severe illness than the others, for an individual who catches it?

[madaboutharry]

8. That is what is being reported.

The unvaccinated are highly likely to require hospitalization.

[Mariana]

25. Link, please? nt.

[madaboutharry]

26. CNN

[Mariana]

28. Link, please? nt.

[madaboutharry]

29. I don't have a link to my television.

Sorry.

[Mariana]

30. You should be able to find something to back up your claim, if it's true. nt.

[marie999]

43. Do you know how to use the internet to find out about something?

Type in which is worse delta or alpha. Scientificamerican will come up just click on that. There are more articles you will find.

[mnhtnbb]

55. Here's a good summary

Delta is definitely more easily transmitted than alpha, may be associated with higher risk of hospitalization, and may cause more severe illness.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/07/covid-b-1-617-2-delta-variant-what-we-know.html

[Zeitghost]

50. Define

"Highly Likely". Because none of the numbers I have seen meets my definition of that term.

[Ace Rothstein]

16. No, this place is full of extreme doomerism though.

[obamanut2012]

32. it seriously is

it gets worse every year, too.

[Tree Lady]

17. My daughter's work got 6 cases most yet

And only 2 were unvaccinated and all 6 so far got worst cold/flu ever so no-one got positive without getting fully sick. They are back to fully masked again.

The vaccinated ones were 2 JJ and 2 Moderna.

[OnDoutside]

41. It's more the transmissibility that's the issue, rather than serverity, with Delta. So it's

catching more people at a faster rate by what they believe is a massively greater viral load in those first infected.

Summary

We report the first local transmission of the Delta SARS-CoV-2 variant in mainland China. All 167 infections could be traced back to the first index case. The investigation on daily sequential PCR testing of the quarantined subjects indicated the viral load of the first positive test of Delta infections was ~1000 times higher than that of the 19A/19B strains infections back in the initial epidemic wave of 2020, suggesting the potential faster viral replication rate and more infectiousness of the Delta variant at the early stage of the infection. The 126 high-quality sequencing data and reliable epidemiological data indicated some minor intra-host single nucleotide variants (iSNVs) could be transmitted between hosts and finally fixed in the virus population during the outbreak. The minor iSNVs transmission between donor-recipient contribute at least 4 of 31 substitutions identified in the outbreak suggesting some iSNVs could quickly arise and reach fixation when the virus spread rapidly. Disease control measures, including the frequency of population testing, quarantine in pre-symptomatic phase and enhancing the genetic surveillance should be adjusted to account for the increasing prevalence of the Delta variant at global level.

https://virological.org/t/viral-infection-and-transmission-in-a-large-well-traced-outbreak-caused-by-the-delta-sars-cov-2-variant/724

[roamer65]

9. Just wait until Delta starts maiming and killing children.

Especially the children of vaccinated adults.

We will definitely be in a worse place.

The chasm between vaccinated and anti-vaxxers will be light years wide, extremely hostile and potentially violent.

[fescuerescue]

12. What will cause to turn on children?

That would be terrible.

[roamer65]

15. Not children.

Would not surprise me if some of those parents turn on anti-vaxxer adults, especially in a nation so full of guns.

[Ace Rothstein]

20. Where do people even come up with this stuff?

There is no evidence of this from other countries that Delta hit first.

[roamer65]

23. India didn't politicize the virus, nor the vaccines.

It has been in the US, literally hyperpoliticized.

It has gotten so bad they are now attacking an Olympic gymnast.

That’s a true indicator of how dire it is right now.

[Ace Rothstein]

24. India barely had anyone vaccinated.

[roamer65]

27. Correct.

They were in the situation we were in one year ago. No vaccine.

Now we are about 50-50 and one group is refusing mainly due to misinformed political based “quackery”.

Very different situation and the chasm is very troubling.

[BSdetect]

10. My daughter's workplace of about 30 people has 11 with coved and 11 were full vaccinated.

Not sue if infected with covid or delta / gamma.

One (of the 11) very fit 28 year old is really in a bad way. Not in ICU though.

[Tree Lady]

18. My daughter said when I asked about cases

At her job that they test for the delta variant now and most all cases are that.

[samnsara]

14. i dont live in a hot spot but im still wearing my mask indoors

[SWBTATTReg]

19. Change the title of article from 'The Delta variant has put us in a worse place than a year ago.' to

"The anti-vax and anti-mask crowd has put us in a worse place than a year ago."

If everybody or a significantly higher % of people had gotten their vaccines, etc., than the roughly 50% or so as of today roughly, we wouldn't be in this spot so much.

As it has turned out, we back in this boat again w/ one critical difference, a major part of us (50% or so) have gotten vaccinated.

[crimycarny]

21. Pfizer says third dose boosts protection 5-11 fold--possibly 100

Pfizer is in talks to get a booster shot (3rd dose) approved by the FDA. Preliminary data suggests it can greatly increase protection against the Delta variant:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/28/health/pfizer-third-dose-data-bn/index.html

The CDC is saying "not so fast", but I worry they are doing so because they are worried it will lower doses available for unvaccinated. I get that sentiment but if people aren't going to get vaccinated and we have all these doses, why punish the vaccinated? Don't let those who refuse to get vaccinated continue to hold us all hostage to this deadly virus.

[ProfessorGAC]

31. 200,000 Per Day Seems Dubious

There were under 62,000 cases yesterday. 200,000 would be a 3.2 fold increase in a few weeks.
In looking at the Worldometer daily case bar chart, the appears to be no point in the entire pandemic where a few weeks accounted for that great a proportional growth.
There were a couple periods of more than 2x, but both during a period when ZERO PERCENT of the population was vaccinated, and the total number of infections (providing some limited immunity to those victims) was under 50% of current.
Yes, we're spiking upward. Yes, delta appears very contagious.
But, an increase to 200k per day in a few weeks isn't making much sense to me.

[Tadpole Raisin]

40. A month ago the doubling time in the UK was

11 days. There was a recent report that delta in the USA was doubling every 3 weeks although I thought I read that Fauci said in June it was every 2 weeks.

Basically it’s all over the place and skewed by low vacc. areas.

[ProfessorGAC]

44. I Think There's Two Issues There

Fauci was discussing the increase in the fraction of cases that were delta. That number went from just under 20 to over 60 in 3 weeks.
Case rate increase is a separate result.
I agree that there's skewing due to low vax areas. I just looked at numbers this weekend, based upon another DUer's post about Florida cases.
Here in Illinois we have half the people of Florida, but one-ninth the cases.

[Tadpole Raisin]

45. Hope it stays that way for you...

Cheers!

[muriel_volestrangler]

51. The UK peaked at about 50,000 cases per day, with a fifth of the population

and slightly better vaccine coverage. All it would take is the worse-vaccinated half of the USA doing as bad as the UK, and the other half at 60% of the UK rate, and you've got 200,000 cases a day.

[ProfessorGAC]

52. You Stick With Your Interpretation Of The Data...

...and I'll stick with mine.
No snark, just a difference in opinion.
I'm not willing to extrapolate from UK numbers because the distribution of vaccines, by brand, is radically dissimilar to that of the US. Around 20% of UK vaccinations were mRNA. Around 91% here were. To me, with known efficacy differences s, I think it's apples to oranges.
So, I'm only comparing US events to US events.
If not for the vax tech differences, I might completely agree with you.

[Celerity]

53. this is correct (inferior quality of national vax type profile in the UK versus the US)

My fellow Brits often react poorly (hard to blame them, other than the fuckers who voted Tory) when I point this out, but facts are facts. The AstraZeneca vax, for instance, has an extremely poor record against some of the variants. 10.4% efficacy against Beta (B.1.351 aka the South African variant), and under 30% efficacy (9 fold reduction in antibody titers) versus Gamma (P.1 aka the Brasilian variant) for instance. They will likely need to be given an mRNA booster, like Spain and Germany have been doing.


The Com-Cov study, which looked at giving the doses four weeks apart in 850 volunteers aged 50 and above, found:

AZ followed by Pfizer induced higher antibodies and T cell responses than Pfizer followed by AZ

Both of these mixes induced higher antibodies than two doses of AZ

The highest antibody response was seen after two doses of Pfizer, and the highest T cell response from AZ followed by Pfizer

[Demsrule86]

33. That is not true. We have better treatments and those who are vaccinated are protected.

[ananda]

34. We might be there already, but how would we know?

The non and under reporting from states is a big
obstacle to the truth.

[MineralMan]

35. No. No, it hasn't. Unless by "us" you mean the unvaccinated.

They're in a worse place than a year ago. Those of us who listened and got vaccinated are far, far better off than we were a year ago.

"We" got vaccinated. "We" are not going to get sick and die. "They" did not. "They" are at more risk.

[madaboutharry]

36. I was speaking collectively.

Yes, it is the unvaccinated who have gotten themselves into serious trouble.

[MineralMan]

37. It's really impossible to speak collectively about the current

environment. We are not acting collectively, so we can't talk about "us" in that way any longer.

The distinction between the rational people in this country, and the irrational minority is huge right now in many areas.

We have done what was recommended and gotten the vaccinations. The others have refused to do the rational thing, and are now suffering for it. We are very different from them.

[Caliman73]

42. The Delta variant just exists. Partisan hackery and political bullshit put us in a worse place.

The thing that makes coronaviruses difficult to deal with is that they mutate relatively quickly. Many of the viruses that cause the common cold are coronaviruses or their cousins rhinoviruses.

That is the nature of this type of virus and has been known by science for a long time.

We are in this situation now, after a year in which more than half a million people died, because of ONE thing. Republicans chose to put political partisanship over the health and safety of Americans. That is it. No further explanation needed.

Republicans chose to make EVERYTHING about this virus and the response, about partisan politics.

[XanaDUer2]

46. I'm vaccinated

this more-transmisible delta will have me masking up, per CDC guidelines, and distancing.

I feel we don't know enough of the long-term effects of even a mild case. And we can thank the unvaccinated for this.

[apnu]

49. This isn't Delta's fault, its humanity's fault.

We failed and now we will pay the price. We, as a species, won't get our shit together and really fight this thing. Everything that happens here is 100% on us as homo sapiens.

[brooklynite]

54. We are not in a worse place...

Last year we didn't have the choice of a vaccine.