Hundreds of fully vaccinated people in England are hospitalised with the highly contagious Delta coronavirus variant, scientists said on Friday.
In their latest COVID-19 update, Public Health England (PHE) experts also warned are “> there have been early signs that folks who have been inoculated could also be ready to transmit the Delta strain as easily as those that haven’t received any jabs.
From July 19 to August 2, 55.1 percent of the 1,467 people hospitalised with the Delta variant were unvaccinated, PHE said, while 34.9 percent – or 512 people – had received two doses dubbed “freedom day”, July 19 was the date England significantly eased lockdown restrictions.
All vaccines in use within the uk – those produced by AstraZeneca, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech – require recipients to receive two doses to be fully inoculated About 75 percent of the UK’s adult population has received two shots so far .
“As more of the population gets vaccinated, we’ll see a better relative percentage of vaccinated people in hospital,” PHE said.
Jenny Harries, chief executive of the united kingdom Health Security Agency, said the hospitalisation figures showed “once again how important it’s that we all come to the fore to receive both doses of the vaccine as soon as we are ready to do so”.
“Vaccination is that the best tool we’ve keep ourselves and our loved ones safe from the intense disease risk COVID-19 can pose,” Harries said during a statement.
“However, we must also remember that the vaccines don’t eliminate all risk: it’s still possible to become unwell with COVID-19 and infect others.”
Dominant strain
PHE’s findings chime with those from the us Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which last week raised concerns that vaccinated people infected with Delta could, unlike with other variants, readily transmit it.
Vaccines are shown to supply good protection against severe disease and death from Delta, especially with two doses, but there’s less data on whether vaccinated people can still transmit it to others.
“Some initial findings … indicate that levels of virus in those that become infected with Delta having already been vaccinated could also be almost like levels found in unvaccinated people,” PHE said.
“This may have implications for people’s infectiousness, whether or not they are vaccinated or not. However, this is often often early exploratory analysis and further targeted studies are needed to verify whether this is the case.”
The Delta variant has become the dominant sort of coronavirus circulating globally, sustaining an epidemic that has already killed quite 4.4 million people, including quite 130,000 within the UK.
