All eyes are on the Delta variant that’s now dominant within the US as new Covid-19 cases rise week-to-week and therefore the variant — first identified in India and also referred to as B.1.617.2 — accounts for a growing share.
But trends from Israel and therefore the UK — where the variant became dominant a couple of weeks before within the US — present hope for a less deadly and severe surge than others that have preceded . And experts say that vaccination progress is going to be the foremost critical thought about preventing the worst outcomes.
In Israel, average daily cases are twice what they were in mid-April when the primary cases of Delta were identified within the country. At that point , there has been a mean of 5 deaths every day in Israel. But despite the increase of the Delta variant — which now accounts for quite 90% of latest cases within the country — average daily deaths have stayed consistently below that. In fact, Israel has had a mean of but two Covid-19 deaths per day since the last week of May, consistent with data from Johns Hopkins University.
In the UK , both cases and deaths are above what they were when the Delta variant became the dominant strain within the country in mid-May, but cases have climbed exponentially faster than deaths. Average daily deaths within the UK are about twice what they were when the Delta variant became dominant, and cases are about 12 times what they were.
But trends in death thanks to Covid-19 lag a couple of weeks behind trends in cases, therefore the latest data on deaths should be closer in line with data on cases from a couple of weeks earlier. And even three weeks ago, average daily cases within the UK had multiplied quite the foremost recent daily deaths.
While both Israel and therefore the UK foreshadow some optimism for Delta’s trajectory within the US , experts say that Israel’s outcomes are more overwhelmingly positive due to their substantial vaccination rate.
“In my mind, vaccines are the only most vital factor” within the fight against the Delta variant, Becky Dutch, a virologist and chair of the University of Kentucky’s department of molecular and cellular biochemistry, told CNN.
When the primary cases of the Delta variant were identified in Israel, about 56% of the population was already fully vaccinated, consistent with Our World in Data. But within the UK, only 2% of the population was fully vaccinated when the Delta variant was first identified there, only reaching 50% vaccination within the past week.
“There is reason to be moderately hopeful — with the caveat that the rationale deaths and hospitalizations haven’t gone up the maximum amount is that there is pretty high immunity from vaccination and natural infection in individuals most in danger ,” Justin Lessler, a professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina, told CNN.
In a statement released Monday, the Israeli government said that its analysis has shown the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to supply 64% protection against infections caused by the Delta variant but 93% effective in preventing severe disease and hospitalizations, compared to research from May that reported it to be 97% effective.
“If we picked a flu vaccine that’s effective because the current mRNA vaccines appear to be against Delta, we might be celebrating. They’re only slightly less good against Delta than the originally circulating strain,” Lessler said.
“The concern is places within the US that haven’t seen tons of Covid and vaccination rates among the high-risk population is low.”
Overall, vaccination rates within the US fall somewhere between Israel and therefore the UK. About 16% of the population was fully vaccinated when the primary cases of Delta were identified within the US and about 48% are fully vaccinated now that the variant has become dominant.
And vaccination rates vary widely across the country. but a 3rd of individuals in Alabama are fully vaccinated, compared to about two-thirds of individuals in Vermont, consistent with the newest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The US may be a patchwork now,” Dutch said. “It depends on where you reside . If you reside in a place with high vaccination rates and you’re vaccinated yourself, I’m not overly concerned about you. But if you’re sitting in a neighborhood of the country with 35% of the population vaccinated and you are not vaccinated, I’m far more concerned.”
And while there’s some evidence that the virus may evade innate immunity from previous infections and slightly lower the efficacy of the vaccines, experts say these findings are something to concentrate on, they are not something to panic about.
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Instead, Lessler says the increase and spread of the Delta and Alpha variants are a “warning that the virus goes to still evolve and still — therein evolution — find ways around existing immunity,” but that the hope is that vaccines will “virtually eliminate severe disease” for quite a while .
