‘The war has changed’
The arrival of the Covid-19 vaccine made us believe that we have gained the upper hand in our fight against the pandemic. But the Delta variant upended the global response to the health crisis, raising doubts about our chances of finding a sure way back to normalcy.
In the US, where the government bought enough Covid-19 vaccines for three times its adult population, tens of millions of Americans are choosing not to get vaccinated. These people are putting themselves in grave danger.
From the Associated Press: “Florida registered 21,683 new Covid cases on Saturday, the state’s highest one-day total since the start of the pandemic. The state has become the new national epicenter for the virus, accounting for around a fifth of all new cases in the US as the highly contagious Delta variant continues to spread.”
The war against Covid-19 has changed because of the Delta variant, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An internal CDC document leaked to the media said the Delta variant, first detected in India and now dominant in many countries, is as contagious as chickenpox and far more contagious than the common cold or flu. Worse, it can be passed on even by vaccinated people, and may cause more serious disease than earlier coronavirus strains.
The CDC document, dubbed “Improving communications around vaccine breakthrough and vaccine effectiveness,” said the Delta variant required a new approach to help the public understand the danger—to make clear that unvaccinated people are more than 10 times more likely than those who are vaccinated to become seriously ill or die.
“Acknowledge the war has changed,” the CDC document said, an apparent reference to deepening concern that millions of vaccinated people could be a source of wide-ranging spread. “Improve communications around individual risk among vaccinated.”
The CDC added that scientists who studied a big Covid-19 outbreak in Massachusetts concluded that vaccinated people who got so-called breakthrough infections carried about the same amount of the coronavirus as those who did not get the shots. When people get infected after vaccination, scientists call these cases “breakthrough infections” because the virus broke through the protective barrier the vaccine provides.
People with breakthrough infections make up an increasing portion of hospitalizations and in-hospital deaths among Covid-19 patients, coinciding with the spread of the Delta variant, according to the CDC document.
Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, described the Delta variant as, in effect, a different virus, capable of generating outbreaks of infection even among some people who are vaccinated, although those are likely to be far less severe.
“The Delta variant is showing every day its willingness to outsmart us and to be an opportunist in areas where we have not shown a fortified response against it,” she said.
New data suggests that people who are vaccinated and have breakthrough infections from the Delta variant may have as much viral load as a person who is unvaccinated, which suggests they may be able to spread it to others, Walensky said. Such transmission did not happen in any significant way with earlier versions of the virus.
Although the Covid-19 vaccines remain highly effective at preventing severe disease and death, they do not form an impenetrable shield against the rampaging Delta variant. “To maximize protection from the Delta variant and prevent possibly spreading it to others, wear a mask indoors in public if you are in an area of substantial or high transmission,” the CDC said.
Dr. Gigi Gronvall, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the CDC document provides evidence that even as breakthrough infections are occurring, the vaccines remain highly effective.
“Everybody is paying attention to breakthrough infections but the main risk is with the unvaccinated,” she said. “They are at risk from the virus and they are causing other people to have risks that they shouldn’t have to have.”