Learning to Cope with COVID’s Delta Variant

In India in October 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic took a tragic new twist with the emergence of the B.1.617.2 variant (the so-called delta variant) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the disease. Since then, this particular variant has shown itself about 225 percent more transmissible than previous iterations of the virus.

According to scientists at the World Health Organization, delta is set to become the dominant form of the virus in short order. Whether the delta variant is more deadly is still a matter for researchers to verify, but its ease of contagion is a matter for serious concern. 

The tragedy of India

As India’s second wave of COVID-19 infections peaked in May 2021, doctors were identifying more than 400,000 new cases daily. By late July, that figure was down to about 40,000 new cases per day. 

COVID-19 has left a devastated population in its wake: While official Indian government figures put the death toll from the disease at about 414,000 in late July, some researchers believe that figure undercounts a vast swath of deaths. There could be as many as 3 to 4 million people total in India who have died of COVID-19, either directly or indirectly. Indirect casualties include deaths like those of people who died because they could not access medical care, due to hospitals being overwhelmed by COVID-19.

A worldwide problem

Now, the rest of the world has been introduced to this troubling variant. By late July, the delta variant accounted for more than 80 percent of the COVID-19 cases in the United States, a 50 percent increase over the beginning of the month. By mid-July, confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. were up almost 70 percent over the previous week, and hospitalizations had increased by almost 36 percent. Almost all of the hospitalizations were among the unvaccinated.

Delta is similarly gaining ground in other countries, with the United Kingdom especially hard-hit. 

Vaccines are still the answer

Studies show that the currently approved COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S.—those produced by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson—still deliver robust protection against the delta variant once a person is fully vaccinated. 

And that’s the key: The effectiveness of these vaccines against the delta variant is lower when a person has only received the first dose of the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. After two doses, an individual is considered almost as protected, or equally as well protected, against the delta variant as against the original alpha variant for which the vaccines were designed.

Another point to remember, with delta spreading so rapidly, is that breakthrough infections will occur in some vaccinated people. This is statistically expected, since no vaccine can achieve 100 percent efficacy. Even so, these breakthrough infections are typically mild or asymptomatic. Only a few have produced serious illness.

Protecting communities

Given that the delta variant is exponentially more contagious—and possibly more virulent—than the original COVID-19, a number of healthcare professionals began in July to recommend a return to universal indoor masking and social distancing, even among the fully vaccinated. This not only protects vaccinated adults and teens out of an abundance of caution; it also puts another layer of protection between the virus and unvaccinated children and vulnerable adults.