If you’re vaccinated for COVID-19, should you be concerned about the Delta variant?
With the new COVID-19 Delta variant accounting for 51.7% of new cases of the virus in the U.S., should vaccinated people be worried?
According to the CDC, the Delta variant is currently the most dominant strain of COVID-19 in the U.S.
The Delta Variant is a form of COVID-19 that Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infection Disease, recently described as the “greatest threat” to the effort of stopping COVID-19.
The Associated Press recently found that almost all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. were people who were unvaccinated. The AP found that in May, of the more than 18,000 people who died from the virus, only about 150 people were fully vaccinated, or less than 1%.
The AP also found that out of people who were fully vaccinated, “breakthrough infections” occurred in fewer than 1,200 out of 853,000 people, or roughly 0.1%.
Nearly 49% of Illinois residents — or 6.2 million people — has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. In St. Clair County, the percentage of the population that has been fully vaccinated falls to 40.3%. In Madison County, that rate stands at 42%.
As of Tuesday, 47.6% of U.S. citizens have been fully vaccinated and 55.1% have received at least one shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Delta variant, meanwhile, has spread rapidly through Missouri. Seventeen more people in southwest Missouri died from COVID-19 over a two-week period period from June 21 to July 4 and were disclosed Tuesday by the Springfield-Greene County Health Department, the Kansas City Star reported.
The dead ranged in age from 40s to 90s, and none of those who died were fully vaccinated, health officials said.
So how effective are vaccines against the Delta variant?
Currently, all studies so far show that the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are all still “highly effective” against the Delta strain when it comes to keeping people who catch the virus out of the hospital, according to reporting by The New York Times.
However, in an article on the ranging studies, the Times also reported that British researchers in May found that two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had an effectiveness of around 88% against the Delta Variant and a June study in Scotland found the vaccine was 79 percent effective.
On Monday, the Israeli Ministry of Health reported its study on Pfizer’s vaccines effectiveness against the Delta strain stood at 64%. In May, the effectiveness stood at around 95%.
The variant was first detected in India late last year and is 50 to 60% more transmissible than the alpha strain of the virus. States with below-average vaccination rates have almost triple the rate of new COVID-19 cases compared to states with above-average vaccination rates, according to new data from Johns Hopkins University.
Currently, according to the CDC, the Delta variant has accounted for roughly 80% in neighboring Missouri. Missouri has seen a 45% increase in new cases and 24% increase in hospitalizations due to COVID-19 over the last two weeks.
The World Health Organization is encouraging anyone, vaccinated or unvaccinated, to continue to wear mask to help slow the spread of COVID-19 and its newer strains. Both the CDC and the WHO are strongly urging people get vaccinated as well, as it is the best way to combat the virus.