The Delta Rampage: Covid Part III

Intro

My last COVID update is over a month old now. At that time, things had just started to trend in the wrong direction. Since then, things have really blown up in Missouri. For areas outside of St. Louis and Kansas City, Coronavirus is more widespread now than it has ever been.

About two weeks ago I took over as the Administrator of the Dent County Health Center, which makes me my county’s top public health official. Since I was handed the keys, we’ve added about 200 COVID cases in only two weeks. As of July 30th, Dent County has 70 active cases. You can find more info on DCHC’s Website.

Across Missouri, it has been difficult. This surge of Delta variant has been particularly strong in areas of low vaccination rates. Dent County has improved by about 2% in the past two weeks to 24% with one or more doses. At this pace, we’ll be at 100% by Christmas of 2022. As a result, of this dismally low vaccination rate, community transmission has substantially increased. See the NPR transmission risk tool below.

What’s Different with Delta?

Delta is worse than previous strains of SARS-CoV-2 primarily because it is more contagious. A recent study showed that viral loads are 1000 times higher in the lungs of infected individuals than with wild-type (original) virus. In addition, because of these high viral loads, even vaccinated individuals are contracting and spreading the virus. This information was behind the CDC’s recent recommendation for everyone to put the masks back on.

Wait, so the vaccine doesn’t work?

Don’t worry, the vaccine still works. It is over 90% effective at reducing severe illness even against Delta. This is extremely strong protection. However, it’s a numbers game, and 10% susceptibility does mean that a lot of vaccinated people can still get very sick from the virus. That’s why continued social distancing and mask wearing is important.

I recently heard that 40% of hospitalized patients in the UK are VACCINATED. What is up with that?

Good question. Fortunately, this is an illusion of the numbers. This is actually a good sign that people in the UK are getting vaccinated and that the vaccine IS working. In the UK, the total number of hospitalizations is DOWN, but since the vaccination rate is UP, there are fewer and fewer unvaccinated people to make up any portion of the hospitalized population.

Let’s compare some possibilities:

As the number of vaccinated people goes up, two things are expected:

1. Total cases and hospitalizations will go down and
2. The percentage or ratio of hospitalized vaccinated people will go up.

In our scenarios above, I would much rather see 30% of hospitalizations be vaccinated people than 0%, as the total number of cases is lower and the overall risk of death is lower.

What’s this about LAMBDA… are they already queuing up another reason to control us?

Not quite. Lambda is another variant, and it appears to be more severe than Delta. However, Delta seems to be more transmissible, and it remains to be seen if Lambda will become as prevalent as Delta. Lambda does pose another risk, however. It is predicted that the vaccines will not be as efficacious against this strain. At this point, it’s not worth worrying about, as we have enough to deal with when it comes to Delta.

I heard Pfizer’s CEO say that the vaccine decreases to 84% efficacy after 6 months.

This is likely true. Pfizer’s CEO is using this statistic to drum up support for a booster dose, but in my opinion this data does NOT support this on a large scale. The current 2-dose schedule still provides an excellent level of protection. However, it is likely that select groups who are most at risk, like the immunocompromised, the elderly, and healthcare workers, may end up being recommended to for a booster dose. We already have evidence that many immunocompromised people are not mounting sufficient immune responses. This is why we need to increase our vaccination rate to protect those who cannot be vaccinated and those in whom the vaccine doesn’t really work.

Why are they trying to bribe me to get vaccinated?

Some other states, like Ohio, have successfully implemented vaccine incentive programs and increased their vaccination rates. To invoke an age-old analogy, vaccine incentives are the carrot. Mandates are the stick. No one wants to use the stick, so let’s hope the carrot does the job. For more information, you can visit MoStopsCovid.com

MoStopsCovid.com

So what does this mean for me?

If you’re unvaccinated, then you should get vaccinated as soon as possible. Set up an appointment with your doctor or speak to your pharmacist about it. Don’t take it from the CDC or Dr. Fauci. Go ask those who are in the know and who you trust. Until then, I recommend you to wear a mask whenever you’re within 6 feet of others indoors. The mask will help prevent you from getting sick as well as protect others in case you get sick.

If you’re vaccinated, then thank you for making that important decision. Because it is possible you could asymptomatically spread the Delta variant to others, you should wear a mask whenever you’re within 6 feet of others indoors for more than 15 minutes at a time. This benefits you because the longer the pandemic continues, the more opportunity there is for mutant strains to emerge.

It’s still possible for us to get this under control if we all get vaccinated as soon as possible and continue other mitigation efforts. If we don’t we could be facing a new normal with a new and deadly strain emerging every few months. Millions will die.

Questions? Comments? Rebuttals?

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