Open in App
  • Local
  • U.S.
  • Election
  • Politics
  • Sports
  • Lifestyle
  • Education
  • Real Estate
  • Newsletter
  • Business Insider

    A leading US disease expert says there's 'no doubt in my mind' that vaccinated people are helping spread Delta

    By Hilary Brueck,

    2021-07-07

    https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=2QDQwx_0apxoIIt00

    https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1GSjlp_0apxoIIt00
    Gretchen Gustafson of White Ford Bronco during a show on June 11 at Union Stage in Washington, DC, which recently lifted capacity restrictions for bars, nightclubs, and venues.
    • Vaccinated people are well protected from severe illness and death even as the Delta variant surges.
    • But it's possible for fully vaccinated people to be asymptomatic and spread COVID-19 to others.
    • A top disease modeler who advises the White House said vaccinated people should still wear masks.
    • See more stories on Insider's business page .

    The US is celebrating robust COVID-19 vaccine coverage.

    Strangers are standing shoulder to shoulder in bars , fans are singing along at packed indoor concerts , and travelers are flying in numbers not seen since before lockdowns began in 2020.

    "While the virus hasn't been vanquished, we know this: It no longer controls our lives," President Joe Biden said on Sunday, as hospitalizations, cases, and deaths trended down. "America is coming back together," he added.

    But a quiet new wave of severe COVID-19 infections is brewing, fueled by the more transmissible Delta coronavirus variant.

    "We actually have states where hospitalizations are going up more than cases," Christopher Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, told Insider, stressing that data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may mask the virus' true spread.

    As the CDC's guidance is not to test vaccinated people unless they're symptomatic , "we're probably missing a bunch of transmission in vaccinated individuals," Murray said.

    Delta is spreading quickly in the US

    https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0w1YwI_0apxoIIt00
    Travelers wait at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, California, on June 30.

    Drilling into state-level data reveals how quickly Delta has spread .

    "We have 14 states where transmission has started to go back up," said Murray, who's also the lead modeler at the IHME, which the White House has leaned on for disease projections throughout the pandemic.

    That's "due to the Delta variant and the fact that everybody's stopped wearing a mask and just basically stopped most precautions," he added.

    Disease modelers at Scripps have estimated that Delta could be responsible for about 60% of COVID-19 cases across the US.

    Vaccines prevent serious illness

    COVID-19 vaccines don't prevent every infection - they are designed to better defend your body against the virus. The vaccines authorized in the US do that very well, even against Delta.

    Some vaccinated people get a mild, cold-like illness , with a headache and a runny nose. Others could get infected but never know it, becoming silent spreaders.

    Delta has wreaked far greater havoc among the unvaccinated. Hospitalizations are trending up in several states, including Missouri, Arkansas, Utah, and Mississippi, according to IHME data . Those are some of the same places where vaccination rates are lagging .

    https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1Vz5Ld_0apxoIIt00
    The share of American adults who've had at least one dose of any COVID-19 vaccine varies dramatically by region and county.

    How Delta can move through a semivaccinated population

    Tim Spector, an epidemiologist at King's College London, previously told Insider that while there's no evidence that Delta is deadlier, it is more infectious, and "because of that extra stickiness, it's going to still keep breaking through the vaccine group."

    More than half of Scotland is fully vaccinated, and 71% of Scots have received at least one dose of a vaccine. But the country is suffering its worst wave of infections.

    "You cannot explain the explosive epidemic in Scotland, in a pretty highly vaccinated population, if they're not playing a role in transmission," Murray said of vaccinated people.

    However, Will Lee, the vice president of science at Helix, a testing company helping the CDC track variants , said areas with higher vaccination rates tend to have fewer cases.

    Lee pointed to studies indicating that Delta cases are milder in vaccinated people and, therefore, people are not infectious for as long. It stands to reason, he said, that vaccinated people would not transmit as much.

    "That window of transmission probably goes down," he said.

    Delta versus our vaccines

    A recent real-world study from the UK suggested that Pfizer's vaccine was about 88% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 with Delta, markedly lower than the 95% efficacy against earlier-detected strains.

    Vaccines from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson , too, may be less effective at preventing symptomatic infections with Delta, early lab studies by those companies have suggested.

    What's clear is that all three US-authorized vaccines maintain strong protection against severe disease and death, even with the Delta variant.

    While natural immunity may help (federal estimates suggest that more than one-third of Americans have had COVID-19), Russia is an example of how prior infections can't halt Delta's spread.

    Masks work

    Murray says COVID-19 outbreaks are being investigated in US groups "that are 90%-plus vaccinated."

    "That could only be occurring if they're transmitting amongst each other," he said. "There's no doubt in my mind."

    That's one reason many infectious-disease experts still wear face masks indoors .

    "In our models, we see that even modest mask use combined with vaccination can really put the brakes on even the Delta variant," Murray said.

    Read the original article on Business Insider
    Expand All
    Comments / 1K
    Add a Comment
    Naomi mcmillian
    2021-07-11
    there are people who took the vaccine and there are people who didn't and that was their choice, what folks need to do is stop criticizing one another for the choice they made, the government and these big corporations aren't going to tell us the truth about this vaccine that they threw together in such a short time, come on think people folks have been dying from aids and other illnesses for years and they still talking about finding a cure for these illnesses, every drug has a side effect it may not effect some people the same way or same time but eventually it will, this vaccine was put together fast and thats questionable to me, covid 19 came upon us out of nowhere and it killed millions of people around the world, Someone knew about this virus beforehand and then boom here we are today with a pandemic and a vaccine that some are taking and some aren't, I'm not going to question anyone's choice thats not my business God help us all
    Tom Cat
    2021-07-10
    So is it a conviction to be vaccinated? Geeeee, the way they state it in this article makes like we are doing something wrong. We were told to get vaccinated, now they are blaming those who are vaccinated? Stop pointing get on those who have not been vaccinated. Plus, and find solutions for those who can’t get vaccinated because of certain illness they have, duh…
    View all comments
    YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
    Local News newsLocal News
    Total Apex Sports & Entertainment4 days ago
    Robert Russell Shaneyfelt3 days ago
    Total Apex Sports & Entertainment2 days ago

    Comments / 0