If America's current COVID-19 surge continues unabated into the fall and winter, the country will likely face an even more deadly strain of the virus that could evade the current coronavirus vaccines, National Institute of Allergy Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director Anthony Fauci said on August 4.
Fauci's comments underscore the importance of quickly vaccinating the tens of millions of Americans who have not been inoculated against the virus. The current surge in coronavirus cases nationwide is being driven by the Delta variant, which is already more contagious than the original strain of the virus.
Coronavirus cases driven by the delta variant are rising in a “very steep fashion” across the United States and may double in the coming weeks to 200,000 cases a day. The country could be “in trouble” entering the fall unless a large portion of unvaccinated Americans decide to get the shots, with the real possibility a new variant emerges that challenges the effectiveness of existing vaccines, the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden said.
And other variants are already cropping up. On Aug 3, South Korea announced that it had detected two cases of the Delta Plus variant, one in a man who had recently returned from the U.S. Some experts believe the Delta Plus variant could be more contagious than the Delta variant. The Lambda variant, which originated from Peru last year, has already been detected in the U.S.
Countries across Asia are grappling with their worst coronavirus outbreaks of the pandemic, spurred by low vaccine rates and the highly contagious Delta variant.
While China, Japan, and South Korea are seeing growing outbreaks, the sharp edge of the Delta wave is keenly felt in Southeast Asia, with countries seeing rapid rises in case numbers and deaths. Southeast Asian nations that managed to contain outbreaks last year are now struggling with overwhelmed health services, a lack of hospital beds, equipment, and oxygen.
Frustration among citizens forced to endure yet more curbs on their freedoms and ability to work is reaching boiling point, and protests against their governments' handling of the outbreaks have broken out in Malaysia and Thailand. Meanwhile, Myanmar is on the verge of collapse as a February military coup, and the ensuing bloody crackdown has shattered the health system, and vaccinations have completely stalled.
While wealthier countries, like the United Kingdom and Singapore, are seeing renewed outbreaks, they have fully vaccinated more than half of their populations. Comparatively, Vietnam has fully vaccinated less than 1% of its population, Thailand around 5%, the Philippines 7.2%, and virus epicenter Indonesia 7.6%. But recent data shows that vaccinated people who still get infected with the delta variant also have high viral loads and can spread it to others, even when they aren’t showing symptoms or are experiencing the mild disease.
Scientists keep underestimating the coronavirus.
At the beginning of the pandemic, they said mutated versions of the virus wouldn't be much of a problem - until the more infectious Alpha caused a spike in cases last fall. Then Beta made young people sicker, and Gamma reinfected those who'd already recovered from COVID-19. Still, by March, as the winter surge in the U.S. receded, some epidemiologists were cautiously optimistic that the rapid vaccine rollout would soon tame the variants and cause the pandemic to wind down.
The Delta outbreak will get much worse, warns Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota. "The number of intensive-care beds needed could be higher than any time we've seen," he says. He adds that his team's analysis shows that almost every one of the 100 million unvaccinated Americans who hasn't had COVID-19 yet will likely get it in the coming months.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is already keeping an eye on several: Eta, which is now in several countries; Kappa, which arose in India; Iota, which first popped up in New York City - and especially Lambda, which has torn through Peru and shows signs of having unusual success in infecting fully vaccinated people, according to one early study.
First reported in Peru last year, the Lambda variant was already entrenched in South America but is now making its presence felt in other continents.
First reported in Peru during late 2020, the lambda variant, dubbed C.37, is a viable candidate for the most prominent strain in South America - driving infections in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay.
According to a WHO June report, the lambda variant has been detected in at least 30 countries. In April 2021, authorities in Peru said 81% of the country’s COVID-19 cases were associated with the lambda variant. The U.S. CDC recently said there are currently 1,300 cases of the lambda variant in 44 states.
WHO officials said not much is known about the projected impact of the lambda variant. Still, there is the potential of increased transmissibility or possible increased resistance to neutralizing antibodies compared to the original COVID-19 strain.
(VOC), as per the WHO, are those for which there is evidence of increased transmissibility, more severe disease, or significant reduction in treatment or vaccine effectiveness. On the other hand, variants of Interest (VOI) have a specific trait that has been associated with those characteristics. Scientists classify these variants as “variants of interest” because they have characteristics that could cause changes in transmissibility, disease severity, or a decrease in treatment effectiveness.
Only 1% of people have received a vaccine dose in low-income countries, and access to the mRNA vaccines that work best against delta is nonexistent.
With a global health policy that hasn’t prioritized vaccination enough, the world is rolling the dice repeatedly. It doesn’t need to be that way. Vaccinating the whole world is achievable and even affordable. One estimate puts the total cost at $50 billion to $70 billion — a pittance compared to the toll of a new surge. Such a global campaign would dramatically reduce the odds of new variants arriving.
Vaccination, then, is our best tool to fight the virus. But if rich countries dawdle too much, it is possible that eventually, a variant could arise that blunts that tool. “The emergence of future variants that can escape vaccine-induced immunity” is a possibility, former CDC Director Tom Frieden has argued.
You must be logged in to post a comment.