Friday, July 30, 2021

Doublng Down on Delta

It looks like the spread of the Delta variant means that we are going to have to put up with COVID-19 for some time yet. According to a slide presentation by the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in the US, it is as contagious as chickenpox and can spread to and be spread by people who are fully vaccinated.  

From the Washington post:

It cites a combination of recently obtained, still-unpublished data from outbreak investigations and outside studies showing that vaccinated individuals infected with delta may be able to transmit the virus as easily as those who are unvaccinated. Vaccinated people infected with delta have measurable viral loads similar to those who are unvaccinated and infected with the variant.

“I finished reading it significantly more concerned than when I began,” Robert Wachter, chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, wrote in an email.

CDC scientists were so alarmed by the new research that the agency earlier this week significantly changed guidance for vaccinated people even before making new data public.

The data and studies cited in the document played a key role in revamped recommendations that call for everyone — vaccinated or not — to wear masks indoors in public settings in certain circumstances, a federal health official said. That official told The Post that the data will be published in full on Friday. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky privately briefed members of Congress on Thursday, drawing on much of the material in the document.

Here are the slides from the CDC.

This is a Twitter thread from Dr. Bob Wachter, who is quoted in the article. 

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