According to GISAID, a data-sharing initiative for corona- and influenza virus sequences, the mutation has been identified in at least 70 countries
BUSINESSES IN ENGLAND had been eagerly anticipating June 21st—the “freedom day” when all coronavirus restrictions were to be lifted. But on June 14th Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister, dashed their hopes. It was “time to ease off the accelerator” he said. Cases, hospitalisations and admissions to intensive care were rising. Ireland, France and Germany are among countries that have tightened restrictions on travellers from Britain. The cause for concern is the delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 .
Like the alpha variant before it , the main reason people worry about the mutation is transmissibility. In Britain the delta variant already represents more than 90% of new cases. A study published this month by Public Health England , a government agency, suggests that it could spread nearly 2.5 times as quickly as the original SARS-CoV-2 virus did . That is a big step up from the alpha variant, which was about 1.5 times as transmissible as the original strain.
As well as being more transmissible, the delta variant seems to lead to more severe disease. On the basis of lab experiments, America’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention suspects that both problems could be linked to the delta variant’s ability to circumvent antibody defences, regardless of whether antibodies were induced by past infection or vaccination. PHE reported that the risk of hospitalisation from the delta variant increases by between 32% and 289% compared with alpha.
The vaccine findings were less alarming. Compared with the alpha mutation, delta lowered protection from symptomatic infection from 50% to 33% after one dose of Pfizer-BioNTech or AstraZeneca, but only from 88% to 80% after the second, with vaccine protection expected to increase further over time. That inoculation still works so well highlights the urgency of administering jabs, particularly in the poor world.
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