Here's the low down on the Delta.

 

I will put the take home messages right here out front:

1/ The Detla variant is 50 times more infectious than the Alpha variant. That fact has not changed.

2/ TWO mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are 90 % effective against the delta variant. That fact has not changed. Not one vaccine, but two. Get two doses.

3/ Fully vaccinated people who find themselves in a situation where they are in close contact with a large group of unvaccinated people who may be infected with the Delta variant can pick up COVID-19. They may be able to spread it to others. This is a new finding.

4/ People who are fully vaccinated are far less likely to develop severe symptoms, hospitalizations, deaths even if they become infected with the delta variant. That is a relief.

5/ In the USA masks are now recommended in public either indoors or outdoors in areas where transmission rates are high wether you are vaccinated or not. That's a shift in recommendations.

So, what about Canada. Click this link and scroll down to take a look at this graph:

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

Only 50 % of Americans are fully vaccinated and 58 % have received one dose. In Canada, 67% are fully vaccinated and 81 % have received one dose (https://bit.ly/3xm95qy).

That's a massive difference. So, in a country with lower vaccination rates, there is more circulating virus. On Friday, there were 122,000 new cases of COVID-19 in the US which is a rate 120/100,000. Canada had 907 which is a rate of 1.5/100,000.

https://www.statnews.com/feature/coronavirus/covid-19-tracker/

The original COVID-19 virus and the alpha variant are not as fit as the delta variant. A fully vaccinated person ( let's call them Tom) could walk by a person with the original COVID-19 virus or the alpha variant and if they sneezed in close proximity to Tom, a load of virus would enter Tom's nose. But these strains of virus are not as 'sticky' as the delta variant. When the virus enters Tom's nose, his immune systems kicks a lot of it right out at the site of infection, before the virus gets into his blood. A much smaller amount of virus may get through his initial immune defence mechanisms and enter his blood stream where the antibodies he has produced as a result of two vaccinations, neutralize the virus. He does not get COVID -19 and there is no COVID-19 in his nose that he can spread.

In Canada, Tom doesn't find himself in this scenario very easily because far fewer people in his community have COVID-19 and far more are fully vaccinated.

Now meet Mary who is a fully vaccinated person in Florida where there is much more circulating virus. She goes to several indoor and outdoor social events on the July 4th weekend. Masks are not mandatory and less than 50 % of the population is vaccinated. She stands beside a person who has the delta variant. They are listening to a band and are in close proximity for more than 5 minutes without masks. The delta variant happily infects Mary's nose but it is so sticky and so fit that 1,000 times more virus is able to hang out in her nasal passages, breaching her initial defence mechanisms, getter into her blood in huge numbers ( a high viral load) where the COVID antibodies she has developed after two doses of vaccine work to destroy most of the virus but enough is left behind to infect her cells causing a minor illness and maybe enough to cause a more serious illness requiring hospitalization. But she survives.

Unfortunately, Mary went home after this event and within a few days there was enough virus still hanging out in her nose that she passes the virus on to all of her family.

The CDC reversed it's stance on wearing masks last week because of this exact scenario shown in a study published by CDC Friday, 'The Barnstable County Study'. Of the 469 people who were infected with COVID 19, all had the delta variant and 74 % were fully vaccinated. Seventy four percent is high but not if most of the people at these social events were vaccinated which was the case.

What does all this mean? It's survival of the fittest. All living things are wired to survive. Viruses are no different. As long as they are provided with an opportunity to replicate, they will mutate and the most fit mutations will outpace the weaker viruses and become dominant. Viruses that are more fit, infect with greater ease and at greater speed.

The answer; DON'T LET THE VIRUS REPLICATE. It cannot replicate without a human host that has no defences against it. Our greatest defence are antibodies created after natural infection and immunization. The next line of defence, don't let the dirty buggers get in in the first place. Wear a mask and keep your distance if you are not confident that the folks in the crowd you are hanging out with are fully vaccinated.

Here is what I believe: Masks will stay in certain scenarios and that is just smart. The closer we get to 90 or 100 % vaccinated, the quicker the masks will go but not in short order. It will take so much longer to be free of COVID-19 if our vaccination rates stay at 80 %. I don't believe we will have to shut down our economies or head home from work or school yet again.

Get vaccinated. Get vaccinated quickly. Block the delta variant before it creates a fourth wave. In this province and in every other province that continues to move slowly through their exit plans, this is entirely possible.

Anne-Marie

Please share.

Yep, here we are. Your 'Finding the Balance During COVID-19' webinar team. We are all vaccinated and we met in person this past week. What a pleasure it was to see these women, some of them, for the first time in person.

For non-Facebook users, you can find this post here:

https://braceletofhope.blogspot.com/

And if you'd like to help Bracelet of Hope work towards making sure that Lesotho has access to these vaccines, donate here:

https://www.braceletofhope.ca/ways-to-