Delta is serious. We offer three items for your consideration.
 

“WHO says delta is the fastest and fittest Covid variant and will ‘pick off’ most vulnerable,” (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/21/covid-delta-who-says-variant-is-the-fastest-and-fittest-and-will-pick-off-most-vulnerable-.html).
 

“Delta Covid-19 Variant Could Be Dominant in U.S. in Two to Three Weeks, Study Says,”
(https://www.wsj.com/articles/delta-covid-19-variant-could-be-dominant-in-u-s-in-two-to-three-weeks-study-says-11624387427).
 

For a deep dive into the evidence regarding the Delta variant and its spread, we suggest a detailed thread by Eric Feigl-Ding. Feigl-Ding is a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington DC. He was formerly a faculty member and researcher at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The thread begins at this link: https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1407033868914499585. We have spooled the entire thread below for readers’ convenience below:

45% of all #DeltaVariant deaths in England in the past 1 week (June 8-14th) were among those fully vaccinated with 2 doses & post +14 days. Total Delta #COVID19 deaths up +31 in one week—of 31, 14 deaths in fully vaxxed. #Delta breakthrough concerning

To be clear, this is still a large benefit of vaccination. But we cannot say for certain that #DeltaVariant is “nothing to worry” about anymore. It is much faster transmission & 2.5x greater hospitalization risk than #Alphavariant which implies 4x hospitalization vs original. We have to be worried when we see such numbers and the exponential rise of #DeltaVariant worldwide — especially in low vaccinated countries, and under vaccinated parts of US that are vaccine hesitant.

See source: https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1406681179219189760.

We are seeing a lot more #DeltaVariant related breakthrough infections. Israel is also heavily 2 dose vaccinated country too—with Pfizer no less. And it’s seeing more Delta #COVID19 school outbreaks too, and breakthroughs in teachers. Must be vigilant. (https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/ten-vaccinated-israelis-contract-covid-as-country-faces-local-outbreaks-1.9925197) Thinking about these tricky breakthrough deaths, from talking to many other experts I’ve conferred, is that a combination of age related waning of immunity as well as immunocompromised individuals not having sufficient vaccine immunity responses—creates a pool of vulnerable. Canadian federal government has now just declared that AZ is inferior to mRNA vaccines, thus advocating to people to switch to Pfizer and Moderna. Not a peep on J&J 1-shot regimen. (note- J&J is in same adenovirus-vector family as AZ, but J&J has special double-proline splint)

See source: https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1407023672947265546

The reason we don’t know about J&J is that unlike AstraZeneca, J&J is an enhanced spike vaccine with a “double proline” encode to splint & stabilize the spike protein—Pfizer, Moderna, Novavax has this special enhancement as well. AstraZeneca does not. (https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/vaccines/tiny-tweak-behind-COVID-19/98/i38) Thus, J&J is unique. It doesn’t quite fit in with adenovirus vector AstraZeneca due to double-proline difference, and it doesn’t fit in with protein based Novavax, nor mRNA like Pfizer or Moderna. It’s hard to infer what J&J efficacy is—or what to do about it being 1 dose. Vaccine effectiveness against #DeltaVariant according to @PHE_uk — averaging AstraZeneca & Pfizer together (even if different), you can see a substantial drop for 1 dose. But even 2 doses has a ~8% drop as well. Also AZ’s 2 dose is actually 60%. ?

See source: https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1406607402678603781

Problem for UK is that while over half of adults are fully vaccinated, 2/3 of all shots are the 60% 2-dose efficacy AstraZeneca vaccine.

See source: https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1396332689955950594

Doing the math, @GosiaGasperoPhD says we can only stop the fast #DeltaVariant if we have >90% efficacy vaccine used by 70% of the total population (not just by adults). But no country on Earth is at that level yet for 2 doses, and with 90% efficacy for Delta. That’s the worry.

See source:https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1407068947065737231

In addition to deaths, 10% of all hospitalizations in the UK last week were among those fully 2 dose vaccinated. This is not a small handful of breakthroughs anymore.

(Sidenote – hospitalizations is much larger numbers than deaths – more stable (less prone to fluctuations).

See source: https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1406421721717030916

Not just severity and vaccine breakthroughs, but #DeltaVariant is also incredibly transmissible via just “fleeting” short casual exposure. Several documented and proven cases of such short “seconds” long exposures from Australia detailed tracing. See thread

See source: https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1406779894785351688

I would like to point out that while UK has more 1st dose than Israel, it is only 46% vaccinated (~2/3 of which is AstraZeneca), which is decent but not remotely enough to remove mitigations as shown above, for stopping #DeltaVariant via vaccine alone. (https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations)

See Chart (bar chart): https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1407100914222219265/photo/1

If you think you don’t need the vaccine or the 2nd dose… you’re not paying attention to the #DeltaVariant that is coming up in multiple countries.

See source:https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1406681179219189760

Dr Fauci warned recently: “The problem you get into … is that a single dose only provides about ~30% effectiveness [against #DeltaVariant]—so that is really an issue you gotta be careful”. Fauci seems to clearly push 2 doses against #DeltaVariant now.

See source: https://twitter.com/i/status/1407217323757510656 and

See video embedded in tweet: https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1407217323757510656?s=20

We close with this June 25th update from Dr. Eric where “Delta up 4x in % in New York City.”

Certain politicians dismissed Delta at a press conference and blamed CDC for scare tactics. They want you to believe this variant isn’t worrisome. You decide.

Please be safe.