UCHealth: Vaccines work well against COVID-19 Delta variant!

07 Jul UCHealth: Vaccines work well against COVID-19 Delta variant!

We curated this excellent article by Todd Neff from UCHealth Today. The title: “Vaccines work well against COVID-19 Delta variant!”

Dr. Richard Zane was thrilled to receive his first dose of a new COVID-19 vaccine. Colorado’s hospitalization rates, while improving, were among the 10 highest in the country as of June 12. Photo by Katie Kerwin McCrimmon.

Perhaps you’ve had COVID-19 already. Perhaps you’ve had one of the two vaccine doses but heard that you may feel under the weather the day after that second shot and are putting it off. Perhaps you figure you’re young and healthy and aren’t going to get all that sick even if you do catch the coronavirus. Or perhaps something else is keeping you from being vaccinated.

If you’re older than 12 and haven’t been vaccinated, buckle up: The Delta variant is sweeping the planet. It is roughly 50% more contagious than the Alpha variant, which itself was roughly 50% more contagious than the “original” coronavirus strains. Multiply that out and we face a variant that spreads more than twice as easily as the coronavirus that burned around the world a year ago. To extend a baseball analogy, if the original coronavirus threw a 100 mph fastball, Alpha hits 150 mph and Delta 225 mph. That sort of competitive advantage is overwhelming.

“The presence of variants is directly correlated to the prevalence of vaccinated persons in the community,’’ said Dr. Richard Zane, chief innovation officer at UCHealth and professor and chairman of Emergency Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “Vaccines are like a wall. They prevent the variants from coming in. If you’re not vaccinated, you’re not protected against anything.’’

Zane has seen too many people die or become debilitated from the disease the SARS-CoV-2 virus brings. In the face of yet another still-more-infectious variant – B.1.617.2, first detected in India, now known as the Delta variant – now is a moment for action rather than avoidance and the same old excuses, he says.

Destined for domination

Dr. Jonathan Samet

“We’re dealing with a strain that’s much more transmissible, which means it will spread more quickly and propagate the pandemic in Colorado,” said Dr. Jonathan Samet, dean of the Colorado School of Public Health and leader of the Colorado COVID-19 Modeling Group...

Continue reading here to learn more about vaccines, the Delta variant and other mutations.