By Mary O’KEEFE

The Delta variant is dominating the newest COVID-19 infections. Los Angeles County has seen a rapid increase in COVID-19 cases; in the past four weeks cases have increased 20 fold from 124 cases on June 21 to an average of more than 3,000 cases last week, according to LA County Public Health.

The test positivity rate has increased from 0.7% about a month ago to 6.2% this week. The number of people hospitalized from COVID-19 reached over 1,000 people this past weekend. This is up from 280 people hospitalized due to COVID-19 on July 2.

“Some early studies of the Delta variant suggest that its faster replication, higher viral load, and greater affinity for lower respiratory tract cells compared with earlier COVID strains make it more efficient at spreading from person to person. The Delta variant is currently the dominant strain in Los Angeles County, representing 96% of the specimens collected for sequencing between July 18 and 24. This is consistent with the rise of Delta nationwide, as just two weeks ago the CDC estimated that Delta strains accounted for 83% of COVID-19 cases. While emerging data shows that fully vaccinated people are well protected from severe infections with Delta variants, people with only one vaccine [shot (of a two-shot regimen)] are not as well-protected, and there is increased evidence that a small number of fully vaccinated individuals can become infected and are able to infect others. More than 90% of those recently hospitalized with COVID were unvaccinated, and 99% of those who have tragically died from COVID since January were unvaccinated,” according to Public Health. 

To stress those facts: 90% of those hospitalized with COVID were unvaccinated and 99% of those who have died from COVID since January were unvaccinated.

Not only is the Delta variant more infectious but it is a more severe disease.

“All viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, change over time. Most changes have little to no impact on the virus’ properties. However, some changes may affect the virus’ properties, such as how easily it spreads, the associated disease severity or the performance of vaccines, therapeutic medicines, diagnostic tools or other public health and social measures,” according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The variants so far have included Alpha, which was first found in the United Kingdom in September 2020, Beta from South Africa in May 2020, Gamma from Brazil in November 2020 and Delta was first found in India in October 2020. And there are more variants waiting in the wings, like Lambda, which was identified in December 2020 in Peru.

The best defense against these variants is the vaccines that have been approved by the CDC. Even if vaccinated people may test positive and, in some cases spread COVID, vaccines are still the best way to protect people from being hospitalized and from dying.