A former senior adviser to US President Joe Biden’s pandemic response team said that the Delta variant is “Covid-19 on steroids” as the rapid spread of the highly contagious strain has threatened the gains made by countries around the world. Andy Slavitt told CNN on Wednesday that the Delta variant, first detected in India, is twice as infectious as the original strain of Sars-CoV-2 but presents “very little threat” to fully vaccinated individuals.
We should think about the Delta variant as the 2020 version of Covid-19 on steroids,” he said.
The Delta variant has become the dominant variant in the United States, making up for more than half of the new Covid-19 cases in the country, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In some US states, the ‘variant of concern’ accounts for more than 80% of new infections, causing worry for authorities who are trying to achieve population immunity through high rates of vaccination.
A recent analysis of Pfizer-BionTech vaccine efficacy by the Israeli government has renewed the debate around the Delta variant’s ability to escape immunity. Citing the analysis, the Israeli government earlier this week said the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine appears to be less effective against infections caused by the Delta variant as compared to other strains. As of June 6, the Pfizer vaccine, based on mRNA technology, provided 64% protection against the Delta variant, the government had said.
Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, both based on mRNA, have been widely used in the United States for inoculation and a reduced efficacy could jeopardise the pandemic response and reopening of economies. Responding to the analysis from the Israeli government, top US infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci told CNN that “the Israelis know what they’re doing,” but the data is sparse.
On Wednesday, World Health Organization (WHO) emergencies programme head Michael Ryan urged countries to take extreme caution when reopening economies amid the threat presented by the Delta variant. Ryan warned countries with low levels of vaccination coverage against opening up, saying the presence of variants could start filling the hospitals again.