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As the vaccination rate in the country continues to drop, and the Biden administration is on track to miss its goal of 70 percent of Americans getting at least one shot of the COVID-19 injection by July 4, there is a new incentive to make people roll up their sleeves. This time, it is not a free beer or a chance to win the lottery. It’s fear of getting a new, “more dangerous” strain of COVID-19 called the “Delta” variant.
Speaking at a White House COVID-19 task force briefing about the nation’s vaccination progress, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who serves as President Biden’s chief medical advisor, reiterated warnings about the more infectious “Delta” variant of the coronavirus, which he said has doubled in prevalence in the United States in the past couple of weeks, threatening areas of the country with low vaccination rates.
“Similar to the situation in the U.K., the ‘Delta’ variant is currently the greatest threat in the U.S. to our attempt to eliminate COVID-19,” Fauci said, highlighting his particular concern about “under-vaccinated regions” of the country, driven in part by hesitancy among young people to get the jab.
Fauci said the variant has a much greater transmissibility than the “Alpha” variant that is dominant in the United States and increased disease severity (hospitalization rate).
He noted that the “Delta” variant appears to be “following the pattern” of its spread in the U.K., where it now makes up more than 90 percent of new cases and has delayed the area’s scheduled reopening.
“The good news,” Fauci said, is that vaccines are proving to be highly effective at combating the strain despite its increased infectiousness, with the Pfizer-BioNTech shot showing 88-percent efficacy against symptomatic disease and 96-percent efficacy against hospitalization.
Fauci says the rising threat posed by the “Delta” variant makes it more urgent than ever that more people roll up their sleeves to get vaccinated, especially given how close the country is to finally getting back to normal. “We have the tools so let’s use them and crush the outbreak,” Fauci said.
Fauci specifically underlined that in the U.K., it was the youth that drove the surge of cases, with a five-fold higher positivity rate among children (5-12 years) and young adults (18-24 years) than among older adults.
Speaking at CBS This Morning on Wednesday, Fauci said children — who are not necessarily more susceptible to the new strain, are at greater risk to get infected. “This virus is more a transmissible virus, therefore, children will clearly more likely get infected with this than they would with the original Alpha variant,” while “Delta” is expected to become dominant “in next several weeks.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one-fourth of adults aged 18 to 39 years old are expressing hesitancy about getting vaccinated. The solution to addressing lingering hesitancy, Fauci believes, is to have people “in the trenches getting to people,” continuing to have conversations with those who are hesitant, and bringing “trusted community members” in to help.
The CDC currently considers “Delta” a “variant of concern,” meaning it shows evidence of an increase in transmissibility, more severe disease, and significant reduction in neutralization by antibodies generated during previous infection or vaccination.
The government has presented vaccines to the public as a ticket back to normality. Even against more transmissible variants of the coronavirus – such as the “Delta” variant, — vaccines have been touted as effective and safe, but it may not be the case.
Just yesterday, Israel ordered vaccinated travelers to quarantine if they were in close proximity to people who may be infected with the “Delta” variant, or traveling to countries where the COVID-19 infection rate is high. The country’s outbreak shows that a third of all cases developed in fully vaccinated people.
The same drop in effectiveness of the vaccine has been found by Indian doctors who say that vaccination is not a guarantee against COVID-19 infection and that it will only ensure that the infection does not become severe. Separate studies by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (Delhi) and the National Centre for Disease Control, which are yet to be peer-reviewed, have indicated that the “Delta” variant is the most common factor behind the majority of “breakthrough” infections in India.
World Health Organization (WHO) epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove on Monday said that the COVID-19 vaccines are showing signs of reduced efficacy against the “Delta.” Kerkhove also stated that there might be a “constellation of mutations” in the future, which means vaccines are likely to lose their potency against fighting the coronavirus.
The course of events suggests that Luc Montagnier, a French virologist and recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), has correctly foreseen the mutation of SARS-CoV-2. Montagnier explained that vaccines don’t stop the virus, instead, they facilitate its development into more transmissible and more lethal variants due to Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE), which is a mechanism that increases the ability of a virus to enter cells and cause a worsening of the disease. ADE is observed in SARS-CoV-1, among other viruses.
American media and some medics claim ADE is not an issue with SARS-CoV-2, even though their genomes are 86.85-percent similar, they have the same viral receptor, and are considered closely related. A Chinese study published in 2020 in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases shows that ADE may exist in SARS-CoV-2, which would elicit more severe body injury and negatively affect vaccine therapy.
If the vaccine causes ADE, it is normally withdrawn from use in America.
