“The third wave is here,” said Adam Finn, a professor of pediatrics at Bristol University who advises the British government on the coronavirus crisis. He said this during an interview for a radio station BBC. The UK recorded more than 10,000 new cases on Saturday for the third day in a row. The country last registered such high numbers of infections in a single day in February.
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The delta mutation, first discovered in India, is responsible for the sharp rise in new cases. The government’s health agency Public Health England (PHE) reported a 79% increase in those infected at the end of the week. The number of hospitalizations also doubled in a single week. The delta variant now accounts for 91 percent of all samples examined, PHE said. According to experts, more dangerous mutations are transmitted mainly among young people.
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The test positivity rate is five times higher for British youth than for seniors, he says study scientists from the Royal University of London. Even people under the age of 50 are now at up to 2.5 times more likely to become infected with a mutation.
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“Clearly, this is bad news, and it’s very difficult to predict how long this exponential phase will last,” commented The result of the study was its author Professor Steven Riley. According to him, the increase will be slowed down only by vaccination of younger students.
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The British government therefore launched vaccination on Friday for all citizens over the age of 18 and began crash testing in selected parts of London. However, the priority remains the administration of the second dose to all elderly people who have not yet received it. “Immunization of children is not on the agenda,” he declared Government Adviser Adam Finn. “Right now, it wouldn’t be appropriate, it’s the adults who get sick most of the time, so their immunization remains our main goal.”
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According to a study published in a scientific journal The Lancet, “only” two in a million children die with coronavirus. “Severe disease is also very rare in them,” adds Finn.
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Mike Tildesley, an infectologist at the University of Warwick who is a member of the SAGE government’s advisory commission, pointed out that the delta mutation may not bother children, but is sending younger and older students to hospitals. He added, however, that they usually do not have such a severe course of the disease. “That’s a good sign, because those who get it have a better chance of recovery,” said the infectologist.
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Whether or not this variant causes a more severe course of the disease is still speculated among experts.
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According to a study by the PHE agency, the delta variant is up to 60 percent more contagious than the so-called British mutation, newly designated by the Greek letter alpha. The researchers described it as 50 percent more contagious than the coronavirus strain, which first appeared at the end of 2019 in Wuhan, China.
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“It’s a super-carrier mutation, which is why it’s so disturbing,” he explained to the server National Geographic Eric Topol, founder and director of The Scripps Research Translational Institute. “It has features that allow it to bypass the immune system, and is perhaps even more insidious than the beta mutation, first identified in South Africa and considered the worst to date. In addition, it has much greater portability than we have seen so far. That’s a very bad combination. “
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The scientist’s concerns are clearly shared by US President Joe Biden, who tweeted that the delta variant is “a highly infectious strain of covid-19, which is spread in the UK mainly among young people aged 12 to 20 years. If you are young, and you haven’t had a chance to get vaccinated yet, now is the right time, “the White House chief urged young Americans. “Completed vaccination with Pfizer has been shown to be effective in preventing the development of a severe course of covid-19 in delta mutations,” Biden added.
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Some questions still remain around the delta and its ability to bypass immunity after vaccination. However, certain data is already available. AstraZeneca vaccine in a fight with the delta mutation proved 67% efficacy in case of symptomatic disease. In the case of prevention of hospitalizations, it was effective from 71% after the first dose, and its effectiveness increased to 92 percent after the second dose.
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Even better is the Pfizer vaccine, which in case of symptomatic illness pointed out efficiency 88%. The efficacy in hospitalization was Pfizer at 94%, only after the first dose. After the vaccinees received the second dose, the estimate rose to 96%.
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In Britain, 75,953 cases of delta mutation had been confirmed by Friday. Only 31 percent of these cases received at least one dose of vaccine. In the rest of the cases, it was unvaccinated.
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In others studies, which have not yet passed the review procedure, but it is stated that the delta is a record holder in the so-called breakthrough infections, ie infections in fully vaccinated people. That is why it arose in India foci among fully vaccinated healthcare professionals. Nevertheless, vaccines increase the chances that new and even more dangerous mutations will not occur. Such variants most often occur among the unvaccinated and in environments where they can spread completely uncontrollably.
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Recently, therefore, along with the appeal for vaccination, there have been increasing calls not to abolish all anti-coronavirus measures. What is happening in the UK right now could happen anywhere in the world, a number of scientists have warned. “If we ignore this option, there will be a significant increase in those infected and hospitalizations in vulnerable areas, and the pandemic will last even longer,” said Eric Topol, stressing that he would leave some respiratory protection and social distances for some time to come.
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In Britain, meanwhile, a sharp rise in cases has pushed the date for the last anti-crime restrictions in England to be lifted to 19 July. The originally promised date was June 21.
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