Imperative: Avoiding Delta Strain COVID Contagion

"[Those infected with the COVID variants were for the most part youngerm less likely to have underlying health problems] but nonetheless had  higher crude risks of hospitalization and ICU admissions."

"It is remarkable that we detected a clear and significant elevated risk of uncommon delayed outcomes, such as death."

Canadian Medical Association Journal-published study authors

"Canada is battling a different pandemic from the one it faced in early 2020."

"The virus has become smarter and more dangerous, which means that we need to be smarter too."

"Perverse pandemic misinformation [has stoked vaccine hesitancy and vaccination refusal, jeopardizing hopes of achieving herd immunity]." 

"[Leaders in Alberta and Saskatchewan with high and rising COVID cases are facing critical care demands where both provinces' leaders] decided to disregard the cautions of scientists who warned of the dangers of VoCs (variants of concern), instead promising] the best summer ever."

Krsten Patrick, (interim) editor-in-chief, CMAJ editorial

"India had really done a great job of controlling COVID, and then all of a sudden they lost control, they had this massive explosion."

"Looking at the chaos that Delta wrought in India, we should probably have known that this is really bad."

"I think the experiece now, over and over in the pandemic, is when something blows up in one country or another, pay attention to what they're telling you."

"On top of that, when they [COVID variants] infect people, they're more likely to make people really sick. We see this across the lifespan. It's not like this is only 70-year-olds. When we see 40-year-olds die of this, 50-year-olds in the ICU in significant numbers, that's probably also a variant thing.":

"I don't think we'll be in this for another year. We are going to see seasonal epidemics of a very nasty coronavirus. But that's very different from a pandemic that takes down society."

Dr. David Fisman, epidemiologist, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto

Security guards and a heath-care worker wait for patients at the Women's College Hospital COVID-19 testing centre in Toronto. (THE CANADIAN PRESS / Frank Gunn)

 

The recently published study that appeared in the Canadian Medical Association Journal was the work of epidemiologists David Fisman and Ashleigh Tuite, both with the Della Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Their study confirms that COVID-19 variants while more contagious than the original Wuhan strain of the coronavirus are also responsible for making those infected more ill. And of those variants none is more infectious and certain to cause serious illness than the Delta strain.

The two researchers based their study on over 212,000 cases of COVID-19 recognized between February through to June in Ontario, finding higher risks of hospitalization, intensive care admissions and rates of death with 'variants of concern' (VoCs). People infected with the Alpha, Beta or Gamma variants were seen to be about 50 percent likelier to be hospitalized or to die in comparison to those who were infected with the original strain.

The risk of hospitalization with Delta turned out to be 108 percent higher, with intensive care admissions an alarming 235 percent higher, and shockingly, 133 percent higher death rates. Only 2.8 percent of the total cases in the study were attributed to Delta, currently the dominant strain in circulation. What has also been validated is that on average younger, less health-impacted individuals are being infected with the variants. On the other hand, vaccines succeeded in "undoubtedly blunt(ing)" variants' severity with 80 to 90 percent protection of dying from COVID, even if the vaccinated contracted COVID.

And even though vaccine-induced immunity is beginning to wane and their effects may turn out not to be as lasting as hoped for, they don't represent the sole factors "dimming the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel", explained out Kirsten Patrick, pointing to the tsunami of outright false information circulating in the general public on COVID and vaccinations. Most of those who ended up in critical care with COVID-19 are the unvaccinated.

The study by Drs.Fisman and Tuite has conclusions consistent with other studies out of England, Scotland and Singapore whose findings were also of higher risks of poor outcomes with the Delta variant infections. And the conclusions fit right in with India's experience with the coronavirus. As Dr. Fisman pointed out, the variants are more infectious so it becomes more difficult to control outbreaks and harder to control their spread. And with their greater infectiousness the numbers required to reach herd immunity soar.

To the present, an estimated 15 percent of eligible Canadians continue to decline vaccination. The Ontario study encompassed 212,326 people screened for variants who had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. The mutations that resulted on part of the spike protein, more readily adhered to and entered human cells. On a more optimistic note, Dr.Fisman pointed out the down-trend of the number of people an infected individual infects and that deaths too caused by COVID are diminishing in total numbers.

The takeaway from the study of the Delta variant is that vaccinations should not be regarded as simply an altruistic choice that primarily keeps severe disease from spreading to older and more vulnerable populations.  Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press