Get Vaccinated Before Your Body Become a Variant Factory

The pandemic isn’t over yet.  The new variants of concern are expected to trigger another wave of the pandemic if vaccination isn’t taken seriously. Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center says that “Unvaccinated people are potential variant factories. “The reason being the unvaccinated host is the only and perfect place for the new variants. And the only way to decrease the likely hood of survival of new variants is to get more people vaccinated.

It is natural for the virus to evolve, and try to survive by forming better variants that survive the treatment, and in doing so, SARS-CoV-2 has been known to form different variants among which there are 4 which has topped the World Health Organization’s list of ‘variants of concern’. The Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta were first reported in UK, South Africa, Brazil, and India respectively and they are added to the list because of high transmissibility, disease worsening, and evading immune protection capability.

The much hype is about the Delta variant, whose cases have surged exponentially over time and in more than 80 countries. Vaccination is effective but not against all the new strains, but the good news is, 2 doses of the Pfizer vaccine have been proven to be effective against the Delta variant, and no only that, it also reduces the severity of the disease. But the major concern of the health care authorities is that the unvaccinated people will allow the virus to hop from person to person, escalating the spread of new variants, and providing them with bodies to thrive on.

Associated Press reported that more than 99% of the hospitalized patients of COVID-19 are unvaccinated, while those who are fully vaccinated only account for 0.8% of the COVID-19 related death in May. During a press briefing, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said, “They are [vaccines] nearly 100 percent effective against severe disease and death, meaning nearly every death due to COVID-19 is particularly tragic because nearly every death, especially among adults, due to COVID-19 is, at this point, entirely preventable.” She also told, that the data has proven the effectiveness of 2 doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccine against Delta variant, and it is important not to miss the second dose.

She is worried that the overall coverage of vaccination in the countries of the USA is less than 30^, which is quite alarming. These communities are mostly across the Southeast and Midwest. She believes that these vulnerable areas have recently seen a rise in the cases of COVID-19. Unless more communities are vaccinated, we will see the spread of the Delta variant across the country.

Keywords:

Pandemic, Delta variant, SARS-CoV-2, coronavirus variants, variants of concern, vaccination, Pfizer, Moderna, vaccination, hospitalization.