Uptick In COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations Likely Due To Delta Variant

Speaker 1: 00:00 San Diego is seeing a steady increase in COVID 19 infections and hospitalizations health officials say it's likely due to the Delta variant, which is now the dominant strain. Joining me to talk about what's happening is Shane Crotty professor at the center for infectious disease and vaccine research at the LA Jolla Institute for immunology. Welcome. Thanks for having me. You say catching the Delta variant is more likely to send you to the hospital than anything else you've caught in your life. What evidence are you seeing that indicates that this variant is more dangerous for people than the initial virus? Speaker 2: 00:32 Ah, that's a good question. It's not clear that it's more dangerous than the initial virus what's clear is that a lot of people underestimate the severity of coronavirus infections. One of the most common reasons I hear from people for why they're not vaccinated is that since they're under 65, um, COVID-19, isn't a problem for them. It's just been, um, a lot of misinformation for over here. And so, um, many of those people find it compelling to hear that, oh, the actual facts are half of hospitalizations in America have come in people under the age of 65 and half of those have been in people under the age of 50. And so compared to pretty much anything else that you've experienced in your life, you know, for, for the average American, you are at higher risk of ending up in the hospital because of COVID-19 Speaker 1: 01:29 San Diego is current vaccination rate remains at 68.4% of the eligible population. How many people would need to be vaccinated in San Diego county in order to stop the spread of the Delta Marion Speaker 2: 01:41 More? Um, uh, there's no, there's no great way to get, you know, a precise number, uh, on the answer. Uh, but what we can do is we can look at England and the UK and, and predict our future basically. Um, and so they were almost all alpha before they returned UK variant and then Delta showed up and now it's 99% Delta in the UK and they've ended up having a surge in the UK. That's almost as bad as their winter surge, which was a really bad surge in, in the U S we, we had a headstart or because there was a lag there. And so in the U S you know, thankfully gratefully, w w we really managed to get enough people vaccinated to shut down, uh, a surgeon alpha this, this spring, right? So, so vaccination rates, the vaccines work really well, and the vaccination rates were plenty good enough to stop alpha, even though alpha was, was quite infectious. But now looking at the UK and looking at Delta cases in the U S it's clear that the vaccination rates we have had aren't, aren't high enough to, to start stop Delta, uh, which is really related to the fact it's, it's a dramatically more infectious virus. So it is simply tougher to stop. Speaker 1: 03:06 And that leads me to my next question, which is how protected are people who have been vaccinated against the Delta Speaker 2: 03:13 Best day to come from from England. Um, and it's really, it's in the range of something like 85%, uh, protection still from getting symptomatic. COVID-19 we just do a great production level. It's not as good as against alpha or the original coronavirus, which would have been, um, in the 95% range. Uh, but what's very gratifying to see is that, uh, the vaccine is, are still, uh, essentially equivalently protective as before against hospitalizations. Um, and so they're highly protective against hospitalizations or death with Delta. And so in the UK, really the biggest problems have been in the unvaccinated population Speaker 1: 03:56 Here in San Diego. We're seeing a steady increase in infection rates from the end of June to now where we're hovering around 500 new COVID-19 infections a day. What is this telling you? Speaker 2: 04:07 Um, again, really looking at, uh, the numbers from elsewhere in, in America and in the UK, uh, it looks like, uh, cases will continue to go up because of Delta, um, and that there are enough, uh, unvaccinated people in the population to really drive those case numbers. And basically that'll be that there'll be enough cases like that, that, that, uh, vaccinated people will start having breakthrough infection also. So, uh, this depressingly, Delta's definitely a tougher virus to, to stop the spread of Speaker 1: 04:48 Should vaccinated people still take precautions like masking indoors, again, as we've seen mandated in LA county Speaker 2: 04:54 From a vaccine perspective, the answer is that, uh, fully vaccinated people will be protected from serious disease with, with Delta. Uh, there will certainly be, uh, some breakthrough infections and, uh, it is as, as case numbers rise, it's, it's worthwhile for people to pay attention, right? If you've, if you've got a sniffle, um, and you're vaccinated, you know, it is worth getting tested, um, because the difference is if you caught a sniffle and then you test for COVID-19 and you're negative, um, when I was treated, how you would a regular cold, right, whatever you are, normal behavior under those circumstances would be. Um, but if it's COVID-19 right, you should probably pay more careful attention to yourself and how you're taking care of yourself. And of course, how you are around other people, certainly self isolate from, from high-risk activity. Speaker 1: 05:50 So you, you know, you said this today, and, you know, other health officials are also assuming that the Delta variant is really responsible for the majority of new cases that we're seeing. Uh, but we don't know for certain because so few of the infections are sequenced. How important is it to know what strain we're seeing? Speaker 2: 06:06 It matters a lot. It doesn't matter for every individual, uh, infection, but, uh, yeah, it's been clear for a year that we're, we're lacking public health infrastructure in the U S for, uh, for tracking viruses and sequencing at the level we desire, uh, the systems they have in place, uh, in places like England, or even in South Africa, um, they get enough sequencing data and they get it organized well enough that they can tell, um, uh, quickly how fast outbreaks are happening, you know, and how to change positions on things. And we are still lacking that in the U S however, we can certainly get enough data overall for people to be able to see that, that the, the frequency of Delta infectious has gone from essentially zero, two months ago to the majority of infections now. And in other countries where that's been happening, um, Delta has become 90 or 99% of the infections very quickly. So certainly the expectation is Delta's the virus of the present and the future. And it's going to represent almost all infection in San Diego. If it, if it doesn't already, Speaker 1: 07:19 I've been speaking with Shane Crotty professor in the center for infectious disease and vaccine research at the LA Jolla Institute for immunology. Thank you for speaking with me. Thanks.