by Julia Pierrepont III
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- "It's terrifying," said Cindi F., Los Angeles resident. "Just when we thought we were out of the woods, this new Delta variant comes along and is putting all of us at risk -- again!"
Like many Angelenos and Americans, she thought they were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of the COVID-19 crisis due to widespread vaccinations throughout the United States. But mounting cases from the highly contagious Delta variant this Summar have sparked new concerns.
"These COVID variants are worse than the original virus," Sarah, a nurse from a COVID-19 ward at a leading LA hospital, told Xinhua Monday. "And they might be the tip of the iceberg if even more deadly variants come along after this one."
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended those aged 12 years older get vaccinated to protect themselves from severe disease and death, considering the risk of infection, hospitalization, and death are much lower in vaccinated people compared to those yet to receive the jabs.
The Delta variant is highly contagious, at least twice as infectious as the previous variants of the COVID-19 virus, making the unvaccinated people, which account for 30 perent of the entire eligible population, the most vulnerable, according to the CDC's update on Thursday.
"The big picture here is that the vaccines are working," said Dr. Tom Frieden, a former CDC director and the head of the nonprofit Resolve to Save Lives, while lamenting the risks vaccine-holdouts pose to themselves and the rest of the country at large.
"The T cells generated by the vaccines are holding up amazingly well, with 99 percent of the hospitalizations being among unvaccinated adults in the U.S.," tweeted Dr. Monica Gandhi, infectious disease physician and professor at University of California San Francisco.
The CDC on Monday recommended those aged 12 years older get vaccinated to protect themselves from severe disease and death. But not everyone is on board with the idea.
A web-designer and a mother of three who called herself "Siri V" told Xinhua on Monday that side effects were a key factor for her opting not to get vaccinated, saying that her concern was about the new tech involving "genetics" and "rushed through testing."
Crowds of people came to Santa Monica, a neighboring city of Los Angeles, on Saturday for the "S.O.S. California No Vaccine Passport rally." Many of the attendees pushed back against vaccine mandates for jobs such as teachers, firefighters and nurses.
"That's just ignorance," Michael D., a Pasadena native, another neighboring city of Los Angeles, told Xinhua. "Those fears are based on rumors, not science. The people who refuse to get vaccinated are causing horrible problems for everyone else. This virus will just keep on mutating ..."
He pointed to the data in the states of Arkansas, Missouri and Florida, showing that hospitalizations are spiking nationwide following the July 4th Independence Day holiday.
Delighting in a newfound sense of social freedom and the relaxation of restrictions over the holiday and summer vacation, Americans flocked out to gatherings and ran smack into the reality of the Delta variant.
The CDC reported that the country's seven-day moving average of reported cases prior to the holiday was around 12,000. After the holiday and an incubation period, the number reached over 60,000, a 500-percent increase in less than 30 days.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus uses its spike protein, which is what vaccines target, to invade cells. Through mutations, the Delta variant has gained an advantage in its spike protein that makes them infect cells much faster and more efficiently, the British journal Nature reported Friday, citing preliminary studies.
The Delta variant has a dangerous window during which it can spread without symptoms. Researchers reported as many as 74 percent of the spreading results during this pre-symptomatic phase.
Health officials stressed that vaccinated people can also get infected, though far less likely to be hospitalized, and pose a risk of transmission to others.
As the variant keeps pushing up caseloads, top U.S. health officials announced last week that booster shots of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines would become available since Sept. 20 to people who were eight months past their second dose.
"My wife and I are both vaccinated, but we can't wait to get our boosters," Chuck Hamil of Covina, California, told Xinhua Monday. "We both have health conditions that could be a death sentence if we got COVID-19."
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said booster shots would "maximize vaccine induced protection."
"We know that even highly effective vaccines become less effective over time," U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told an official briefing. "It is now our clinical judgment that the time to lay out a plan for COVID-19 boosters is now."
Mary Guerro of Santa Barbara, a city in Southern California, told Xinhua Monday that she was also looking forward to the boosters. "When the Delta hit, I felt I had to get vaccinated for the sake of my friends and family."
These boosters would be given out in the order that the vaccinations were first dosed: healthcare providers and first responders, adults over 65 and residents of long-term healthcare facilities.
Some high-level officials disagreed with this approach, including Dr. Bruce Aylward, senior advisor to the director-general of the World Health Organization, who also oversees the COVAX Facility, and Dr. Celine R. Gounder, an infectious diseases specialist at New York University.
"The problem is not enough people have been vaccinated (globally). To stop the evolution of new variants, the world needs to focus on immunizing these populations before handing out extra protection to low-risk individuals in rich countries," said Dr. Aylward.
"Vaccines need to be thought of as population-level interventions," said Dr. Gounder, noting that reducing the amount of virus present in a community by vaccinating as many of its people as possible was more crucial than giving boosters to already vaccinated people. Enditem
