The Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Wolinsky, testifies at the Senate Health, Education, Work, and Pensions Committee hearing in the Capitol on May 11, 2021.
Jim Lo Scalzo | Swimming Pool | Reuters
U.S. health officials are paying close attention to a new variant of Covid-19 called “delta plus”, which some scientists say may be more contagious than the rapidly spreading delta variant.
Delta Plus, officially named AY.4.2, includes two new spike protein mutations, A222V and Y145H, which allow the virus to enter the human body. These mutations have been found in other Covid variants, so it is not clear how much these changes will affect the virus.
François Balloux, director of the Institute of Genetics at University College London, said that the infectivity may increase by 10%-15%. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Delta first appeared in India, Biebo Latin America, SARS, coronavirus, and the 1918 Spanish flu are more easily spread.
According to CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walinsky, Delta has a fertility rate of eight or nine, which means that every person infected with the new coronavirus will spread it to up to nine people. “Wild type” or the original strain of Covid, R-naught is estimated to be about 3. People infected with the delta variant carry 1,000 times the viral load of the original Covid strain.
The Indian Ministry of Health reported in June that Delta plus is more easily spread than delta variants, adding that this subtype binds to lung cell receptors more strongly and may even reduce the efficacy of monoclonal antibody therapy.
Warinski said at the White House coronavirus briefing on Wednesday that a surge has been detected in the United States, but there has been no significant increase in Delta cases and national cases.
“We are particularly concerned about substrains that may affect treatment, such as monoclonal antibodies and vaccines,” Varinsky said. “Currently, there is no evidence that AY.4.2 substrains will affect the efficacy of our current vaccines or treatments.”
Since August, the AY.4.2 variant has been detected in at least five cases in the United States: Washington, DC, California, North Carolina, Washington, and Massachusetts. Outbreak information. This website collects data from GISAID, which is a global genomic database of COVID and influenza cases.
For weeks, the highest health authorities have been warning that as long as there are still billions of unvaccinated people around the world, there may be more effective and possibly vaccine-resistant Covid variants. The White House’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said in August that if another boom crosses the delta, the United States may be “in trouble,” requiring unvaccinated people to be vaccinated in order to curb the boom that destroys the U.S. healthcare system this summer.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s chief vaccine regulator, Dr. Peter Marks, said on Wednesday evening that Delta Plus may eventually also affect the age group eligible for booster Covid. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have authorized all three U.S. manufacturers to use Covid boosters for a wide range of adults in the United States: Hyundai and Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer.
“The exact age will depend on what we see in the emerging situation, which is currently very active because we still see reports of the emergence of new variables,” Max said. “We are now also seeing changes in the epidemiology of Covid-19 in our country. Even though some places have disappeared, new hot spots have emerged.”
Concerns about Delta Plus in the United Kingdom are growing as officials are struggling to deal with the surge in cases and facing a new health crisis. According to the latest data from the country’s Health and Security Administration, as of the week of September 27, Delta plus cases accounted for nearly 6% of all consecutive Covid cases. The agency pointed out that the substrain “increased in frequency” in the UK, and doctors from the National Health Service in London called back as winter approached, adopting a more stringent Covid protocol.
But global health leaders urge the public not to panic. According to Dr.’s press release on October 6, although the emergence of Covid subtypes is different from the development of new variants, tracking the progress of Delta may give the medical community a better understanding of this mutation.
“Given these additional changes, it may help researchers track mutations on a large scale,” Al-Digiri said. “But this does not imply any functional or biological differences.”
Holly Eliat of CNBC contributed to this report.