Delta Variant is Different - It's the NEW COVID

The delta variant is almost like a whole new
  covid virus as it behaves very differently  

from the previous covid strains it has at  least three mutations on its spike protein  

and more specifically on its receptor binding  domain that's the part of the spike protein  

that binds to the ac2 receptor on the cells in  your body the delta variant mutations help it  

bind more efficiently to the ac2 receptor and  also allows the virus to enter the cell easier  

also its mutations allow it to better evade the  body's immune system the delta variant has caused  

covid cases in the u.s to rise over 300 over  the past month along with similar increases in  

hospitalizations and deaths the delta variant  is estimated to be at least 60 percent more  

transmissible one cdc document suggests the delta  variant is about as transmissible as chickenpox  

with each infected person infecting on average  eight or nine other people now compare that to  

the original strain of covid which was about as  contagious as the common cold with each infected  

person infecting two others on average studies on  people infected with delta variant showed that the  

fully vaccinated had as much virus in their bodies  as unvaccinated people did that doesn't mean worse  

infection though if you're vaccinated but the  significance of having those higher viral loads  

is going to mean higher transmission  of the virus either vaccinated or not  

even if they don't have symptoms it's why the  cdc says that even vaccinated people should wear  

masks in areas of sustained or high transmission  also a study in china found that viral loads of  

people infected with delta were 1000 times higher  compared to people infected at the very beginning  

of the pandemic and delta transmits in four days  compared to six days when you compare that to  

the original strain now there are three somewhat  older studies from canada singapore and scotland  

showing that people infected with a delta variant  are more likely to end up in the hospital so does  

the delta variant make unvaccinated people more  prone to dying compared to the original strain  

hard to know since there are currently no  studies showing that one way or another  

it's also trickier to answer this question  because you're comparing apples to oranges you're  

not only comparing different strains but with the  original strain no one was vaccinated in 2020 also  

in the beginning of the pandemic we weren't  using things like dexamethasone and tocilizumab  

two drugs that we now use to treat covid  because we know that they reduce mortality  

with the mrna vaccines we have pfizer and moderna  they're about 95 effective at preventing serious  

covit illness so we know that even before  the delta variant emerged they're going to  

be breakthrough cases the cdc released a study  examining an outbreak in massachusetts where 74  

of people who got infected had been fully  vaccinated and four of them ended up being in the  

hospital now testing showed that the delta variant  made up 90 of those cases but overall still most  

of the virus is spread by unvaccinated people the  cdc reported a total of 6500 breakthrough cases  

including 6200 hospitalizations and 1200 deaths  as of july 26th now at that time more than  

163 million people in the u.s were fully vaccinated  against covid but here is a pretty impressive  

stat less than 0.004 of people who have been  fully vaccinated experienced a breakthrough  

infection resulting in hospitalization and less  than 0.001 percent have died from the disease  

in the early stages of the pandemic my sickest  patients in the icu were mostly older people with  

chronic health issues or younger patients but they  were obese or had diabetes but now with the delta  

variant things are looking different recently  i've been seeing more patients in the icu who have  

chosen not to get vaccinated in their 30s in their  40s their 50s most of them were otherwise healthy  

all of them not vaccinated just yesterday a  patient of mine was a guy in his early 40s  

otherwise healthy now he's still in the hospital  getting the most amount of oxygen he can without  

a ventilator and he's scared because he's on the  brink of requiring a breathing tube a ventilator  

he didn't get the vaccine and i asked him why not  and there's one word he gave me he said stubborn  

so then i asked him if he regretted not getting  it and he said yes and this is the case throughout  

the country we hear all these stories in the news  of people who became seriously ill with covid and  

then they regretted not getting the vaccine  janine is speaking out now because she wants  

people to know how much she regrets not getting  the vaccine a decision that nearly cost her her  

life i was one of those people that was like i  can't believe people are just gonna just inject  

their body with this medication there's we don't  know enough about it now i'm just like it's just a  

shot just get the stupid shot that vaccine could  have stopped all of this just one little shot  

and i feel foolish that i didn't get it which  by the way just because you get a double lung  

transplant doesn't mean that you are out of  the woods that man will be immunosuppressed  

for the rest of his life so that his body  doesn't reject the transplant about half of  

americans remain unvaccinated unvaccinated people  make up 97 percent of all covid hospitalizations  

and 99.2 percent of deaths hundreds of americans  are suffering or dying every day from a vaccine  

preventable illness and some say well if they  refuse the vaccine and die then that's on them  

but it's more than that there are people who  can't get the vaccine at least not yet like  

children less than 12. then you have people who  are immunocompromised and they don't get that same  

protection from the covid vaccine as compared to  those who are not immunocompromised then you look  

at the financial costs of being hospitalized with  covid big hospital bills mostly paid for by the  

taxpayers the fact that we still can't ditch masks  but so far the vaccines have saved an estimated  

275000 lives and prevented over 1 million  hospitalizations in the u.s alone and by now we  

all hear about the misinformation out there that  deliberately twist the truth or flat out lies or  

misleads people well that has consequences people  struggle to make the best decisions for themselves  

and for their loved ones people can die as a  result of false or misleading information and that  

was part of the  in the first place before the pandemic  

i wanted to provide accurate health information  to combat the sea of bs floating out there  

and it's also why the u.s surgeon general dr  vivek murthy has called covid 19 misinformation  

an urgent threat to public health but in reality  it's been an urgent threat since the beginning  

whenever i have patients in my pulmonary  clinic who tell me they don't want the vaccine  

i listen to the reasons they give me it's  typically things like the vaccine development  

was rushed or has it been studied enough or that  it's not yet fda approved now this is despite the  

fact that the vaccine was assessed for safety  in over 70000 people in the initial pfizer  

and moderna clinical trials the vaccines met the  fda's rigorous scientific standards for safety  

effectiveness and manufacturing quality that's  required to give its emergency use authorization  

or eua then you look at the almost 350 million  doses of vaccine given in the u.s so far  

overall they've been shown to be very safe and  very effective so right now it has the fda eua  

but the full fda approval is coming soon probably  in a couple months that process takes time that's  

always been the case for those who aren't willing  to get the vaccine because they don't want to be  

guinea pigs now many of those people are willing  to take medicine that's either much less studied  

or proven to be either unsafe or ineffective for  example patients in arkansas who ran to the pet  

store to buy ivermectin gel thinking that's  their solution for covid pretty much every  

therapy that hospitals have used to treat covid  like dexamethasone 

Remdesivir 

 hydroxychloroquine  

and monoclonal antibodies like bamlanivimab and  tocilizumab the studies on those drugs pale in  

comparison to the vaccine studies because of the  much smaller numbers to draw from and with the  

evidence that we do have the only ones that  really have shown benefit are dexamethasone  

and for very severe covid tocilizumab and that's set men might be concerned that the vaccine could  

mess with their sperm counts or sperm quality  that has been proven to not be the case many  

young women might be concerned about infertility  or miscarriage or breastfeeding despite there  

being no evidence to support those concerns  actually there's a lot of data showing that  

the vaccine is safe before and during pregnancy  and it's recommended by both the american college  

of obstetricians and gynecologists and the  american society for reproductive medicine now  

on the contrary actually getting covid presents  a real risk to mother and baby pregnancy increases  

a woman's risk of having severe covid they're  also more likely to go into premature labor and  

their baby is more likely to require admission  to the intensive care unit the only true medical  

exception to not getting the vaccine is if you've  had a severe allergic or immunological reaction  

to any of the components of the vaccine like  polyethylene glycol outside of that we know  

that it's very safe and very effective in the key  to getting past covid it's only a matter of time  

before a new variant emerges that will render  our current vaccines useless so until we reach  

herd immunity we'll be in an ongoing battle of  updating the vaccines to fight the new variants

Patients