06/17/2021

New Coronavirus Variant Gains Foothold in the U.S.

It's expected to devastate those who aren't seeking the vaccines

Public health officials are renewing calls for COVID-19 vaccinations, as a more infectious variantthat can be thwarted with available vaccines is spreading rapidly in the United States.

Why it matters: The B.1.617.2 (or Delta) variant was first detected in India and is expected to become the dominant strain in the U.S. in three to four weeks, some researchers say. If vaccination rates continue to slow, the variant could fuel surges in pockets of the country this fall.

More transmissible variants continue to supplant previously dominant strains, raising the stakes for people who aren't vaccinated and reminding Americans that the pandemic isn't over — a fact many other countries still face. The steady uptick in B.1.617.2 "very much mirrors what happened in the United Kingdom about a month ago. And so I fully expect that sometime in the next three or four weeks, the Delta variant will be the dominant SARS-CoV-2 lineage in the U.S.," said Andrew Pekosz, a virologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Axios.