Delta variant is coming to NC. Vaccine is the best protection, health officials say.
The delta variant of the coronavirus, which is becoming the dominant strain across the country, will likely become the dominant strain in North Carolina as well in the coming weeks and months, public health experts say.
And those who are unvaccinated are particularly vulnerable, because vaccines still guard against the delta variant, or B.1.617.2.
“If you are unvaccinated, you should be afraid, very afraid, of the delta variant, because it is what is going to start circulating almost certainly, more dominantly,” said Dr. David Wohl, who studies infectious diseases at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
As of Friday, 45% of the total population, and 55% of adults in North Carolina have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.
The delta variant first emerged in India, where it killed thousands earlier this year.
In the United Kingdom, it accounts for almost all new infections, the BBC reported.
From May to early June, the latest data available, cases of the delta variant increased nationwide from 2.8% to 9.5%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In the four weeks prior to June 22, the latest available data, just 0.7% of cases in North Carolina were the delta variant, but DHHS expects that rate to increase in the coming weeks.
“We’re certainly concerned about the delta variant, and we expect to see cases and have seen cases of the delta variant in North Carolina and expect to see more as it continues to spread,” said Erica Wilson, epidemiologist at DHHS.
The COVID-19 vaccines available in North Carolina — Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — protect from the delta variant, Wohl said.
“If you’re not vaccinated, now’s the time to get vaccinated to protect yourself from this more infectious and probably more dangerous virus,” Wohl said.
Why are variants more transmissible?
Wilson said the delta variant is concerning because of its higher likelihood of spreading from person to person.
“It is more transmissible, which means it’s going to spread more easily and often spread faster,” she said.
Wohl said variants of the coronavirus become more transmissible because it’s a means of survival as it reproduces in person to person.
“The fastest mice will run away from the cat and live another day to reproduce and make fast baby mice,” Wohl said. “Same thing here — this virus, if it was completely wiped out by our immune systems, and there was no mutation in the world that it could develop to adapt, this pandemic would have been over a long time ago.”
Wohl said that as long as a relatively high portion of the population remains unvaccinated, the virus will continue to mutate to become more contagious.
“We’re leaving the door open,” Wohl said.
He said there is potential for one of these variants to be vaccine-resistant, but boosters of the current vaccine would protect from that.
“The good news is, we are keeping track of that,” Wohl said. “There are people who dedicate their lives to sequencing the virus and looking at trends, and then translating that into newer vaccines. That’s why I do think we are going to see boosters.”
Vaccines much safer than COVID-19
Wohl said vaccines are the best protection against COVID-19 and its variants, and are much safer than the disease itself, despite any extremely rare side effects.
Adverse effects of the vaccine are documented and reported to the CDC. Out of the over 300 million doses administered nationwide, less than 1,000 serious side effects, outside of anaphlaxis, have been reported.
Anaphylaxis — a severe allergic reaction that can be fatal — has occurred in two to five people per million vaccinated.
“It’s a blip,” Wohl said, “compared to the benefits of the countless number of people who’ve been saved from having heart problems and long COVID or getting ventilated and dying from COVID-19.”
He compared the side effects of the vaccine to those of antibiotics and cancer treatment — people are not hesitant to take those because they save lives, Wohl said.
“Plenty of people in this state are cancer survivors. They took cancer therapy. Cancer therapy causes lots of bad things,” Wohl said, “but you did it, because you wanted to cure your cancer.”
Vaccinations are safer than cancer treatment, he said.
“There’s no downside to vaccinating more people. The more people we vaccinate, the less rounds of replication, the less transmission and the less opportunity for a variant to spread and become dominant,” Wohl said.
This story was originally published June 26, 2021 at 1:43 PM with the headline "Delta variant is coming to NC. Vaccine is the best protection, health officials say.."