83% of US COVID cases caused by Delta variant [Video]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky revealed on Tuesday that COVID-19’s delta variant now accounts for 83 percent of all existing cases in the country.
• The delta variant is more transmissible by 43-90 percent than the original COVID-19 strain.
• The variant has now spread to over 100 countries.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky announced on Tuesday that COVID-19’s delta variant now comprised 83 percent of all the cases in the US, a significant jump from 50 percent during the first week of this month.

During her testimony at a Senate hearing Tuesday, Walensky said that more than 60 percent of US counties have only vaccinated less than two out of every five residents, which results in “the emergence and rapid spread of the highly transmissible delta variant.”

“Each death is tragic and even more heartbreaking when we know that the majority of these deaths could be prevented with a simple, safe, available vaccine,” she said.

The delta variant, which was first identified in India back in October, is known to be more contagious than the alpha variant, which is believed to have originated in the UK.

Public authorities estimated that the delta is between 43 and 90 percent more infectious versus the original virus strain. Based on the data from the World Health Organization, delta has already spread to over 100 nations across the world.

“The reason it’s so formidable is the fact that it has the capability of transmitting efficiently from human to human in an extraordinary manner, well beyond any of the other variants that we’ve experienced, up to now,” White House’s chief medical advisor and top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said during the hearing.

Currently, the wave of delta variants has led to a rising death toll. Walensky stressed that over the past week, there had been an average of 239 deaths per day as COVID-19 fatalities have grown to a little less than 50 percent. According to the data tracking by John Hopkins University, the US has recorded over 34.1 million COVID-19 infections, with over 609,000 fatalities as of the present.

Source: CNBC.com