Here & Now

The Delta Variant - Now and Going Forward

Frederica Freyberg:

Our first guest has said we are literally sitting on the edge of what could be a major crisis. He’s talking about the latest threat from COVID-19. Epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm is a national expert and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. He joins us now from Minneapolis and thanks very much for being here.

Michael Osterholm:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So the last time we spoke with you in March of this year you said we’re doing everything but turning over our credit cards to this virus. We’re giving it every opportunity to be transmitted and that was before the Delta variant became the dominant strain in the U.S. What about what is happening now and where do you see this going?

Michael Osterholm:

My comments back then were referring to the variants in general. And the fact that really since November of last year when we recognized that these variants, these mutated viruses actually had tremendous impact on how infectious the virus could be, whether it caused more severe illness or whether it even had the ability to evade the immune protection of the vaccine or natural infection immunity. What’s happened since then is we have just seen additional variants spin out that have been even more concerning. This particular variant, Delta, is one of the most infectious respiratory viruses any of us have ever seen. It is now 40% to 60% more infectious than the original Alpha strain which appeared last March and April. And that means that at this point this thing is going to a place where none of us had imagined early on in the pandemic. We saw an average case transmitting to 1.5, 1.8 other people, which meant that the outbreak grew. Well, now this is transmitting to between six to eight people per on average case. And so the case numbers are growing very, very quickly. And this is a big challenge for us.

Frederica Freyberg:

How dangerous is this situation then for the unvaccinated?

Michael Osterholm:

Well, I think you’ve really hit a very important note here in the sense that if you look at the world, first of all know that the pandemic is raging on and it really is in some ways only really still getting started. Of the 6.4 billion people in the low and middle-income countries, less than 2% have had any access to vaccine and there’s still a lot of people yet to get infected. So this pandemic is still unfolding in the rest of the world. Here in the United States we’ve done a much better job with our vaccination programs, but there still are 100 million Americans, let me repeat that, 100 million Americans that have not been vaccinated and they surely serve as you might say the human wood for this coronavirus forest fire to burn. So this is what we’re concerned about over the course of the next upcoming weeks. At this point, all of the 50 states and the District of Columbia are seeing case numbers increases and for some of the states where this Delta variant really has taken off first, the case numbers are increasing quite dramatically.

Frederica Freyberg:

There’s a small percentage of people who are vaccinated getting so-called breakthrough infections. Should this be a concern?

Michael Osterholm:

Breakthrough infections were anticipated right from the very beginning. When we told you that the vaccines might be 90% to 95% effective early on, that meant that of course there would be a small percentage of people who, once vaccinated, when exposed to the virus would actually still get infected and potentially even ill. Now, the good news is is that for most of these, it’s very mild illness and it’s not a significant challenge. So the vaccine is still reducing the severity of the disease, whether you need to be hospitalized and even dying. There are a few, primarily the elderly population, where even having been vaccinated they still get quite ill and can die. But I think the message is to get across right now is that if you look at what’s happening with hospitalizations, 97% of the cases in this country among COVID patients are currently among the unvaccinated. 99% of the deaths are occurring among unvaccinated COVID patients. So if there was ever a compelling reason, now is the time. Please get vaccinated. If not for yourself, for your loved ones, for the people you might transmit the virus to. They could become a very seriously-ill individual.

Frederica Freyberg:

Does this kind of half measure of vaccinations like the 50% who have been vaccinated in Wisconsin make us more susceptible to ever-more variants?

Michael Osterholm:

The United States’ contribution to the variants surely cannot be denied, but it pales in comparison to the rest of the world. Remember I mentioned that 6.4 billion people who have basically no access to vaccine in most of the world. That’s where we’re going to see the vast majority of transmission occur. If you look at the Delta variant, it arose in India. I think that’s where we’re going to continue to see these new variants come spinning out of. The question is is this it? Is Delta the worse one? Will they only get to be milder after this? We have no way of knowing that. It’s hard for us to imagine getting something worse than Delta, but in fact we could see that over time, that that is the case.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile, you saw the 100,000 people attending the Milwaukee Bucks game six in Milwaukee. Not to rain on that parade, but are you as concerned as Wisconsin public health officials are about that gathering in terms of being a spreader event?

Michael Osterholm:

I’m absolutely concerned. Any of these events like this right now, where people don’t realize that the Delta variant is around, where we see the transmission of this virus in settings just like that, there was a large festival in Massachusetts two weeks ago that has resulted now in many thousands of cases from having been at an outdoor festival, largely. So, yeah, we’re very concerned about it. And particularly because most people have the sense this is over with. They think the pandemic is done. And it’s not. We might be done with the virus. We might be trying to run out the clock. But the virus is not done with us. And all I can say is if you are not vaccinated with this virus, it will find you eventually.

Frederica Freyberg:

We leave it there. Dr. Michael Osterholm, thank you. Thank you for your work.

Michael Osterholm:

Thank you.