Geneva-based World Health Organization [WHO] said today that more lockdowns may be necessary to control the spread of the highly contagious, India-originated Delta Covid-19 variant, sweeping across Asia, Africa, Europe and the North America. With some sixty-times the contagiousness of the original novel coronavirus, the Delta variant has wreaked havoc again just when most nations were letting their guard down with vaccines increasing around the world. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] leaked a memo that compared the Delta variant transmissibility to the chickenpox, a frightening prospect for public health officials. Whether the U.K.’s slight reduction in Delta variant cases slows down or not, new infections are filling up hospitals and Intensive Care beds around the country. WHO’s senior adviser Dr. Bruce Aylward said new restrictions are needed to slow the spread.
Public health officials in the U.S. and Europe had been relaxing mask and social distancing restrictions, opening up more social businesses like restaurants, bars, nightclubs, sporting venues and entertainment to reflect increased immunity from safe-and-effective vaccines. “More transmissible means more cases, more sick people, more hospitalizations more ICUs filling up,” Aylward said, answering a question about whether there’s been a communication breakdown. “Which brings us to a choice: Do we do more stuff to stop it at an individual level . . . or do we have to go to more lockdowns to stop it?” Aylward asked. President Joe Biden, 78, hasn’t ruled out the possibility of more lockdowns if the Delta variant gets out of control. “We have been speaking about this for months now. The dangers have been raised time and time against,” said WHO’s Dr. Mike Ryan, Health Emergencies Director.
Most U.S. states are in no mood to think about new lockdowns. Shuttered businesses are still reeling from the long-term economic carnage from past lockdowns. States like Florida and Texas, both hit hard by last year’s lockdowns, have no intent of shutting things down again, no matter how many new Covid-19 cases pop up. Comparing the Delta variant transmissibility to the chickenpox raises all kinds of red flags for public health officials. “How they release this information, how it’s communicated, that seem to continue to be a place for improvement for the CDC,” said Anarn Parekh, chief medical adviser at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Public health officials were generally so positive about the vaccines that they thought it would restore some sense of normalcy back to the country. News of breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated people have raised red flags
Reports from the highly vaccinated Boston area show that some 74% of new Covid infections come from fully vaccinated people, leaving some to suspect that the immunity is beginning to wear off from the first series of vaccines. Companies like Pfizer and Moderna are talking about booster vaccines, something likely to be approved in the next few months. “In some sense, we’re all in kindergarten when it comes to this virus. We’re still learning,” said WHO’s Ryan. Public health experts are still dealing with vaccine hesitancy that stopped a sizable portion of the U.S. population from getting vaccines. When people consider vaccines, it doesn’t help to hear that fully vaccinated individuals are still getting infected. When the CDC comes out with new mask guidance for vaccinated people, it makes unvaccinated folks think why bother getting the vaccines because nothing changes.
When public health officials threaten new vaccine mandates, it breeds suspicion in the public when they see more masking guidelines with or without vaccines. Some employers, like the federal government, are threatening to mandate vaccines for all workers, despite telling them at the same time to continue masking and social distancing. “The story is when we first had a vaccine, we thought it would be protective against disease, meanwhile, the surge in Delta variant hospitalizations has disproportionately impacted the unvaccinated,” said Dr. Howard Forman, Yale health policy professor. Working against vaccines are the fact that, with or without vaccines, people have to follow the same restrictions. People are so jaded with the restrictions and change of lifestyle that they’ve become defiant and are not ignoring common sense guidelines like masking and social distancing.
Whether the current Delta variant, or some other variant, ebbs and flows, the FDA will need to reconsider approving booster shots to help reduce the kind of breakthrough infections seen from the Delta variant. While the Pfizer and Modern vaccines worked wonders for a while, it looks like the immunity protections are beginning to wane requiring booster shots. No matter what the White House or CDC decides, it’s not going to go back to last year’s lockdowns without catastrophic damage to the U.S. economy. With the economic stimulus wearing off, the economy is still left with a shrinking GDP, unable to rebound fully from last year’s pandemic. Whatever the new normal, including wearing masks, social distancing and getting new boosters, the public won’t return to last year’s lockdowns without rebellion. “This won’t be the last virus variant you hear us talking about,” said WHO’s Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove. “There will be more/”
