The Delta variant of the COVID-19 coronavirus now makes up 83% of new US COVID-19 cases. “This is a dramatic increase, up from 50% for the week of July 3,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a Senate committee hearing Tuesday. Total new cases have tripled over the last two weeks.
Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, was dramatic in his warnings: “This is the most contagious version of the virus we have seen throughout the whole pandemic. It’s really very contagious.” A recent Chinese study found that patients with the Delta variant had viral loads that were 1,260 times higher than the original variant, according to CNN. Dr. Jha stated: “There’s so much more virus around, people who are infected have such high viral loads, but even short periods of time — five minutes, seven minutes, you don’t even have to be within six feet… For people who are unvaccinated, they are getting infected with much, much shorter exposure.”
