Delta variant and it’s potential threats
COVID-19 has currently taken over the world. Every country has been suffering for the last one year. While some countries have been successful in fighting the virus, most of them have failed to protect their people. Case in point for the former- New Zealand. However, talking about our own country, the condition is not at all good. The country is suffering for the last year and the number of people who lost their lives battling the virus is enormous.
The country is still suffering greatly, which we painfully witnessed during the second wave of the virus. According to WHO, a new COVID-19 strain has emerged from India and is a great threat to the whole world, and mostly India. The new strain is called the ‘Delta‘, which has replaced the previous prevailing variant, the ‘alpha’ variant, and will be deadlier than any previous strain.
What is the ‘delta’ strain and how is it a matter of concern to the world?
According to the WHO reports, the delta variant is the highly contagious, fastest, and fittest strain of the COVID-19 virus which is reported to affect the most vulnerable people of the society. It is likely to affect more in the areas where the vaccination rate is low. The delta strain has emerged from India and is deadlier than any other strain because of its efficiency to transmit between humans. It is said that it will eventually find the most vulnerable people, affect them severely leading to their deaths. It has the potential to raise the death toll of the country to a very high level.
But can we not do anything about it?
Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s health emergencies program said that the world leaders and public health officials can contribute in order to defend the most deadly strain of the COVID-19 virus till now by the process of donation and distribution of COVID vaccines. India has completely failed in its vaccination drives. But this is the time to improve their current vaccination drives in order to protect its people from the upcoming third wave and the deadly strain of the virus. The fact that the country, till now is not able to vaccinate its most vulnerable people is very sad but true. Sincere efforts need to be done in order to protect the world.
Not only in India, but this strain is also now replacing alpha strain, a highly contagious strain that spread over the world earlier this year. The delta strain is the most dominant one now and it is scary to even imagine the impact it would have in India. This variant has been considered the variant of concern, majorly because of it being highly contagious, deadly, and more resistant to current vaccines.
India’s healthcare system completely failed during the second wave of the virus. People were fighting to arrange beds in the hospitals for their people and were running everywhere in order to get oxygen cylinders. The death toll was on the rise and the country was shivering. However, even after the number of cases has started to decline, the threat is not over. The third wave of the virus is expected to start in the upcoming 6-8 weeks and after knowing about the prevailing delta strain of the virus, the future seems scary.
Talking more about how dangerous this strain of the virus is, the delta strain is 60% more contagious than the alpha strain which was said to be more contagious than the original strain which was originated in Wuhan, China. This strain has spread to 92 countries with India being the most prone country to this strain’s effect.
The spread of the virus in the country has not been slow till now, and after the advance of this strain, the transmission of the COVID-19 virus has increased. Speaking about the international spread of the new strain, currently, 10% of the total cases reported in the USA are of the delta strain, a country where the vaccination drive has been successful and had a good healthcare system. You can already imagine the condition of India from this.
The spread of the Delta strain in India till now is limited, but it still is a danger for the whole country. With the arrival of this variant, which is deadlier than ever, the need to impose a lockdown may arise again. Lockdown directly means a decline in economic activities and therefore will directly affect the economy, but this is not the concern of the government currently.
The government has constantly been making efforts to avoid the spread of this new strain. The country’s government is concerned about the mechanism to escape or at least reduce the spread of this delta strain and the only way out is immunization of people. The improvement in the vaccination drive is much needed in order to protect the country.
According to the reports of WHO as well the scientists in the country, the delta strain has severe symptoms, which are more harmful than any other strain and will have a deep impact on the patient’s health. Further, the delta strain can have many new symptoms, but it is yet to be discovered through studies.
Before the arrival of the delta strain, no strain had both high transmissibility as well as lethality, but this strain has got both and is, therefore, a matter of concern to the world. This strain has been called the fittest and fastest strain of them all. It is so dangerous that walking past a patient which is suffering from this strain of the virus can affect the person if he/she is not wearing a mask.
The delta strain is currently being studied at the laboratories and we will get to know if the vaccine is fairly effective against it or not, but the need to get vaccinated is still high as currently, it has become the survival of the fittest and the vaccines will provide an advantage to the people to fight or prevent the virus. The government has said that they have sent an advisory to all the states regarding the same, and have also claimed to improve their current condition of the vaccination drive by claiming the effectiveness of the new vaccination policy.
According to the doctors, the next 6-8 weeks are very crucial for the country, and the need to vaccinate people has risen. Both Covishield and Covaxin have been said to be effective against all the previous strains and we all hope that they will be effective against this strain too, helping India to overcome this too.
Edited by Aishwarya Ingle
