Today, Explained - The delta variant

Episode Date: June 22, 2021

The fast-spreading coronavirus variant first detected in India is coming for the rest of the world. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained. Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Umair Irfan, ScienceVox, the time has come for us to talk about the Delta variant. Yeah, this is the variant that was previously known as B.1.617.

Based on current projections, it's expected to become the dominant strain of the virus in many parts of the world, including the United States. The more contagious Delta variant now makes up about 10% of the cases in the U.S. It's concerning because it spreads clearly more efficiently than the one that we've been normally dealing with, and it tends to look like it might even be more serious in making people ill. It was first detected in India last year and the genome was documented in December. But it's important to remember that mutations are a fact of life with viruses. They mutate all the time and most mutations have no effect or are actually detrimental to the virus. But occasionally a rare mutation that confers an advantage will come up and by natural selection it might start to dominate.

The more the virus spreads, the more likely it is that such a mutation will arise. And how does this particular mutation compare to all the other ones? It actually has quite a bit in common with some of the other variants that are out there. In fact, some people have referred to this as a double mutant or a triple mutant, though that's not quite accurate because it actually contains dozens of different mutations compared to the original strain of the virus. But in particular, it has a few mutations that are known to make the virus better able to infect human cells.

It also contains mutations that make it better able to spread between people, and it also has mutations that make it better able to evade the immune system. And these are mutations we've seen individually or in some combinations with other variants as well. But seeing all of them in the same one makes this a little bit more worrisome. Where is it currently spreading? Well, we're seeing this spreading in many parts of the world that have already dealt with existing outbreaks. So in Western Europe, Portugal, Spain, France, and the United Kingdom have all seen cases of this variant. Some of the governments have had to reimpose their pandemic restrictions.

It's been spreading a little bit throughout Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa and in Latin America as well. So it's been a global traveler. But the most acute spread of this has been in India, which is where it was first detected and has contributed to making the country one of the epicenters of this pandemic. While infection numbers have dropped from their horrific peaks last month, more than 120,000 new cases were reported today. And we've covered the situation in India on the show previously, but is this Delta variant partly to blame for how bad things got there?

It's hard to tease it out on its own. I mean, India had a bunch of different problems with its pandemic response. You know, the government started letting up on restrictions pretty early and started reopening things and encouraging mass religious gatherings and political gatherings. And that country has also dealt with a very low vaccination rate. So there were still a fair number of vulnerable people and large gatherings taking place, even independent of this variant. And certainly the variant isn't helping things, but it's hard to blame it by itself when you also had a public health response that was very fractured and undermined. What we faced as a challenge was the sheer number of cases that we were seeing every day. We were sometimes unable to provide beds for people who really needed it. Do we know how the vaccines stand up against this Delta variant?

Yeah, we know for the most part that they actually still do a pretty good job. You know, early studies have shown that there's a reduced efficacy against disease, which means COVID-19 cases that actually produce symptoms. But vaccines still seem to be highly effective at preventing severe disease, things that cause hospitalization and death, and most of them are still well over the 90% range. So the vaccines still remain our best tool at containing the Delta variant, as well as other variants that are in circulation. So while you said earlier that this thing could show up in the United States and become the dominant mutation of this coronavirus, this shouldn't necessarily send the United States back into lockdowns because there are tens and tens of millions of people who have been vaccinated here? Maybe? eh? That's right. You know, more than half of all U.S. adults have been vaccinated. Now younger people are getting vaccinated. And it's true that while this variant may make up a larger proportion of new infections,

the overall rate of infections can and very likely will continue to decline. So the remaining cases that are happening may be with this more virulent strain. But if the United States keeps up its momentum in vaccinating people and containing the spread, that could still put us on a good trajectory towards returning to normal. The only issue there is that the United States is not keeping up its vaccination trajectory. Is that right? For all the progress we're making as a country, if you are unvaccinated, you are still at risk of getting seriously ill or dying or spreading disease to others. That's why today we're announcing a month-long effort to pull all the stops, all the stops to free ourselves from this virus and get to 70% of adult Americans vaccinated. Yeah, we're now past

the number of people that have been wanting the vaccine, the people who are waiting to, willing to wait in line and go out of their way to get it. And now we're getting some, the people who are waiting to, willing to wait in line and go out of their way to get it. And now we're getting some of the people who are on the fence and some of the people who are hesitant. And then there are the people that are outright refusing getting the vaccinations. A top concern for experts right now is a slowing vaccination rate. According to the CDC, about 1 million doses of the vaccine are being administered each day. To put that in perspective, the peak average back in April was about 3.3 million a day, so down about 70 percent. Health officials warned that the United States could

still be vulnerable to another spike in the fall fueled by these variants if there are still large pockets of the population that have very low vaccination rates. And that's the main concern from here on out. Huh. So if we don't get more of the country vaccinated here in the United States and this Delta variant becomes a real issue, we might here even see what you're saying is happening in Western Europe where people are returning into these lockdown situations. That's a possibility. But again, it's very unlikely to be that severe. The U.S. does have a very high rate of vaccination compared to other countries.

And again, the vaccines do provide good protection against this variant, although the variant does seem to be a little bit more likely to cause breakthrough infections, meaning that even people who are vaccinated may still end up coming down with the illness, but very likely to be much more mild and much less severe. But again, you know, everything that we can do to control the virus and control the spread will benefit us. And if we are lackadaisical in our approach to this, it could come on back and to haunt us. What's the latest on herd immunity in the United States? How's it going? Do we have a new benchmark? Is it still that 70, 80%? It's hard to say, you know, herd immunity is not a fixed line. It's not a magic number where once we cross it, the pandemic is over. Basically, you want to get enough people vaccinated such

that the spread of the virus peters out. And that can change from person to person, from place to place. You know, if you have a community where you have a subset of the population that is not vaccinated and that does have a high rate of transmission, then the efforts to develop herd immunity can be undermined. And within that subset of the population, the virus can continue to spread and mutate and eventually break free and start undermining some of the past gains that we've made. So ideally, we want everyone that is able to get vaccinated to get vaccinated, and we're still short of that benchmark. And so while there's this pressure in the United States to get more people vaccinated, to protect us from these variants, there's a ton of pressure still to make sure that

the rest of the world gets vaccinated. Right. You know, it's important to remember that while cases are declining in the United States, in other parts of the world, the pandemic is the worst it's ever been. And as long as the virus continues to spread in those countries, you know, that will harm our trading partners, people we buy goods from, people we sell goods to, which makes it harder to restart our own economy. And at the same time, as long as the virus is spreading, it can mutate in dangerous ways, and those dangerous mutations can come bounce back to us. So it behooves the United States and other

countries that are doing better with vaccinations to help other countries that are not doing as well that have fewer resources to help control the pandemic. And on that front, we got some exciting news last week about a new vaccine that could help the United States help the rest of the world. This morning, a new vaccine is showing promising results. Novavax releasing data from phase three clinical trials, saying it's vaccine's overall efficacy reached 90%. We have heard this morning that Novavax jab is 90% effective against COVID-19. This is the one that we have 51 million doses on order. There's more good news tonight for the UK's vaccination program.

A fourth vaccine could be approved shortly after major trials in the UK showed it was particularly effective against the UK variant. Novavax is an American jab, but it's being produced here in the UK in a factory on Teesside. Thank you, Novavax, releasing an effective vaccine this week for basically being that guy who shows up to a party with a six pack at.m. It's like, Novavax! You rock! Thank you. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. You're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained. Ramp.com slash explained.

R-A-M-P dot com slash explained, r-a-m-p dot com slash explained, cards issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC, terms and conditions apply. Umair, tell me about Novavax. Novavax is a company based just outside of Washington, D.C. What's interesting about it is that it uses a different technology for its vaccine compared to the other vaccines that have been authorized in the U.S. You may recall the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the Moderna vaccine. They use a strand of genetic material called mRNA that codes for the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. And then when it's injected into human cells, human cells manufacture that protein and that coaches the immune system to fight off the

virus. The AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccine use a different virus called an adenovirus, and that is programmed to also deliver the spike protein of the virus into the human cell. And the Novavax vaccine is a little bit different. It is also a two-dose vaccine, and it uses the genetic code for making the spike protein of the virus, but it has an intermediary. The spike protein is actually coded into the different virus called a baculovirus. That virus then infects the cells of a moth. A moth?

Yeah, a moth, like, you know, the little fluttery winged creatures. What did the moth do? Well, the moths fly around, but the laboratories, they found out that these moth cells are actually very good factories for viral proteins. And so when they infect these moth cells

with this reprogrammed virus, the moth cells then actually manufacture the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2. The researchers then harvest those proteins and they fuse them to a nanoparticle. And then that combined particle with proteins is what's injected in the vaccine. How did they figure out this thing about the moths? I think probably through a lot of trial and error, years of research, observation of nature, and probably somebody who was very bored around some moths on a summer night. On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses? Okay. That's just a guess. How effective is Novavax in these clinical trials? Last week, the company announced that its vaccine showed about 90% efficacy against

COVID-19 disease. Again, that's COVID-19 cases that result in symptoms. And it also showed 100% efficacy against moderate and severe disease. So the cases of the illness that would likely land you in the hospital. So it's right up there with all the other vaccines in terms of how effective it is in terms of preventing people from getting sick. And out of curiosity, since this vaccine uses different technology, is it more appealing to all the mRNA skeptics out there? Well, it's certainly good to have more tools in the arsenal to be able to combat the pandemic. There are some people that can't get the mRNA vaccines because they have a high risk of severe allergy, for instance. Or you've seen

that, you know, some folks may be vulnerable to very rare types of blood clots associated with the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines. So if you're at risk for some of these other complications, it might be good to have another alternative that can potentially still be used and has a different set of risk profile that can still provide you protection without the other risks that you're worried about. Okay, so how long until this thing's approved? Well, it's unlikely that it's going to get approved in the United States anytime soon. You know, the company said they may not even file for an emergency use authorization until later this year, possibly until September, but it may get approval in other countries before the United States. This is a vaccine that could very easily be deployed to countries that have not yet been

able to get doses of the other vaccines that are on the market or in places that have struggled to meet their production quotas. And so having just another manufacturer making hundreds of millions of new doses of a vaccine will certainly help the global fight against the pandemic. How are we doing in this global fight to vaccinate people against COVID-19? In some places, we're doing quite well. Well, particularly in developed countries and countries that have a lot of money, they've been able to vaccinate large swaths of their adult populations. But in other parts of the world, they have barely begun vaccinate large swaths of their adult populations. But in other

parts of the world, they have barely begun vaccinating at all. You know, in some parts of Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia, they're struggling to get vaccines doses to begin with to their populations. And then the doses that are there, they're having a hard time administering them. Part of that is because of limited resources. You know, some of these vaccines have very stringent storage requirements. And also many of them are two-dose vaccines, which adds to the logistical hurdles. You have to get everybody back for their second doses. Certainly the one-dose vaccine, like the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, would go a long way towards

that. But at the same time, it's just been a difficult challenge overall in terms of just getting enough doses. There are billions of people in the world that ultimately need to get vaccinated. And it's going to remain a challenge from here on out. And beyond vaccinations, have we made any great strides in antiviral treatments? Well, certainly we've gotten better at treating the disease. You know, the rate of deaths from hospitalizations has declined in the United States and in many parts of the world as doctors have figured out a set of protocols for treating

this disease. We found some therapies that work. We found techniques like convalescent plasma and monoclonal antibodies that have worked as drugs, as well as some generic drugs like steroids that have been used to help mitigate some of the worst symptoms. But there's been very little movement on antiviral drugs. There's only one therapy right now that's been fully approved for treating COVID-19. It's a drug called remdesivir. And it only has sort of a mixed level of effectiveness. It seems to reduce hospital stays in people who are infected, but it has to be administered early in the course of the illness. And it seems to show mixed results in terms of preventing deaths overall. So improving antiviral drugs seems to be an area where there could be

a lot of development from here on out. Biden's talked a big game about helping the world. What's he doing about this? Well, the Biden administration recently announced that they want to invest $3 billion into COVID-19 antiviral development. And while this may not do all that much for the United States as it gets its vaccination rates up and its overall case numbers down, improving these drugs could also go a long way towards helping other parts of the world that are still in the acute phase of their crisis. You know, for the people for whom who are already infected, who are already in hospitals, vaccines aren't going to help them all that much, but having effective antiviral drugs

could go a long way toward blunting the impact of this pandemic. And so developing better drugs is certainly one area where the U.S. could be deploying its research muscle and might towards helping the rest of the world. It's a whole of government effort aimed at developing the next generation of COVID-19 treatments, as well as preparing us for future threats. The pandemic is still here. Maybe we're not seeing the same record spike in new cases, but it's still devastating that new infections and deaths are still rising in some parts of the world. And it's important to remember that suffering is still ongoing and that as long as the suffering is still happening, it has important consequences for everyone. You know, we're not out of the woods until everyone is out of the woods. woods Pretty yet and they're pretty yet good.