Delta Variant & Outside Transmission

[Rayaheya]

Does anyone know if there is any data on it at all? I was at a BBQ for about 4 hours last weekend & one of the guests tested positive 2 days later. I'm isolating but wondering how much I need to worry?

Oh ok I see. We’re not that screwed. Just a bit screwed 😂

@WuhanClanAintNothingToFuckWith

Worryingly, thanks to vaccinations, transmissability and immune evading are now essentially the same thing in the UK, so quite likely the next variant produced here will be worse still.

Just trying to get my head around this! So being highly contagious and evading vaccines is EXTREMELY likely to be the next step!

"Vaccine evasion" is already occurring.

It won't be that vaccines go from being 95% protective to zero. But each vaccine-evading mutation will reduce the protection provided by current vaccines. Perhaps just be a few %, perhaps by more.

But in order to spread more effectively within a largely vaccinated society, the virus will NEED to evolve into something that evades current "immunity" to some degree.

@WuhanClanAintNothingToFuckWith

Oh ok I see. We’re not that screwed. Just a bit screwed 😂

That’s the (positive) spirit, Wuhan!

The thing is, like the flu vaccine (everyone groan quietly to yourselves here, I know it’s not the flu!), the scientists are already working on tweaking the vaccines to make them effective against the mutations. So then the next vaccine will again protect people better and the virus needs to learn a different mutation. Etc etc.

@WuhanClanAintNothingToFuckWith

Just wondering if this Delta variant has emerged (more transmissible) from a country as hot as India, where maybe they would spend more time outside, does not mean our summer is doomed? Or is it more to do with living conditions or multigenerational households in India? Or what?

No - as i said in my first post, the virus has newly crossed into humans and is adapting.

Think of it like moving to a different climate, say moving from Scotland to Turkey. You take all your warm clothes, blankets, stout boots etc - then in Turkey you're too warm all the time which is tiring. So you slowly ditch all your cold-weather stuff and buy new lightweight clothes and sandals....

That's what the virus is doing - it's ditching things that worked for it in whatever animal it began in, and switching to things that work better in humans.

@NoSquirrels

The thing is, like the flu vaccine (everyone groan quietly to yourselves here, I know it’s not the flu!), the scientists are already working on tweaking the vaccines to make them effective against the mutations. So then the next vaccine will again protect people better and the virus needs to learn a different mutation. Etc etc.

They guess with flu and produce wide spectrum vaccines that offer quite low protection rates, months before the flu season starts.

By the time they've created, manufactured, distributed and administered a Delta variant vaccine, covid would have moved on.

It will never be possible to deal with covid as we do with flu.

@NoSquirrels

That is quite reassuring, I have faith in the scientists and those producing vaccines. Unfortunately it’s so confusing and frustrating for everyone though.

‘Just a bit screwed’ my new positive mantra!

Actually ... How will they put various new strains into one vaccine shot though!? When there are already so many side effects to the current vaccine?

Screwed.

Not totally screwed.

Unlike the flu jab the aim seems to be to get to a level of herd immunity with jabs, not just to vaccinate the vulnerable. That should reduce the amount of replication and therefore the chance of mutation. The bit that might screw us is not keeping a lid on the number of cases until we get there.

A population fully vaccinated with a slightly less effective vaccine might just be enough to keep it under control until a more effective booster is available.