好色先生TV

SINGAPORE 鈥� The Delta variant of the coronavirus has played havoc with governments鈥� plans to return life to some sense of normality.

Fresh outbreaks fueled by the highly infectious strain聽have forced major cities in China, Australia, the Philippines and elsewhere back into lockdown and spurred the authorities, particularly in Asia, to reimpose harsh restrictions as聽low vaccination rates聽leave people vulnerable to Covid-19.

Economies have taken a hit as manufacturing hubs like Thailand and Vietnam see their supply chains interrupted. Factories making goods for global brands are halting work and potentially missing out on the crucial holiday shopping season in major markets.

The wave of new infections has also seen the likes of Israel, Britain and the United States scramble to reinstate mask recommendations even among the vaccinated, as data emerges to show that聽more fully vaccinated individuals are also catching the Delta strain,聽and might be just as likely to spread it to others around them.

The Delta variant, first identified in India, has become by far the most dominant strain in many countries: It now accounts for almost all new Covid-19 cases in the US, Britain, Russia, Germany, South Africa and Singapore, among other countries.

鈥楤reakthrough鈥� cases

Studies show that the variant to date is聽the fastest, fittest and most formidable version聽of the Sars-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19.

Scientists estimate that it is roughly 50 per cent more contagious than the Alpha variant first found in Britain, which in turn was about 50 per cent more contagious than the original strain detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

It has also proven more potent than its predecessors, capable of infecting fully vaccinated people.

Still, such individuals 鈥� even if infected with Covid-19 鈥� remain far less likely than those who are unvaccinated to fall severely ill, require hospital care, or die from any known variant of the coronavirus.

US data shows that infections, hospitalizations and fatalities remain rare among those who are fully vaccinated.

More than nine in 10 of all new cases, hospitalizations and deaths in US states that reported on Covid-19 from the beginning of the year occurred among those who were unvaccinated or yet to be fully vaccinated, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a US non-profit organization that has been collecting and analyzing data on Covid-19 vaccinations.

In Singapore, the fully vaccinated made up about four in 10 of all new cases over the past month 鈥� a surprising statistic that can be explained by the fact that around 70 per cent of the population have already been fully inoculated, so the probability of encountering an infection in a vaccinated individual is significantly higher.

Aggressive contact tracing and testing measures would also have identified mild or asymptomatic infections that might not have surfaced otherwise.

Significantly, not one of the fully vaccinated people who were infected died, and current data shows that only one is in intensive care.

Health experts stress that cases of fully vaccinated individuals becoming infected with Covid-19, commonly called 鈥渂reakthrough infections鈥�, do not imply that the vaccines are ineffective.

鈥淭he risk (of infection) among vaccinated people should be closer to 0.0 per cent everywhere, but the fact that they are not is less a matter of some failure of the vaccines themselves than the fact that the virus is spreading so widely,鈥� Dr James Hamblin, a public health policy lecturer at the Yale School of Public Health, wrote in his online health bulletin on Friday.

鈥淭he more people who refuse to get vaccinated, the more vaccinated people will get infected.鈥�

Separately, the preventative medicine physician wrote on Twitter: 鈥淣o one鈥� ever claimed vaccines will stop the virus from landing on you. Vaccines prevent serious illness. They do that very well.鈥�

Transmission risks

What about the chances of fully vaccinated people infecting others around them with the virus? The jury is still out on this.

In a study last month, Chinese researchers reported they had found early evidence that while those who are vaccinated and infected with the Delta strain do not necessarily get sicker, they do become more contagious and for longer.

The researchers said those infected with the Delta variant had on average about 1,000 times more virus in their respiratory tracts than people who caught the original strain.