COVID-19 Delta Variant: Who is Most at Risk Between Vaccinated and Unvaccinated People?

With cases rising and the COVID-19 Delta variant gaining increased predominance in the United States, health experts have reiterated that vaccines are effective in the ways that matter most which are preempting severe disease, hospital admission, and death.

Dr. Anthony Fauci told Jim Acosta of CNN that the COVID-19 vaccines are shown to be strongly effective in preempting symptomatic, clinically apparent disease.

He said when one starts what he called breakthrough infections, if he looks carefully at them, the overwhelming majority of those are individuals who are either asymptomatic or experience only mild symptoms. Therefore, added the expert, the vaccines remain very effective in the prevention of severe disease.

According to Vaccine Education Center director at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Dr. Paul Offit, also a member of the US Food and Drug Administration's vaccine advisory committee, the COVID-19 Delta variant has pretty much taken over in the United States. However, it is clear the vaccines are working against the said variant and explained Dr. Fauci.

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Unvaccinated People at High Risk for COVID-19 Delta Variant

Amidst the rise of the occurrence of COVID-19 Delta variant, still, 97 percent of people admitted at the hospital or killed by COVID-19 are unvaccinated, said Offit.

If the Delta variant were evading, importantly, immunity induced by vaccination, explained Offit, then a rise in people who are vaccinated should have been seen, however though, they were still admitted at the hospital and killed. And that, he continued, has not happened.

Yet, the pace of immunizations has slowed, with less than 50 percent of the American population, specifically 48 percent, per the most recent data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fully inoculated. And, it is the communities that have lower rates of vaccination that are in danger.

Among the US states that have completely vaccinated less than 50 percent of their residents, the average rate of COVID-19 was 11 new cases for every 100,000 people a week ago, compared to four in every 100,000 among states that have provided more than half of their residents with full vaccination, a CNN data analysis from Johns Hopkins University specified.

Vaccinated People Unlikely to Get Ill

Director of global health in emergency medicine, Dr. Craig Spencer, at Columbia University Medical Center, said, if people are unvaccinated, the risk is tremendously high, and perhaps, in some sites, higher than it has ever been.

Dr. Spencer added, people act "a little more carefree and lackadaisical," increasing the chance of exposure. Certainly, the number of individuals who travel by air is setting a pandemic-era record late last week, with almost 2.2 million people screed at airports in the US, explained a spokesperson at the Transportation Security Administration.

Momentarily, vaccinated people need to continue being smart, although they are quite unlikely to get ill, be admitted at the hospital, or die due to COVID-19.

COVID-19 Delta Variant, So Contagious, a Threat to Unvaccinated People

According to a Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center infectious disease specialist Dr. Catherine O'Neal, CNN Health reported, this year's COVID-19 virus is not last year's virus.

She added, it is attacking the 40-year-olds, parents, and grandparents. More so, it is getting the kids. O'Neal also said, her COVID-19 unit now has more patients in their 20s who were healthy before.

One needs to be vaccinated, said the infectious disease specialist adding, that's the only way to end the pandemic. Masks and mitigation, these initiatives are not going to take it. "It's going to be vaccination," she elaborated.

Since early this year, 97 percent of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Louisiana were among those not fully vaccinated, said Governor Bel Edwards.

Like with any vaccine type, a related Utah.gov report said, a small percentage of vaccinated people may get a breakthrough contagion. However, it is literally not possible to contract COVID-19 from any of the vaccines used in this country since none of them have the said infection in them.

Related information about how the Delta COVID-19 variant is affecting both vaccinated and unvaccinated people is shown on ABC Action News's YouTube video below: