A sensible look at the Delta variant and vaccinations

Has the Delta-fueled Covid-19 surge in the U.S. finally peaked?

The number of new daily U.S. cases has risen less over the past week than at any point since June, as you can see in this chart:

There is obviously no guarantee that the trend will continue. But there is one big reason to think that it may and that caseloads may even soon decline.

Since the pandemic began, Covid has often followed a regular — if mysterious — cycle. In one country after another, the number of new cases has often surged for roughly two months before starting to fall. The Delta variant, despite its intense contagiousness, has followed this pattern.

After Delta took hold last winter in India, caseloads there rose sharply for slightly more than two months before plummeting at a nearly identical rate. In Britain, caseloads rose for almost exactly two months before peaking in July. In Indonesia, Thailand, France, Spain and several other countries, the Delta surge also lasted somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 months.

And in the U.S. states where Delta first caused caseloads to rise, the cycle already appears to be on its downside. Case numbers in Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri peaked in early or mid-August and have since been falling:

Two possible stories

We have asked experts about these two-month cycles, and they acknowledged that they could not explain it. “We still are really in the cave ages in terms of understanding how viruses emerge, how they spread, how they start and stop, why they do what they do,” Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, said.

But two broad categories of explanation seem plausible, the experts say.

One involves the virus itself. Rather than spreading until it has reached every last person, perhaps it spreads in waves that happen to follow a similar timeline. How so? Some people may be especially susceptible to a variant like Delta, and once many of them have been exposed to it, the virus starts to recede — until a new variant causes the cycle to begin again (or until a population approaches herd immunity).

The second plausible explanation involves human behavior. People don’t circulate randomly through the world. They live in social clusters, Jennifer Nuzzo, a Johns Hopkins epidemiologist, points out. Perhaps the virus needs about two months to circulate through a typically sized cluster, infecting the most susceptible — and a new wave starts when people break out of their clusters, such as during a holiday. Alternately, people may follow cycles of taking more and then fewer Covid precautions, depending on their level of concern.

Whatever the reasons, the two-month cycle predated Delta. It has repeated itself several times in the U.S., including both last year and early this year, with the Alpha variant, which was centered in the upper Midwest:

What now?

We want to emphasize that cases are not guaranteed to decline in coming weeks. There have been plenty of exceptions to the two-month cycle around the world. In Brazil, caseloads have followed no evident pattern. In Britain, cases did decline about two months after the Delta peak — but only for a couple of weeks. Since early August, cases there have been rising again, with the end of behavior restrictions likely playing a role. (If you haven’t yet read this Times dispatch about Britain’s willingness to accept rising caseloads, we recommend it.)

In the U.S., the start of the school year could similarly spark outbreaks this month. The country will need to wait a few more weeks to know. In the meantime, one strategy continues to be more effective than any other in beating back the pandemic: “Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine,” as Osterholm says. Or as Nuzzo puts it, “Our top goal has to be first shots in arms.”

The vaccine is so powerful because it keeps deaths and hospitalizations rareeven during surges in caseloads. In Britain, the recent death count has been less than one-tenth what it was in January.

In a few countries, vaccination rates have apparently risen high enough to break Covid’s usual two-month cycle: The virus evidently cannot find enough new people to infect. In both Malta and Singapore, this summer’s surge lasted only about two weeks before receding.

The point is the virus has it’s own timetable. Yes you can inhibit it by extreme lockdowns as we saw in China and NZ. But the world has to work, to produce medicines, consumer goods, food and power. China’s lockdowns we’re local. Nz’s lockdowns don’t matter….they don’t produce anything the world needs.

The travel bans also make some sense if a country is at a Delta peak.

But society has to function. Some voluntary activity can be curtailed, but much of the economic engine needs to continue. One measure has helped so far and that’s vaccinations. The evidence is irrefutable.

Respiratory diseases always get worse in winter, especially in the cold upper Northern Hemisphere.
Watch Covid cases start to rise significantly in the last week of October and then skyrocket in the first week of November. (This is what usually happens with flu). 

The UK government is only considering the option of short-term fire breaker lockdowns like Australia and New Zealand have used.
A China-style lockdown for 10 days to decimate social contact and get numbers down quickly.

People in the UK would rather risk dying than having another 2-month lockdown. People are sick of it, and now that everyone has been offered the vaccine - it is time to move on with life.
Everyone is going to die at some time - so living in lockdown is not an al ternative.

The younger generations in particular would probably refuse to follow another long lockdown. 

The Delta version raised its ugly head first in India and was horrendous - for example it eld to the postponement of India's top sporting event the IPL -  but in the end it was less deadly and more curable than the original virus was and the  Delta Variant  is now in serious decline in India and not a real problem anymore.

A serious question is as stated by the scientists you quoted above - why is virus  development in laboratories as happened in the case of the Covid 19 one not banned worldwide?       

No one ever claimed that lock downs where a permanent solution to Covid-19. They where used to prevent countries health care systems from collapsing and keeping as much of the vulnerable population alive until such time an effective treatment of vaccine could be developed. Lockdown's where a last resort as such but due to the seriousness of the situation frequently had to be used.

Yes lock downs do significantly constrain economic activity but so does Covid 19 if its running rampantly out of control in country that doesn't have a sufficient amount of its population vaccinated.  Depending on the size of the country you could have tens if not hundreds of thousands to possibly millions of people out sick or being forced to isolate for prolonged periods of time, which in turn has knock on effects with people not willing to go out socializing if Covid is rampant and tourists not willing to travel to effected countries.

Many countries tried after lockdowns through a process of trial and error tried to gradually open there society and economy back up to a level that allowed for as much economic activity as possible but kept Covid numbers at manageable levels. What was refereed to as living with Covid. None succeeded and went into cycles of lock downs and re-openings.

But the situation had now changed for countries with advanced vaccine role outs. Covid is here to stay and won't be eliminated but with vaccines the risk is significantly diminished to the point where we can get back to very close to normal. Virtually all restrictions in my country are expected to end in October, though personally I have no issue wearing face masks when in stores or on public transport and will continue to do so for the immediate future and possibly longer.

Are India's Covid numbers real? 
The rest of the world have lockdowns and numbers go down, but as soon as lockdown ends numbers rise again. 

The Vaccination does not stop the rate of infection through spreading and t dos not help that the political  elite ignore the regulations they themselves introduce.   That is a problm in many countries at present  and will remain so in future.   

The second issue is  that the issue has taken on political connotations in irresponsible countries like the USA .    Instead of fighting the virus  the politicians are fighting each other.    Unfortunately that was started by the Democratic Party and that has now led to many of their vast voter blocks - the Blacks (70%)  and the Latino's  (58%) are still not vaccinated.     Instead of looking at the scientific impact and real stats there is no professional group that can objectively advise the Government what is required  in response to the pandemic.

Instead the pharma Industry seemingly is making zero progress .in finding treatment methods for the sick and  on a preventative vaccine that prevent people from becoming infected.    The present vaccines  - from which the Pharma Industry make trillions  seems to have a serious negative impact on further research to find an effective vaccine. .               

Of course the vaccinations reduce the rate of infections that’s the whole point. 

I thought the new SA variant was the next major concern, not the Indian variant.

The game is not over after the first jabs, everybody will need the booster. But for a while after getting the booster you will be better protected.

Read the UK data in the article again…vaccinated people are 10 times less likely to die of Covid.

That is commonplace knowledge - that the vaccine is effective at its core responsibilities of reducing hospitalizations and deaths. 

If Delta was not around, many countries might have already achieved herd immunity. 
No such luck yet...

Yes , Bec's the South African variant is the worst, as it is better at evading vaccines- and perhaps even past infections anti-bodies. 

It’s ok, we now have a name for the new SA variant…..it’s Mu. 

Mu is South American.  It contains mutation properties similar to the South African variant that evade vaccines better, and the Kent variant- which have been linked to increased transmission.

Testing is being done to see if it is more tranmissible than the Delta variant. 

Don't you guys get it yet?

There will never be an end to new strains. EVER!!! 

We can't stop the flue with jabs and we've been trying wince forever. Why is stopping Covid even being spoken about ad though it may be possible when it's obviously not? 

The virus cannot be stopped by vaccines. It will just mutate and every few months there will be a new strain.

Are we gonna continue to have the same conversations for the next two decades?

This one is more/less infectious than that one. This one is blue, that one is pink. This came from Nigeria, that came from Scotland...on and on and on. 

The exact same logical advice, as since day 0, is still the most obvious solution. Protect vulnerable and let everyone else get on with their bloody lives.

It's staggering how people site the same science that failed to act and advise in accordance with the data that was available to us all since the. very start of this thing.

Staggering but not surprising 

Sorry ButtPlug, but mankind is resilient. There have been setbacks, but it will not stop science from continuing to try. Vaccines have so far saved millions of lives. 

I suppose on planet Meton they just give up, and say it is all in God's hands.