The Delta Variant And Pennsylvania: Where Things Stand

PENNSYLVANIA — The delta variant has become the predominant strain of coronavirus across the United States, accounting for more than half of cases nationwide in the week that ended July 3, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, it still remains relatively low in Pennsylvania, comprising just 3.4 percent of the state's cases over a four-week period ending on June 19, according to the CDC.

A number of clusters have been reported in states that are lagging on vaccinations, while vaccine numbers in Pennsylvania are ahead of the national average. Pennsylvania now ranks fifth out of all 50 states for total doses administered.

Health experts have said that although the risk of getting sick from the delta variant is low for those who have been fully vaccinated, its spread could delay the end of the pandemic. “Delta will certainly accelerate the pandemic” around the world, F. Perry Wilson, a Yale Medicine epidemiologist, said in a statement.

The delta variant, which was first seen in India and was first detected in the United States in March, spreads 50 percent faster than the alpha variant that originated in Great Britain, which itself spreads 50 percent faster than the original coronavirus strain, according to Yale Medicine.

Just over half of the national coronavirus cases during a two-week period during that span involved the delta variant, Reuters reported.

Andy Slavitt, a former member of President Joe Biden’s Covid Response Team, told CNN the delta variant is “the 2020 version of COVID-19 on steroids.”

“It’s twice as infectious,” Slavitt said. “Fortunately, unlike 2020, we actually have a tool that stops the delta variant in its tracks: It’s called vaccine.”

That’s evidenced in North Carolina, among other states, where the state’s health secretary said more than 99 percent of the new cases there have occurred in people who are not fully vaccinated, according to WITN.

As of July 8, 24 states were looking at a coronavirus case weekly uptick of 10 percent or more, Johns Hopkins University data shows.

States within regions showing a high cluster of delta variant cases are among those lagging in vaccination rates, WBUR and others have reported.

In Pennsylvania, 61.3 percent of people age 18 and up have been fully vaccinated, the CDC said. That compares with the 58.9 percent national vaccine rate for the same group, as of July 13.