Delta was the dominant variant only by end of July so the data set for the 0.1 number could have been based mostly on a virus which is 2.5x less deadly.
We're now facing an endemic virus which, even with vaccination, approaches (or could get as bad as) the deadliness of the flu.
Fortunately this is the trend for most viruses. I have seen no evidence that the delta variant was more lethal, but that it was more transmissible. I have also seen numbers from my locality sequencing that suggested lethality was significant chunk less than that of alpha.
Ok. That wiki page cites this report from the UK on those stats (which seem to be derived from raw values in the tables maybe?) [0].
The thing is, it’s not straightforward to answer the question “was delta more severe/virulent than alpha or wild type” from directly comparing these raw statistics. The Delta wave in the UK (and US) was post vaccine rollout, so you can’t say from the raw numbers whether it’s the virus that changed, the demographics of people with infections, or vaccine rollout.
Analyses considering these confounding factors point to delta being more virulent, and towards the (thankfully!) lower fatality rate being mediated by vaccine efficacy and demographics.
This is the same situation we seem to possibly be in with omicron, but we still lack good data on how hard it hits the immunologically naive relative to previous variants
Delta is less deadly because more people have some immunity, either because of vaccination or because they have already been infected. Also it came late in the game, and many of the people who are the most at risk are already dead. Treatment has improved too.
So the virus itself isn't less deadly, it is just that we are better prepared.
Yes, the data is still coming in so not 100% sure. But, unless I'm missing something, one benchmark would be the relative severity profile versus the outgoing Delta variant, right?
I mean, it seems there would be no reason to expect a sudden change in severity from one virus to the next in such a short time span, unless there was something intrinsically different about this virus.
I suppose it depends on how you calculate it. If the delta variant is equally deadly to previous versions (to an individual), but is more infectious, then more people will die, all else being equal. More people dying --> more deadly, at the population level.
> Delta is confirmed to be more contagious and less deadly.
Sort of, delta is confirmed to be less contagious and less deadly among a (significantly) vaccinated population. It is probably more contagious than the initial variant among an unvaccinated population, yes. But whether or not its more or less deadly, or whether vaccines + improved treatments have reduced the severity/survivability isn't clear. So delta is less deadly in practice at a population level, but it might be more deadly in only the unvaccinated population, or the same, or less. We don't really know.
This article ignores delta and the associated increase death rate. The statistics are changing because the virus is mutating. Hospitalizations are increasing among the young. The virus, like with stocks, past performance does not guarantee future results.
Is Delta more deadly? I thought that was not really believed to be the case any more, just that it is much more transmissible. I could totally be wrong though; it's hard to find reliable info.
Evidence suggests Delta may actually be slightly more lethal, all else being equal. But all is not equal, a lot of the most vulnerable folks are either dead or vaccinated now.
the delta is even less virulent then past variants. it's only marginally more lethal than the flu. long covid is a fuzzy excuse to prolong the panic culture.
Sure I have no idea why the case was mild. This is just me saying "I seem to know a lot of vaccinated people who had mild cases".
"it just seems to me that someone having caught it and had a very mild case wouldn't logically jump to "it isn't less deadly."
I wasn't basing that on my own experience, just on random reports of studies I've picked up on. In two different studies from Canada and Scotland for example, patients infected with the Delta variant were more likely to be hospitalized than patients infected with Alpha or the original virus strains. So it does a least seem possible that it's both more infectious and more deadly to hospitalized individuals than other strains. It does seem like an unusual mutation therefore in that its both more deadly in theory, and more infectious. This is all I'm saying here.
We're now facing an endemic virus which, even with vaccination, approaches (or could get as bad as) the deadliness of the flu.
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