Delta.. Lambda.. and now Delta + .. It’s beginning to sound like a mixture of different streaming platforms for download.. But these Greek letters all represent new stains of COVID-19 that are circulating around the planet..
While some have argued that until all Americans are vaccinated these will continue to develop, others point out that many of these are coming from other parts of the world. America is not the end all, just a mixture on a big planet .. until the entire PLANET is vaccinated we are behind the eight ball on COVID.. it has time to develop and get smarter.
Sure, you can point out that viruses don’t have a brain.. eventually they will weaken, you’ll profess. One day COVID will be as dangerous as the common cold!
While all of that may be true, it sure seems the danger is steadily increasing as opposing to lessening.
The new COVID Delta variant in the United States is getting more people sick quicker–and these people are younger.
A startling essay from Heather Haq in the Washington POST illustrates .. she is a pediatric doctor in Houston Texas. The state of Texas has been seeing an increased number of COVID cases–like other states in the nation. Haq writes, in part, this:
Over the course of the pandemic, our hospital system has diagnosed more than 15,000 children and adolescents with covid – a number that is trending up. About 10 percent of them have required hospital admission. Up to one-third of children admitted to our hospital have required critical care – including oxygen delivered through high-flow nasal cannula, non-invasive ventilation and intubation with mechanical ventilation. When I discharge children from the hospital, I know that many of them have a long road to recovery, and many will require follow-up for cardiac clearance and long-term care in our hospital’s long-covid clinic. More than 300 children across the United States have died from covid since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most children with covid will make a complete recovery, but up to 10 percent, including those with mild illness not requiring hospital admission, go on to develop months-long symptoms of long covid.
At this point some of the information seems anecdotal only. However stories match. People who work in the medical industry report a very big difference between COVID in 20 vs 21..
Nick Papacostas, MD, the president of the Alaska chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, tells the Anchorage Daily News, that he’s seeing in his emergency room people “sicker and younger than we were seeing last year, requiring either hospital admission or ICU admission. They’re really more intensive to care for, because they’re more ill.”
Many people are unvaccinated and seems to be targeting younger Americans, those age 50 and under, more than did its predecessor, according to Inci Yildirim, MD, PhD, a Yale Medicine pediatric infectious diseases specialist and a vaccinologist.
Back in June, this was widely reported: “The Delta variant comprises well over 80 percent of what is circulating in the U.S.,” Dr. David Hirschwerk, infectious diseases specialist at Northwell Health in New York, told Healthline. “It is likely that Delta will continue to circulate in the fall, but naturally we all will be carefully scanning for the emergence of new variants.”
According to the recent CDC data, in the week ending July 24, people ages 18 to 49 are the largest demographic hospitalized for COVID-19.
This age group is currently affected far more than those ages 50–64 — and significantly more affected than the next oldest group (ages 65 and older), a trend that began in March of this year.
Just a few days ago, the New York TIMES reported more tidbits from around the nation of the average COVID patient being younger than the frail aging boomers in 2020.
“Something about this virus is different in this age group,” said Dr. Catherine O’Neal, chief medical officer at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, La. “We always saw some people who we just said, ‘Why the heck did this get them?’ But that was rare. Now we’re seeing it more commonly.” “I think it is a new Covid,” she added.
A new COVID.. 21 style?
A new reason to wash your hands harder than ever before..
