The majority of Americans believe the Indian ‘Delta’ coronavirus variant poses a risk to the country, but those most likely to be effected by it are largely unmoved, a new poll finds.
In a new survey, conducted by Yahoo News/YouGov, 72 percent overall they believe the strain was dangerous.
Specifically, 27 percent of Americans said they believe the Delta variant poses a threat to all Americans, and 45 percent believe it does so only to unvaccinated Americans.
However, those have not received their COVID-19 do not seem to mind the perceived threat of the variant.
Only 15 percent of unvaccinated Americans reported that the Delta variant’s existence makes them more likely to get the shots with around 10 percent saying that they are less likely to get vaccinated.
Nearly 75% of Americans believe the Delta variant, which originated in India, poses a serious risk to unvaccinated or all Americans
The Delta variant is a more contagious strain of the virus that was first identified in India.
It is believed to be at least 40 percent contagious than other strains of the virus and recent study found it doubles the risk of hospitalization.
The variant is largely responsible for the massive swell in COVID-19 cases that ravaged India this past spring and has caused infection in the UK to spike by 75 percent in just one week.
It has since made it’s way across the globe, and into the United States.
At least 41 American states have experienced at least one case of the virus, it currently makes up 26.1 percent of cases, according to the Centers for Disease control and Prevention (CDC).
Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said last week that he predicts the variant will become the dominant strain in the U.S. in the coming weeks.
If half of unvaccinated American adults contract the Delta variant, and the variant causes death at the same rate in the U.S. as it did in England, an estimated 42,000 unvaccinated Americans could die from the variant, according to a DailyMail.com analysis.
The Delta variant originated in India, and cause a massive outbreak in the Spring before many in the country had access to the vaccines
In the UK, of the more than 92,000 people who have contracted the Delta variant, 53,822 were unvaccinated. er data from Public Health England
Of the unvaccinated group, 67 people died, a death rate of 0.12 percent.
If just half of unvaccinated American adults – over 35.3 million people – were to contract the virus, and die at the same rate then that would be 42,000 American deaths from the variant, the analysis found.
The death rate could be even higher in America, though, due to decreased access to health services in the states and a generally more unhealthy population.
Many unvaccinated Americans are also in certain pockets on the U.S. particularly in the U.S. south and the northwestern plains.
In the south, Mississippi has the lowest percentage of its population at least partially vaccinated at 36 percent.
Nearby Louisiana (38 percent of population at least partially vaccinated), Alabama (40), Tennessee (42), Arkansas (42), and Georgia (43) have struggled to get their residents jabbed as well.
First Lady Jill Biden visited Mississippi and Tennessee last week, promoting the vaccine and hoping to sway the state’s unvaccinated populations to receive the shots.
Northwestern states like Wyoming (39), Idaho (39) and North Dakota (44) find themselves struggling as well.
For comparison, 54 percent of American adults nationwide have received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, and northeastern states like Vermont (74), Massachusetts (70) and Connecticut (67) are even approaching herd immunity.
Dr Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, said modeling suggests the nation will hit 1,000 deaths per day again next year, mainly in these areas with large unvaccinated populations.
‘Nearly every death, especially among adults, due to COVID-19, is, at this point, entirely preventable,’ said CDC director Dr Rochelle Walensky said at a press briefing last week.
An Associated Press analysis of available government data from May shows that ‘breakthrough’ infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 853,00 hospitalizations.
What’s more, only about 150 of the more than 18,000 COVID-19 deaths in May were in fully vaccinated people, which translates to about 0.8 percent, or five deaths per day on average.
The data shows the value of the COVID-19 vaccine and are an indication that deaths per day – now averaging 300 per day – could be practically zero if everyone eligible was immunized.
States in the U.S. south and the great plains have much lower vaccination rates than their peers, leaving them especially vulnerable to the Delta variant
Currently, it is believed that breakthrough infections account for under 0.1 percent of new COVID cases.
Breakthrough cases are often less severe, though, as antibodies supplied by the vaccine help combat the worst effects of the virus.
Cases and deaths in the United States have plummeted in recent months, as more and more Americans get vaccinated.
The nation is recording about 80,000 new cases a week at the moment, a large drop from the peak of the pandemic in January, where more than 1.75 million cases were recorded in a week.
The U.S. also has not recorded more than 1,000 deaths in a single day in more than three months.