Covid: Delta is now the dominant variant in US, says CDC

Delta accounts for 51.7% of the Covid-19 cases in the US

People gather in McCarren Park during the US Independence Day holiday in New York on 4 July (AFP via Getty Images)

The “highly transmissible” Delta has now become the dominant coronavirus variant in the US, accounting for more than half of Covid infections in the country in a span of two weeks, according to new data released by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

New Covid infections with the Delta variant now account for 51.7 per cent of the infections. The B.1.1.7 or Alpha variant makes up for 28.7 per cent cases after remaining a dominant variant for months.

The variant known as B.1.617.2 was first detected in India in December and labeled as a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organisation.

A jump was recorded from 30.4 per cent to 51.7 per cent in the two-week period from 20 June and 3 July, according to the surveillance data.

The sharp jump in cases comes as more than 33.7 million coronavirus cases have been reported in the US and more than 605,000 people succumbed to the infection, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Around 11,000 new Covid-19 infections are being detected every day in the past week and about 200 deaths have been reported from Covid.

Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has already called the Delta variant the "greatest threat" to America’s attempt to eradicate the pandemic.

He also said he was “very concerned” about the threats areas with low vaccination rates face and pose to the rest of society amid emerging variants.

According to the CDS, the Delta variant, first detected in the US in March, is a more contagious and aggressive strain of coronavirus than other variants.

“When you have such a low level of vaccination superimposed upon a variant that has a high degree of efficiency of spread, what you are going to see among under-vaccinated regions, be that states, cities or counties, you’re going to see these individual types of blips,” he said on CNN. “It’s almost like it’s going to be two Americas.”

A surge of 74 per cent has been witnessed in the Western states of the US, including Utah and Colorado and 58 per cent in Southern states of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma, according to the data. Among these states, there are some with the lowest rates of vaccinations, like Mississippi and Alabama.

Dr Fauci and other experts have underscored that the worst impacts could be avoided by boosting vaccinations.

“Looking state by state and county by country, it is clear communities where people remain unvaccinated are communities that are vulnerable,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said last week.

As of Tuesday, 47.5 per cent of people in the US have been fully vaccinated.