Following a brief period of relief, the United States is again seeing a rise in COVID-19 cases. The country may again witness overwhelmed hospitals, exhausted staff and thousands of fatalities. While the more transmissible Delta variant may be getting the blame, but what seems to be driving its surge is vaccine hesitancy and refusal. If a wider population had been vaccinated, there would have been no resurgence of the Delta variant, Alpha variant or any other strain of the virus.

Mild breakthrough infections appear to be more common than previously thought, but the vaccines can prevent severe illness and mortality. Still, around half the population is not vaccinated. Nearly 30% of the adults in the country have not received even a single dose of a COVID vaccine.

Public health experts have been warning that any version of the coronavirus would resurge if the people are not vaccinated quickly enough. Bill Hanage, public health researcher at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, had said in the month of January that Florida might have a rough summer. One in 5 new infections in the country is from Florida currently.

The Delta variant is accountable for about 83% of the infections in the U.S. Each infected person, anywhere across the globe, provides an opportunity to the virus to mutate. The more the infections, the more likely it is that new variants will emerge.

It is not only the unvaccinated who will be affected by the variants. Vaccinated people, though protected from severe illness and death, may face other consequences. They are alraedy being asked to wear masks indoors in certain communities. If the numbers continue to rise, the restrictions may need to be reimposed. And some of the vaccinated people will become infected. While breakthrough infections were speculated to bevery rare with the original virus, updated evidence suggests thatit might not be the case with the Delta variant. It is around twice as contagious as the original virus.

While most breakthrough infections lead to few or no symptoms, some may cause serious illness in vaccinated individuals. Some cases may even lead to long COVID.

The solution is vaccination. After a rapid vaccination drive in the spring, the speed declined to about 537,000 doses per day. There seems to be no single reason why so many people in the U.S. continue to remain unvaccinated. Among the 39% of adults who are unvaccinated, nearly half of them say that they are unwilling to get vaccinated. However, some of the people within this group state that they would get vaccinated if required to do so.

Some people are hesitant and may agree if persuaded by people they trust, while some others say that they plan to be vaccinated but haven’t had the chance.

Political divide is also playing a role in the rise in infections. Since the beginning, vaccinations in counties that voted for Donald Trump have lagged behind the rates in counties that voted for Joe Biden.

Vaccines are the solution not just for the Delta variant but all of those that are yet to come.

Source: The Indian Express