the delta variant is almost like a whole new covid virus as it behaves very differently
from the previous covid strains it has at least three mutations on its spike protein
and more specifically on its receptor binding domain that's the part of the spike protein
that binds to the ac2 receptor on the cells in your body the delta variant mutations help it
bind more efficiently to the ac2 receptor and also allows the virus to enter the cell easier
also its mutations allow it to better evade the body's immune system the delta variant has caused
covid cases in the u.s to rise over 300 over the past month along with similar increases in
hospitalizations and deaths the delta variant is estimated to be at least 60 percent more
transmissible one cdc document suggests the delta variant is about as transmissible as chickenpox
with each infected person infecting on average eight or nine other people now compare that to
the original strain of covid which was about as contagious as the common cold with each infected
person infecting two others on average studies on people infected with delta variant showed that the
fully vaccinated had as much virus in their bodies as unvaccinated people did that doesn't mean worse
infection though if you're vaccinated but the significance of having those higher viral loads
is going to mean higher transmission of the virus either vaccinated or not
even if they don't have symptoms it's why the cdc says that even vaccinated people should wear
masks in areas of sustained or high transmission also a study in china found that viral loads of
people infected with delta were 1000 times higher compared to people infected at the very beginning
of the pandemic and delta transmits in four days compared to six days when you compare that to
the original strain now there are three somewhat older studies from canada singapore and scotland
showing that people infected with a delta variant are more likely to end up in the hospital so does
the delta variant make unvaccinated people more prone to dying compared to the original strain
hard to know since there are currently no studies showing that one way or another
it's also trickier to answer this question because you're comparing apples to oranges you're
not only comparing different strains but with the original strain no one was vaccinated in 2020 also
in the beginning of the pandemic we weren't using things like dexamethasone and tocilizumab
two drugs that we now use to treat covid because we know that they reduce mortality
with the mrna vaccines we have pfizer and moderna they're about 95 effective at preventing serious
covit illness so we know that even before the delta variant emerged they're going to
be breakthrough cases the cdc released a study examining an outbreak in massachusetts where 74
of people who got infected had been fully vaccinated and four of them ended up being in the
hospital now testing showed that the delta variant made up 90 of those cases but overall still most
of the virus is spread by unvaccinated people the cdc reported a total of 6500 breakthrough cases
including 6200 hospitalizations and 1200 deaths as of july 26th now at that time more than
163 million people in the u.s were fully vaccinated against covid but here is a pretty impressive
stat less than 0.004 of people who have been fully vaccinated experienced a breakthrough
infection resulting in hospitalization and less than 0.001 percent have died from the disease
in the early stages of the pandemic my sickest patients in the icu were mostly older people with
chronic health issues or younger patients but they were obese or had diabetes but now with the delta
variant things are looking different recently i've been seeing more patients in the icu who have
chosen not to get vaccinated in their 30s in their 40s their 50s most of them were otherwise healthy
all of them not vaccinated just yesterday a patient of mine was a guy in his early 40s
otherwise healthy now he's still in the hospital getting the most amount of oxygen he can without
a ventilator and he's scared because he's on the brink of requiring a breathing tube a ventilator
he didn't get the vaccine and i asked him why not and there's one word he gave me he said stubborn
so then i asked him if he regretted not getting it and he said yes and this is the case throughout
the country we hear all these stories in the news of people who became seriously ill with covid and
then they regretted not getting the vaccine janine is speaking out now because she wants
people to know how much she regrets not getting the vaccine a decision that nearly cost her her
life i was one of those people that was like i can't believe people are just gonna just inject
their body with this medication there's we don't know enough about it now i'm just like it's just a
shot just get the stupid shot that vaccine could have stopped all of this just one little shot
and i feel foolish that i didn't get it which by the way just because you get a double lung
transplant doesn't mean that you are out of the woods that man will be immunosuppressed
for the rest of his life so that his body doesn't reject the transplant about half of
americans remain unvaccinated unvaccinated people make up 97 percent of all covid hospitalizations
and 99.2 percent of deaths hundreds of americans are suffering or dying every day from a vaccine
preventable illness and some say well if they refuse the vaccine and die then that's on them
but it's more than that there are people who can't get the vaccine at least not yet like
children less than 12. then you have people who are immunocompromised and they don't get that same
protection from the covid vaccine as compared to those who are not immunocompromised then you look
at the financial costs of being hospitalized with covid big hospital bills mostly paid for by the
taxpayers the fact that we still can't ditch masks but so far the vaccines have saved an estimated
275000 lives and prevented over 1 million hospitalizations in the u.s alone and by now we
all hear about the misinformation out there that deliberately twist the truth or flat out lies or
misleads people well that has consequences people struggle to make the best decisions for themselves
and for their loved ones people can die as a result of false or misleading information and that
was part of the reason why i started this youtube channel in the first place before the pandemic
i wanted to provide accurate health information to combat the sea of bs floating out there
and it's also why the u.s surgeon general dr vivek murthy has called covid 19 misinformation
an urgent threat to public health but in reality it's been an urgent threat since the beginning
whenever i have patients in my pulmonary clinic who tell me they don't want the vaccine
i listen to the reasons they give me it's typically things like the vaccine development
was rushed or has it been studied enough or that it's not yet fda approved now this is despite the
fact that the vaccine was assessed for safety in over 70000 people in the initial pfizer
and moderna clinical trials the vaccines met the fda's rigorous scientific standards for safety
effectiveness and manufacturing quality that's required to give its emergency use authorization
or eua then you look at the almost 350 million doses of vaccine given in the u.s so far
overall they've been shown to be very safe and very effective so right now it has the fda eua
but the full fda approval is coming soon probably in a couple months that process takes time that's
always been the case for those who aren't willing to get the vaccine because they don't want to be
guinea pigs now many of those people are willing to take medicine that's either much less studied
or proven to be either unsafe or ineffective for example patients in arkansas who ran to the pet
store to buy ivermectin gel thinking that's their solution for covid pretty much every
therapy that hospitals have used to treat covid like dexamethasone remdesivir hydroxychloroquine
and monoclonal antibodies like bamlanivimab and tocilizumab the studies on those drugs pale in
comparison to the vaccine studies because of the much smaller numbers to draw from and with the
evidence that we do have the only ones that really have shown benefit are dexamethasone
and for very severe covid tocilizumab and that's set men might be concerned that the vaccine could
mess with their sperm counts or sperm quality that has been proven to not be the case many
young women might be concerned about infertility or miscarriage or breastfeeding despite there
being no evidence to support those concerns actually there's a lot of data showing that
the vaccine is safe before and during pregnancy and it's recommended by both the american college
of obstetricians and gynecologists and the american society for reproductive medicine now
on the contrary actually getting covid presents a real risk to mother and baby pregnancy increases
a woman's risk of having severe covid they're also more likely to go into premature labor and
their baby is more likely to require admission to the intensive care unit the only true medical
exception to not getting the vaccine is if you've had a severe allergic or immunological reaction
to any of the components of the vaccine like polyethylene glycol outside of that we know
that it's very safe and very effective in the key to getting past covid it's only a matter of time
before a new variant emerges that will render our current vaccines useless so until we reach
herd immunity we'll be in an ongoing battle of updating the vaccines to fight the new variants