Tag Archives: Delta variant

Global COVID-19 cases surpass 200 million as Delta variant spreads

By Roshan Abraham and Kavya B

(Reuters) – Coronavirus cases worldwide surpassed 200 million on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally, as the Delta variant threatens areas with low vaccination rates.

Cases are rising in at least 83 out of 240 countries, according to the tally, and straining healthcare systems.

“While we desperately want to be done with this pandemic, COVID-19 is clearly not done with us. And so our battle must last a little longer,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said this week.

At least 2.6% of the world’s population has been infected, with the true figure likely higher due to limited testing in many places. If the number of infected people were a country, it would be eighth most populous in the world, behind Nigeria, according to a Reuters analysis.

It took over a year for COVID-19 cases to hit 100 million mark, while the next 100 million were reported in just over six months, according to the analysis. The pandemic has left close to 4.4 million people dead.

The countries reporting the most cases on a seven-day average – the United States, Brazil, Indonesia, India and Iran – represent about 38% of all global cases reported each day.

The United States accounts for one in every seven infections reported worldwide. U.S. states with low vaccination rates such as Florida and Louisiana are seeing record numbers of COVID patients hospitalized, despite the nation giving 70% of adults at least one vaccine shot. The head of one Louisiana hospital warned of the “darkest days” yet.

Unvaccinated people represent nearly 97% of severe cases, according to the White House COVID-19 Response Team.

RISING CASES IN ASIA

Countries in Southeast Asia are also reporting rising cases. With just 8% of the world’s population, the region is reporting almost 15% of all global cases each day, according to a Reuters analysis.

Indonesia, which faced an exponential surge in COVID-19 cases in July, is reporting the most deaths on average and surpassed 100,000 total deaths on Wednesday. The country accounts for one in every five deaths reported worldwide each day. The Southeast Asian nation aims to gradually reopen its economy in September, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said on Monday, citing that the wave of infections had passed its peak, with daily confirmed cases on the decline.

After suffering its worst outbreak in April-May, India is once again seeing a rising trend of cases. Last Friday, the country reported 44,230 new COVID-19 cases, the most in three weeks, fueling worries of a third wave of infections that has forced one state to lockdown.

China’s Wuhan city, where the virus first emerged in late 2019, will test its 12 million residents for the coronavirus after confirming its first domestic cases of the Delta variant. The city had reported no local cases since mid-May last year.

The Delta variant is upending all assumptions about the virus, with disease experts scrambling to find whether the latest version of coronavirus is making people, especially unvaccinated individuals, sicker than before.

The CDC said in an internal document that the variant, first detected in India, is as contagious as chickenpox and far more contagious than the common cold or flu.

A key issue, said Dr. Gregory Poland, a vaccine scientist at the Mayo Clinic, is that the current vaccines block disease, but they do not block infection by keeping the virus from replicating in the nose.

As a result, he said, “the vaccines we have currently are not going to be the be-all, end-all,” he said. “We are now in a scenario of our own making, where this is going to be years to decades to now defeat. … And we’re going to chase our tail with variants until we get a type of vaccine that offers infection and disease-blocking capabilities.”

Many countries are still facing shortages of testing kits, medicines and vaccines, as the Delta variant strains healthcare services in poorer nations. Wealthier nations are being urged to donate more vaccine to curb the outbreak globally.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is seeking $11.5 billion to fight the Delta outbreak, a draft report seen by Reuters shows, amid worries wealthy nations are partly bypassing its COVID-19 programs.

(Reporting by Roshan Abraham and Kavya B in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Factbox-Countries making COVID-19 vaccines mandatory

(Reuters) – A sharp upturn in new coronavirus infections due to the highly contagious Delta variant and a slowdown in vaccination rates have pushed governments to make COVID-19 shots mandatory for health workers and other high-risk groups.

A growing number of countries also stipulate that a shot, or a negative test, will be needed for dining out, among other activities.

Here are some countries’ vaccine mandates:

AUSTRALIA

Australia decided in late June to make COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory for high-risk aged-care workers and employees in quarantine hotels.

It has also made vaccinations obligatory for Paralympic athletes heading to Tokyo because unvaccinated members on the team could pose a health risk.

BRITAIN

It will be mandatory for care home workers in England to have coronavirus vaccinations from October.

English nightclubs and other venues with large crowds will require patrons to present proof of full vaccination from the end of September.

CANADA

Canada’s Treasury Board Secretariat said on July 20 it was considering whether COVID-19 vaccines should be required for certain roles and positions in the federal government, according to CBC News.

FRANCE

The French parliament on Aug. 2 approved a bill which will make COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory for health workers as well as require a bolstered health pass in many social venues.

The government said on July 19 that the planned 45,000 euro ($53,456) fine for businesses that do not check that clients have a health pass will be much lower, starting at up to 1,500 euros and increasing progressively for repeat offenders. Fines will not be imposed immediately.

GREECE

Greece on July 12 made vaccinations mandatory for nursing home staff with immediate effect and healthcare workers from September. As part of new measures, only vaccinated customers are allowed indoors in bars, cinemas, theatres and other closed spaces.

INDONESIA

Indonesia made COVID-19 inoculations mandatory in February, with the capital Jakarta threatening fines of up to 5 million rupiah ($357) for refusing.

ITALY

A decree approved by the Italian government in March mandates that health workers, including pharmacists, get vaccinated. Those who refuse could be suspended without pay for the rest of the year.

HUNGARY

Hungary’s government has decided to make vaccinations mandatory for healthcare workers, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told public radio on July 23.

KAZAKHSTAN

Kazakhstan will introduce mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations or weekly testing for people working in groups of more than 20, the health ministry said on June 23.

LEBANON

Lebanon is to limit entry to restaurants, cafes, pubs and beaches to people holding vaccine certificates or those who have taken antibodies tests, the tourism ministry said on July 30. Non-vaccinated employees of these establishments would be required to conduct a PCR test every 72 hours.

MALTA

Malta banned visitors from entering the country from July 14 unless they are fully vaccinated.

POLAND

Poland could make vaccinations obligatory for some people at high risk from COVID-19 from August.

RUSSIA

The Russian capital has unveiled a plan of all service sector workers to be fully vaccinated by Aug. 15, according to the Moscow Times.

Moscow residents no longer have to present a QR code demonstrating they have been vaccinated or have immunity in order to sit in cafes, restaurants and bars from July 19.

SAUDI ARABIA

In May, Saudi Arabia mandated all public and private sector workers wishing to attend a workplace get vaccinated, without specifying when this would be implemented.

Vaccination will also be required to enter any governmental, private, or educational establishments and to use public transportation as of Aug. 1.

Saudi citizens will need two vaccine doses before they can travel outside the kingdom from Aug. 9, state news agency SPA reported on July 19, citing the ministry of interior.

TURKMENISTAN

Turkmenistan’s healthcare ministry said on July 7 it was making vaccination mandatory for all residents aged 18 and over.

UNITED STATES

U.S. President Joe Biden announced on July 29 that all civilian federal workers will need to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or face regular testing, social distancing, mask requirements and travel limits, a source familiar with the matter said.

New York City will become the first major U.S. city to require, from Sept. 13, proof of vaccination for customers and staff at restaurants, gyms and other indoor businesses as the country enters a new phase of battling the Delta variant.

New York will require state employees to be vaccinated or get tested weekly, a mandate that will go into effect on Sept. 6, Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will require their workers to get the vaccine or get tested weekly, Cuomo said on Aug. 2.

New Jersey state health care workers and employees who work in jails must by vaccinated by Sept. 7 or face testing twice a week.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said that all state employees would be ordered to get vaccinated starting Aug. 2 or undergo COVID-19 testing at least once a week.

Denver municipal employees and people working in high-risk settings in the city will be required to get vaccinated, Mayor Michael Hancock said on Aug. 2.

($1 = 0.8418 euros)

(Compiled by Paulina Cwikowska, Dagmarah Mackos and Oben Mumcuoglu; editing by Milla Nissi, Steve Orlofsky, Joe Bavier and Nick Macfie)

Oil prices fall as Delta variant spread weighs

By Ahmad Ghaddar

LONDON (Reuters) -Oil prices fell sharply to a two-week low on Wednesday as the spread of the coronavirus Delta variant in top consuming countries outweighed the impact of Mideast geopolitical tensions and a fall in U.S. inventories.

Brent crude oil futures were down $1.80, or 2.5%, to $70.61 a barrel by 1349 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell $2.15, or 3.1%, to $68.41 a barrel. Both contracts were trading at their lowest since July 21.

“Worries continue to grow over the spread of the Delta variant in China, which has weighed heavily on oil prices in recent days,” analysts at bank ING said.

The United States and China, the world’s two biggest oil consumers, are grappling with rapidly spreading outbreaks of the highly contagious Delta variant that analysts anticipate will limit fuel demand at a time when it traditionally rises in both countries.

In China, the spread of the variant from the coast to inland cities has prompted authorities to impose strict measures to bring the outbreak under control.

An expected fall in U.S. oil inventories failed to arrest losses.

U.S. crude inventories fell by 879,000 barrels for the week ended July 30, according to two market sources, citing figures from industry group American Petroleum Institute (API).

Gasoline inventories fell by 5.8 million barrels and distillate stocks fell by 717,000 barrels, the data showed, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Official Energy Information Administration numbers are due later on Wednesday.

Tensions in the Mideast Gulf also supported prices.

On Tuesday, three maritime security sources claimed Iranian-backed forces seized an oil product tanker off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, though Iran denied the reports.

This is the second attack on a tanker since Friday in the region, which includes the Strait of Hormuz. The United Kingdom and the United States are also blaming Iran for the earlier incident, in which drones crashed into the vessel and killed two sailors. Iran denies the reports.

(Additional reporting by Naveen Thukral in Singapore; editing by Jason Neely and Barbara Lewis)

WHO’s pandemic project faces cash crunch amid vaccine, oxygen shortages

By Francesco Guarascio

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) is seeking $11.5 billion in urgent funding to fight the more infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus, a draft report seen by Reuters shows, amid worries wealthy nations are partly bypassing its COVID-19 programs.

A large portion of the cash being requested from the WHO’s partners is needed to buy tests, oxygen and face masks in poorer nations, says the document which is expected to be released this week. And a quarter of it would be to buy hundreds of millions of vaccines for them that would otherwise go elsewhere.

The paper, still subject to changes, outlines the results and financial needs of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A), the program co-led by the WHO to distribute fairly COVID-19 vaccines, drugs and tests across the world.

The program, set up at the start of the pandemic, remains vastly underfunded, and its coordinators are now acknowledging it will remain so as many governments look to address global COVID needs “differently,” an ACT-A official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

As a result, it has cut by nearly $5 billion its total request for funds, the document shows. But it still needs $16.8 billion, almost as much as what has been raised so far, and $7.7 billion is required urgently.

The document also calls for a further $3.8 billion, on top of the $7.7 billion, to take up options for 760 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines that would be delivered next year.

“These options to buy need to be exercised in the coming months or vaccine doses will be lost,” the document warns.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus last week said that $7.7 billion were urgently needed, but did not give a breakdown of planned spending, and did not say how much extra money was needed for vaccines.

The WHO was not immediately available to comment.

The latest cash crunch will underscore concerns about the long-term future of the program, which has struggled to secure supplies and equipment to tame a pandemic that has killed more than 4.2 million.

The vaccine portion of the project, called COVAX, is increasingly reliant on donations from wealthy nations, rather than its own supplies, after key manufacturer India restricted exports of shots to boost domestic vaccinations.

But the United States, European Union and Japan have also donated vaccines directly to countries as part of their vaccine diplomacy drives. Japan has also said it’s a quicker process than going through COVAX.

Some countries have provided equipment directly to others too. Last month, Australia said it would donate oxygen-related equipment, antigen test-kits as well as vaccines to Indonesia.

The plea for cash comes as a review of the ACT-A gets under way, with France, Germany and Canada among the countries steering the process. A report on the program’s results and shortcomings is expected in September by consultancy Dalberg Global Development Advisors, the ACT-A official said.

OXYGEN NEEDS

Among ACT-A’s immediate needs are $1.2 billion for oxygen to treat seriously ill COVID-19 patients in poorer countries where supplies are low, the report says.

Oxygen has moved up the priority list given vaccines are not available, the ACT-A official said, highlighting the repercussions from the shortage of shots as the Delta variant spreads to 132 countries.

COVAX has delivered about 180 million vaccines, far short of its 2 billion target by the end of this year.

Oxygen is needed to “control the exponential death surges caused by the Delta variant,” the document says.

Global demand for medical oxygen is currently more than a dozen times greater than before the pandemic, the document says, but many countries are struggling to access sufficient supplies.

The urgent need for the most basic treatment against COVID-19 one and a half years into the pandemic shows how little has been done to combat the virus in most of the world, the ACT-A official said, noting: “There hasn’t been much progress. What was urgent three months ago is still urgent now.”

“Inequity in access to life-saving COVID-19 tools has never been more apparent,” the document says.

In rich nations, most people have already been vaccinated, including the younger who are less at risk from COVID-19, whereas in poorer nations the most vulnerable are still waiting for a first dose and there is a lack of basic materials, such as face masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE).

“Avoidable death and unsustainable pressure on health systems is mounting in many countries due to insufficient access to oxygen and PPE,” the document says.

At least $1.7 billion are urgently needed to buy protective devices for healthcare workers in poorer nations, the document says, and another $2.4 billion are needed to boost testing in low-income countries.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio; Editing by Josephine Mason and Mark Potter)

New York becomes first U.S. city to mandate COVID vaccines to enter restaurants, gyms

By Maria Caspani

NEW YORK (Reuters) -New York City will become the first major U.S. city to require proof of COVID-19 vaccination for customers and staff at restaurants, gyms and other indoor businesses as the country enters a new phase of battling the highly contagious Delta variant.

Unlike the surges last year and in January, highly effective vaccines are now widely available against the virus that has killed over 600,000 people in the United States, lessening the need to close businesses and for people to stay home.

The federal government and several states have already required public employees to get vaccinated as have some hospitals and universities. Meatpacker Tyson Foods on Tuesday became one of the largest private employers to require all workers be immunized.

New York City’s policy requires proof of at least one dose and will be enforced starting Sept. 13. Like past policies over masks and stay-at-home orders, the plan will likely meet resistance. In France, the requirement of a nationwide health passport proving vaccination has resulted in police using tear gas to disperse protesters.

“It is time for people to see vaccination as literally necessary to living a good and full and healthy life,” de Blasio told a news conference.

About 60% of all New Yorkers have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to city data. But certain areas, largely poor communities and communities of color, have lower vaccination rates.

HOT SPOTS

The city’s announcement comes as cases surge nationwide with Florida and Louisiana emerging as major virus hot spots where hospitals are once again straining with the influx of COVID patients.

Florida and Louisiana are both reporting record numbers of hospitalized COVID patients, as one doctor warned of the “darkest days” yet.

More than 11,300 patients were hospitalized in Florida as of Tuesday, with COVID patients filling 22% of the state’s hospital beds, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In highly vaccinated Vermont, 0.4% of its hospital beds are occupied by coronavirus patients.

Louisiana was also dealing with one of the worst outbreaks in the nation, prompting Governor John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, to order residents to wear masks again indoors.

COVID-19 hospitalizations in Los Angeles County have nearly quadrupled in the last four weeks to 1,096 on Monday, the department of public health said. The percentage of tests coming back positive for the virus also climbed to 6.2%, up from 1.3% a month ago, according to department data.

To fight the spread in California, political leaders in eight San Francisco Bay Area counties reinstated mandatory indoor mask orders in public places as of midnight Tuesday morning. Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, late last month mandated all state employees to get vaccinated starting Aug. 2 or undergo COVID-19 testing at least once a week.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has taken the opposite stance. He issued an executive order last week barring schools from requiring face coverings, saying parents should make that decision for their children.

The Sunshine State claimed another grim record with the highest number of pediatric COVID-19 hospitalizations — 138 as of Tuesday, more than those recorded in Texas despite the much larger population of the latter.

DeSantis doubled down during a press conference on Tuesday, defending the state’s approach.

“We’re not shutting down. We’re going to have schools open. We’re protecting every Floridian’s job in this state. We’re protecting people’s small businesses.”

In Arkansas, another state were hospitalizations for COVID-19 have spiked, Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson said he will ask state legislators on Wednesday to provide an exception to a law that prohibits state and local government, including school boards, from mandating people to wear masks.

The private sector, including many large U.S. companies, have also taken some steps in response to the Delta variant threat.

Detroit’s Big Three automakers and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union said on Tuesday they will reinstate requirements to wear masks at all U.S. plants, offices and warehouses beginning on Wednesday but are not requiring workers to be vaccinated.

Big Tech companies like Alphabet’s Google and Facebook have said all U.S. employees must get vaccinated to step into offices.

(Reporting by Maria Caspani and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Frank McGurty and Lisa Shumaker)

China’s Wuhan to test all 12 million residents as Delta variant spreads

By Ryan Woo

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Wuhan city will test its 12 million residents for the coronavirus after confirming its first domestic cases of the highly transmissible Delta variant.

Wuhan, where the virus first emerged in late 2019, had reported no local coronavirus cases since mid-May last year but on Monday authorities confirmed three cases of the Delta variant. The strain has been found in a handful of provinces and big cities including Beijing over the past two weeks.

“To ensure that everyone in the city is safe, city-wide nucleic acid testing will be quickly launched for all people to fully screen out positive results and asymptomatic infections,” Wuhan official Li Qiang told a news briefing.

Parts of an industrial and technology zone were sealed off, a measure rarely seen in the city since a lockdown last year.

The new cases in Wuhan, along with infections in the nearby cities of Jingzhou and Huanggang since Saturday, were linked to cases in the city of Huaian in Jiangsu province, said Li Yang, vice director of the Hubei province disease control center.

The outbreak in Jiangsu is believed to have begun in the provincial capital of Nanjing in late July, with the Delta variant mostly likely introduced on a flight from Russia, officials have said.

China brought the epidemic under control last year and fought just a few localized outbreaks after that.

Emergency response levels were lowered and people outside areas hit by virus could go about their lives largely as normal, which may have contributed to the latest outbreak.

A Nanjing official said on Monday that even after the first cases were reported there, some shops did not rigorously check customers’ digital health credentials and some did not wear masks properly.

Jiangsu officials said the root cause of the Nanjing outbreak was “laxity of the mind”.

The tally of local cases in China since July 20, when the first Nanjing infections were found, stood at 414 as of Monday.

Numerous cities in southern China and a few in the north including Beijing have reported infections, and authorities have advised against non-essential travel, conducted mass testing, and sealed off some higher-risk neighborhoods.

‘LOOPHOLES’

The first of the latest flurry cases in Nanjing were cleaners at the Nanjing Lukou International Airport who were infected, possibly due to poor sanitization and protection after disinfecting a plane from Russia, a city official said last week.

China’s aviation regulator has demanded more frequent testing and insisted on the use of protective gear.

Police in the nearby Yangzhou said the outbreak in that city’s center got worse after a 64-year-old woman who left her locked-down Nanjing neighborhood to visit family in Yangzhou, where she entered restaurants and shops.

Airports in Nanjing and Yangzhou have suspended domestic flights.

In the central city of Zhengzhou, most of the 13 local cases reported since July 31 were linked to a hospital that treats patients arriving from outside China, with the strain in the first two infections bearing a similarity to that in cases recently arriving from Myanmar, an official said.

“This outbreak mainly occurred inside the hospital, involving people including cleaning staffers and medical workers,” said Wang Songqiang, director of Zhengzhou’s disease control center.

“This outbreak has … exposed the loopholes at a few hospitals in their in-hospital infection control,” Wang said.

The city of Zhangjiajie in the southern province of Hunan was hit by infections after carriers from outside the province attended a theatre performance where members of the audience sat next to each other, instead of at socially distanced intervals.

Zhangjiajie said on Tuesday that residents and tourists should not leave the city, effectively imposing a lockdown.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo, Liangping Gao and Roxanne Liu; Additional reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Florida COVID hospitalizations surge, New York urges business push on vaccines

(Reuters) – New York’s governor on Monday urged businesses to turn away unvaccinated customers while Florida is grappling with a surge in hospitalized COVID patients, both sparked by rising cases of the Delta variant that could result in new restrictions on daily life.

Florida, whose governor has resisted mask or vaccine mandates, has one of the worst outbreaks in the nation and about one-quarter of the country’s hospitalized COVID patients, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The head of Florida’s hospital association said the current surge sent COVID hospitalizations skyrocketing to 10,000 from 2,000 in less than 30 days, although deaths have remained well below the previous peak.

“It is a much younger population that is being hospitalized today,” Mary Mayhew told MSNBC on Monday. At one Jacksonville hospital, the average age is 42, she said. “We have 25-year-olds in the hospital in intensive care on ventilators,” she told the cable network. “We’ve got to convince 25-year-olds, 30-year-olds, that this is now life-threatening for them.”

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo also sounded the alarm, urging but not mandating bars, restaurants and other private businesses to require all customers be vaccinated before entering. The Democratic governor also said that vaccines could become mandatory for nursing home workers, teachers and healthcare workers if case numbers do not improve.

“Private businesses – I am asking them and suggesting to them to go to vaccine-only admission,” Cuomo told a briefing Monday. “I believe it’s in your best business interest. If I go to a bar and I want to have a drink and I want to talk to the person next to me, I want to know that that person is vaccinated.”

Cuomo also announced that all employees of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the trains and subways, and all the workers from his state for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees the region’s bridges, airports, and tunnels, would need to be vaccinated by Labor Day on Sept. 6 or submit to weekly testing.

“If you are unvaccinated the Delta variant should be a major concern to you and you should be worried about it,” Cuomo said.

The push by Cuomo marks the latest attempt by government leaders to spur reluctant Americans to get vaccinated as the Delta variant of the coronavirus surges nationwide, infecting mostly unvaccinated people.

Cuomo’s announcement comes on the heels of a decision by President Joe Biden to require millions of federal workers and contractors to show proof of vaccination or be subject to weekly or twice-weekly COVID-19 tests.

Even as cases have exploded, Governor Ron DeSantis has resisted mask mandates. Earlier this year, he and the Republican-controlled state legislature limited local officials’ ability to impose COVID-19 restrictions, and on Friday he issued an executive order barring schools from requiring face coverings when classes resume this month.

That order came days after the Broward County school board voted to require masks for students and staff. The superintendent of Miami-Dade schools had also said the district would reconsider whether to require masks in light of the surge.

Some local governments have also sought to impose public health measures despite DeSantis’ opposition. The village of Key Biscayne began requiring masks on Monday for all employees as well as any visitors to government buildings.

Both Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties last week said that all adults would be required to wear masks when inside county facilities. Orange County, home to Disney World, has ordered all employees to get vaccinated, with an Aug. 31 deadline for the first dose.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax in Princeton, New Jersey and Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Delta spreads ‘like wildfire’ as doctors study whether it makes patients sicker

By Deena Beasley

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – With a new wave of COVID-19 infections fueled by the Delta variant striking countries worldwide, disease experts are scrambling to learn whether the latest version of coronavirus is making people – mainly the unvaccinated – sicker than before.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that Delta, first identified in India and now dominant worldwide, is “likely more severe” than earlier versions of the virus, according to an internal report made public on Friday.

The agency cited research in Canada, Singapore and Scotland showing that people infected with the Delta variant were more likely to be hospitalized than patients earlier in the pandemic.

In interviews with Reuters, disease experts said the three papers suggest a greater risk from the variant, but the study populations are limited and the findings have not yet been reviewed by outside experts. Doctors treating patients infected with Delta described a more rapid onset of COVID-19 symptoms, and in many regions an overall increase serious cases.

But the experts said more work is needed to compare outcomes among larger numbers of individuals in epidemiologic studies to sort out whether one variant causes more severe disease than another.

“It’s difficult to pin down increase in severity and population bias,” said Lawrence Young, a virologist at the UK’s Warwick Medical School.

In addition, it is likely that the extraordinary rate of Delta transmission is also contributing to a greater number of severe cases arriving at hospitals, the experts said.

Delta is as contagious as chickenpox and far more contagious than the common cold or flu, according to the CDC report.

Shane Crotty, a virologist at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in San Diego, said the clearest indication that the variant may cause more severe disease comes from the Scotland study, which found that Delta roughly doubled the risk of hospitalization compared to an earlier version.

The majority of hospitalizations and deaths from coronavirus in the United States are occurring in people who have not been vaccinated. But there is evidence that the shots are less effective in people with compromised immune systems, including the elderly.

For vaccinated, otherwise healthy individuals, the odds are that if they contract COVID-19 they will only experience asymptomatic or mild disease, said Dr. Gregory Poland, infectious disease expert at the Mayo Clinic.

“But they can pass it on to family members and others who may not be so lucky,” Poland said. “We have to be vaccinated and masked or we will, for the fourth time now, endure another surge and out of that will come worse variants.”

‘FULL-ON FLAMES’

The rate of severe illness, especially in regions where vaccination rates are low, is again straining healthcare workers on the front lines of the pandemic.

“This is like a wildfire, this is not a smoldering campfire. It is full-on flames right now,” said Dr. Michelle Barron, senior medical director of infection prevention and control at Colorado’s UCHealth.

Research from China suggesting that the Delta variant replicates much faster and generates 1,000 times more virus in the body compared to the original strain highlights the biggest danger of this new wave, Barron said.

“It is hard to tell if they are more sick because of the Delta variant or if they would have been more sick anyway,” she said.

Other doctors said patients infected with Delta appear to become ill more quickly, and in some cases with more severe symptoms, than those they treated earlier in the pandemic.

“We are seeing more patients requiring oxygen sooner,” said Dr. Benjamin Barlow, chief medical officer at American Family Care, a 28-state chain of urgent care clinics.

At his clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, Barlow said that around 20% of patients are testing positive for COVID-19, compared with 2-3% a few weeks ago. Patients are assessed at that time for potential hospital admission and oxygen support.

David Montefiori, director of the Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research and Development at Duke University Medical Center, said the Delta variant is more infectious and leads to faster onset of illness – particularly for the unvaccinated.

“Frankly there’s a severity that comes from this variant that is a little more severe,” Montefiori said on a webcast last week. “It’s not just easier to transmit, it makes you sicker.”

(Reporting by Deena Beasley in Los Angeles, Josephine Mason in London and Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Daniel Wallis)

U.S. capital city issues sweeping mask requirement

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Masks will be required indoors in Washington, D.C., for everyone 2 years and older starting Saturday, Mayor Muriel Bowser said on Thursday, regardless of whether they have been vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.

The mandate will put the nation’s capital in line with updated guidance that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released this week in an effort to contain the rapid spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus.

Many federal government institutions in Washington and its suburbs have already implemented similar mask requirements and President Joe Biden is expected to announce additional measures for the federal workforce later on Thursday.

In addition, the Smithsonian said it would reimpose mask requirements at its museums that line the National Mall and other indoor venues for visitors 2 years and older beginning on Friday “regardless of vaccination status.” Face coverings may be removed while eating or drinking in designated areas, it said in a statement on Thursday.

By the beginning of July, Washington had hit its lowest rate of community spread of COVID-19 since the global pandemic began a year and a half ago. Over the course of the month, the daily case rate has increased fivefold, at the same time that the test positivity rate rose, LaQuandra Nesbitt, director of the city’s health department, said at a public briefing before Bowser announced the new mandate.

Current estimates indicate more than half the city’s residents have been fully vaccinated, according to public health agency data.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

COVID still devastating in the Americas, health agency says

BRASILIA (Reuters) -COVID-19 continues to inflict a devastating toll on the Americas, with Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador and Paraguay among the countries with the world’s highest weekly death rates, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday.

Cases have more than doubled in the United States over the past week, mainly among unvaccinated people, PAHO Director Carissa Etienne said in a briefing.

The more transmissible Delta variant of coronavirus has been detected in 20 of the 35 countries in the Americas already, she said.

Cuba is seeing higher COVID infection and death rates than at any other point in the pandemic there, she said, adding that more than 7,000 minors and nearly 400 pregnant women have tested positive there in the last week.

Over the last week there were over 1.26 million COVID-19 cases and nearly 29,000 deaths reported in the Americas.

Infection hotspots have been reported in Argentine provinces bordering Bolivia and Chile, and in Colombia’s Amazon region.

“As COVID continues to circulate, too many places have relaxed the public health and social measures that have proven effective against this virus,” Etienne said.

So far, only 16.6% of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, as countries in the regions have yet to access the vaccines needed to keep their people safe, she said.

“The good news is that vaccines work against the variants, including Delta, in terms of preventing severe disease and death. The bad news is that we do not have yet enough vaccines to stop community transmission,” Etienne said.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Sandra Maler)