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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that vaccinated people may be spreading the Delta variant of Covid-19, a development the federal health authority said led to its recommendation that vaccinated people should wear masks indoors and in public in certain parts of the country where infection rates are high.
The CDC said an outbreak in Cape Cod, Massachusetts informed its recommendation, after it found that 127 vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant during the outbreak appeared to carry as much virus as eighty-four unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people who got infected.
The outbreak occurred during the July 4th weekend, in Provincetown, Cape Cod. The CDC said that among the 469 cases linked to the outbreak, almost 75 percent were fully vaccinated. And nearly 80 percent of the vaccinated individuals who got ill had symptoms of headache, sore throat, fever or cough. Additionally, four were hospitalized, however there were no deaths, the CDC said.
The CDC said the new information was presented earlier this week through an internal slide. There, the CDC revealed that the Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox, a disease that would sicken about four million Americans every year until a vaccine was developed in the mid-1990s. The presentation also revealed that the Delta variant is more transmissible than the seasonal flu, the common cold and smallpox. It was found to be less viral than measles.
The CDC also pointed to studies during its internal presentation that show the Delta variant includes higher levels of the Covid-19 virus, more severe illness and a longer period of infectiousness.
The presentation also read, "The war has changed."
“High viral loads suggest an increased risk of transmission and raised concern that, unlike with other variants, vaccinated people infected with Delta can transmit the virus,” said CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on Friday. “This finding is concerning and was a pivotal discovery leading to CDC’s updated mask recommendation.”
Also on Friday, the V.I. Dept. of Health reported 92 new Covid-19 cases as the Delta variant's presence in the U.S. Virgin Islands continues to spread. The latest cases carried the territory's total to 251 active infections — one of the highest numbers for the entire pandemic in the USVI.
St. Thomas accounted for most of the new cases with 168 active infections, followed by St. Croix with eighty, and St. John with three, according to data provided by the department.
D.O.H. also reported the territory's 37th Covid-related death Friday, bringing to five the number of individuals who have died from causes related to the virus in two weeks.
The health department said efforts continue to slow the virus's spread, and it encouraged social distancing and mask-wearing when in company of people outside the same household.
Governor Albert Bryan earlier this week unloaded on vaccine doubters and conspiracy theorists, highlighting the governor's frustration with the vaccine hesitancy that has taken hold in the territory.
As of this week, the territory was at 49.1 percent vaccinated, and this percentage includes individuals who traveled to the territory with the sole purpose of taking a shot during the early days of vaccine availability.
Said the governor: "The number one killer in the Virgin Islands is hypertension, heart disease and diabetes, and people [eating] macaroni and cheese, stuffing, seasoned rice, every single day. Souse and all of these other stuff.
"They're putting on clothes washed in chemicals that will poison your body. They're spraying dyes and all kinds of things in their hair. They're going to nail shops where they're filing down and inhaling all kinds of toxins every single day, and painting themselves and their hair and their fingers with all kinds of things that contaminate your body.
"They're putting phones to their heads full of radiation and all kinds of other things that are messing with their system. And every day and night they're going to bars and places and drinking sodas and all kinds of alcohol and other kinds of toxins in their body that they never know where it come from.
"They're eating at fast food restaurants, they don't know how it's made, what it's made from, or what kinds of plastic are in it, and you're going to tell me about vaccines? Let's get real.
"If the government had wanted to poison you and kill you they could have done so a lot faster, because all they had to do is put it in an app.
"I mean all of the arguments that I've listened to, vaccines have a long history. In 2021 we don't need to be going through the Black Plague of the dark ages because people don't want to take the medicine. And so many places in the world people wish they could have this medicine in order to survive.
"Bottomline, if you get sick, you're going to be begging for the monoclonal antibodies which is the same technology that we use in the vaccine."Governor Albert Bryan earlier this week unloaded on vaccine doubters and conspiracy theorists, highlighting the governor's frustration with the vaccine hesitancy that has taken hold in the territory. As of this week, the territory was at 49.1 percent vaccinated, and this percentage includes individuals who traveled to the territory with the sole purpose of taking a the shot during the early days of vaccine availability.
