Coronavirus

Delta Covid Variant May Be Present in U.S. Virgin Islands, Dept. of Health Announces; Department Says Unvaccinated People are Promoting Introduction of Harmful Variants

The V.I. Dept. of Health announced Saturday night that the Delta variant of Covid-19 — now the world's most dominant strain — has possibly been identified in the U.S. Virgin Islands. D.O.H. said it has been working with Yale University to test samples from positive Covid-19 cases, and so far 84 samples have shown to be variants from sequencing. Of the 84 cases, 65 have been of the Alpha variant (B.1.1.7) which is also known as “the UK Variant.” Six samples have been B.1.526.2 (Iota) OR B.1.351 (Beta), and one sample B.1.429 (Epsilon), according to the release. Twelve samples are not confirmed to be any of the variants that have been previously identified in the USVI and may be the Delta variant that health officials have been very concerned about, D.O.H. said. Full sequencing results for those 12 samples will be available next week. According to the Wall Street Journal, about half of adults infected in an outbreak of the Delta variant in Israel in July were fully inoculated with th...