By Patrick Mcardle
Staff Writer
The Delta variant of COVID-19 has been found in Vermont, but doctors reminded residents on Thursday that vaccination remains a very effective protections against the virus.
Dr. Rick Hildebrant, chief medical information officer and medical director of hospital medicine for Rutland Regional Medical Center, said vaccinations that have been available for months are “incredibly effective against the Delta variant.”
“If people are vaccinated, they’re very protected. If they’re unvaccinated, though, they’re at a much higher risk than they were, just a few months ago against COVID because this is just so contagious, it causes people to get sicker and some of the treatments we use for COVID are not as effective,” he said.
Dr. Mark Levine, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Health, said the state is doing whole genome sequencing in its own laboratories now and used it to determine that the Delta variant had been found in Chittenden County, from a returning international traveler and in Central Vermont from a domestic traveler. The origin of the third case was unclear.
“The real bottom line is, it doesn’t matter where in the state because with the high vaccination rate, the hope is that even a person who is actively infected, with the Delta variation, that virus is going to run into a wall and get stopped because it won’t be able to get transmitted to the next person because 80-plus percentage of the time, if that person is over age 12, that person is already protected with the vaccine,” he said.
Hildebrant explained that to understand variants, it’s important to understand viruses.
“Viruses are organisms (with the) sole job, or sole purpose, to spread from person to person. They do that by infecting our cells and taking over the machinery of our cells and making more virus particles that then can spread. What happens, when you’re making millions and millions and millions of copies of anything is that occasionally there are small errors that are introduced into the genetic material of the viruses,” he said.
While many of the changes will have no effect, sometimes the mutation causes a change in the protein structure of the virus making it more effective at the purpose, which is to spread.
Variants have been tracked by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Hildebrant said the strain of COVID dominant in Vermont now is the Alpha variant.
The Delta variant was first identified in India and then spread to Europe, Hildebrant added.
There are three man reasons for concern about the Delta variant.
First, COVID is very contagious but the Delta variant is even more contagious than the Alpha variant currently common in Vermont.
“What that means is, if you’re not vaccinated, in all likelihood, you will get COVID, period,” he said.
Hildebrant noted a recent new report that said about 30% of the new cases in America were caused by the Delta variant. The spread is in the “exponential phase,” Hildebrant said.
“It’s very likely that in the very near future, all cases of COVID are going to be related to this Delta variant. … It seems very likely, as we’ve seen in other countries, that all of America is going to be infected by the Delta variation,” he said.
While the vaccination rate among eligible adults is about 81% in Vermont, Hildebrant pointed out that Vermont, like all states, has open borders, and some other states have lower vaccination rates.
Second, the Delta variation causes people to get sicker and is more likely to result in patients needing hospitalization or emergency care.
Finally, some treatments used against COVID are not as effective against the Delta variant.
“The thing that is effective against the Delta variant is vaccination,” Hildebrant said.
Kids 12 and younger are not being vaccinated yet. “The best thing we can do to protect our kids is to get vaccinated ourselves,” Hildebrant said.
While the vaccination rate for eligible Vermonters is currently a little more than 81%, Levine said health officials are still hoping to encourage even more Vermonters to get the shot and improve the rate. He said he expected the presence of the Delta variant would become part of the campaign encouraging people to get vaccinated.
Levine noted that Vermont does not seem to have a large number of residents who are opposed to the vaccine and many in the nearly 20% who haven’t gotten it yet indicate they are likely to do so.
Vaccinations can be received at pharmacies and most primary-care practices.
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