Delta Variant

Abstract

Nothing is harder than to realize when you are living through history. For most of us, each day is pretty much like another. There is nothing historically remarkable about that. Occasionally, however, our lives are punctuated by events, both natural and man-made, that are apocalyptic and often (but not always) beyond our control – natural disasters, war, pestilence, and famine. These are the events that the historian must recognize. At this time, it is the COVID-19 pandemic that demands to be recorded by “his-story” so that posterity will know what we did right, and what we did wrong. This author has taken up the challenge of producing accurate, unbiased, comprehensive, technical annals of the global coronavirus pandemic that began in 2019. “The Delta Variant” is the third publication in this series. We are now near the end of the third year of the pandemic (summer/fall 2021). As predicted by this author, it has been a draconian year. Last year’s peak in the number of active cases was not a global maximum for the pandemic in the U.S., since this year the number of active cases has already surpassed it. Without knowing where the global maximum lies, no accurate predictions can be made about the magnitude and duration of this modern plague. The “Delta Variant” (δ-variant) of COVID-19 has greatly complicated efforts to combat the virus. The “anti-vaxxer” movement, uncontrolled migration of people into and within the U.S, and the relaxation of safety measures during the late spring and early summer in the U.S. also contributed difficulties. All of these problems were foreseen by the author and were discussed in the second paper (“Vaccine Safety”) of this series on the COVID pandemic. However, our biggest problem in the U.S. was an over confidence born of a natural summertime trough in the daily infection rate. We wanted to believe the infection was past, so we ignored the experience of India, and our administrators fueled our hopes with their words and actions. We believed because we wanted to believe – except for this author. So, what went wrong? What is a δ-variant, and why is it so dangerous? That will be the topic of this publication.