Rabat – Nations across the globe are all holding their breath before the alarming evolution of the recent COVID-19 virus variant, Delta.
According to the World Health Organization, the new rampant strain, identified in India for the first time, is spreading at a staggering rate and has until now been recorded in more than 80 countries.
The Indian variant is mainly prevalent in Great Britain and Russia. The UK, considered to be the country that has handled the pandemic the best in the last months, has now recorded its highest coronavirus infections since late February.
The Delta variant seems to be responsible for the overwhelming majority of the new caseload. “The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine offered 60 percent protection against infection with the Delta variant compared with 73 percent for the Alpha variant,” revealed a study published in The Lancet.
So far, variant-related outbreaks have also been reported – although to a much lesser degree – from the United States, China, Scandinavia, and Pacific rim countries.
In response to the increased severity of infection, several countries and health authorities are closely monitoring the transmission of the Delta variant. France, which had widely eased health restrictions, has put the variant under high surveillance. The CDC has also added the highly transmissible strain to its lists of “variants of concern.” Portugal even took a step further by enforcing a weekend lockdown in the capital, Lisbon.
All indicators are indeed in the red, foretelling a potential overburdening of health systems. Experts declared that receiving a second COVID-19 vaccine shot is particularly crucial to blunt the new surge, a strategy that not all countries, to their dismay, have adopted.
Where cases are spiking all over again, the UK has opted to prioritize the first doses of the vaccines and delay the second injections in the interim. But experts worry that this strategy has not proven to be effective and may therefore not be the ideal approach to adopt in the new scramble to combat the highly infectious Delta variant.
Despite the gradual lifting of COVID-19 the restrictions in most countries, experts advise populations not to let their guards down, especially if they’re not yet vaccinated or have received only one shot.
As many countries are sounding the alarm, Morocco had better keep a close eye on the evolution of the new strain, all the more so because the population appears to have abandoned safety measures. “ With the noticeable laxity that had been recorded in recent days regarding preventive measures for COVID-19, […] The Ministry of Health once again calls on all citizens and citizens to strictly adhere to preventive precautions and respect the precautionary measures against COVID-19”, noted the ministry of health in a released statement on June 21.
Meanwhile, most experts agree that vaccination remains the best option as it allows the most vulnerable patients to be shielded and protected.
As for Global South countries that are facing vaccine scarcity, it may be a long time before they can recover from this big hiccup that is the Covid-19.
