Get Vaxed or Poleaxed by Delta

In the space of 6 weeks, Australia has experienced a 6 fold increase in Covid related deaths. As of August 13th, there were 10 deaths in past seven days, while 6 weeks later, there were 70 deaths in past week. At end of September – 83.
As of 2 October 2021, Australia has reported 111,392 cases, 34,990 recoveries, & 1,334 deaths, with Victoria’s second wave accounting for about 80 per cent of fatalities.

The Therapeutics Goods Administration reviews reports of deaths in people who have recently been vaccinated and found six were linked to immunisation out of 6.1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, i.e. 1 death per million doses. Deaths from Covid per million Australians is 53 and increasing due to the more virulent Delta strain of the virus.
Without vaccinations & preventative health measures, eventually Australia would have had 300,000 deaths or 40% of current deaths in United
States which only has 55% of its 330 million residents fully vaccinated. U.S. has had 43 million Covid infections resulting in 700,000 deaths.
The Spanish flu, also known as the 1918 flu pandemic, an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, lasted from February 1918 to April 1920, infecting 500 million people–about a quarter of the world’s 1.8 billion at the time–in four successive waves. The death toll is typically estimated to have been somewhere between 17 million and 50 million.

A century later, nations of the world are in the midst of another pandemic infecting 230 million to date, with over 4.7 million deaths. Fortunately, today, vaccines are available to combat the spread of the virus to the world’s 7.9 billion inhabitants, thus limiting the impending catastrophe.
Victoria vaccinations are approaching 85% by end of 2021, allowing vaccinated residents to look forward to a more promising and less restrictive 2022. Remaining unvaccinated residents face the onslaught of Delta which is more infectious compared to prior variants. New mutations of the COVID-19 virus are likely to be even stronger. Delta is now the predominant SARS CoV-2 variant, accounting for more than 99% of COVID-19 cases and leading to an overwhelming increase in hospitalizations.
Vaccination is far superior to Covid Pill which does not prevent infection. Vaccination prevents infection while pill limits seriousness of infection.

Five important aspects to know about the Delta variant.

1. Delta is more contagious than other virus strains. Infectious disease authorities have labelled Delta “a variant of concern,”
   Delta’s quick growth rate has been especially dramatic, says F. Perry Wilson, MD, a Yale Medicine epidemiologist. Delta was spreading 50% faster than Alpha, which was 50% more contagious than the original strain of SARS–CoV–2.
2. Unvaccinated people are at risk.
   As older age groups get vaccinated, those who are younger and unvaccinated will be at higher risk of getting COVID–19 with any variant. But Delta seems to be impacting younger age groups more than previous variants. Out of more than 51,000 Covid deaths in England between January and July 2021, only 256 occurred after two doses, i.e. 0.5% of deaths occurred in fully vaccinated.
3. Delta could lead to ‘hyperlocal outbreaks.’
   If Delta continues to accelerate the pandemic, the biggest questions will be about the heightened transmissibility. A low–vaccination town that is surrounded by high vaccination areas could end up with the virus contained within its borders, and the result could be “hyperlocal outbreaks”. If too
   many people are infected at once in a particular area, the local health care system will become overwhelmed, and more people will die.
4. There is still more to learn about Delta.
   An important question is whether the Delta strain will make infected persons sicker than the original virus. Delta variant may be more likely to result in hospitalization in the unvaccinated. A report published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, found that people in England with Delta had
   double the hospitalization risk of those with Alpha, previously a dominant mutation in that country. There are additional questions and concerns about Delta, including Delta Plus—a subvariant of Delta, that has been found in the U.S., the U.K., and other countries. “Delta Plus has one
   additional mutation to what the Delta variant has,” says Dr. Yildirim. ”This mutation, called K417N, affects the spike protein that the virus needs to infect cells, and that is the main target for the mRNA and other vaccines”, she says.
5. Vaccination is the best protection against Delta.
   The most important thing you can do to protect yourself from Delta is to get fully vaccinated, doctors say. At this point, that means if you get a two–dose vaccine like Pfizer or Moderna, for example, you must get both shots and then wait the recommended two–week period for those
   shots to take full effect. https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/5–things–to–know–delta–variant–covid The Centre for Disease Control & Prevention reported in late June, the 7–day moving average of infections was around 12,000. On July 27, the 7–day moving average of cases reached over
   60,000. This case rate looked more like the rate of cases seen before vaccines were widely available. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019–ncov/variants/delta–variant.html
   Delta is believed to be more than twice as contagious as previous variants, and studies have shown that it may be more likely than the original virus to put infected people in the hospital. People who are not vaccinated are most at risk, and the highest spread of cases and severe outcomes is happening in places with low vaccination rates. People who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus continue to have strong protection against COVID–19 compared to those who aren’t.
   Trials indicate vaccines are about 97 per cent effective against death.