CDC elevates ‘Delta’ variant to virus of concern; LSU Health doctor says it’s warranted

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – The CDC has increased its classification of the so-called “Delta” variant of the new coronavirus and an LSU Health New Orleans doctor who helps detect variants or mutations of the virus says vaccination is the best defense. against the disturbing variant.

Dr. Lucio Miele is the Chair of Genetics at LSU Health.

“It’s justified based on what we’re seeing in the rest of the world, particularly in the UK,” Miele said.

According to the CDC, a variant of concern is “a variant for which there is evidence of increased transmissibility, more severe disease (eg, increased hospitalizations or deaths), significantly reduced neutralization by antibodies generated during previous infection or vaccination, reduced efficacy of treatments or vaccines, or diagnostic detection failures.

Dr. Miele explained the new Delta variant designation.

“There are two things that make it a concerning variant, one is its partial resistance to antibodies, especially convalescent antibodies, i.e. people who had had COVID before and the other is the makes it more infectious,” he said.

He said the Delta variant is believed to become the dominant strain of the virus in the United States.

“It’s already in the US and it’s going to start to outperform the other variants and so it’s very likely to take over,” Miele said.

LSU Health New Orleans is performing genomic sequencing to detect variants of the original novel coronavirus.

Miele says that viruses contain genes and these genes are made up of different letters.

“When you sequence the viral genome, you determine the exact order of the letters in all the genes in the virus. It tells you which variant you have,” he said.

In the United States, the Delta variant now accounts for nearly 10% of all known cases and so far in Louisiana, the percentage of confirmed Delta variant cases is well below the national percentage.

“This variant currently accounts for 2.7% of new cases in our region, so the most common variant is still the so-called British variant B.1.1.7. However, the variants compete with each other, and Delta is more successful in transmitting each other. It could also be clinically more serious and so it has essentially taken over the UK,” Miele said.

He said that since a limited number of samples of COVID-19 samples are being sequenced, there are likely many more cases from the Delta variant.

“Oh, it’s absolutely likely, you know, here in Louisiana, that over 7 million COVID tests have been done to date and of those, about half a million have been positive; those that have been sequenced number in the hundreds,” Miele said.

The Delta variant was first identified in India and has been very deadly there and has sickened large numbers of people in the South Asian country.

Miele says having had COVID-19 is not guaranteed insurance against reinfection.

“Having had COVID before will not necessarily protect you against this variant. A few days ago we saw a case here of someone who had, had COVID months ago and had it again, this time a bit more severe so that’s not true either that the second time is going to be sweeter. It depends on the variant you catch, we don’t know the variant of this case yet, but we will. And it depends on your overall health,” Miele said.

The Delta variant is a potent adversary even in people whose immune systems have made antibodies after being infected with the virus or receiving a coronavirus vaccine.

“It takes a lot more antibodies to neutralize a Delta virus variant than other variants, that will be the trend,” Miele said.

On Wednesday, the African American Research Collaborative released the results of its nationwide survey of more than 12,000 Americans on vaccine hesitancy. And poll results show that more than half of all unvaccinated Americans would prefer to get a COVID-19 shot at their doctor’s office.

Ray Block, Ph.D., is a senior research analyst at AARC and an associate professor at Penn State. He detailed the poll results during the virtual press conference.

“If you give a person the choice to express where they would like to go to get their shots, doctors’ offices are hands down where people would like to go when they get their shots,” Block said.

Miele, in stressing the need for people to get vaccinated, spoke about what he sees as a nightmare scenario involving the unvaccinated and the variants.

“Where the virus continues to spread among unvaccinated people, it continues to evolve and come up with new variants, and then in several months or more, when immunity to vaccines and vaccinated people begins to decline with the time, and we don’t know how long the protection still lasts, now these people will become susceptible again to the disease that has been steadily spreading in the unvaccinated population,” he said.

He said that since genomic sequencing requires specialized laboratories and is expensive, only certain samples of COVID-19 test samples are screened for the presence of variants.

“Right now, what we are focusing on are particularly serious cases, cases that occur in people who have been vaccinated with a dose or two sometimes, new cases that occur in people who have already had, who have had COVID before, reinfections that are, and cases that occur in patients who are either taking drugs that lower their immunity, so are less able to respond well, or have immunological diseases that make them less able to respond well said Miele.

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