Almost 1 in 5 Americans are totally vaccinated, but cases have stopped falling everywhere and are starting to rise in many places. What gives?
B.1.1.7. The British variant is becoming our dominant strain, and people seem to be underestimating its power. It's about 60% more contagious, and if you get sick, it's more likely to be severe.
If you had 40% of the population vaccinated at 90% effectiveness, your transmission rate will have dropped from the pre-vaccine baseline by 36%. But replace the original strain with B.1.1.7, and you're back to a higher rate of transmission than you had with the original strain and no vaccinations. It's only 2% more, but the point is that B.1.1.7 taking over offsets the benefits of having 40% of the population vaccinated.
We're at 20% vaccinated, and the new variant is 50-80% of new cases now in most states, and will be almost all of our cases in a month from now. And we'll see a lot more young people in the hospital this time around (as a share of patients) because B.1.1.7 is more aggressive and younger people have lower vaccination rates.
So please, do you your part and get vaccinated when you can. Until then, keep practicing solid social distancing. After vaccination, keep wearing a mask in indoor public spaces until we stomp this thing into the ground.
We're still losing a thousand people a day to this thing.
Let's end it.
