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Ok. That wiki page cites this report from the UK on those stats (which seem to be derived from raw values in the tables maybe?) [0]. The thing is, it’s not str
by rsfern 5y ago
Ok. That wiki page cites this report from the UK on those stats (which seem to be derived from raw values in the tables maybe?) [0].
The thing is, it’s not straightforward to answer the question “was delta more severe/virulent than alpha or wild type” from directly comparing these raw statistics. The Delta wave in the UK (and US) was post vaccine rollout, so you can’t say from the raw numbers whether it’s the virus that changed, the demographics of people with infections, or vaccine rollout.
Analyses considering these confounding factors point to delta being more virulent, and towards the (thankfully!) lower fatality rate being mediated by vaccine efficacy and demographics.
This is the same situation we seem to possibly be in with omicron, but we still lack good data on how hard it hits the immunologically naive relative to previous variants
0: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1012644/Technical_Briefing_21.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...