Lexi Geller
Staff Reporter
As the world knows by this point, the COVID-19 virus has had a major effect on the entire globe. Everyone knows someone who has been affected by the virus. The entire world went into quarantine for months. This virus is not something that wants to be forgotten. It is becoming more and more evident that even though the world has decided to try to go back to life as it was before the pandemic hit, the virus has a different plan.
It is a scientific fact that viruses mutate. All of them do, even common ones that some people may not recognize as viruses, like the flu that comes around every year. They mutate in order to survive. As explained by Unity Point, “Viruses aren’t living things. They need a host to survive – like the cells in your body. Once a virus enters your body, it reproduces and spreads. The more a virus circulates in a population of people, the more it can change. All viruses change but not always at the same rate.” In other words, viruses mutate to evolve in a way that it can inhabit more hosts, which are humans.
COVID-19 is no different. The world was focused on getting back to life as normal, and doing their part to get the world back to normal like wearing masks, quarantining when needed, and eventually getting vaccinated. Most people felt very safe after getting the vaccine, and many stopped wearing masks. There was a sense of hope that the world began to feel as things seemed to go back to normal.
Now a major concern is coming to people’s attention: the Delta Variant. West Virginia Coronavirus Czar Dr. Clay Marsh and Major General (Ret.) James Hoyer explain, “Infectious diseases experts use the value (pronounced “R naught”), a mathematical term that indicates how contagious and infectious disease and how quickly it reproduces when transmitted to new people. The R0 value shows how many people are likely to be infected when exposed to a person infected with COVID-19, and the data are concerning.” So the R0 measures how quickly a virus can spread. Covid-19 itself was very contagious and had an R0 of “2.3-2.7 (one infected person is likely to infect 2.3 to 2.7 unaware people),” which was enough to cause a global pandemic.
The Delta Variant is more deadly and more contagious than the original COVID-19 virus. The Delta Variant “-has an R0 of 5-8.” It is only time before this variant causes many major health concerns for far more people in a far wider age range than the Covid-19 virus. Dr. Clay Marsh and Major General (Ret.) James Hoyer say, “This is an extraordinary rise in infectivity and should give all unvaccinated or partially vaccinated West Virginia residents urgency to be fully vaccinated.”
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