The interaction of the Delta variant and a vaccination programme that targets the most vulnerable populations means that the top level data really can’t tell you anything about the severity of cases of the Delta variant.
(all following data sourced from Scotland Coronavirus Tracker)
Here’s the current outbreak of cases compared to the last wave:
But here’s the effect it’s having on hospitals:
Not nearly so bad, right? From this, you might conclude that the Delta variant is less severe. But hang on.
Here’s how that latest surge looks when broken down by age group:
Almost all of the latest surge is happening amongst younger people, who are then less likely to be hospitalised when they get COVID.
And why are younger people getting it this time round:
Because they’re the ones that haven’t been vaccinated yet (and as the graphs illustrate, Vaccination works really well.). We’re having an age-based roll out of the vaccines, and the overall uptake levels are incredibly high in the cohorts that have been almost totally covered so far.
But what about those younger people- are they not getting vaccinated?
NO
Here’s the figures aaround the roll-out for the last seven days:
First doses:
And second doses:
The younger cohorts that are getting infected are getting their jabs, it’s just that the vulnerability based queuing system means that they’re only now becoming eligible. When they are eligible, they’re getting vaccinated.
(To be sure, there are some worrying trends, like people who have moved addresses recently or aren’t registered with a GP being harder to reach with an appointment, but overall, take-up is still great, and we can focus on anyone who has fallen through the cracks when we see the bulk of the population have been done.)
This overall picture means that we would have to look specifically at the people who have been infected with the Delta variant and compare them to a similar group of people who caught another variant before we could see the full picture here. The overall trend between the waves is just so different that they are going to be very difficult to compare.
