According to reports, the World Health Organization urged vaccinated people to continue to wear masks and social distance. As the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus gained traction around the world, WHO even recommended the people who already got the vaccine. “Vaccine alone won’t stop community transmission. People need to continue to use masks consistently, be in ventilated spaces, hand hygiene, physical distance and avoid crowding. This still continues to be extremely important, even if you’re vaccinated when you have a community transmission ongoing,” Dr Mariangela Simao, WHO’s assistant director-general, said. The delta variant is the most transmissible of the variants identified so far and is spreading rapidly among unvaccinated populations.
The US has a higher vaccination rate. In the USA, CDC already said vaccinated people can go most places without masks. The Delta variant has primarily taken hold in countries that haven’t been able to beef up their vaccine numbers but it has spread to the US. In the United Kingdom, the variant is now responsible for 90 percent of all new infections. In the US, it represents 20 percent of infections. Australia, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Portugal and Israel have all been forced to return to some form of lockdown because of the variant, which originated in India. It’s not clear yet whether the variant makes people sicker since more data needs to be collected. The vaccines are considered “highly effective” against the delta variant, according to a recent study by the British government, although slightly less than the original strain. But the WHO urged those vaccinated to play it safe and wear a mask because so many remain unvaccinated globally and the variant has become the main spreader in several countries.
