A new study conducted in England has stated that the risk of being infected by Delta variant can be reduced up to 60 percent with two-dose vaccinations. The researchers involved in the study came to this conclusion after examining 100,000 people who took swab tests at home between June 24 and July 12.
These findings are contradictory to recently released data, which concluded that Delta variant effects both vaccinated and unvaccinated people with the similar amount of viral load.
The new study was conducted by London's Imperial College on Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission also known as REACT-1. Accordingly, the study suggested that people who have received two-doses of coronavirus vaccine had a smaller viral load on average. It claimed that fully vaccinated people shed virus and were less contagious than unvaccinated people.
Boost to Vaccination Drive?
Out of the sample of 100,000 people who took the swab test, 527 had tested positive for coronavirus and after analyzing genetically, 254 samples were found to have been infected with Delta variant.
The new study stated that fully vaccinated people were 49 percent likely to test positive for coronavirus without symptoms when compared to those who have not received two doses of vaccine. Whereas vaccinated people with symptoms were 59 percent less likely to test positive.
In a statement, director of the REACT program said that both doses of a vaccine offer good protection against getting infected. Currently, studies are concentrating on understanding how infectious fully vaccinated people become when infected by Delta variant.
"We need to better understand how infectious fully vaccinated people who become infected are, as this will help to better predict the situation in the coming months, and our findings are contributing to a more comprehensive picture of this," stated Steven Riley, a professor of infectious disease dynamics at Imperial College London.
Researchers also said that the increase in cases of infection and hospitalization might be the result of dominant variant switching from Alpha to Delta. It is speculated that currently, the virus is attacking younger people, who may be less likely to be vaccinated.
Reports claim that young people between 13 and 24 years have highest infection rate while people above 75 years recorded lowest infection rate. It is said that 50 percent of people who were infected were between the age of 5 and 24.
Previous findings had stated that some vaccines including Pfizer-BioNTech was effective against the Delta variant. Data from Israel had initially suggested that Pfizer-BioNTech was 64 percent effective against infections caused by Delta variant. But the latest data from Israel claimed that the efficacy of Pfizer-BioNTech had dropped to 39 percent.
