Delta Variant Fuels Missouri’s Covid-19 Uptick

[andhra_jp]

The highly contagious Delta variant of the virus that causes Covid-19 is prompting a surge of coronavirus cases in Missouri, a warning sign of what may happen this summer in other areas of the U.S. with low vaccination rates, public-health experts say.
 
 The Missouri state health department tests wastewater to track the spread of Covid-19, including which variant is dominant. Data from June 14, the most recent available, showed the Delta variant was present statewide. At the beginning of May, the variant wasn’t present in the wastewater sampled, the data showed.

“The uptick is powered by the Delta variant,” said Clay Dunagan, chief medical officer at BJC HealthCare, a system serving St. Louis, southern Illinois and mid-Missouri. 

The variant, which is about 40% to 60% more contagious than the previous dominant variant, is sending more people to hospitals in the northern and southwestern parts of the state, health officials say. 

Why the variant is taking hold in Missouri so strongly may be due to a number of factors. 

Missouri never instituted a statewide mask mandate, but the state health department did recommend people wear masks in public. Cities and counties adopted their own face-covering and social-distancing rules. Springfield dropped its local masking requirement in late May. Republican Gov. Mike Parson lifted statewide restrictions on social distancing in June 2020, but allowed local officials to implement their own rules during the pandemic. 

Missouri and five other states—Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Wyoming and Louisiana—rank among the lowest for Covid-19 vaccination rates—and among those with the highest rates of new cases, according to CDC data.