Delta-plus coronavirus variant could hit the U.S. with a vengeance soon, experts say....Blacks and Latinos are more at risk than other ethic groups, data show...By Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black and alternative digital news leader

- June 28, 2021

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.

CLEVELAND, Ohio-A strain of COVID-19 dubbed the Delta- Plus Coronavirus variant that is more transmissible and more dangerous and 60 percent more contagious than others could break out in the US momentarily, some scientific and other experts say.

"It's not going to be as pervasive," Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, said Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation. "It's going to hyper-regionalized. There's certain pockets of the country where you're going to have very dense outbreaks."

Gottlieb said the Delta Variant will likely target southern communities and that those with lower vaccination rates and lower rates of prior infection are the most vulnerable.

About 46 percent of the country's population has been vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Louisiana, Mississippi, Wyoming and Arkansas are among the states with the lowest vaccination rates and are states where less than 35 percent of their population is fully vaccinated.

That data also show that African -Americans and the Latino-Hispanic populations have higher rates of hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID-19.

The Delta variant is a version of the coronavirus that has been found in more than 80 countries since it was first detected in India. It got its name from the World Health Organization, which names notable variants after letters of the Greek alphabet. And some experts like Dr. Shad Marvasti, director of Public Health Prevention and Health Promotion at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix, say that the mask mandate may need to be brought back to combat the deadly virus.

Statistics relative to the coronavirus pandemic that hit the nation with a vengeance in March of 2020 are bad enough, experts say, not to mention the damage the Delta Variant can bring. Currently there have been some 35 million regular coronavirus cases since March of 2020 in the US, and nearly 620,000 deaths. Worldwide data is worse with roughly 180 million regular coronavirus cases and nearly four million people dead from the vicious disease.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.