The Atlantic Daily: What We Know About the Delta Coronavirus Variant

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The bad news: Delta, a scary new variant of the coronavirus, is spreading both stateside and abroad. The good news: In the matchup between vaccines and variants, the vaccines remain ahead for now.

To help you better understand what Delta means for you, and for the global fight against the coronavirus, we asked our staff writer Katherine J. Wu to answer six quick questions.

This seems to be an especially contagious variant. And we’re starting to see reports of Delta potentially making people sicker.

Yes. That’s the huge take-home point. The vaccines studied so far seem to be super effective against Delta, though keep in mind a lot of our data on vaccine effectiveness are from the two-dose mRNA vaccines. The new variant is present in the United Kingdom, where a lot of people are vaccinated, but cases are not skyrocketing in the way we would expect to see if vaccines were failing.

Feel good that you’re vaccinated. My sense is that if you are in the United States, and you are following CDC guidelines, you don’t need to change very much.

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