Thread by @ashishkjha

US has done well on vaccinations

Will it be enough to ward off spike from Delta variant?

Let's look to UK for to peek into our future

A month ago, UK had half the cases (per capita) as the US

Delta was starting to take hold in UK

See graph (US in blue, UK in red)

Thread

Then, over past month, Delta became dominant in UK

So what happened?

See graph

UK's infections increased nearly 6X in the past month or so

And UK cases now 5X that of the US!!

Ah you say -- that's infections. But surely no impact on hospitalizations!

3/6

Actually, hospitalization in the UK are also up

Up nearly 80% from a month ago

With no signs of slowing down

So that's not great

But surely given that UK has vaccinated all of its high risk folks, deaths are falling?

4/7

Here, there is good news

Deaths are low (largely because almost all older folks are vaccinated)

But even here, there are preliminary signs that deaths are rising

5/7

So not great.

But may be its because UK hasn't been doing a great job fully vaccinating people?

Actually, that's not right

UK has fully vaccinated (2 shots) a higher portion of its population than the US has

6/7

So what does this mean?

In UK, Delta became dominant and

Cases spiked 5X

Hospitalizations up 90%

Deaths rising albeit slowly so far

Despite having vaccinated more folks than US

7/8

The UK experience suggests US vaccination level will not be enough to ward of Delta spike

Infection rises likely to become apparent over next few weeks as Delta becomes dominant

The spike won't be uniform across nation

Indeed, low vax communities are particularly at risk

Fin