Delta Dawn - part the second

The first episode has some connection to this one, mostly coincidence, but I couldn't let the pun go unpunished.

Among the shibboleths I've run across in my life is the following

The Old World nearly wiped out the New World populations with the simple common cold.
The New World returned the favor, although not as spectacularly, by giving us syphilis.

Today's analogy is somewhat more cynical

American IT gave IIT Freshers all of our compute jobs.
In return, India gave us Covid-δ.

Note a fair trade, but who said life was fair?

And, of course, the latter is undeniable. Within a smidge, it emerged in the USofA beginning of this March. It took a couple of months to gain traction. Now, go look at the NYT country case graph. Note the shape following February, 2020 vis-a-vis May, 2021. Geometric progression can be bad and it can be lots worse. Covid-δ is lots worse. This is a slope worse than last fall. Moreover, if you look at the Bad Red States, FL/AL/LA and such it's the unvaccinated.

Ronny VirusSeed^© is the worst of the bunch. Not only is FL rising faster than it did in The Bad Olde Days, daily case counts (which I guarantee are being fiddled minimized) are greatest yet. Good going Idiot.

The issue is easy to see. For some Red State get some case count/date after Covid-δ was detected. Next, slide back to 2020 and that value. Next, take the latest case count number, and slide back to the original infection segment and that case count. Note how long the time is in both situations. In general, what is one month with Covid-δ is three or four months with original Covid. Let that sink in. There are some questions now:

Will Covid-δ find a peak and drop as fast as it climbed the way original Covid did?
Will Covid-δ not stop at a peak similar to original Covid and just keep going?
Since Covid-δ is far more infectious to the unvaccinated, and the unvaccinated are concentrated in Red States, will the peak be OK nationally, but population altering in Red States?
Will Floridians capture Ronny VirusSeed^© and hang him by his heels and fillet him with the band playing "The Wicked Witch is Dead"?

Back about March, 2020 the effectiveness of asymp transmission was no longer debated; no one, other than a Right Wingnut Moron, would hang around someone coughing and sneezing and nose dripping, so the asymps had to be driving infection. This time around, the Lamestream Press appears to be ignoring history. We now know that breakthrough infection of the vaccinated, while rare, is likely asymp. It may even be true that the vaccinated, while not infected/asymp, can still transmit Covid-δ that has entered the nose, but doesn't get down into the respiratory tract to cause infection. The jury is still out on that.

[B]ecause Delta reproduces so quickly and efficiently, it appears that the virus can sometimes reach detectable and infectious levels in vaccinated people before the vaccine-mediated immune response kicks in.
[my emphasis]

One hopes it's not so, because this is more insidious than asymp. So The Revenge of the Smart; this time around we'll be killing off the Covidiots!!! Yay!!!