i don t know why we need to keep learning this lesson. the first virus that came out of china was the first variant. it didn t have a greek letter designation. it killed more than 500,000 people here in this country. it was replaced by the alpha or uk variant, which now is the dominant strain and now we have the third variant, the delta variant. what this virus is doing, it s trying to become more and more adapted to growth in people. therefore, it becomes more contagious. the more contagious that it is, the more of the population you have to get vaccinated. as dr. fauci said, we re not helpless here, just get vaccinated. unfortunately there are too many people not making that choice. there s this guy, cole beasley, in what he termed a public service announcement, he s an nfl player. he tweeted this weekend, quote, i m not vaccinated. i ll be outside doing what i do. i ll be out in the public, if you re scared of me, then steer clear. point blank, period.
are belonging to the delta variant and in england, 80% of the country is having an increased number of cases, and looking onto all the consequences of the positive cases, 99% of those positive cases belonging to the delta variant and this is more spread into poor communities, communities where the vaccine hesitancy has been all in all population where the vaccine hasn t been rolled out at that scale, we re able to have some barrier against the spread of infection. because of this delta variant becoming more transmissible and covering wider communities, even if it is not dangerous, it would take a larger toll on death and that s what we re starting to see here in the uk. i saw a study of cases in scotland that found the risk of hospital admission with the variant was roughly double compared to the alpha or uk variant. you mentioned the vaccine.
cases, 99% of those positive cases belonging to the delta variant and this is more spread into poor communities, communities where the vaccine hesitancy has been all in all population where the vaccine hasn t been rolled out at that scale, we re able to have some barrier against the spread of infection. because of this delta variant becoming more and more transmissible and covering wider communities, even if it is not dangerous, it would take a larger toll on death and that s what we re starting to see here in the uk. i saw a study of cases in scotland that found the risk of hospital admission with the variant was roughly double compared to the alpha or uk variant. you mentioned the vaccine. basically for people who have been vaccinated, who are watching this, are you essentially protected? is there nothing to worry about here? well, one thing is clear,
unvaccinated? here is cnn s dr. sanjay gupta. so 300 million doses administered is obviously a notable number in terms of overall immunity. not the 70% we wanted, but if you look at the amount of immunity from vaccines and add in the amount of immunity that comes from people having been naturally infected, we re probably at functional herd immunity or soon to be there. numbers are coming down, hospitalizations, deaths, good news. big question is about the variants. it is interesting to look around the world at variants, see how much impact they re making. take a look at the uk. there s a story that s important you see in the graphic. the end of january, it was primarily the alpha or uk variant that was dominant in the uk understandably. what happened over that time period? the numbers came down overall which was good but at the same time the delta variant started
to enter the scene there, you saw the numbers pop back up. that was primarily obviously people that had not been vaccinated. so that s the concern here. we know this is a much more transmissible variant. the uk or alpha was 50% more transmissible than the strain before that, this is 60% more transmissible than the alpha variant. in scotland, a study showed people infected with the delta variant were more likely to be hospitalized. so this does appear to be more transmissible and serious also. that is why there s so much attention on this. if you look at the effectiveness of the vaccines, take a look there, you see that alpha or delta, you get a lot of impact, a lot of protection from vaccines, that s why the message remains the same to get out there and get vaccinated. it s worth pointing out, as you can slow down spread of the virus overall through vaccination, through immunity, you re going to be less and less