The delta variant of coronavirus appears to cause more severe illness and spreads as easily as chickenpox, according to an internal CDC document obtained by the Washington Post.
In the document, officials say it's time to "acknowledge the war has changed."
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According to the Washington Post, officials with the nation's top public health agency strike an "urgent" tone as the delta variant is so highly contagious it leaps "from target to target more swiftly than Ebola or the common cold."
“We really need to shift toward a goal of preventing serious disease and disability and medical consequences, and not worry about every virus detected in somebody’s nose,” Kathleen Neuzil, a vaccine expert at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said. “It’s hard to do, but I think we have to become comfortable with coronavirus not going away.”
The document also cites still unpublished data and new studies that show vaccinated individuals infected with delta may be able to transmit the virus -- just as easily as those who are unvaccinated.
“I finished reading it significantly more concerned than when I began,” Robert Wachter, chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, wrote.
Read the full report on the Washington Post.