The delta variant, which has driven fourth waves of the pandemic around the world, is now the dominant variant of concern among Covid-19 cases in Albania. 

During the last week, delta or B.1.617.2 variant cases made up most of the cases nationwide raising concerns while government urges to all citizens to get the Covid-19 jab offered to all during August.

The highly contagious delta variant has been the driving force behind a fourth wave of the pandemic in several countries, including the United States, where some regions have reimposed mask mandates due to climbing cases and hospitalizations. 

But what we know so far?

The Delta variant causes more infections and spreads faster than early forms of SARS-CoV-2

- The Delta variant is more contagious: The Delta variant is highly contagious, more than 2x as contagious as previous variants.

- Some data suggest the Delta variant might cause more severe illness than previous strains in unvaccinated persons. In two different studies from Canada and Scotland, patients infected with the Delta variant were more likely to be hospitalized than patients infected with Alpha or the original virus strains.

- Unvaccinated people remain the greatest concern: Although breakthrough infections happen much less often than infections in unvaccinated people, individuals infected with the Delta variant, including fully vaccinated people with symptomatic breakthrough infections, can transmit it to others. CDC is continuing to assess data on whether fully vaccinated people with asymptomatic breakthrough infections can transmit. However, the greatest risk of transmission is among unvaccinated people who are much more likely to contract, and therefore transmit the virus.

- Fully vaccinated people with Delta variant breakthrough infections can spread the virus to others. However, vaccinated people appear to be infectious for a shorter period: Previous variants typically produced less virus in the body of infected fully vaccinated people (breakthrough infections) than in unvaccinated people. In contrast, the Delta variant seems to produce the same high amount of virus in both unvaccinated and fully vaccinated people. However, like other variants, the amount of virus produced by Delta breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated people also goes down faster than infections in unvaccinated people. This means fully vaccinated people are likely infectious for less time than unvaccinated people.