Throughout the worst of the Delta surge there was a common refrain that the variant was both more transmissible, and more virulent, but a state official suggested research shows that’s only half true.
State Health Officer Dr. Joe Kanter told WWL’s Newell Normand that data now shows that while Delta was far more transmissible than the original coronavirus strain, it did not, on average, make you sicker.
“The data coming out over the last week suggests that actually, it was not more virulent, that it was just more transmissible, and more people got it because it better, but it didn’t actually make people sicker on average,” said Kanter.
The rumored increased virulence of Delta was thought, for a time, to be the reason more kids were getting sick and ending up in the hospital than at any time earlier in the pandemic. It turns out it may not have been more damaging to kids, it was just that more kids in total were catching the virus.
“So we think that the influx of kids in Children’s Hospitals now was not really due to the virus making kids sicker on average, just there being more virus out there,” said Kanter.
