What is the difference between the original COVID-19 virus and the Delta variant?
What is the difference between the original COVID-19 virus and the Delta variant?
The Delta variant causes more infections and spreads faster than the original SARS-CoV-2 strain of the virus that cause COVID-19. Vaccines remain the best way to reduce your risk of severe illness, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19.
What does it mean that someone is asymptomatic?
Someone who is asymptomatic has the infection but no symptoms and will not develop them later. Someone who is pre-symptomatic has the infection but does not have any symptoms yet.
How contagious is the COVID-19 Delta variant?
Delta is believed to be more than twice as contagious as previous variants, and studies have shown that it may be more likely than the original virus to put infected people in the hospital.
Does the COVID-19 Delta variant cause more serious illness?
• 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.
What does COVID-19 stand for?
Illness caused by SARS-CoV-2 was termed COVID-19 by the WHO, the acronym derived from “coronavirus disease 2019.” The name was chosen to avoid stigmatizing the virus’s origins in terms of populations, geography, or animal associations.
Can asymptomatic people transmit COVID-19?
Yes, infected people can transmit the virus both when they have symptoms and when they don’t have symptoms. This is why it is important that all people who are infected are identified by testing, isolated, and, depending on the severity of their disease, receive medical care.
Can you spread the COVID-19 virus if you have no symptoms?
Reason: people with COVID-19 can have no symptoms, but still spread the virus.
What are COVID-19 variants, and do we have them in Texas?
See full answerVariants are different strains of a virus. Viruses constantly change through mutation, and new variants of a virus are expected to occur over time. Sometimes new variants emerge and disappear. Other times, new variants emerge and persist. Multiple variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 have been documented in the United States and globally during this pandemic.We know that some of these variants are more contagious than others and are starting to spread in Texas. This is why we need to continue to take prevention steps and precautions against COVID-19, including getting vaccinated.For more information about variants in the U.S., see the About Variants page on the CDC site. For more information about variants in Texas, visit the News Updates page on the DSHS website.
