The delta variant is fueling a devastating new surge of infections, but experts say declines in testing and lack of data on hospitalizations make it difficult to know just how much the virus is circulating in communities — and who remains most vulnerable.
Wednesday to assess emerging health threats and help guide public health decisions by governments, businesses and communities.
Without more detailed information about who is getting infected, it’s difficult for public health officials to craft specific policies to protect those at risk, said Dr. William Raszka, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Vermont. The problem is all the more urgent as millions of children, including, are returning to classrooms for the new school year.
Even in a state like Vermont, where about 80 percent of the eligible adult population has been at least partly vaccinated, testing has become an issue, Raszka said. Another part of the problem is that people seem less likely to get tested now than in earlier stages of the pandemic, particularly if they have only mild symptoms, said Rita Burke, an assistant professor of clinical preventive medicine at the University of Southern California.“People are definitely more knowledgeable now about the symptoms and how important it is to self-isolate,” Burke said. “We know that not everyone who is positive gets tested.
Scientists are therefore left with a less-than-perfect understanding of how the virus is spreading and what is driving community transmission. For now, one of the most reliable indicators in a community is its hospitalization rate. But hospitalizations can lag by up to two weeks behind infections, so they may offer only snapshots of the virus’s prevalence. And hospitalization data don’t often drill down into specifics of new patients’ vaccination statuses, occupations or household situations or whether they were previously infected — all valuable information for crafting public health policy, Raszka said.
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