As COVID cases continually decline, talk about the more contagious Delta variant has emerged.
Infectious disease specialist and Senior Scholar at Johns Hopkins University Dr. Amesh Adalja told our newsroom it’s only a matter of time before it comes to Butler. So what should we expect in the future?
“I suspect hospitalizations will be at a pace where there will be an uptick, but they won’t be something that puts hospitals in problem worrying about ICU beds. But the thing is, we can completely make this a non-issue for Butler County by getting our vaccination numbers higher,” Adalja said.
Right now, over 90,000 people are fully vaccinated in Butler County according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. That accounts for about 48 percent of Butler County’s total population.
One of the reasons why Dr. Adalja feels that hospitalizations won’t surge is that more vulnerable populations have been vaccinated.
“Hopefully, the people that aren’t vaccinated aren’t the ones that are high risks for hospitalizations,” Adalja said. “Hopefully the hospital will be resistant against Delta because our nursing home and elderly population is highly vaccinated, or have some prior immunity from prior infection.”
The Delta variant was confirmed in Allegheny County, but the number of new COVID cases have been extremely low locally in Butler for the last two weeks.
Hear Dr. Adalja’s full interview with Tyler Friel below:
