WASHINGTON (CN) — The delta variant of the virus that causes Covid-19 makes up at least 83% of all cases of the virus in America today, the director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told members of the Senate on Tuesday.
That is a huge tick upward from the 50% of delta variant cases recorded in the U.S. during the first week of July. And perhaps most tragically, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and other health experts testified Tuesday, was that the majority of deaths tied to infections from Covid-19 are preventable through vaccination.
“[The vaccine] protects against clinically apparent disease and works extremely well against hospitalization and death,” Dr. Anthony Fauci underlined in his testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
It is the third time Fauci has come before the committee this year and while his advice to the American public has remained mostly the same — be vigilant about washing hands, keep your distance if unvaccinated and get immunized if you are not—he emphasized to lawmakers how contagious the delta variant is and how that means vigilance built up over the last several months cannot be abandoned today.
“When you look at the capability of this virus to transmit from people — and obviously you have to be in an environment where the virus is present — if you are in an area, be it a state, city or county, where you have a high level of infection in the community and a very low level of vaccinated people, the chances of getting infected are reasonably high,” Fauci said.
According to Johns Hopkins University’s Covid-19 case and vaccine tracker, infections of Covid-19 in the U.S. last week hovered right around 32,000 cases per day with roughly 250 Americans dying daily from the respiratory virus.
The Health and Human Services Department also reported a startling increase in hospitalizations this month. Compared to just two weeks ago, the number of Americans hospitalized due to Covid-19 has doubled from just over 12,000 to nearly 25,000.
Fauci and Walensky also addressed concerns about breakthrough infections of Covid-19 that tend to occur in elderly individuals or those with a weakened immune system even if they have been vaccinated.
Senator Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, probed the health officials about these types of infections. While no vaccine offers 100% effectiveness against a virus Walensky told the committee, the CDC and the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases is moving full-steam ahead on surveillance measures of breakthrough cases to better understand them.
One of the ways data is collected is through passive surveillance, or information people give to hospitals when they show up and get tested.
This method is, however, limited.
To expand what public health officials know about typical infections, breakthrough infections and long Covid, or the persistence of symptoms long after initial contraction of the virus, the CDC and NIAD have arranged test sampling from 14,000 long-term care facilities and thousands of health workers and essential workers. Five thousand essential workers across the U.S. receive polymerase chain reaction tests, or PCR tests, at the end of each week, Walensky testified. Those tests are particularly useful because they can help detect viral RNA even before the virus triggers symptoms in its host.
There are also more than 100 academic hubs conducting similar tests as well as nearly 187 hospitals.
While major advances have been made in a little over a year since the pandemic first gripped the globe, some things, at least in the U.S. Senate, have remained exactly the same.
It was déjà vu Tuesday as Fauci fielded questions from Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. The Republican lawmaker regularly tangles with Fauci during hearings, often accusing him of lying or hiding sensitive public health data but without any evidence to support his claims.
Paul, like he did in May when Fauci last appeared before the committee, claimed again that the National Institute of Health, which falls under Fauci’s purview, quietly funded a research program at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China involving Sars-CoV-2 and what is known as gain of function, the process of enhancing a virus transmission rate by manipulating the virus itself.
This type of research allows scientists to better understand how viruses and pathogens work, and it can allow researchers to get ahead of a viral curve. It is a relatively common process but is criticized by scientists and health experts alike as controversial.
For months, Paul has peddled a theory that Covid-19 was created on purpose at the Wuhan Institute before being let loose into the world. The World Health Organization in February said such a leak was “extremely unlikely,” and it is believed the virus originated by jumping from animals to humans.
But with questions still swirling, the U.S. intelligence community was tasked by President Joe Biden this May to “redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion.”
The president set a 90-day deadline for the intelligence community to report back.
Fauci told Paul Tuesday the study he claims proves NIH funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute says nothing of the sort. In one cutting exchange, the health director’s patience for conspiracy had run out.
“Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, and I would like to say that officially. You do not know what you’re talking about,” Fauci said.
Paul insisted that NIH funded the research and over intense crosstalk, Fauci finally pointed his finger at the senator as he spoke: “You are implying that what we did resulted in the deaths of individuals," the esteemed immunologist said. "I totally resent that and if anyone is lying here senator, it is you.”
Speaking to Committee Chair Patty Murray of Washington, Fauci continued: “This is a pattern Senator Paul has been doing now at multiple hearings based on no reality. He keeps talking gain of function. This has been evaluated multiple times by qualified people to not fall under gain-of-function definition.”
Viruses that were studied at the lab were studied for their cross-species transmission potential. But according EcoHealth Alliance, one of the groups studying coronavirus in China, at no point were researchers manipulating viruses so that they could be spread faster.
“I have not lied before Congress. I have never lied, certainly not before Congress. Case closed,” Fauci said.
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