this Indonesian article sums the finer points, i think:
medialnews, JAKARTA – The Delta variant is currently the most worrying variant of the Covid-19 virus. Health Ministry Covid-19 vaccination spokeswoman Siti Nadia Tarmizi said the Delta variant is six times faster than the Alfa variant.
“The increase in our cases is very significant compared to December 2020 and January 2021. The reason is the high mobility during the Ramadan and Eid holidays and lax health protocols,” he said in the schedule of the Guest Room webinar which was organized by Holopis Virtually in Jakarta, Tuesday (29/6).
According to Siti Nadia, the Delta variant speeds up the rate of transmission, but there is no strong evidence that the B1617.2 variant from India has the ability to reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine. For this reason, the government continues to seek to speed up vaccination to reduce the rate of transmission.
“Because in some areas we also find this variant,” he said.
The decreasing community adherence to health protocols, said Siti Nadia, has the potential to facilitate the spread of new variants in the community. “This delta has a transmission rate six times that of the Alfa variant. Our daily findings of cases currently reach over 15,000 people recently,” he said.
Siti Nadia added that an Australian newspaper reported the transmission speed of the Delta variant when calculated based on a time ranging from 10 to 15 seconds. “So people who walk by without wearing a mask can already make that person positive or infected,” he said.
While the old variant takes 10 to 20 minutes to be able to make a person exposed. “This delta can be 10 times the baud rate of the old variant,” he said.
https://www.medialnews.com/the-delta-variant-is-6-times-more-contagious-than-alfa/
more (lost the cite):
The Delta strain is the “most contagious variant we’ve seen so far,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
and:
“The Delta strain has been associated with 2.61 times the risk of hospitalizations compared to the previously dominant strain in the UK....”
https://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/features/health/with-the-more-contagious-delta-variant-some-officials-are-issuing-new-mask-guidance/article_4fba4a0c-6317-5498-b6b4-84db68847a91.html
and:
Mutations that help the virus bind more tightly can make transmission from one person to another easier. Imagine you breathe in a droplet that contains SARS-CoV-2. If that droplet contains viruses with better binding capabilities, they “will be more efficient at finding and infecting one of your cells,” says Nathaniel Landau, a microbiologist at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/06/10/1026090/delta-covid-19-variant-more-infectious/
and (pre-print)
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.28.446163v1.full.pdf
Thank you.
A lot to chew on here.
The Delta strain has been associated with 2.61 times the risk of hospitalizations compared to the previously dominant strain in the UK....”
1. I read that the symptoms are same as hay fever or common cold...So how do 2.61 times the risk of hospitalizations occur if it is mistaken for hay fever?
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3971807/posts
2. biden and Fauxi are claiming India variant is deadlier than original Covid...Again, with hay fever symptoms, how is that possible?
2. I read that the death rate is higher for vaccinated with the India (Delta) variant. So they say the vaccines work yet reports that the vaccinated have a higher death rate than unvaccinated for the Delta variant...
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3970335/posts
3. There have been reports that more than half the new cases are people who received prior vaccinations...I easily found one regarding Israel that stated 50% of the new India cases were people who were vaccinated.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3971434/posts
Very confusing...