What to Know About the Delta Plus Variant Right Now

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The Delta variant accounts for more than 90 percent of COVID-19 cases in the United States. Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto/Getty Images
  • Delta Plus — which refers to the three subtypes AY.1, AY.2, and AY.3 — looks very similar to the original Delta variant, but it contains a couple changes.
  • The Delta variant accounts for more than 90 percent of COVID-19 cases in the United States.
  • There’s no evidence to suggest that Delta Plus is any more of a problem than the original Delta variant.

The Delta variant, which accounts for more than 90 percent of COVID-19 cases in the United States, has picked up new mutations and broken off into a few subtypes, which are being classified as Delta Plus.

Delta Plus — which refers to the three subtypes AY.1, AY.2, and AY.3 — looks very similar to the original Delta variant, but it contains a couple changes.

There’s currently no evidence suggesting that Delta Plus is going to become more of an issue than Delta.

“Right now, there is no reason to believe that Delta Plus is going to pose any more challenge above and beyond Delta — but, obviously, we need more data to [know that] definitively,” Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security and an infectious disease expert, told Healthline.

Source: healthline