THE Covid-19 Delta variant is found to be very contagious as it can transmit to another person within a mere 15 seconds, said Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah. 

The director-general of health said that compared with other mutations, the infectivity level of the Delta variant is much higher, adding that the virus is also airborne. 

“Before this, we know that a person can get infected from another Covid-19-positive individual if they have close contact of less than 1m for around 15 minutes.  

“But now, we are informed that the Delta variant can infect someone in just 15 seconds, and the virus is airborne,” Noor Hisham said at a press conference today. 

Noor Hisham said the Delta variant has an infectivity level of RT between 5 and 8, while the normal variant has an RT of 2.5 to 3. 

“In such cases, if 100 people are infected with the Delta variant, the virus can spread to 500 to 800 or more people,” he said. 

Noor Hisham said this could increase infectivity in the community. 

The RT indicates the number of new infections estimated to stem from a single case, while the R-naught or R0 is the rate at the beginning of the pandemic. 

More than 100 countries around the world have been ravaged by the Delta variant. It was first discovered in India in December last year, when it was then known as the Indian variant, or the B.1.617.2 variant of concern. 

The Delta variant has since become a dominant strain in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and even Israel. It now accounts for about half of the infections in the United States and almost all of the new infections in the UK. 

World Health Organisation director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said recently that the variant is ripping through the world at a scorching pace, driving a new spike in cases and deaths. 

“Delta is now in 111 countries and we expect it to soon be the dominant Covid-19 strain circulating worldwide,” he said. 

A study in Scotland published in The Lancet medical journal last month stated that the Delta variant is almost twice as likely to lead to hospitalisation compared with the Alpha variant, previously known as the Kent/UK B.1.1.7 variant. 

The Delta strain has also halted plans of countries to ease lockdowns and return to normalcy. – July 15, 2021.