Anti-vaxxers to blame for Delta variant becoming dominant strain

A video has zeroed in on who’s really to blame for the highly contagious Delta variant’s spread around the world.

There’s one key demographic to blame for the highly contagious Delta variant’s rise to dominance around the world – despite mass vaccination in multiple nations – and it’s not hard to guess who is at fault.

According to TikTok user Tulztalks, it’s not overwhelmed health systems, lack of vaccine supply, or (in Australia, at least) a bungled rollout. At the heart of the rising worldwide cases and deaths and breakthrough infections in those fully vaccinated, she said, are anti-vaxxers.

“Do you know what’s really f***ed up about the whole anti-vax thing? When the vaccine first rolled out, it was showing to be very effective not only against death and severe illness, but also against infection and transmissibility,” Tulz said in the clip.

“But when not enough people got vaccinated, the virus was allowed to continue to spread among those that weren’t protected and eventually mutated into the Delta variant, which has very quickly become the dominant strain.

“And because the Delta variant is more transmissible, more infectious, more deadly, it’s causing breakthrough cases where people, even though they’ve been fully vaccinated, are testing positive for Covid and even having some mild symptoms.”

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When it boiled down to it, she said: “The unvaccinated have let the virus spread unchecked for long enough that it’s mutating into a version where the vaccine is becoming less effective against it.

“And therefore, they’re [anti-vaxxers] proving to themselves that the vaccine doesn’t work, when if they had just gotten it in the first place, we wouldn’t be here,” she said.

In parts of the US, where, driven by the Delta variant, Covid-19 cases are once again on the rise, while the vast majority of new infections are among the unvaccinated, there have been some “breakthrough” infections, resulting in a small number of hospitalisations and deaths among people who were fully vaccinated.

But experts have said this is not a sign that the vaccines aren’t working – telling Forbes the jabs are still doing their job, even against Delta.

“The vaccine is not a bug zapper,” Amesh Adalja, doctor and senior scholar at the John Hopkins Centre for Health Security, told the publication.

“The virus is circulating out there in the community among people and you’re going to come into contact with it. What we want the vaccine to really do is prevent serious disease, hospitalisation and death. Everything else is kind of gravy.”

The fact that vaccinated people who are experiencing “breakthrough” infections are not having symptoms is “something to celebrate”, Dr Adalja added.

“That means our vaccines are robust against the Delta variant,” he said.

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Australians had a front seat to the viewpoint of anti-vaxxers over the weekend, watching in horror as thousands of unmasked demonstrators descended on Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to protest lockdowns, brandishing anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination signs and chanting “freedom”.

In Sydney, currently in the midst of its worst outbreak since the pandemic began – at the heart of which is the Delta variant – editor of the Medical Journal of Australia Professor Nick Talley warned there’s a high chance protesters who travelled to the march from outside the NSW capital could spread the virus into regional areas of the state.

“This was an idiotic thing to do, just idiotic. Yes, we risk a superspreader event,” he told 2GB on Monday morning.

RELATED: Protest cases ‘won’t be known for a week’

Thousands of unmasked demonstrators descended on Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane protesting lockdowns and vaccinations. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

“There were people from, not only across Greater Sydney, but I understand people from also outside of Greater Sydney at those protests.

“That means we might even risk outbreaks outside of Greater Sydney that really lead to the whole state locking down. Just a disaster.”

To combat the increasing cases and try to bring the outbreak under control, all Sydneysiders over the age of 18 are being urged to come forward and receive the AstraZeneca jab.

By the end of the week, all NSW adults will be able to receive the vaccine at health clinics and mass vaccination centres, with around 450 pharmacies also joining the program from next week.