Delta variant is not your grandma’s COVID. More WA young adults must get vaccinated

Last year when COVID-19 first hit, the focus was on protecting the elderly and others with underlying health conditions.

The concern, of course, was that members of this vulnerable group wouldn’t survive if they contracted the disease. All the social distancing and mask wearing was meant to reduce the spread of the coronavirus so we could keep our older population safe.

Unfortunately, the emphasis on protecting our grandparents might have given young, healthy people the idea that they don’t have to worry about COVID themselves.

But that’s not the case. The Delta variant has taken over this summer and it is a different beast. It spreads more quickly and health officials are seeing an increased number of young adults and children ending up in hospitals, struggling with COVID.

“We used to believe that only older patients with medical conditions were at risk. This seems to be no longer true,” said Dr. Robert Wenger, medical director of Prosser Memorial Health Emergency Department, in a recent community message.

Prosser Memorial Hospital has been admitting healthy patients in their 20s who need oxygen, and a few of them have required care in the intensive care unit, he said.

And this is not just some phenomenon in Prosser.

According to data tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people ages 18-49 have been the largest demographic hospitalized nationwide for COVID-19 over the last several weeks.

Considering that the unvaccinated make up nearly all COVID hospital patients locally and across the country, this statistic makes sense.

In general, the elderly were eager to get their COVID shots and those who did are now better protected than the young people who have decided for one reason or another to skip the vaccine.

Dr. Brian York, an infectious disease specialist at Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland, said on the Kadlec on Call podcast that 50% to 60% of COVID-19 patients at the hospital are ages 35-65.

They probably thought they didn’t need the vaccine because even if they did get COVID they wouldn’t become seriously ill.

However, York said that some young healthy people have had serious issues with blood clots after contracting COVID, and others have had strokes.

This is distressing.

Not only are some young people needlessly suffering from COVID, but the unvaccinated population is now overwhelming hospitals, which causes problems for everyone else who needs bed space and care.

At one point earlier this month, all three Tri-City hospitals were so busy that emergency patients needed to be taken elsewhere.

And this week it was reported that Franklin County has a higher daily COVID-19 rate of new cases than any other county in Washington, Oregon, California and Idaho.

Benton County is not far behind, ranking second highest in the state for new daily COVID cases, with only one Oregon county, one California county and three Alaska counties ranking higher.

While there are many people who simply refuse to get the vaccine, it’s a safe bet that there are also young, healthy people who are simply apathetic because they don’t think the disease will harm them.

Somehow we have to get the message to this group that the low risk they had at the beginning of the pandemic no longer applies, and that the Delta variant will likely find them if they aren’t vaccinated.

Even if they don’t think COVID will affect them, perhaps they could be swayed to get the vaccine in order to keep their social lives going.

Young people — especially those in their 20s — typically like to gather with friends, attend music festivals, and navigate the dating scene. That was all put on hold in 2020.

Surely, they won’t want to go back to those lock-down days.

The recent surge in COVID is not the fault of apathetic young people, but this is a group that might be easily encouraged to get the vaccine if health and government officials made a concerted effort to reach them.

Some people will refuse the vaccine no matter what, but others might be just putting it off because they think they are safe. They need to realize that the Delta variant is not their grandma’s COVID.

This story was originally published August 13, 2021 at 11:19 AM.