Well, there's a lot of discussion about the COVID delta variant. You maybe have heard about some CDC recommendations on masking kids returning to school this fall. I know that's been on my mind.

I connected with Kris Ehresmann, director of infectious disease epidemiology, prevention and control for the Minnesota Department of Health: a familiar voice.

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Every Wednesday morning at 8:30 CST, Jill Riley connects with experts and local personalities for some real talk about keeping our minds and bodies healthy — from staying safe in the music scene, to exercising during a pandemic, to voting and civic engagement. Looking for more resources and support? Visit our friends at Call to Mind, MPR's initiative to foster new conversations about mental health. Subscribe to Wellness Wednesday as a podcast on Spotify, Apple, RSS, Radio Public, Stitcher, or Amazon Music.

Jill Riley: Can we just kind of start in a very general way? What is the delta variant of coronavirus?

Kris Ehresmann: Well, you know, we started describing variants which mean it's the virus but it has changed or mutated. We started by describing them with alphanumeric names, and then the World Health Organization decided we should use Greek letters. So delta is the name for the variant B.1.617. It's the variant that originally surfaced in India, probably last December. And we've seen it take over in India, in Great Britain, and now the United States. In Minnesota, we are seeing over 85% of our cases are caused by this variant.

The variant then, that's got to be why COVID-19 is making a resurgence, right?

Yes. What is happened is, when the virus replicates it has a chance to mutate or to have errors, and then those errors can result in the development of a variant of the virus. Those variants mean that the virus may be more transmissible or more severe; it may have some different characteristics. And what we're seeing is that this delta variant, it spreads twice as easily from person to person as previous strains. The people who are infected have much higher viral loads, which means that they're more infectious. And so we are seeing much more rapid spread with this particular variant that and the fact that we have a large proportion of our population across the country, unvaccinated means that this variant really has had the opportunity to gain a foothold.

What would you say to vaccinated people? I have my vaccine, do I have to worry about the Delta variant?

Yes and no. I would say our current vaccines are really, really effective, and what we're seeing with the Delta variant is that they are protective against hospitalization, severe disease and death. We have seen some breakthrough cases in individuals vaccinated, with the delta variant, at a little bit higher rate than we've seen in general; it's still a very small proportion. Some of the data out of Israel suggests it's about 13%.

So it's important for people who are vaccinated to be aware of this virus, but I think the good news is that individuals who have developed a breakthrough infection, delta infections have had a milder disease in general.

That was the whole point of the vaccine anyway, to really kind of give our bodies the directions or the blueprint as to how to fight off the virus, right? That's kind of the way I understood it.

Absolutely. And the vaccines have been incredibly effective. And for the strains or the variants that we've seen up until this point, they have actually prevented even any sort of illness at all. And what we're seeing with delta is that there are a very small proportion of the population who may still develop illness, even though they've been vaccinated. But that illness tends to be mild.

You mentioned a portion of the population that has not been vaccinated. As a health department professional, what would you say to someone who hasn't been vaccinated?

I'd say that currently, unvaccinated people account for almost all of the hospitalizations and deaths in the U.S. So not being vaccinated really puts you at risk for COVID infection. And really, the only way we're going to get control over COVID and get our lives back is for people to be vaccinated. So I think that's an important consideration.

I know that some people say, "I don't care if I get sick," and, "It won't be that big of a deal for me personally." But one of the elements that they may not be thinking about is that even if you don't care about getting sick yourself, when you get sick that allows the virus to replicate, which means that it has the opportunity for errors and mutations and development of more variants. That's concerning. Obviously, we care about the individual too. But we want them to know that even if they aren't worried about getting sick, we're worried about what that transmission will mean, for the development of more variants.

Sure. I think that's a good point to drive home and, you know, maybe not one that's top of mind for everyone. We've been hearing about this new mask guidance from the CDC. Could you talk about that a little bit? It sounds to me like it's not really a one-size-fits-all kind of thing, right?

The CDC has put out new guidance. And I want to be clear: I saw some headlines that said, you know, "the CDC is backpedaling" and things, and I want to be clear that in public health, our jobs are to monitor what's happening with the data and the science and to adapt our recommendations accordingly. So this isn't a backpedaling. This is an adaptation based on what we're seeing with this new variant and how it's spreading.

So based on what we're seeing with Delta, the fact that it is so much more transmissible, that we have seen some cases in vaccinated individuals, the CDC has put out some new guidance. What they're saying is that in areas with substantial and high transmission, they recommend that everyone, even fully vaccinated individuals, wear a mask in public when they're in indoor settings to help prevent the spread of delta and to protect others.

As you said, it's not a one size fits all, and they've indicated, you know, [the new guidance applies to areas with] substantial and high transmission. And they actually have a data tracker website that provides maps of the United States and highlights counties by their risk status. And so that is what they're expecting people to be looking at to identify if they are in a substantial or high transmission area.

It looks like that there are some high-risk areas. Are there places in particular that you guys are watching?

Yes. If you look at the the COVID data tracker, what you can see is [that] the southeastern part of the country has a large portion of the jurisdictions in that substantial and high transmission area. We've been more fortunate in the Midwest; we have fewer counties that fit that criteria. But unfortunately, our case numbers are growing at such a rapid rate that I think that it will not be too long before we have many counties that meet that criteria as well.

You know, there are a lot of parents listening right now. I'm a parent myself. With this whole new recommendation from the CDC for mask-wearing, is that going to have an effect in Minnesota when we send kids back to school and teachers back to school, or is that kind of unknown at this point?

Well, one of the other additional pieces of guidance that CDC put out was that they are recommending universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of their vaccination status. And the Department of Health has endorsed that guidance, along with the Department of Education. There is not an overarching state mandate or any law that would require people to do this, and so it's a decision that is made at the local school district level. So I think if that's something that parents feel strongly about that, yes, they want to make sure that their school district is aware of this. I think that's something that they you can certainly let your elected leadership know.

12-year-olds [and older] have the ability to be vaccinated at this point, and we obviously would encourage our adolescents to get vaccinated, but for the children who are 11 and under who can't yet be vaccinated, the mitigation measures that we've talked about all along become that much more important. So you know, masking when you're in public and you're in indoor settings, making sure that you continue to social distance and avoid large crowds. All of those things continue to be really important until kids have the opportunity to be vaccinated.

Wellness Wednesday is hosted by Jill Riley, and produced by Christy Taylor and Jay Gabler. Our theme music is a portion of the song "F.B. One Number 2" by Christian Bjoerklund under the Non Commercial Share Alike 3.0 International License.