Local Delta Variant Update

This is the article I was hoping that I would not have to write. I was hoping that our vaccination rate in Montgomery County was high enough to stem the tide of the rising COVID-19 Delta Variant. That is not the case. The Delta Variant surge has begun to reach our community and the greater North Penn Area. In the last 45 days we have seen dramatically increasing positivity rates across the area with communities reporting 14 Day Positivity Rates as high as 7.7%.

This is still an improvement from where we were in the winter and early spring. However, the problem is the rate of growth in the positivity numbers. In the winter and the spring, positivity numbers were decreasing rapidly as distribution of the vaccine increased. As a community, we were seeing our positivity fall from 10%+ to under 4% in the span of two months. That is how effective the vaccine is in fighting COVID-19. It immediately stemmed the tide and brought several communities — like Lansdale and Hatfield Borough — to near zero positivity.

So why are we seeing increased positivity again? Two reasons:

First, there are not enough people vaccinated to stop the mutation of the virus altogether or at least dramatically slow it down. Montgomery County is 51.4% vaccinated. That means COVID-19 can still infect and be transmitted by just shy of half the population. With that volume of people available to transmit COVID-19, the virus will continue to mutate and change until it can overcome the vaccine and, once again, have access to a higher volume of the population.

Second, we have been re-emerging over the last several months. With positivity rates low, people have been interacting more with one another — for good reason! This interaction, naturally, helps the virus move around and find people who are not vaccinated.

So, what can we do about it? We need more people vaccinated. It is really that simple. If we want to slow the growth of COVID-19 and completely stop it from creating a variant that will overcome the vaccine, we must reach a vaccination percentage that puts the final nail in the coffin for COVID-19. If we cannot do this, we will be in this vicious cycle of a constantly evolving COVID-10 strains that continue to get people extremely sick, far more than the average flu.

If you have not been vaccinated yet, please, go get vaccinated. Yesterday, the FDA granted full approval to the Pfizer vaccine for everyone over the age of 16. If you are eligible, please reach out to your health provider and schedule your vaccination as soon as you can.

The reality is that, if we continue at this rate of positivity increases, in 45 days Lansdale will be at 12% positivity — a number we have not seen since December 2020. No one wants to see us back there. We all want to continue to move on with our lives and continue to re-emerge from this extremely difficult event. However, we cannot do that unless more people commit themselves to getting vaccinated.

Please, go get vaccinated and help us stop this surge. We all want to get off the COVID-19 roller coaster ride as soon as possible and we cannot do it without more people committing themselves to being a part of the solution.