Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, July seven. I'm oscar mirrors from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: The delta COVID nineteen variant continues to cause worry among
Speaker 1: public health officials, especially in places like Wyoming where only
Speaker 1: people are fully vaccinated and big events are taking place
Speaker 1: like a ten day rodeo set to start later this month.
Speaker 1: Julie Warren, now health and science reporter at the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal, joins us for how this variant is gaining
Speaker 1: ground among the unvaccinated. Thanks for joining us, Julie, happy
Speaker 1: to be here. The delta variant of COVID nineteen is
Speaker 1: still of concern for many public health officials, particularly in
Speaker 1: states where vaccination rates are low. Obviously, a lot of
Speaker 1: people aren't getting infected in the same rates as before
Speaker 1: as as the height of the pandemic, but hospital chains
Speaker 1: hospitals are still worried about surges, especially when it comes
Speaker 1: to the delta variant. You wrote a piece looking at
Speaker 1: Wyoming in particular. They have a very low vaccination rate
Speaker 1: and a couple of big events coming up pretty soon,
Speaker 1: so people are a little worried about what could happen.
Speaker 1: So Julie help us walk through what we're seeing. So
Speaker 1: Laramie County in Wyoming is sort of a perfect illustration
Speaker 1: of what we're seeing in pockets around the country. You've
Speaker 1: got an area where, you know, they've really struggled with
Speaker 1: their vaccination rate, sort of the wild West, and people
Speaker 1: just aren't signing up anymore to get vaccinate. So they're
Speaker 1: at about thirty two vaccination rate, which really isn't high
Speaker 1: enough to kind of prevent the spread of things like
Speaker 1: the delta variant in the community. And on top of that,
Speaker 1: you have the fact that they have completely gotten rid
Speaker 1: of any of the restrictions around mask wearing and you know,
Speaker 1: anything that we saw earlier in the pandemic, And so
Speaker 1: people are sort of returning to normal life in this
Speaker 1: situation in which the delta variant is showing up and
Speaker 1: you really only can see it visibly if you're at
Speaker 1: the hospital itself. On top of that fourth July weekend,
Speaker 1: and this huge rodeo that's coming to town kind of
Speaker 1: has public health officials and doctors. They are concerned about
Speaker 1: what's to come. Are we still seeing younger patients coming
Speaker 1: in more often with this? Is this where the bulk
Speaker 1: of infections is coming from in some ways. Right. The
Speaker 1: reason we're not seeing as many older patients is because
Speaker 1: folks on the older end of the spectrum actually do
Speaker 1: have a much higher vaccination rate in general, right, And
Speaker 1: so if you are seeing people come through the doors,
Speaker 1: you're more likely to see these younger patients. There are
Speaker 1: pediatric patients that are showing up in addition to you know,
Speaker 1: I spoke to a woman who is twenty eight years
Speaker 1: old and she had a very kind of classic case
Speaker 1: of what we're seeing with the delta variant, which is
Speaker 1: that once she was exposed, it came on very quickly
Speaker 1: and then sort of spread within her household. So that
Speaker 1: is very different than in the past that there's a
Speaker 1: much wider range of folks at the hospital in terms
Speaker 1: of age. You spoke to a number of people at
Speaker 1: you know, these hospitals and different care centers, and they
Speaker 1: said that their fight obviously this on two fronts. Still
Speaker 1: people getting sick, but then a lot of misinformation. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people are sick of hearing about COVID.
Speaker 1: They don't want to hear about anymore. They don't want
Speaker 1: to be told to be vaccinated. But the misinformation a
Speaker 1: lot of times is what keeping is keeping them from
Speaker 1: going out and getting those shots. You know, yes, we've
Speaker 1: had time for you know, the virus and to kind
Speaker 1: of spread and mutate and change and grow. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, misinformation has also kind of been changing
Speaker 1: and growing and spreading, and so earlier on you know,
Speaker 1: people who said, you know, they didn't maybe they showed
Speaker 1: up and they said that they felt like maybe you know,
Speaker 1: there were tracking devices that were being inserted into them
Speaker 1: from the vaccine. Now you're hearing things like we don't
Speaker 1: even want to get tested for COVID because we're concerned
Speaker 1: that the disease is actually being spread through testing. So
Speaker 1: there's there's new kind of narratives that keep popping up
Speaker 1: that the doctors and healthcare workers say that they are
Speaker 1: sort of combating as they try to take care of
Speaker 1: this population. To be clear, we're not seeing numbers as
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, the way we did at the height
Speaker 1: of the pandemic. But our hospital systems out there being
Speaker 1: over taxed still. I know they're like bracing for surges
Speaker 1: and all, but are they being over tax right now
Speaker 1: so far? You know what's interesting when I'm when I'm
Speaker 1: hearing by and large as people saying that they've in
Speaker 1: one respect actually prepared better now for a situation in
Speaker 1: which they could become tax At the same time, these
Speaker 1: really are happening, like popping up into very particular sort
Speaker 1: of pockets, and so you know, if one hospital system
Speaker 1: becomes overwhelmed, they are more likely to possibly be able
Speaker 1: to rely on another hospital system. So you're not seeing
Speaker 1: the kind of really over taxed hospital systems quite yet
Speaker 1: in a widespread manner, of course. You know, the reasons
Speaker 1: that health officials are concerned is that if anyone remembers
Speaker 1: back to when this disease first showed up in the
Speaker 1: United States, it didn't take very long for something that
Speaker 1: looked sort of like a very small pocket or blip
Speaker 1: to immediately we kind of take over the whole United States, right,
Speaker 1: And so they're always looking for these signs that something
Speaker 1: that's doubling every day or you know, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It doesn't take that long for that to actually become
Speaker 1: really visible to people in the community. And so right
Speaker 1: now we're waiting to see if the vaccination rates we
Speaker 1: have been able to get to end the end the
Speaker 1: social distancing and mask wearing that is going on is
Speaker 1: enough to kind of prevent the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: we saw earlier on in the pandemic. We're talking about
Speaker 1: Wyoming kind of as a as an example of a
Speaker 1: state with a low vaccination rates and just getting back
Speaker 1: to normal and kind of the concern that the delta
Speaker 1: variant poses in places like that. Cheyenne Frontier Days is
Speaker 1: a huge rodeo that's coming to town pretty soon. As
Speaker 1: we said at the beginning, it starts on July garth.
Speaker 1: Brooks is going to be playing there. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: a huge ten day event. So this worries these public
Speaker 1: health officials. There probably won't be a lot of mass squaring,
Speaker 1: but this is these big things, is what's concerning That's right.
Speaker 1: I mean, they say that the Cian Frontier Days has
Speaker 1: sort of done a lot to try to position themselves
Speaker 1: in a way that people understand that they what they
Speaker 1: really do want is for people to show up and
Speaker 1: be vaccinated and to wear masks if they're not vaccinated.
Speaker 1: But at a certain point, the public health officials in
Speaker 1: the area say, you know, at this point last year
Speaker 1: at the Frontier Days, we canceled it because no one
Speaker 1: had a choice to get vaccinated. But this year, people
Speaker 1: do have a choice, and we can't continue to stop
Speaker 1: the entire economy to protect people who aren't really interested
Speaker 1: in taking the vaccine or social distancing or wearing masks. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll keep an eye on what happens there and around
Speaker 1: the country, as the delta variant is now the dominant
Speaker 1: strain in the country. Julie, we're now health and science
Speaker 1: reporter at the Wall Street Journal. Thank you very much
Speaker 1: for joining us. Thank you for having me. I'm Oscar Romeris,
Speaker 1: and this has been reopening America. Don't forget effort today's
Speaker 1: big news stories. You can check me out in the
Speaker 1: Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. So follow us
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