WHO says delta variant will ‘pick off’ most vulnerable

Delta has the potential “to be more lethal because it’s more efficient in the way it transmits between humans,” the World Health Organization’s Dr. Mike Ryan said.

The delta variant is the fastest and fittest coronavirus strain yet, and it will “pick off” the most vulnerable people, especially in places with low vaccination rates, World Health Organization officials warned Monday.

Delta, first identified in India, has the potential “to be more lethal because it’s more efficient in the way it transmits between humans and it will eventually find those vulnerable individuals who will become severely ill, have to be hospitalized and potentially die,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said in a news conference.

“We can protect those vulnerable people, those front-line workers,” Ryan said, “and the fact that we haven’t, as Director-General [Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus] has said, again and again, is a catastrophic moral failure at a global level.”

The WHO said Friday that delta is becoming the most dominant variant of the disease worldwide.