We will soon get the first glimmers of data that show how Delta behaves when all restrictions are lifted in a highly vaccinated country. This is uncharted territory. What happens in the U.K. can raise the rest of the world’s hopes—or dash them.
The optimistic scenario: Cases keep decreasing through August as the U.K. vaccinates more people, which would be “a really reassuring thing for the whole world,” says Jeffrey Barrett, the director of the COVID-19 Genomics Initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. “It suggests it’s possible to actually get past Delta. We’re not going to be stuck forever.”
But if the opposite happens, if cases skyrocket so much that hospitalizations also rise to overwhelming levels, then even higher vaccination coverage and future restrictions might be necessary, especially in the fall. The situation will be worse in countries with lower vaccination rates.
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In this way, whatever happens in the U.K. represents a best case for the U.S., a country with lower and patchier vaccine uptake despite having plenty of doses…. If even the highly vaccinated U.K. cannot keep the virus under control in the coming months, that spells real trouble ahead for Americans.
