Air India to Increase Flights to US from Next Month but CDC Worried about Delta Variant

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, July 30: Air India has announced that it will increase its flight frequency to the United States from the first week of August to help the large number of students headed abroad for higher studies even as the US media reports said the Delta variant of the coronavirus may cause more severe illness than all other known versions of the virus and spread as easily as chickenpox.

The US media reports quoting an internal document from the US health authority, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) outlines unpublished data that shows fully vaccinated people might spread the Delta variant, first identified in India, at the same rate as unvaccinated people.

Dr Rochelle P Walensky, the director of the CDC, had said the vaccinated people with so-called breakthrough infections of the Delta variant carry just as much virus in the nose and throat as unvaccinated people and may spread it just as readily, if less often.

But the internal document lays out a broader and even grimmer view of the variant. The document said the Delta variant was more transmissible than the viruses that cause MERS, SARS, Ebola, the common cold, the seasonal flu and smallpox, and it was as contagious as chickenpox.

The welcome move by Air India comes against the backdrop of several students flagging on social media the rescheduling of their Air India flights to the US, allegedly without prior notice. The Air India, however, had claimed that the dislocation was due to a US presidential proclamation. “With the recent surge in COVID cases and the US Presidential Proclamation restricting flights from India, some of our flights to the USA, including those between Mumbai and Newark, had to be cancelled. These were affected well in advance and passengers were kept aware of these cancellations which were for reasons beyond our control.”

Speaking about its plans to step up the flight frequency to the US, it said, “Vis-a-vis the approximate 40 flights we used to operate to the USA before the Presidential proclamation, we could operate 11 flights per week to USA in July, 2021. The frequency is being increased to 22 from 7th August, 2021. With the frequency being enhanced on the US sector, all-out efforts are being made to accommodate as many passengers as possible in our US-bound flights from August.”

Air India has also tweeted that it will operate additional flights between New Delhi & Newark on August 6, 13, 20 and 27. “These are in addition to the existing flights operating on this sector,” it said.

The CDC document stated that the Delta variant — originally known as B.1.617.2 — might cause more severe disease and the immediate next step for the agency was to “acknowledge the war has changed.”

The agency is expected to publish additional data on the deadly variant soon. “The CDC is very concerned with the data coming in that Delta is a very serious threat that requires action now,” official sources said.

There are roughly 35,000 symptomatic infections per week among 162 million vaccinated Americans, according to data collected by the CDC as of July 24 that was cited in the internal presentation. But the agency does not track all mild or asymptomatic infections, so the actual incidence may be higher.

Infection with the Delta variant produces virus amounts in the airways that are tenfold higher than what is seen in people infected with the Alpha variant, which is also highly contagious, the document noted.

The amount of virus in a person infected with Delta is a thousandfold more than what is seen in people infected with the original version of the virus, according to one recent study.

The CDC document relies on data from multiple studies, including an analysis of a recent outbreak in Provincetown, Massachusetts, which began after the town’s July 4 festivities.

Dr Walensky said the Delta variant “is one of the most transmissible viruses we know about. Measles, chickenpox, this — they’re all up there.” And she said everyone in schools — students, staff and visitors — should wear masks at all times. “The measures we need to get this under control — they’re extreme,” she said.

“The bottom line was that, in contrast to the other variants, vaccinated people, even if they didn’t get sick, got infected and shed virus at similar levels as unvaccinated people who got infected,” Walter Orenstein, who heads the Emory Vaccine Center said.

But the CDC document admitted that the vaccinated people were safer. “Vaccines prevent more than 90 per cent of severe disease, but may be less effective at preventing infection or transmission,” it reads.