Delta to account for 90 percent of EU coronavirus cases in August

European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control says ‘very important to progress with vaccine rollout at a very high pace’ to stop spread of highly contagious variant.

By the end of August, the highly contagious Delta variant of the new coronavirus is expected to account for 90 percent of the new COVID-19 cases in the European Union, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The warning by the health agency on Wednesday echoed a similar statement by the World Health Organization last week, which said the variant first identified in India was becoming dominant globally. The ECDC estimates that the Delta variant (B.1.617.2) is 40 to 60 percent more contagious than the Alpha variant (B.1.1.7), first discovered in the United Kingdom, which is currently the predominant variant of the novel coronavirus circulating in the bloc.