The more transmissible delta variant now accounts for approximately 44% of all confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Chicago, said Dr. Allison Arwady, the commissioner of the Department of Public Health.

“To any who have been hesitating about being vaccinated, please I implore you to hesitate no longer. We’re very concerned about the spread of this so-called delta variant,” said Dr. Kiran Joshi of the Cook County Department of Public Health. “Please go out, get vaccinated.”

Just because Pfizer wants to offer COVID-19 vaccine boosters doesn’t mean people will be lining up anytime soon — U.S. and international health authorities say that for now, the fully vaccinated seem well protected.

The COVID-19 curve in the U.S. is rising again after months of decline, with the number of new cases per day doubling over the past three weeks, driven by the fast-spreading delta variant, lagging vaccination rates and Fourth of July gatherings. 

Chicago officials have reinstated the city’s COVID-19 travel advisory as cases spike with the spread of the delta variant of the virus in Missouri and Arkansas. The order had been suspended for 42 days.

New research from France adds to evidence that widely used COVID-19 vaccines still offer strong protection against a coronavirus mutant that is spreading rapidly around the world and now is the most prevalent variant in the U.S.

The global death toll from COVID-19 eclipsed 4 million Wednesday as the crisis increasingly becomes a race between the vaccine and the highly contagious delta variant.

The delta variant, a more transmissible and possibly more dangerous strain of coronavirus, now makes up more than half of all new COVID-19 infections in the U.S., according to estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The short answer: Yes, but not nearly as much as if you had both doses. Experts recommend getting fully vaccinated, especially with the emergence of worrisome coronavirus mutations such as the delta variant first identified in India.

The latest alarming coronavirus variant is exploiting low global vaccination rates and a rush to ease pandemic restrictions, adding new urgency to the drive to get more shots in arms and slow its supercharged spread.

The more transmissible delta variant is expected to become the dominant coronavirus strain in the U.S., the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. And with half the U.S. still not fully vaccinated, doctors say it could cause a resurgence of COVID-19 in the fall.

The head of the World Health Organization said the COVID-19 delta variant, first seen in India, is “the most transmissible of the variants identified so far,” and warned it is now spreading in at least 85 countries.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the agency is tracking the Delta coronavirus variant, among others — and warned that there is a small chance a fully vaccinated person could still get infected if they’re exposed.

The delta variant is a version of the coronavirus that has been found in more than 80 countries since it was first detected in India. It got its name from the World Health Organization, which names notable variants after letters of the Greek alphabet. 

The U.S. government is stepping up efforts to get younger Americans vaccinated for COVID-19 as concerns grow about the spread of a new variant that threatens to set the country back in the months ahead.

As cases tumble and states reopen, the potential final stage in the U.S. campaign to vanquish COVID-19 is turning into a slog, with a worrisome variant gaining a bigger foothold and lotteries and other prizes failing to persuade some Americans to get vaccinated.