Delta Blues

Humanity was hoping to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic this year. But viruses have plenty of tools at their disposal, and we should plan for a long-term future in which SARS-CoV-2 is a persistent threat.

Written byBob Grant

| 3 min read

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As the global population tries to wrap its collective brain around what we’ve been through in the past 20 months or so, and what the future might hold, SARS-CoV-2 churns along on its evolutionary path. As of this writing (in late August), COVID-19 cases and deaths are once again rising in many places. In the US, according to CDC data, 35 percent of counties were hosting high levels of community transmission in late July, with outbreaks occurring in areas of the country with low vaccination rates. Other spots around the world—in Australia, South America, Southern Africa, and elsewhere—are experiencing similar upticks in COVID-19 as the midpoint of 2021 recedes into the rearview. Underlying the troubling reversal of the downward trend in case reports in these areas is the so-called Delta variant of the virus.

Because the pace of peer-reviewed scientific publication is ill-suited to address phenomena ...

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Online only cover of the The Scientist, September 2021 issue

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
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From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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