delta variant

noun

variants or less commonly Delta variant

: a highly transmissible genetic variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus

Since the summer, independently owned restaurants and music venues in Colorado have instituted their own vaccine protocols in response to the spread of the highly contagious delta variant.

—Christine Ricciardi

Experts have said that Omicron appears to be causing less severe disease in people than the Delta variant did.

—Ed Browne

called also delta, delta virus

Examples of delta variant in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

That’s when the rapid spread of the delta variant of COVID-19 threatened to renew all the pandemic-era anxieties that had been quieted by widespread vaccine adoption. —Melvin Backman, Quartz, 16 Feb. 2024

That overlapped with the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the delta variant of COVID-19, which seemed to put an end to Biden's honeymoon period. —Leah Askarinam, ABC News, 30 Nov. 2023

The boiling point While the farmers’ protest raged in the spring of 2021, a devastating delta variant of the coronavirus swept through India, ultimately killing more than 200,000 people. —Joseph Menn, Washington Post, 9 Nov. 2023

When Florida hospitals were overwhelmed by unvaccinated patients during the surge of the delta variant in summer 2021, DeSantis’s aides touted the state’s high vaccination rate in seniors and the steps the governor took to promote shots. —Hannah Knowles and Fenit Nirappil, Anchorage Daily News, 16 Sep. 2023

Brownstein said some of the concern may be due to surges seen with variants in the past such as the delta variant in summer 2021, leading to a sounding of the alarm. —Mary Kekatos, ABC News, 15 Aug. 2023

In August 2021, Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins told commissioners they were required to wear masks during the Commissioners Court meeting after consulting local doctors about the surge in COVID-19 cases caused by the delta variant. —Philip Jankowski, Dallas News, 30 June 2023

In the spring of 2021, Walensky said fully vaccinated people could stop wearing masks in many settings, only to reverse course as the then-new delta variant spread. —Mike Stobbe, BostonGlobe.com, 5 May 2023

The country was devastated by a wave of infections involving the delta variant in 2021, which killed tens of thousands of people. —Victoria Bisset, Washington Post, 14 Apr. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

2021, in the meaning defined above

Medical Definition

delta variant

noun

variants also Delta variant

: a highly transmissible genetic variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus

Citing the highly transmissible delta variant, President Biden ordered the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for long-term care staff …

—Hospital Employee Health

Maine hospitals managed to stay staffed even as hospital beds and intensive care units filled with patients through the monthslong coronavirus surge driven by the delta variant …

—Peter McGuire and Hannah LaClaire, Portland (Maine) Press Herald

… available data indicate that Omicron tends to cause less severe symptoms than the previously dominant Delta variant …

—Luke Money et al., Los Angeles Times

called also delta, delta virus