With most COVID-19 restrictions lifted in Oregon, rising cases of the delta variant are a statewide concern. According to Lane County Public Health spokesperson Jason Davis, there are 20 cases of the variant in the county as of Aug. 3.

Davis said it’s safe to assume the county has three to five times more delta cases than what has been reported. Even with about 60% of Lane County’s population at least partially vaccinated, Davis said the variant is spreading fast.

“That is a large majority of your population vaccinated,” he said. “Yet [we’re] seeing a variant rip through the unvaccinated population so efficiently.”

So why is the variant spreading so fast? Davis said there are two main possibilities: either the unvaccinated population is largely ignoring public health guidelines, or the disease is much more contagious than the original COVID-19 strain. Davis said it’s unlikely that over 120,000 people — Lane County’s current unvaccinated population — are being unsafe, so it’s probably the latter. Some of the population is likely ignoring public health guidance too, he said.

Davis said people infected with the delta variant can shed 1,000 times more virus than the original strain, making it significantly more contagious. He also said the variant also causes more severe illnesses in infected individuals.

Davis said most cases in the county have appeared in young individuals, which he attributes to the fact that 20- to 29 year-olds have the fifth lowest vaccination rate in the county. According to LCPH data, 20- to 29 year-olds account for about 13% of the vaccinated population.

According to a Yale Medicine news article, unvaccinated individuals are more likely to get seriously sick and die of COVID-19. Those who are vaccinated can still get infected, but are far less likely to get sick, Yale Medicine said. The article points to children under 12 as an area for concern, as there is no vaccine approved for them.

With the variant being so dangerous and students coming from all over the world to attend the University of Oregon this fall, should Lane County residents be concerned? Davis said no.

In May, UO President Michael Schill announced that students are required to be vaccinated before coming to campus. Some exemptions will be made for religious, medical and philosophical reasons, Schill wrote.

If a student is seeking an exemption for a non-medical reason, they must complete an educational module and “accept the risk and additional safety measures that may be required for non-vaccinated individuals,” UO spokesperson Kay Jarvis said. The university’s vaccine exemption plan is consistent with college vaccination requirements under Oregon law.

UO will require unvaccinated individuals living on campus to take additional safety measures — including regular COVID-19 testing and isolating themselves if exposed.

The university will also require masks inside all of its buildings, regardless of an individual’s vaccination status. This falls in line with current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, which recommend that vaccinated individuals wear masks indoors in “areas of substantial or high transmission.” According to the CDC, Lane County currently falls under the high transmission category.

Because the majority of students will be vaccinated, Davis said LCPH expects UO to be mostly protected from an outbreak. However, he said, unvaccinated individuals can cause an outbreak in the community.

If the delta variant gets a foothold in Lane County communities, Davis said, it could spread rapidly through the community and become the dominant COVID-19 strain in the area. Should that happen, LCPH expects about 10 weeks of cases spiking, he said.

Still, Davis said Lane County has all the tools in its toolkit to fight COVID-19.

Getting vaccinated is a good start, he said, but people need to encourage others to do the same, and conversations between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals are important to increase vaccination rates.

“It’s not going to come from some billboards the Oregon Health Authority buys or something that you see before your favorite show,” he said. “How it’s going to happen is trust-based, value-added conversations between people.”

And while vaccines are important, Davis said they are “not this magic pill that solves everything.”

In order to end this pandemic, Davis said, people need to be altruistic and think about the health of others — not just their own. People need to think beyond mandatory restrictions, he said.

For example, Davis said, if an unvaccinated college student has a friend who works at a long-term care facility, they could potentially pass on the variant and put the people living in the facility at risk.

“We have to think about how [our] individual health choices affect other people,” he said. “When it comes to communicable illness, it’s pretty severe. Your decisions dramatically affect other people.”

Editor’s note: this story has been updated to clarify that UO’s required safety measures for unvaccinated individuals specifically apply to people living on campus.