CHICAGO, June 17 (Xinhua) -- The Department of Public Health of U.S. Midwest state of Illinois has identified 64 cases of the Delta variant, a COVID-19 strain first found in India.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said at a news conference Thursday that his main concern regarding the Delta variant is for children younger than 12, for whom a vaccine has yet to be authorized, Chicago Tribune reported on Thursday.
"The Delta variant seems to have been most predominant among people who are unvaccinated, and so those kids are who I'm focused on," the local newspaper quoted Pritzker as saying.
The good news is that the available vaccines are resistant to the Delta variant, the governor said.
The state health department has so far identified more than 9,400 variant cases of COVID-19 virus in Illinois, of which more than 6,300 are the Alpha variant first found in the United Kingdom, followed by the Gamma variant first identified in travelers from Brazil with more than 2,400 cases.
Though identified cases of the Delta variant make up the smallest number of variants in Illinois so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated that it may account for about 10 percent of emerging COVID-19 infections in the United States, and labeled it a "variant of concern". Enditem