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

The participants had infections stemming from COVID-19 variants like the original strain from 2020, the delta variant and the omicron variant. —Joseph Choi, The Hill, 6 Jan. 2025

That summer, the delta variant spread rapidly across the U.S., followed by the omicron variant in the winter. —Frederick N. Rasmussen, Baltimore Sun, 23 Nov. 2024

That summer the delta variant of the virus ripped through the U.S., followed by omicron in the winter, leading to hundreds of thousands of additional deaths. —CBS News, 22 Nov. 2024

Overall, the study found that about 5.3 percent of vaccinated people infected when the delta variant was circulating went on to get long COVID, compared with 3.5 percent of individuals infected later in the pandemic when the omicron variant was circulating. —Lisa Rapaport, EverydayHealth.com, 23 July 2024

The original virus first detected in Wuhan, China, was replaced by the alpha variant, which was replaced by the delta variant, which was replaced by the omicron variant. —Lisa Krieger, The Denver Post, 11 June 2024

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

Word History

First Known Use

2021, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for delta variant

• aperient
• covariant
• invariant

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