VIDEO: Doctors and the CDC report that the Delta variant of COVID-19 spreads as easily as chickenpox, but what exactly does that look like when it’s transmitted from person to person?
Dr. James Lawler sees patients at Nebraska Medicine on a daily basis. He explained in simple terms, if someone is infected with the COVID-19 Delta variant, it attaches to cells in our respiratory system, lining our airways and our lungs. Dr. Lawler said the variant then “hijacks” the cell, causing it to spread to others quickly.
“What happens is it releases its RNA,” Dr. Lawler said while in front of a big screen of 3-D animations. “The cell then uses its ribosome to turn that RNA into virus protein.”
He went on to explain how these steps lead to infection, “The virus is essentially hijacking the cell to turn it into a virus factory. This is making thousands and thousands of copies of viruses in the golgi apparatus and turns into new virus particles and variants, and then, they come out of this cell and go on to infect other cells.”