Delta Variant Gains Dominance Around the World

The rapid spread of the Delta variant is continuing, with the COVID-19 virus mutation now being the dominant strain in many countries around the world.

Data platform GISAID shows how many samples countries have tested for COVID-19 mutant strains and what share came back positive for the Delta variant. In the UK, the U.S. and Denmark, where many samples were tested, upwards of 90 percent were of the Delta variant in the past four weeks.

Other countries where almost all new infections were with the Delta variant included Germany, Singapore and Russia, while counts were somewhat lower in France, Mexico and Japan. For the around 117 countries and territories analyzed by GISAID, the Delta variant made up more than half of all tested COVID-19 samples in the past four weeks in 57 places and more than 90 percent of new infections in 35 places.