As the highly contagious Delta variant of coronavirus disease is spreading rapidly across the globe, being vaccinated may not be enough, people must continue wearing masks, maintain social distancing and other Covid-appropriate behaviours, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said. According to the global agency, the Delta variant (B16172), first detected in India in October last year, has now spread to at least 92 countries, CNBC reported. It is becoming the dominant variant of the disease worldwide. "People cannot feel safe just because they had the two doses. They still need to protect themselves," Mariangela Simao, WHO assistant director-general for access to medicines and health products, was quoted as saying during a news briefing.

"Vaccine alone won't stop community transmission. "People need to continue to use masks consistently, be in ventilated spaces, hand hygiene ... the physical distance, avoid crowding. This still continues to be extremely important, even if you're vaccinated when you have a community transmission ongoing," Simao said. Meanwhile, according to new data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 4,100 people have been hospitalised or died with Covid-19 in the country, even after being fully vaccinated, the report said. About 3,907 people were hospitalised with Covid after two-doses of vaccinations, but more than 1,000 of those patients were asymptomatic or their hospitalisations weren't related to Covid-19, the CDC said. Similarly, 142 of 750 deaths of fully vaccinated people after Covid, were asymptomatic or unrelated to Covid-19, according to the CDC data.