10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5, 4, 3.2. 1. I'm Bethany Van Delft. It's July 31st, and this is no ordinary episode of the 10 News.

You got it. This is the 10 News gets extra.

News with the pandemic has been changing fast and furious the last couple of weeks with more mask mandates and the rise of the Delta variant.

So we wanted to use today to answer some important COVID questions.

Let's dive in.

Why are masks making a comeback? Where are the vaccines for kids? Is there another wave coming to

my community? You might have a lot of questions about the state of the pandemic and we're here

to answer some of them.

Question number one.

What is the Delta variant?

Nope.

It's not a time hopper from the Marvel series Loki.

The Delta variant is a strain of the virus that was first found in India.

It made its way to the United States in March and is now the dominant form of the illness here. Today, one in four new cases of COVID are from the Delta variant. It's highly

contagious, more so than all the other strains. Delta worries health officials because some

studies show that people who are not vaccinated and become infected with Delta are twice as

likely to be hospitalized. The best form of protection against Delta variant is if you can get

vaccinated, get vaccinated. All the vaccines approved in the U.S., Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson

and Johnson, help prevent serious illness.

Question number two. Do I need to wear a mask again? The World Health Organization has

been urging people to put masks back on no matter if you're vaccinated or not. But the CDC

here in the U.S. says that if you got the shot, you don't have to mask up in many situations. Why do they say

...