What you want to pay attention to are the pink and blue boxes. Those are the estimated ranges of fatality and transmissibility for the original virus (elsewhere called the alpha strain) and the new delta variant, which is the blue box. That the blue box is farther to the right but not much higher means that the delta variant is believed to be much more contagious (as contagious as chickenpox, potentially, as the slide notes) but not much deadlier. Not great, but could be worse. (Another slide documents evidence from other countries showing slightly higher odds of hospitalization and death with the delta variant.)

Source: Washington Post July 30, 2021 14:48 UTC