Created: July 02, 2021 05:27 PM ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — The Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus is spreading nationwide. Locally, doctors believe it is now present in our region and they are most concerned about its spread in counties with low vaccination rates. The highly transmissible variant is likely to become the dominant strain in the United States over the next few weeks. The good news is that the current vaccines for COVID-19 are working. "They offer very good protection against this variant and the others,” Dr. Emil Lesho, an infectious disease expert at Rochester Regional Health, said. The bad news for doctors is that several counties in our region still have vaccination rates lower than 60%, and several zip codes within all of our counties are at or under 30%.