The COVID-19 outbreak in the United States crossed 100,000 new confirmed daily infections Saturday, a milestone last exceeded during the winter surge and driven by the highly transmissible delta variant and low vaccination rates in the South.
Weekly cases on Friday passed 750,000, the most since early February, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg. Almost 135,000 weekly cases were reported in Florida on Friday, a record for a state that makes up about one in five U.S. cases.
Health officials fear that cases, hospitalizations and deaths will continue to soar if more Americans dont embrace the vaccine. Nationwide, 50 percent of residents are fully vaccinated and more than 70% of adults have received at least one dose.
Low Vaccination Turnout
The White House Friday said half of the US population is now fully vaccinated against Covid-19, which means more than 165 million people have received either the two-dose Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, or the one-and-done Johnson & Johnson shot. However, reports point out to the low vaccination turnouts in some states.
Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky represent 41% of the nation’s new hospitalizations, the CDC says, twice their overall share of the population. Alabama and Mississippi have the lowest vaccination rates in the country: less than 35% of residents are fully inoculated, according to the Mayo Clinic. Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas are all in the lowest 15 states.
Florida makes up more than 20% of the nation’s new cases and hospitalizations, triple its share of the population. Many rural counties have vaccination rates below 40%, with the state at 49%. The state again set a record Saturday, reporting 23,903 new cases.
Delta variant remains concern
As the US reported 1 lakh daily infections, the primary cause behind the surge is attributed to the highly contagious Delta variant. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Delta variant caused between 80 percent and 87 percent of all US Covid-19 cases in the last 2 weeks of July—up from 8 percent to 14 percent in early June. The variant’s has driven cases from a 7-day average of 13,500 daily cases in early June to 92,000 on 3 August.
Greater numbers of American children are being swept up in a wave of coronavirus infections driven by the Delta variant, causing renewed anxiety for parents and a bitter political fight as schools prepare to reopen within weeks. Earlier this month, CDC said Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox and — critically — that breakthrough cases in vaccinated individuals, though still rare, may be as transmissible as unvaccinated cases.
Much of the surge is concentrated in the southeastern state of Florida, where some school districts are defying an order by the Republican governor forbidding mask mandates, in the latest political twist in the health crisis.
The forecasters at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington is predicting that the Covid-19 peak in the US could reach up to 450,000 daily cases.
U-turn on Mask Rule
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in May that fully vaccinated individuals didn’t need to wear masks in most settings, however the rule changed in July as cases began surging at alarming rates.
According to the new guidance. Now even fully vaccinated Americans should wear masks indoors in areas of high COVID-19 transmission, according to the new guidance. The new guidance was in part prompted by data showing that the highly-transmissible delta variant could possibly be spread by vaccinated people, the report adds.
However, many states and local governments are still in process of responding to the guidance as public health a state matter in US and states are not obligated to immediately implement the guidance.
No Plans for Lockdown
Despite the Covid-19 surge stemming from Delta variant, the United States is unlikely to be sent back into lockdown, top US scientist Anthony Fauci said on August 1.
America is in for “some pain and suffering in the future” but enough people have now been vaccinated to prevent a repeat of last winter’s deadly surge, the infectious disease expert who advises President Joe Biden told ABC’s “This Week.”
“I don’t think we’re going to see lockdowns,” Fauci said, after Biden this week said the United States was probably headed for new restrictions because of the Delta variant surge. Fauci reiterated that people who are vaccinated run a very low risk of infection, and even lower of hospitalization or death if they do get sick.
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