On Friday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the number of deaths due to COVID-19 were increasing after several weeks of decline. The seven-day average daily deaths have increased to 211 per day. This is a 26 percent rise in fatalities. New cases have reached almost 30,000 per day which translates to a 70 percent rise. Hospitalizations are at 2,790, also on the rise by 36 percent.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky said that the pandemic was now a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” as there are outbreaks of cases in parts of the nation with low vaccination rates as unvaccinated people are more at risk from the highly transmissible delta variant whereas communities that are “fully vaccinated are generally faring well.”
Four states across the nation account for 40 percent of the new cases this past week. One in every five new cases is from Florida. The five states with the highest new cases are:
- Arkansas
- Florida
- Louisiana
- Missouri
- Nevada
The major outbreaks of COVID-19 have occurred in places such as Ozarks, Florida as well as regions in Mountain West. A few counties in Arkansas and Missouri are seeing more cases this summer than last winter. Many counties in rural America have low vaccination rates, below 20 percent, although vaccines are easily available.
The CDC said that the vaccination numbers are now at a daily average of 530,000. The data also indicates that approximately 65 percent of Americans in the age group of 12 and above have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. About 56.5 percent are fully vaccinated.
According to the CDC more that 97 percent of those who have been hospitalized with symptomatic COVID-19 infections are those who have not been vaccinated. There are some breakthrough cases (those who are hospitalized despite being vaccinated) and these cases need to be studied and booster shots should be considered for the vulnerable among the vaccinated. However, both the CDC and FDA currently believe that booster shots are not needed for fully vaccinated Americans.
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