Daily US Times: The United States remains among countries with the highest rate of new coronavirus cases, driven mostly by a surge in the South, where many states are lagging in getting people vaccinated.
In an interview with CNN, Dr. Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said: “This is starting to look really ominous in the South. … If you look at rates of transmission in Florida and Louisiana, they’re actually probably the highest in the world.”
Coronavirus cases began to decrease in the US in the spring as vaccines against the virus became widely available, while the seven-day moving average of daily confirmed coronavirus cases climbed in other nations, including Brazil and India, Johns Hopkins University data shows.
The US has so far reported more than 1.5 million new Covid-19 cases in August, more than three times the numbers for India and Iran — which now hold third and second place, according to JHU data.
And the seven-day average of coronavirus cases has topped more than 135,000 cases, well ahead of other nations.
Louisiana has the highest rate of new cases per capita, followed by Florida.
On Friday, Florida broke its own record high in coronavirus cases over the past week, reporting 151,415 new infections — the most infections recorded during a seven-day period since the pandemic upended lives across the globe.
The surge in Covid-19 cases has been fueled by the highly transmissible Delta variant, overwhelming hospitals across the country.
You may read: US-Mexico border migrant detention levels reach 21-year high
