Daily US Times: The Covid-19 outbreak in the US crossed 100,000 new confirmed daily infections on Saturday, a milestone is driven by the highly transmissible delta variant of the virus and low vaccination rates in the South.
Health officials fear that Covid infections, hospitalizations and deaths will continue to soar if more citizens do not embrace the vaccine. 50% of Americans across the country are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and more than 70% of adults have received at least one dose.
Rochelle Walensky, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, said this week: “Our models show that if we don’t (vaccinate people), we could be up to several hundred thousand cases a day, similar to our surge in early January.”
It took the US about 9 months to cross 100,000 average daily coronavirus infections in November before peaking at about 250,000 in early January.
Cases in the US bottomed out in June, averaging about 11,000 per day, but 6 weeks later the number is 107,143.
Deaths and hospitalization due to coronavirus are also increasing, though all are still below peaks seen early this year before vaccines became widely available.
CDC data says more than 44,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with the disease, up 30% in a week and nearly four times the number in June.
More than 120,000 people were hospitalized in January.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the seven-day average for coronavirus-related deaths rose from about 270 deaths per day two weeks ago to nearly 500 a day as of Friday.
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