The United States again recorded an average of 100,000 daily cases of COVID-19 of the Delta variant and the unvaccinated

The COVID-19 epidemic in the United States crossed 100,000 new daily confirmed cases on Saturday, a latest mark passed during the rise in infections before winter and driven by the much more contagious delta variant of the virus, and the weak rates of vaccination in the south.

At the end of June, the United States averaged about 11,000 cases per day. Now the number is 107,143.

Health officials fear hospitalizations and deaths will continue to rise if more Americans do not get vaccinated. Nationally, 50% of people are fully vaccinated and more than 70% of adults have received at least one dose.

“Our model shows that if we don’t vaccinate people, we could go up to several hundred thousand cases per day, similar to the increase in early January,” he added. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky said this week in statements to the CNN.

It took about nine months for the United States to break through the average number of 100,000 cases in November before peaking at 250,000 in early January. Cases hit rock bottom in June, but it took them about six weeks to hit 100,000 again, despite the fact that more than 70% of the adult population has received a vaccine.

The seven-day average daily deaths from the virus have also increased, data from Johns Hopkins University shows. The death toll has increased over the past two weeks, from around 270 deaths per day to nearly 500 per day on Friday.

The virus spreads rapidly through unvaccinated people, especially in the south of the country, where patients are bringing down hospitals.

The number of Americans hospitalized with the virus has also skyrocketed, and the crisis has become so severe that many hospitals are once again struggling to find beds for patients in remote locations.

Houston officials say latest wave of COVID-19 cases is bringing local health care system near a ‘tipping point’, which forces some patients to be transferred out of town for medical treatment, including one that had to be treated in North Dakota.

Dr David Persse, who heads the Houston Department of Health and is the medical director of Emergency Medical Services (EMS), said some ambulances have been waiting for hours to bring patients to Houston-area hospitals because there were no beds available. Persse said he was concerned this could cause long response times for medical calls to the 911 emergency number.

“The health care system right now is almost at a breaking point… For the next three weeks or so, I see no relief from what is going on in the emergency departments,” Persse said Thursday.

Last weekend, a Houston patient had to be transferred to North Dakota for medical treatment. An 11-month-old girl with COVID-19 who was having seizures had to be rushed from Houston to a hospital 274 kilometers away in Temple on Thursday.

In some areas of the United States, hospitals are struggling to find beds for patients.

Dr Leonardo Alonso, who works in various emergency units in Jacksonville, one of the hardest hit areas in Florida, He said some hospitals are sending patients home with oxygen cylinders and a monitor to clear the beds of the sickest people. “The intensive care units, the hospitals, are close to what we call a mass incident. They are almost in protocols in which they are overwhelmed ”, Alonso said.

By Terry Spencer and Kelli Kennedy (AP)

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