[ad_1]
Coronavirus cases are on the rise
Justin Matthews reports.
TAMPA, Florida – The COVID-19 pandemic rages across the country as the highly contagious delta variant infects unvaccinated and fully vaccinated people.
The average number of new cases has more than doubled nationwide in the past month. There were 11,500 new cases reported on June 20. This week, 38,000 new cases were reported, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“What is really sad is that if we kept the vaccination rates that we were seeing in April, everything would have been done, we would have achieved herd immunity by the third week of June and that would never have happened,” said Dr. Thomas Unnasch, an infectious disease researcher at the University of South Florida, who predicts trends in COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. “The past three weeks have been the worst I’ve seen since I started doing the math last summer.”
In the last two weekly reports from the Florida Department of Health, the number of new infections rose from 23,000 to 45,000 to 73,000. That is on average more than 10,000 new cases per day.
READ States Cancel Coronavirus Reports Just As COVID-19 Cases Rise
“We’re about halfway through what’s going to be a very steep wave of infections that’s mostly due to infections in unvaccinated people,” Dr Unnasch said.
He says fully vaccinated people who are infected hardly show any symptoms, such as sniffling for a few days.
READ Florida’s COVID-19 hospitalization rate has increased 65% since last week
Unvaccinated people suffer from serious infections and that is why hospitals are filling up again, according to medical experts.
Dr Unnasch says the virus will eventually die out because more people are infected or vaccinated. He expects the United States to achieve collective immunity by September.
COVID UPDATES: Download the free FOX 13 News app for continuous coronavirus coverage and live updates
[ad_2]
Source link