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More and more US counties with low vaccination rates are starting to see Covid cases soar, putting residents at risk of “unnecessary” infections, hospitalizations and potentially death as the delta variant tears the country apart, according to US health officials.
“After several weeks of declining cases, followed by a long plateau, we are now seeing an increase in the number of cases in many parts of the country,” said Dr. Jay Butler, CDC deputy director of infectious diseases. a call organized by an industrial group on Tuesday. Hospitalization rates, which tend to lag behind confirmed cases, are also starting to rise, he said.
CNBC analysis of U.S. vaccination rates and Covid cases shows there are 463 counties in the United States with high infection rates – reporting at least 100 new cases in the past week per 100 000 residents – more than double the US rate. A majority of those counties, 80%, have vaccinated less than 40% of their 23 million people, according to the analysis, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Johns Hopkins University.
More than half of the counties in Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana have low vaccination rates and high levels of Covid cases, according to CNBC analysis. These three states have some of the highest levels of per capita cases in the country over the past seven days amid an increase in the spread of the delta variant in southwest Missouri.
“There will continue to be an increase in cases among unvaccinated Americans and in communities with low vaccination rates, especially given the spread of the more transmissible delta variant,” the coronavirus response coordinator said. of the White House, Jeff Zients, at a press briefing last week. Virtually all hospitalizations and deaths from Covid, 99.5%, occur among unvaccinated people, according to U.S. officials.
This is because nationwide cases are on the rise again as the highly transmissible delta variant emerges as the dominant strain in the United States. The seven-day average of new confirmed Covid cases has risen to around 23,300 per day, almost double the average a week ago, according to data from Hopkins.
The rise of the delta variant has prompted officials in some states like Mississippi to make new calls for masking and social distancing, especially among older and more vulnerable residents.
“When the Delta strain appeared (in Utah), it quickly became the dominant strain, and by dominant I don’t mean 50%. In the last full week of data, over 80% of the viruses in sequence were delta and so far this week that’s 92% of all variants, ”said Dr. Andrew T. Pavia, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Utah School of Medicine, during of a call organized by the Infectious Diseases Society of America on Tuesday.
“If you think about what it means to have a virus that takes hold so quickly, it means that it is the most suitable virus that it spreads more efficiently, that it spreads in pockets that do not are not vaccinated and that it causes a lot of disease, and a lot of stress there, “he added.
Mississippi has administered at least one injection to just 37% of its population, ranking last in the country. Authorities there urged people over 65 and immunocompromised residents to avoid mass gatherings indoors for the next two weeks amid “heavy transmission” of the delta variant in the coming weeks. .
“We don’t want anyone to die needlessly,” Mississippi state health official Dr. Thomas Dobbs said during a press briefing Friday.
The Covid vaccines currently in use are found to be effective in preventing serious illness, hospitalizations and death from the delta variant, according to Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Breakthrough infections are rare, and about 75% of people who die or are hospitalized with Covid after vaccination are over 65, according to the CDC.
“Preliminary data over the past six months suggests that 99.5% of deaths from Covid-19 in states have been in unvaccinated people … the suffering and loss we are seeing now is almost entirely preventable,” he said. Walensky said earlier this month.
In addition to the risk of disease for Americans who have not yet been vaccinated, having pockets of unvaccinated populations could threaten the country’s ability to control the pandemic. Continued transmission of the virus means additional opportunities for the emergence of new variants, with the possibility that one may escape the protection offered by vaccines.
While 48% of all Americans are fully immunized, the pace of daily injections has slowed significantly in recent months. About 515,000 vaccinations were given each day on average over the past week, according to CDC data, after a steady decline from record levels of more than 3 million shots per day in April.
President Joe Biden has renewed his administration’s efforts to increase immunization rates after failing to meet his July 4 goals, with a focus on adolescents as well as increasing availability in places such as doctor’s offices and workplaces.
According to CNBC’s analysis, nearly 1,600 counties in 40 states and 72 million people have vaccinated less than 40% of their population. Six states in which county-level immunization data was not available were excluded from the analysis.
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