Story at a glance
- The delta coronavirus variant now accounts for approximately 83 percent of new cases in the U.S.
- “Each death is tragic and even more heartbreaking when we know that the majority of these deaths could be prevented with a simple, safe, available vaccine,” said the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- CDC data shows slightly more than 56 percent of the total U.S. population has received at least one vaccine dose.
The delta coronavirus variant now accounts for approximately 83 percent of new cases in the U.S., health officials said Tuesday.
“This is a dramatic increase from up from 50 percent, the week of July 3,” Centers for Disease Control Director Rochelle Walensky said during a Senate hearing.
“Each death is tragic and even more heartbreaking when we know that the majority of these deaths could be prevented with a simple, safe, available vaccine,” she continued, adding that COVID-19 related deaths have risen by roughly 48 percent to 239 deaths per day.
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CDC data shows slightly more than 56 percent of the total U.S. population has received at least one vaccine dose, while 48.6 percent have been fully vaccinated. Walensky said Tuesday that two-thirds of U.S. counties’ vaccination rates fall below 40 percent, allowing for the “emergence and rapid spread of the highly transmissible delta variant.”
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last week that the global agency expects the variant first discovered in India “to be the dominant strain circulating worldwide, if it isn’t already.”
White House chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci explained Tuesday that the delta variant is “so formidable” because it is capable of “transmitting efficiently from human to human in an extraordinary manner, well beyond any of the other variants that we’ve experienced, up to now.”
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Meanwhile, the WHO said last Thursday the global surge of coronavirus variants could continue with ewer, more dangerous variants.
“The pandemic continues to evolve with four variants of concern dominating global epidemiology,” the WHO said in a statement. “The Committee recognised [sic] the strong likelihood for the emergence and global spread of new and possibly more dangerous variants of concern that may be even more challenging to control.”
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