COVID-19 cases are up by nearly 70% over the past seven days due to huge spikes of cases in low vaccinated areas, Biden administration officials said Friday.
“This is becoming a pandemicof the unvaccinated,” said Rochelle Walensky, M.D., director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during a briefing Friday. “We are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country that have low vaccination coverage because unvaccinated people are at risk. Communities that are fully vaccinated are generally faring well.”
The seven-day average of cases was 26,300 per day, an increase of nearly 70% from the last seven-day average, Walensky said.
Hospitalizations are also up to 2,790 per day, an increase of 36% from the previous seven-day period.
Deaths, a metric that has declined since prior surges earlier in the year, have also started to increase. The seven-day average increased by 26% to 211 per day, Walensky said.
“Our biggest concern is we are going to see preventable cases, hospitalizations and, sadly, deaths among the unvaccinated,” she said.
A major driver of the increases has been the highly transmissible Delta variant of COVID-19, but Walensky said that 97% of the patients hospitalized right now with the virus are unvaccinated.
The Biden administration is ramping up efforts to increase vaccinations in areas that have stubbornly low rates. The administration is sending more than 100 people to states to help enhance vaccine access and boost outreach efforts, said Jeff Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, during the briefing.
States with the highest cases are starting to see their vaccination rates go up, Zients said.
“In the past week, the five states with the highest case rates had a higher rate of people getting newly vaccinated compared to the national average,” he added.
He added that so far the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration have not recommended a booster shot for the fully vaccinated.
Infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, MD, said Friday that the federal government is looking into evidence accumulated on a daily basis on the need for a booster.
“At this particular time right now, we don’t recommend that there be boosters for people,” Fauci said.
The number of new coronavirus cases is increasing in every state, setting off a growing sense of concern from health officials who are warning that the pandemic in the United States is far from over, even though the national outlook is far better than during previous upticks.
The 160 million people across the country who are fully vaccinated are largely protected from the virus, including the highly contagious delta variant, scientists say. In the Upper Midwest, the Northeast and on the West Coast — including in Chicago, Boston and San Francisco — coronavirus infections remain relatively low.
But the picture is different in pockets of the country where residents are vaccinated at lower rates. Hot spots have emerged in recent weeks in parts of Missouri, Arkansas and Nevada, among other states, leaving hospital workers strained as they care for an influx of coronavirus patients. Less than a month after reports of new cases nationally bottomed out at around 11,000 a day, virus cases overall are increasing again, with about 26,000 new cases a day, and hospitalizations are on the rise.
The country is at an inflection point, and experts said it was uncertain what would come next. While nationwide cases and hospitalization numbers remain relatively low, more local hot spots are appearing and the national trends are moving in the wrong direction. Many of the oldest, most vulnerable Americans are already inoculated, but the vaccine campaign has sputtered in recent weeks.
“This will definitely be a surge,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “It won’t be as big as what happened in January. But we still have 100 million people in the United States who are susceptible to COVID-19.”
Intensive care beds in hospitals have become scarce in parts of Missouri, where officials in Springfield on Wednesday asked for an alternative care site. In Mississippi, where cases are up 70% over the past two weeks, health officials have urged older adults to avoid large indoor gatherings even if they have been vaccinated. And in Los Angeles County, officials said Thursday that masks would once again be required indoors, regardless of vaccination status, because of the spread of the delta variant.
The slowdown of the vaccination effort has amplified concerns. About 530,000 people are now receiving a vaccine each day, a sharp decrease from 3.3 million shots a day in April. Less than half of the United States population has been fully vaccinated.
Still, the country’s prognosis remains better than at previous points in the pandemic. The vaccines are widely available, cases and hospitalizations remain at a tiny fraction of their peaks and deaths are occurring at some of the lowest levels since the early days of the pandemic.
Yet daily case numbers have increased in all 50 states, including 19 states that are reporting at least twice as many new cases a day.
Mayor Quinton Lucas of Kansas City, Missouri, where cases are increasing but remain far below levels in other parts of the state, said he worried that the outbreak in southwestern Missouri would keep spreading, given low vaccination rates there. He said strong recommendations for mask wearing — or even new mandates — may become necessary if his city’s outlook continued to worsen.
“I think when you start to see Springfield-level hospitalizations here in the Kansas City metro, then we’ll have to very seriously consider whether it’s time to return to previous restrictions,” Lucas said.
In a string of news conferences this week, public health officials pleaded with people who have not gotten shots to change their minds, urging them to consider that coronavirus vaccines are safe, free and available to anyone ages 12 and older.
“To any who have been hesitating about being vaccinated, please, I implore you to hesitate no longer,” Dr. Kiran Joshi, the senior medical officer for the Cook County Department of Public Health, which serves suburban Chicago, said Thursday.
Even in places in the United States that have not yet seen a significant uptick in infections, governors and public health officials worried that their states were vulnerable to an outbreak.
“I hope and pray that it doesn’t come to West Virginia and just absolutely runs across our state like wild,” said Gov. Jim Justice, whose state has recorded relatively few cases recently but has a low vaccination rate. “But the odds are it will.”
Few places are more worrisome than in Missouri, where a surge among unvaccinated people has left hospitals scrambling to keep up.
Just two months ago, when there were only 15 active coronavirus cases in his southwestern Missouri county, Larry Bergner, the director of the Newton County Health Department, had hoped the end of the pandemic might be in sight.
That has not happened.
As the delta variant has spread across the country, it has sent case totals spiking in Newton County, where less than 20% of residents are fully vaccinated. Bergner’s county now has a higher rate of recent cases than any state.
“It does give, I guess, some depression to think that we thought we were coming out of it, now here we go again, how high are we going to get,” Bergner said.
In Milwaukee County, where 48% of residents are fully vaccinated, the health department has tried to push the number higher by setting up a vaccine site outside the Fiserv Forum, where the Milwaukee Bucks are playing in the NBA Finals. Fewer than two dozen people have received a vaccine each day the site was in place, said Dr. Ben Weston, the director of medical services for the Milwaukee County Office of Emergency Management.
“In March, people flooded to our vaccination sites — all we had to do was open a door,” Weston said. “Now we have to go out and find people.”
As case numbers slowly rise, a sense of worry has begun to creep in for some Americans, even those who are fully vaccinated.
Vince Palmieri, 89, who gets around Los Angeles on public transportation, said he worried when he saw fellow riders not wearing masks as required. Though per capita case rates remain relatively low in Los Angeles County, they have grown sharply in recent weeks. The county is averaging about 1,000 new cases a day, up from fewer than 200 a day in mid-June.
“Once you get on a bus or a train you’re in no man’s land,” said Palmieri, who continues to wear a mask. “Their sneeze could take somebody out, but I’m frightened to talk up about the disease because people get ugly.”
Debora Weems, 63, who lives in New York City, has been following the case numbers closely. Her anxiety about the virus has risen alongside cases. New York City, which averaged fewer than 200 new cases a day in late June and early July, is now averaging more than 400 a day, far below past peaks.
“I’m just afraid we’re going to have to shut down again,” Weems said. Both she and her mother, who is 85, are vaccinated, but now she worries that their protection is not enough.
When the case numbers were at their lowest, she moved through the city more freely, with less thought about whether people nearby were vaccinated. But now she is trying to avoid leaving her neighborhood, and recently put up a new sign on her apartment door with a request: She and her mother are not receiving visitors because of COVID-19.
The largest union for registered nurses in the U.S. called on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to bring back recommendations for universal masking in public regardless of people’s vaccination status.
The National Nurses Union (NNU) in a Monday letter to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky requested that the agency reinstitute guidelines for all people to wear masks in public and in close proximity to those outside their household.
NNU Executive Director Bonnie Castillo pointed to a 16 percent uptick in U.S. COVID-19 cases from last week, according to CDC data, as well as rises in case counts in more than 40 states and hospitalizations in more than 25 states as reasons to return to previous, stricter guidelines.
“NNU strongly urges the CDC to reinstate universal masking, irrespective of vaccination status, to help reduce the spread of the virus, especially from infected individuals who do not have any symptoms,” Castillo wrote in the letter. “Our suggestions are based on science and the precautionary principle and are made in order to protect nurses, other essential workers, patients, and the public from Covid-19.”
The union also cited the World Health Organization’s (WHO) call for vaccinated people to continue wearing masks in public amid the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant. Several U.S. officials and experts have said the WHO’s guidance reflects the state of the pandemic worldwide, which overall has seen lower vaccination rates than the U.S.
Castillo acknowledged that COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing severe illness and death but noted “no vaccine is 100 percent effective, and the emergence and spread of variants of concern may reduce vaccine effectiveness.”
The NNU in its letter also appeals for the CDC to update its guidance to “fully recognize aerosol transmission,” mandate tracking and reporting of cases among health care and essential workers, and keep records of cases, including mild and asymptomatic infections, among fully vaccinated people to measure the shots’ effectiveness.
The CDC did not immediately return a request for comment on the letter, but officials have consistently defended the updated mask guidance, saying fully vaccinated individuals are protected against the virus.
The NNU vocally opposed the CDC’s current mask guidance updated in May to permit fully vaccinated individuals to go maskless in virtually all settings. The union has argued that the change in recommendations endangered patients, front-line workers and nurses as the pandemic continues.
In the Monday letter, the union wrote that the CDC’s relaxation of mask guidance “failed to account for” the possibility of fully vaccinated people contracting and spreading the virus. It also said the agency’s guidelines do not protect people, including children, who cannot get the vaccine.
The NNU sent the letter days after the CDC urged schools to reopen for full in-person learning in the fall, saying that fully vaccinated teachers and students do not need to wear masks.
It also comes after Los Angeles County and St. Louis County recommended their residents to wear masks in public indoors.
The average number of new daily COVID-19 cases has increased 94 percent over the past two weeks, according to data from The New York Times, as worries over outbreaks climb nationwide.
The U.S. recorded a seven-day average of more than 23,000 daily cases on Monday, almost doubling from the average two weeks ago, as less than half of the total population is fully vaccinated.
Monday’s count of 32,105 newly confirmed cases pushed the seven-day average up from its Sunday level of more than 19,000 new cases — a 60 percent increase from two weeks prior.
All but four states — West Virginia, Maine, South Dakota and Iowa — have seen increased daily averages in the past 14 days, and the average in 16 states at least doubled in that period.
This comes as the highly transmissible delta variant was declared the dominant strain in the U.S. last week.
At the same time, vaccinations have stalled, with the daily rate reaching its lowest point during President Biden’s tenure on Sunday at slightly more than 506,000. Monday saw a small uptick in the average rate to more than 527,000 per day, according to Our World in Data.
The rise in case counts comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says just 48 percent of the total population is fully vaccinated. Officials have said fully vaccinated people are protected from the virus, while unvaccinated people are at much higher risk for serious illness and death.
This leaves a majority of Americans still vulnerable to the virus, particularly children under 12 years old, who are not authorized to get the vaccine. More than 56 percent of the eligible population aged 12 and older is fully vaccinated.
The Biden administration has strived to boost vaccination numbers over the past few months and signaled a new strategy focused on grassroots campaigning to promote the vaccine last week. The country fell short of the president’s goal to get 70 percent of adults at least one dose by the Fourth of July.
Increases in COVID-19 cases have previously signaled during the pandemic an upcoming rise in hospitalizations and deaths. The Times data shows that average deaths are still decreasing, but average daily hospitalizations are climbing, with a 16 percent increase from two weeks ago.
Still, case counts are much lower than the devastating peak that hit the U.S. in January, and experts say the country will not reach that level of infection again, as vulnerable populations have gotten vaccinated. Seventy-nine percent of those aged 65 and older are considered fully vaccinated.
Mounting evidence suggests the delta variant is the most contagious strain in the world, spreading about 225 percent faster than the original version of the virus. A small study published online July 7 may help explain why, NPR reported.
The delta variant, first identified in India, grows faster in people’s respiratory tracts and to much higher levels, according to researchers at the Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention in China.
They analyzed virus levels in 62 people infected during China’s first delta variant outbreak between May 21 and June 18. They compared their findings to virus levels in 63 patients infected in 2020 by an earlier version of the virus.
On average, viral load was about 1,000 times higher for people infected with delta, compared to those infected with the earlier strain, researchers found. It also took about four days on average for delta to reach detectable levels in study participants, compared to six days for the other strain. This finding suggests people with delta likely become infectious sooner and are spreading the virus earlier in the course of their infection, researchers said.
If you were anything like my family over the July 4 holiday, there were bowls of potato salad, casseroles of baked beans and platters of hotdogs, hamburgers and chicken all pulled from the grill and served family-style. For a lot of us, it was the first time seeing a wide net of our family in more than a year and we took advantage of ditching the masks, probably wrongly assuming our circles were vaccinated at higher levels than they were and maybe even handing kids lighters for sparklers they shouldn’t be wielding.
Our increasing return to normal makes it easy to believe the pandemic is almost over. Sure, we still had to wear masks on the flights, trains and buses. Grocery markets and big-box stores in some communities still asked that we wear them, too. The staff at Nationals Park here in D.C. and Progressive Field in Cleveland wore theirs as I visited both for MLB games. But the worst of the pandemic feels behind us here in the U.S., as vaccinations are climbing, deaths and new cases are sinking and headlines seem to be shifting to more run-of-the-mill topics like tropical storms.
A new and unusually long report from Congress’ independent think-tank is a stark warning to the U.S. government that even COVID-19 seems over, it actually isn’t, particularly when it comes to Americans’ well being. Released on Friday, the wonks at the Congressional Research Service (CRS) urged officials going into the long holiday weekend to remember amid the celebrations that we still don’t know the final toll of the pandemic, especially when it comes to long-term consequences for behavioral and mental health. Its notes about substance-abuse challenges are particularly worrying, given that lawmakers cannot ignore the already troubling fight against opioids.
Anecdotally, we know the last 18-or-so-months have taken a toll on our friends, colleagues and neighbors. Those of us lucky enough to have been allowed to work from home adapted in fits and starts. My colleagues with children or dependents were stretched to the points of breaking, but most have made it to the other side. Those in complete isolation actually came to look forward to Zoom meetings and telemedicine appointments. And tech-slow people like my grandmother probably wouldn’t have made it through without the good folks at the local public library loading her loans into the trunk through a touch-free lending system.
But you cannot make public policy on anecdotes alone, which is why the CRS report offers a roadmap for lawmakers. Noting upfront that the data is still coming in and comparisons so quickly after—and during, really—a so-recent period are imprecise, there are still warning signs that America has not healed the way we’d like to believe. The share of Americans suffering simultaneously from depression and anxiety grew five-fold, year-over-year, in just the first three-months of the pandemic-mandated lockdown, from April to June 2020, when the death toll still hovered around 120,000. Fatal overdoses grew 11% between March and May last year, and non-fatal overdoses rose 19% during that same short window. In the three months that followed, there were almost equal levels of depression or anxiety among households that had lost jobs and those that had not. No one was spared, but the hit came hardest for less-educated, essential and lower-paid workers.
Why is this Washington’s problem? An estimated 10% to 20% of Americans who needed mental-health services during the pandemic received no treatment. Another survey cited in the report estimates that up to a quarter of adults with depression or anxiety went untreated. As many as 27,000 Americans who survived COVID-19 may end up dead over the next decade as a result of behavioral health-related challenges, and that number may ultimately reach more than 154,000. At the moment, federal law does not require mental health services to be treated on par with treatments for physical health. Not Medicare. Not CHIP. Not even fancy private insurance plans.
There were, believe it or not, a few upsides to the COVID-19 pandemic that the CRS report notes. Under emergency powers granted in one of the relief bills, the Department of Health and Human Services waived the in-person requirement for some treatments, including mental health and substance abuse counseling. For now doctors can be paid for that phone call consultation rather than requiring patients to make a brick-and-mortar visit to qualify for Medicare and Medicaid money. The Department of Veterans Affairs allowed taxpayer dollars to help with mental health services via tech platforms, too. In all, billions of dollars were included in the raft of COVID-19 stimulus plans to shore up mental health and substance abuse programs.
But those were the bright spots. Not all of Washington’s urgent changes were for the better. The Drug Enforcement Agency allowed doctors to prescribe medicine without a physical appointment, Health and Human Services’ civil rights unit turned a lot of blind eyes to patients’ privacy rights as public health data seemed ubiquitous, and the Small Business Administration shoved piles of cash out the door to health clinics and larger rafts of money to hospitals with minimal upfront scrutiny.
So as Washington turns slowly toward the post-pandemic policies of this country, lawmakers have plenty to consider, especially if it wants to return America to its Before Times footing. As much as it may feel like the United States is rounding a corner—and it’s tough not to when you see big crowds gathering maskless for fireworks and parades—the reality is this: there’s still a lot of trauma under the surface that is all too easy to miss unless D.C. is looking for it.
Health officials are grappling with how to prevent potential COVID-19 outbreaks from the delta variant that is spreading rapidly across the U.S.
Concern over the highly transmissible delta strain prompted Los Angeles County this week to recommend that all people wear masks indoors, even if they’re vaccinated. The World Health Organization (WHO) has also encouraged fully vaccinated people to continue using masks.
But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has not signaled any plans to revise its mask guidance, with Biden administration officials and some experts say that fully vaccinated Americans are safe from all existing COVID-19 variants.
“If you have been vaccinated, the message we’re conveying is you’re safe,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday. “Vaccines are effective, and that is something we want to be very clear with the public about.”
Still, the move by officials in Los Angeles County raises the prospect that mask recommendations and even mandates could make a return to certain parts of the country.
The CDC projected the delta variant made up more than a quarter of cases in the U.S. in the most recent two-week period, ending June 19 — a jump from 10 percent the previous two weeks.
Los Angeles County issued a statement Monday saying it “strongly recommends” all people wear masks in indoor settings where they don’t know everyone’s vaccination status.
Barbara Ferrer, director of the county’s Department of Public Health, told The Hill that officials want to take time to get more people vaccinated as research is conducted on delta variant transmission from the fully vaccinated.
“While we’re doing that work with building confidence, we’re going to go ahead and offer as much protection as possible for everyone,” she said.
Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University, praised the county’s decision as the “right move,” saying she hopes other jurisdictions follow suit to protect both vaccinated and unvaccinated residents.
“People who are fully vaccinated are still at risk, albeit a low risk, from those who are unvaccinated,” Wen said.
“Fully vaccinated people can be around others who are fully vaccinated without any limitations,” she added. “However, if they’re going to be around unvaccinated people or vaccination status is not being checked, then those could be high-risk settings” where masks should be worn.
For now, Los Angeles County is an outlier as cities and states continue to loosen mask requirements. Washington’s King County, home to Seattle, and Pennsylvania were the latest jurisdictions to end their mandates, taking that step this week.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told NBC’s “Today” on Wednesday that the agency’s guidance that fully vaccinated people don’t need masks in most settings has not changed. She said the WHO has given conflicting instructions, saying the international organization is focused on the global community, which has a lower vaccination rate than the U.S.
“We have always said that local policymakers need to make policies for their local environment,” Walensky said. “But those masking policies are not to protect the vaccinated, they’re to protect the unvaccinated.”
So far, the delta strain has not led to any changes in masking policies at the White House or the Capitol.
The White House does not require masks if a person is vaccinated, although the administration is not checking to see whether all maskless people have gotten their COVID-19 shots.
In recent weeks, the House has ended its universal mask requirement, and few people in the Capitol continue to wear them. The overwhelming majority of lawmakers in both parties have shed masks and freely gather in large groups on the House floor.
The Senate, which never had a mask requirement since nearly all senators voluntarily wore facial coverings when it was recommended, has also relaxed its pandemic restrictions.
But the delta variant threat is influencing other activities in the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced this week that proxy voting would be extended through Aug. 17, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that was due to the global spread of the delta variant.
“As we know, there are some countries in the world that are seeing a virulent resurgence of this new variant of the COVID-19. Israel is a perfect example of that,” Hoyer told reporters, referring to Israel reimposing its indoor mask mandate despite having one of the world’s highest vaccination rates. “But even in Israel, where they have the vaccine available, they’re seeing a resurgence.”
“So, the Speaker correctly, along with the medical advice that she’s gotten, determined that there was still justification for staying on guard,” Hoyer said.
Recent studies have found that COVID-19 vaccines are effective against the strain. Both doses of Pfizer-BioNTech were found to be 88 percent effective against symptomatic disease.
There is “less data” on how Johnson & Johnson performs, Walensky said Wednesday, but “right now we have no information to suggest that you need a second shot after J&J, even with the delta variant.”
Jen Kates, senior vice president and director of global health & HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said research shows the CDC guidance “still stands,” although she acknowledged the agency needs to be prepared to adjust.
Kates expressed concern that the resurgence of the mask debate could affect the vaccination effort, noting the variant is spreading mostly among unvaccinated people.
“The worst outcome, I think, is that people choose not to get vaccinated because they think the vaccines aren’t as effective against variants,” she said.
As most Americans have gotten vaccinated, COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths have declined significantly. But the U.S. is expected to fall short of President Biden’s goal to have 70 percent of adults receiving at least one vaccine dose by the Fourth of July.
The White House still plans to move forward with Independence Day festivities. The administration sent 1,000 invitations for people to gather at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. on Sunday, with vaccinated people allowed to go without masks. All guests were instructed to get tested one to three days before arriving.
“We certainly feel comfortable and confident moving forward with our event here at the White House and individuals having barbecues in their backgrounds this week to celebrate the Fourth of July,” Psaki said on Wednesday.
It’s “a trickle that will become a torrent,” Ashish Jha, dean at Brown University’s School of Public Health, tweeted.
More hospitals are likely to require employees receive a COVID-19 vaccine, experts said, to further protect the sick and vulnerable patients who rely on them for care.
A Houston-area hospital captured headlines after taking a firm stance on requiring vaccines that prevent severe illness of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 600,000 in the U.S. and ravaged the economy.
Houston Methodist employees who refused the vaccine were either terminated or resigned. A judge earlier this month sided with the hospital and tossed out an employee lawsuit that was seeking to block the mandated inoculation. The ruling may give other hospitals the green light to require the jab, and as more facilities put a similar policy in place, others are likely to follow, experts said.
It’s “a trickle that will become a torrent,” Ashish Jha, professor and dean at Brown University’s School of Public Health, posted Thursday on Twitter.
3 large health systems in Massachusetts to require all workers to be vaccinated.
Given the critical need to protect vulnerable patients, its critical all hospitals do this.
Some of the nation’s largest health systems have yet to mandate the shot, including Kaiser Permanente and CommonSpirit Health.
“Vaccination will only be required for Kaiser Permanente employees if a state or county where we operate mandates the vaccine for health care workers,” the company said in an email.
The American Hospital Association continues to hear that a growing number of its members are requiring the vaccine, with some exemptions. However, many member hospitals are waiting until the FDA grants full approval, a time when more safety and efficacy data will be made available.
“Getting vaccinated is especially critical for health care professionals because they work with patients with underlying health conditions whose immune systems may be compromised,”AHA, which has not taken on stance on the requirement, said in a statement.
The mandates raise ethical questions, some say, pointing to the profession’s promise to “do no harm.”
Arthur Caplan, head of medical ethics at New York University School of Medicine, said the codes of ethics that doctors and nurses says to put patients first, do no harm and protect the vulnerable.
“Of course they should be vaccinated,” he said. “If they don’t want to get vaccinated, I think they’re in the wrong profession.”
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said employment law does not prohibit employers from requiring the jab, essentially giving the green light to employers to put incentives and requirements in place for their workers. The EEOC is the federal agency tasked with ensuring that workplaces do not discriminate.
Some states are going against the tide and signing legislation that bars vaccine mandates, including Florida. The city of San Francisco will require hospital employees and workers in high-risk settings to get the vaccine. San Francisco, like other employers and universities, will require all city workers get inoculated.
The differing policy stances across the country creates additional hurdles for corporations with a large footprint.
As the delta variant of the coronavirus spreads, especially among the unvaccinated, the Biden administration is gearing up for a new push to vaccinate the so-called “movable middle”—and some public health experts say FDA could advance that goal by fully approving Covid-19 vaccines.
Analysis reveals toll of US Covid-19 deaths among unvaccinated patients
According to an analysis by the Associated Press, nearly all recent Covid-19 deaths have occurred in unvaccinated individuals.
The AP analysis is based on data from CDC, although CDC has not itself released estimates of the share of Covid-19 deaths among unvaccinated patients.
According to the AP analysis, just 0.8% of Covid-19 deaths in May were among the fully vaccinated. Meanwhile, the share of hospitalized patients who were fully vaccinated was just 0.1% in May, with fewer than 1,200 fully vaccinated people hospitalized out of more than 853,000 hospitalizations.
Meanwhile, according to CDC, 54% of the U.S. population, including 66% of American adults, have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, while 46.1% of the total population and 56.8% of American adults have received all required doses.
HENRY KOTULA 