Delta Variant Spreading Across The World Like Wildfire - Part 2: USA

The latest wave (5th wave?) of US COVID-19 outbreak now averages more than 100,000 new confirmed daily infections in one day. This milestone was reached on Saturday, 7 August 2021.

This high record is mainly driven by the highly transmissible, dangerous and deadly Delta Variant and low vaccination rates in the Southern States.

Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee represent 41% of the whole of US's new infections and hospitalizations.

Health officials fear that severe and critical cases requiring hospitalizations and the number of deaths will continue to soar if many Americans continue not to heed the calls to embrace the mRNA vaccines.

Nationwide, 50% of US residents have been fully vaccinated and more than 70% of adults have received the first jab.

Director CDC Rochelle Walensky said this week. "Our models show that if we don’t vaccinate, we could be up to several hundred thousand cases a day, similar to our surge in early January."

It took the US 9 months to cross 100,000 average daily cases in November last year, during the Presidential Election period. From there it went steadily up, before peaking at about 250,000 cases a day in early January 2021. The infection figures bottomed out in early June, averaging about 11,000 cases per day. But when the Delta Variant hit in July the number soar to 107,143.

Hospitalizations and deaths are also increasing. More than 45,000 Americans are now hospitalized with COVID-19. According to the CDC, it jumped 30% in a week and nearly four times the number in June.

The seven-day average for deaths rose from about 270 deaths per day two weeks ago to nearly 500 a day as of Friday, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Deaths peaked at 3,500 per day in January. Deaths usually lag behind hospitalizations as the disease normally takes a few weeks to kill.

The situation is particularly dire in the South, which has some of the lowest vaccination rates in the US and has seen hospitals overwhelmed with patients.

In the Southeast, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients jumped 50% to a daily average of 17,600 over the last week from 11,600 the previous week.

Alabama and Mississippi have the lowest vaccination rates in the country: less than 35% of residents are fully inoculated, according to the Mayo Clinic. Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas are all in the lowest 15 states.

Florida makes up more than 20% of the nation's new cases and hospitalizations, triple its share of the population. Many rural counties have vaccination rates below 40%, with the state at 49%. The state again set a record Saturday, reporting 23,903 new cases.

In some parts of the US hospitals are scrambling to find beds for patients.

Dr. Leonardo Alonso, who works in several emergency rooms in Jacksonville, one of Florida's hardest-hit areas, said some hospitals are sending some COVID-19 patients home with oxygen and a monitor to free beds for sicker people.

"The ICUs, the hospitals are all on a near what we call mass casualty incident. They’re almost at protocols where they’re overflowing," Alonso said.

In Texas, some Houston patients were transferred out of the city — one as far as North Dakota.

The Chief Medical Officer of Houston, Dr David Persse said that some ambulances were waiting for hours to off-load patients at Houston Area hospitals because no beds were available and he feared "this would lead to prolonged respond times to 911 medical calls."

"The health care system right now is nearly at a breaking point. ... For the next three weeks or so, I see no relief on what’s happening in emergency departments!" Dr Persse said on Thursday.


US CDC's WARNING:

"FULLY VACCINATED SHOULD KEEP MASKING UP AS EXPERTS PROBE BOOSTER SHOTS!"


SSO - 8 August 2021.