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The United States is experiencing a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” the head of the country’s public health agency warned, as new coronavirus cases have risen 70 percent last week.
More than 33,000 infections were reported in the United States on Thursday, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a news conference Friday morning. This increased the seven-day average of new cases to about 26,300 daily, from an approximate rate of 15,500 a week ago.
“This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Walensky said. “We are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country that have low vaccination coverage because unvaccinated people are at risk.”
Communities that have a higher proportion of fully vaccinated residents “generally do well,” he said, but health officials at the federal and state levels have noted rising rates of new hospitalizations and deaths from Covid-19 among people not. vaccinated.
“We know that 99.5 percent of the people who are in the hospital are people who are not vaccinated and that people who die from Covid are not vaccinated,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday . “The data is very clear.”
Although the number of new cases remains well below the peak of the pandemic, the latest increase has raised concerns that new restrictions may be needed to prevent health systems from being overwhelmed, especially as the pace of vaccinations slows.
After a strong start, the U.S. inoculation campaign has lost strength, with some people being afraid or unwilling to get the blow, despite the plentiful supply.
The United States has completely vaccinated 48.3% of its population, according to the CDC. The nationally administered dose rate dropped from a daily average of more than 3.4 million in mid-April to about 421,000 a day in the week ended July 10th.
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Four states (Florida, Texas, California and Missouri) accounted for more than 40 percent of new coronavirus cases in the United States over the past week, according to Jeff Zients, coordinator of the White House coronavirus working group. Florida accounted for only one in five new infections last week.
In Mississippi, unvaccinated people accounted for 94% of new Covid cases, 87% of hospitalizations and 93% of deaths this week, according to Thomas Dobbs, the state’s top health official. Mississippi has the lowest level of vaccine coverage in the United States, with only 33.6% of its residents fully vaccinated.
According to the CDC, Arkansas, Missouri, Florida, Nevada and Louisiana have an average of more than 20 new cases per 100,000 people a day, compared to a national average of nearly eight, although vaccination rates in those states were rising. now, Zients said.
The increase in cases has also been related to high transmissibility Delta variant of Covid-19, which now accounts for more than half of new infections, according to the CDC.
Walensky’s warning comes when some counties and cities have recovered from pandemic-era guidelines to protect themselves from new outbreaks, particularly those related to the Delta variant.
On Thursday, Los Angeles announced it resets his mask mandate this weekend, forcing people to wear masks inside again, regardless of vaccination status. The decision comes just a month after the city, along with the rest of California, lifted the restriction on June 15 for fully vaccinated residents.
Chicago this week put restrictions in unvaccinated travelers from Missouri and Arkansas, which are hot spots for the Delta variant.
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