Deaths and cases of COVID-19 in the United States have returned to levels not seen since last winter, erasing months of progress and potentially bolstering President Joe Biden’s argument for his new vaccination requirements.
The cases, driven by the delta variant combined with the resistance of some Americans to the vaccine, are mainly concentrated in the south.
While spot hot spots like Florida and Louisiana are improving, infection rates are rising in Kentucky, Georgia and Tennessee, fed by children already back in school, loose mask restrictions and low vaccination levels.
The dire situation of some hospitals is starting to sound like the peak of infection in January: surgeries were canceled at Washington and Utah state hospitals. Severe staff shortages in Kentucky and Alabama. Lack of beds in Tennessee. Intensive care units with capacity or more in Texas.
The deterioration of the image nine months after the start of the nation’s vaccination has infuriated and frustrated medical professionals who see discouragement as preventable. The vast majority of dead and hospitalized have not been vaccinated, which has proven to be a hard lesson for some families.
“The problem now is that we’ve tried to educate based on science, but I think most of the education that’s going on now is based on tragedy, personal tragedy,” said Dr. Ryan Stanton, MD. in Lexington, Kentucky.
In Kentucky, 70% of state hospitals (66 of 96) report critical staff shortages, the highest level so far during the pandemic, the governor said.
“Our hospitals are on the verge of collapse in many communities,” Dr. Steven Stack, Kentucky public health commissioner.
The United States averages more than 1,800 deaths from COVID-19 and 170,000 new cases a day, the highest levels since early March and late January, respectively. And both figures have risen over the past two weeks.
The country is still well below the terrible peaks reached in January, when an average of about 3,400 deaths and a quarter of a million cases a day were reported.
The United States provides about 900,000 vaccines a day, up from 3.4 million a day in mid-April. On Friday, an advisory panel from the Food and Drug Administration will meet to discuss whether the U.S. should start giving Pfizer booster vaccines.
On a positive note, it appears that the number of people now in the hospital with COVID-19 is declining or even declining by about 90,000, or about the February situation.
Last week, the president ordered all employers with more than 100 workers to need vaccines or weekly tests, a measure that affects about 80 million Americans. And the approximately 17 million health care workers receiving Medicare or federal Medicaid will also need to be fully vaccinated.
“We read and know how to talk about it and we see the stories of people hospitalized, people on death beds among those who haven’t been vaccinated in the last few weeks,” Biden said in announcing the rules. “This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
The requirements have met with resistance and threats from Republican demands.
Arizona reported 117 deaths on Tuesday, most in a single day since last February. Tennessee now ranks first in the United States in new cases per capita. Hundreds of students have been forced to quarantine. Some schools have closed due to lack of staff. Others have called for a shift to remote learning.
But measures aimed at containing the virus have been opposed. Last week, an adult of a Tennessee high school student who spoke at a school board meeting in favor of a mask warrant spoke of his grandmother dying of the virus.
Stanton, the Kentucky emergency physician, said he has admitted families where the delta variant has been around for generations, especially if older members are not vaccinated.
“Now in Kentucky, a third of new cases are under 18,” he said. Some kids took him home from summer camp and spread it out to the rest of the family, and now, “between daycare and schools and school activities, and friends gathering, there are so many exhibits.” .
In Alabama, hundreds of patients with COVID-19 fill intensive care units and a hospital contacted 43 more people in three states to find a cardiac ICU bed for Ray Martin DeMonia. It wasn’t soon enough. The 73-year-old died on September 1st.
“In honor of Ray, please get vaccinated if you don’t, in an effort to free up resources for non-COVID-related emergencies,” his family stated in their obituary.
In Hidalgo County, Texas, along the Mexican border, about 50 patients were in the hospital with COVID-19 on a specific day in July. By early August, the figure had risen to more than 600.
“It simply came to our notice then. We didn’t know much, “said Ivan Melendez, a public health official in Hidalgo County. The situation has improved, with just under 300 people in hospital as of Monday, but ICUs still exceed 90 percent of capacity, Melendez said.
Linsey Marr, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech, said the biggest surge in the summer came in states with low vaccination rates, especially in the south, where many people rely on air conditioning and breathe. recirculated air. He said the northernmost states could see rises as the onset of cold weather sends people inland.
Vaccination rates are not as low in some northern states, but “there are still a lot of unvaccinated people. Delta will find them, ”Marr said.
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Associated Press writers Ken Sweet, Kimberlee Kruesi, Adrian Sainz and Tali Arbel contributed to this report.