Crowded in many states, hospitals are forced to push patients away or treat them in the hallways. Deaths have risen again and the country has witnessed 1,000 deaths a day over the past four days.
Meanwhile, nearly 38% of the population has not yet received a single dose of vaccine, raising fears about how the pandemic will trace its course to the worst country affected by Covid.
Here are six graphs explaining the Covid crisis in the US …
Delta deluge
The Covid situation in the US is getting worse every week, and the country is witnessing a 12% increase in new cases daily.
The seven-day moving average has once again surpassed the 1.5 lakh mark, the first in nearly eight months, when the United States last witnessed an increase.
The current wave feeds mainly on the highly contagious Delta variant, which was first detected in the country around March this year.
According to the Global Avian Influenza Data Sharing Initiative (GISAID), Delta accounted for nearly 96% of the total samples sent for sequencing by the U.S. in the past four weeks.
A year later, but …
Until recently, many believed that the United States had left the worst of the pandemic, mostly because of its large-scale vaccination program.
But the Delta variant, which is believed to cause “advanced” infections, has launched a key.
Data published in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on death and disease show an increase in “advanced” infections among those who had both doses of a coronavirus vaccine.
This means that the current phase of Delta-fed pandemic is equally worse (or perhaps more so) compared to the period when vaccines were not available.
Compared to last August, the United States now reports almost three times daily infections.
Although this year’s cases have been significantly higher, mass vaccination has certainly reduced the proportionate number of deaths.
Compared to last August, the United States recorded more than 3,000 fewer deaths despite having three times the number of cases.
Worst nation
Globally, the United States reports the maximum number of new cases every day with 1.56 lakh of infections on average. It is also the most affected nation with more than 3.9 million infections reported to date.
It is followed by India and Iran, which report an average of 36,000 cases.
Excessively stretched hospitals
With the advent of Delta cases, hospitals in several states have been dumped on the brink.
The number of coronavirus patients in U.S. hospitals has again surpassed 100,000, the highest level in eight months.
Covid hospitalizations have more than doubled in the last month. Over the past week, more than 500 people with Covid have been admitted to hospitals every hour on average, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Florida, which is hardest hit by the Delta variant, the death toll has reduced capacity in hospital facilities and funeral homes.
Although record levels of new cases and hospitalizations for the disease in Florida have been stabilizing over the past week, daily averages of reported deaths have continued to rise.
Florida hospitals have reported to the federal government that approximately 279 patients have died every day over the past week, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, although that figure includes suspicious but not yet confirmed deaths from Covid. -19. The figure just a month ago was 52 deaths a day.
Patients are lying on the floor at a medical center in Jacksonville, Florida. (AP)
Vaccines: a blessing and a concern
The data show that the Delta variant is spreading largely among the unvaccinated population, and experts describe the continued increase as a “pandemic of unvaccinated.”
States like Mississippi, Florida, Louisana, where vaccination rates are comparatively lower, have been reporting higher cases and deaths.
On the other hand, states like Maine and Vermont, which have a higher vaccination rate, also report lower cases and deaths.
Thus, while vaccinations prevent fatal outbreaks, the United States faces a difficult challenge on the part of people who do not want to take the blows.
(With contributions from agencies)