With COVID deaths surpassing 4 million in the world, data in the United States has shown that cases are witnessing a surge in the country with the highly transmissible Delta variant dominating among the strains.
This comes as rates of vaccinations stagnate in the US, AFP reported on Wednesday, 7 July.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has noted that the seven-day average of new cases was 13,859 as on 6 July – an increase of 21 percent from two weeks earlier.
The US' inoculation programme has also seen a steep dip since April, AFP reported. While President Joe Biden had aimed at inoculating 70 percent of adults at least partially by 4 July, a close 67 percent of adults had been administered the first dose by then.
As per CDC, 52 percent of cases in the two weeks before 3 July were attributable to the most contagious Delta strain.
Regions with low vaccination rates, such as the midwest and south, are recording higher case rates compared to other US regions with high vaccination rates – marking a development fo a trend.
What an Expert Has Said
Speaking to AFP, Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security said, "The trajectory that we're likely to see is two different flavors of the pandemic in the United States, one in which it's more of a problem in places where there's a high level of unvaccinated individuals."
He added that in some parts of the country the pandemic is going to be "something that's managed as more of an ordinary respiratory virus".
Even as the Delta becomes the dominant strain, Adalja has envisioned a "decoupling" of hospitalisations and fatalities from rising cases in highly vaccinated regions, AFP reported.
He said, "Increasingly, I think we have to start to shift our focus away from cases and really look at hospitalisations because that's what the vaccine was designed to do – it was designed to decouple cases from hospitalisation."
Over 4 Million Have Died: WHO
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation on Wednesday informed that over four million people have now died from the virus.
While several wealthy nations ease restraints, looking towards a post-pandemic way of existing, countries in Asia are still battling surging infections, AFP reported.
Millions are looking at new lockdowns across Asia. In Indonesia, the new global hotspots, death rates have risen tenfold in a month to a record-breaking 1,040 on Wednesday.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said, "The world is at a perilous point in this pandemic," said, underlining that four million figure is underestimate of the true death toll of the pandemi, AFP reported.
Tedros censured wealthy countries for hoarding vaccines and other COVID-related aid, alleging them of acting "as though the pandemic is already over", AFP reported.
(With inputs from AFP)
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