COVID-19 cases are rising rapidly in the United States as the Delta variant continues to wreak havoc in areas where people did not get vaccinated. Now, the country is now averaging 100,000 new coronavirus infections a day, prompting health experts to warn people that cases would continue to climb if more Americans don’t embrace the vaccine.
The U.S was averaging about 11,000 cases a day in late June. Now the number is 107,143, reminding the public how vicious. the Delta variant is.
According to Johns Hopkins University data, it took the U.S. about nine months to cross the 100,000 average caseload in November before peaking at about 250,000 in early January. Cases dropped in June but took about six weeks to go back above 100,000, despite COVID-19 vaccines that have been given to more than 70% of the adult population.
The seven-day average for daily new deaths also increased, stated the data. It rose over the past two weeks from about 270 deaths per day to nearly 500 a day as of Friday, it added.
The John Hopkins University also took note at the rate that the virus has been infecting people in states with low vaccination rates, particularly in the South where hospitals have reportedly been overwhelmed by patients who were diagnosed positive for COVID-19.
It is for this reason that the federal health officials have been persistently calling for the public to seriously consider vaccination.
“Our models show that if we don’t vaccinate people, we could be up to several hundred thousand cases a day, similar to our surge in early January,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There have also been reports of hospitals that have reached saturation point, and that there are no more beds to accommodate the rapidly increasing number of patients swarming the medical facilities.
Under this predicament, Houston officials made a categorical claim on the most recent wave of COVID-19 cases as “a breaking point,” that saw patients hopping from one hospital to another in an effort to find a place for themselves.
In one instance, patients were transferred to North Dakota to seek medical attention.
Houston Health Department and EMS medical director, Dr. David Persse, even said that ambulances waited hours to offload patients at Houston area hospitals because no beds were available.
Dr. Persse added that the predicament may lead to prolonged response time for 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,” Persse was quoted as saying in a report.
Just over the weekend, somebody from Houston was taken to North Dakota for treatment, while an 11-month-old girl with COVID-19 who was having seizures had to be brought to a Temple hospital, which is about 170 miles (274 kilometers) away from Houston.
In Missouri, reports had 30 ambulances and more than 60 medical personnel stationed across the state to help transport COVID-19 patients to other regions in view of saturated healthcare facilities, says Gov. Mike Parson last Friday.
