Recurring themes behind the increases: vaccine hesitancy and the delta variant.
Some hospitals have been besieged. The number of likely COVID-19 patients tripled in Nevada on July 17 from a month earlier, a USA TODAY analysis of U.S. government data shows. COVID patient counts almost doubled in Arkansas and Mississippi. Alaska went from 13 COVID patients in the hospital to 64.
The pace of deaths has traditionally fallen a few weeks behind case reports. COVID-19 was killing about 217 Americans a day, at the low point a couple of weeks ago. Now it’s killing about 245.
– Mike Stucka
The AHA — which represents nearly 5,000 hospitals — is the largest healthcare group to endorse mandatory vaccine requirements for health workers. Health officials said the best protection remains vaccination, noting the shots reduce the risks of serious illness, hospitalization and death.
“The vaccines are very robust,” Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told USA TODAY. “What we’re seeing now in the United States, as the CDC director said, is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. That’s where the risk is.”
Comments