The US Exceeds 100,000 New Coronavirus Infections in a Day in the Midst of the Rebound of the Pandemic

The regrowth of coronavirus COVID-19 in United States It surpassed 100,000 new infections a day on Saturday, a figure that was last exceeded during the winter increase and driven by the fast-transmission Delta variant and low vaccination rates in the south of the country.

Health authorities fear that cases, hospitalizations and deaths will continue to rise if more Americans are not vaccinated. At the national level, 50% of the population is fully vaccinated and more than 70% of adults have received at least one dose.

“Our models show that if we don’t (vaccinate more people), we could reach several hundred thousand cases per day, similar to our increase in early January,” Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told CNN this week.

It took the United States about nine months to pass the 100,000 daily average in November before reaching a peak of about 250,000 in early January. Cases bottomed out in June, averaging about 11,000 a day, but six weeks later that number was 107,143.

Hospitalizations and deaths are also on the rise, although both remain below the highs recorded earlier this year before vaccines were available in large quantities. More than 44,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, according to the CDC, a 30% increase in a week from nearly four times the number reported in June. More than 120,000 people were hospitalized in January due to the virus.

According to data from Johns Hopkins University, the average daily coronavirus deaths recorded over a seven-day period rose from 270 two weeks ago to nearly 500 as of Friday. Deaths from COVID-19 reached about 3,500 a day in January. Deaths often lag behind hospitalizations as the disease typically takes a couple of weeks to end the life of the sick person.

The situation is particularly worrying in the south of the country, which has some of the lowest vaccination rates in the United States.

Houston officials say the latest wave of COVID-19 cases is pushing the local healthcare system to near “a breaking point,” causing some patients to be moved out of town for medical care, including one that had to be treated in North Dakota.

Dr. David Persse, who heads the Houston Department of Health and is the medical director for emergency medical services (EMS), said several ambulances were waiting for hours to deliver patients to Houston-area hospitals because there were no beds. available. Persse said he feared this would lead to long response times for medical calls to the 911 emergency number.

“The health care system right now is almost at a breaking point … For the next three weeks or so, I don’t see any relief from what’s happening in the emergency departments,” Persse said Thursday.

Last weekend, a patient in Houston had to be transferred to North Dakota for medical attention. An 11-month-old girl with COVID-19 who was having seizures had to be transported Thursday from Houston to a hospital 170 miles (274 kilometers) away in Temple.