Once again, coronavirus cases are rising across the country—here’s how to protect yourself.
Driven by the highly contagious Delta variant, coronavirus cases are on the rise once again across the U.S., especially in states where the majority of people remain unvaccinated. Here’s what we know (including what that means for wearing a mask):
A troubling uptick: With less than half of the population fully vaccinated, CDC officials reported that new cases jumped nearly 70 percent, while hospitalizations rose nearly 36 percent and deaths increased 26 percent over the last week.
What’s at play: New infections have become more pronounced in parts of the country where vaccination rates remain low. In fact, only four states made up 40 percent of Covid-19 cases in the past week, with one in five of those occurring in Florida. Meanwhile, cases in southwest Missouri and northern Arkansas have reached levels that haven’t been seen since the winter.
Sounding the alarm: “I am worried about what is to come, because we are seeing increasing cases among the unvaccinated in particular,” said Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Sunday. Murthy added that 99.5 percent of the deaths from Covid-19 in the U.S. right now are from the unvaccinated population.
War on misinformation: Social media companies like Facebook are facing renewed pressure from President Biden and federal officials to crack down on health misinformation, as many Americans remain hesitant about getting the vaccine. A report earlier this year found that 12 accounts were responsible for up to 65 percent of anti-vaccine content.
Time to mask up again? Though the CDC relaxed its guidance for fully vaccinated adults in May, three infectious disease experts told us it’s a good idea to continue to wear masks in certain situations given the new surge in cases.
“It’s important for people to recognize that case counts are going up in states and we need to be prepared to do a little more as a society to make sure that we don’t have another major outbreak,” epidemiologist David Dowdy said.
