The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky, warned of rising cases on Friday, stating that COVID-19 is "becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated" and that vaccinated people are protected against severe disease.
She said that the CDC reported more than 33,000 new cases of COVID-19. Our seven-day average is about 26,300 cases per day, and this represents an increase of nearly 70 percent from the prior seven-day average. The seven-day average of hospital admissions is about 2,790 per day — an increase of about 36 percent from the previous seven-day period. And, after weeks of declines, seven-day average daily deaths have increased by 26 percent to 211 per day. Dr. Fauci and I want to provide some perspective about these numbers and how we should be thinking about where we are at this critical moment in the pandemic, she continued. There is a clear message that is coming through: This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated. We are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country that have low vaccination coverage because unvaccinated people are at risk. And communities that are fully vaccinated are generally faring well. In the last week, 10 percent of counties have moved into “high transmission risk,” in the red, and 7 percent of counties have moved into “substantial risk,” in the orange. Those counties most frequently correspond to counties with low vaccination rates. When we look over time, we can put these increasing cases in perspective. In January, shown in the middle of the slide, we were averaging nearly 200,000 cases per day. The entire country was in a high level of transmission. From January to June, we made remarkable progress, where the percent of counties with high transmission decreased. Now, the recent growth in cases is again increasing. So, while we are in a far better position than we were in January through April, this increase is giving us all a reason to double-down and get more people vaccinated. The good news is that if you are fully vaccinated, you are protected against severe COVID, hospitalization, and death, and are even protected against the known variants — including the Delta variant — circulating in the country. If you are not vaccinated, you remain at risk. And our biggest concern is that we are going to continue to see preventable cases, hospitalizations, and, sadly, deaths among the unvaccinated. Lastly, I want to reiterate the importance of getting fully vaccinated. I want to reiterate that people who got the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are most effective, especially when — against the Delta variant when given as two shots in a series. Both vaccines are most effective two weeks after the second dose, with each exceeding 90 percent effectiveness against severe disease, hospitalization, and death in real-world studies. Not completing the series puts those partially vaccinated at risk of illness. We encourage that people get vaccinated on schedule three or four weeks after your first dose. But if you are beyond that window, I want to reiterate: There is no bad time to get your second shot..
