The country's summer of freedom from covid-19 is turning savage for the half of the nation that is still not fully vaccinated.
Coronavirus cases are increasing almost exclusively in the unprotected population. So The Washington Post adjusted its case, death and hospitalization rates to account for that and found that in many places, the virus continues to rage among those who have not received a shot.
Unvaccinated people are being hit hardest where the more contagious, more powerful delta variant is dominating.
"With the arrival of delta, we will have two very different epidemics one a mild cold in vaccinated individuals, and then we continue to have deadly infections in unvaccinated individuals," said William Powderly, an infectious-disease specialist and director of the Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis.
"The people who need to come to hospital, who end up in the intensive care unit, and the people who die are almost exclusively unvaccinated individuals," he said, noting that his hospital has three times the covid-19 patients it had in late June.
"That's just indicative of the more virulent quality of the delta variant," Williams said. "It will make people sick, even people that are young and would not have felt any consequence from the original wild variant."
Frighteningly, he said, far more children are being hospitalized, which was very rare until recently. As of mid-July, a dozen children were in Arkansas Children's Hospital, he said, and two were on ventilators.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/interactive/2021/unvaccinated-case-rate-delta-surge/
Coronavirus cases are increasing almost exclusively in the unprotected population. So The Washington Post adjusted its case, death and hospitalization rates to account for that and found that in many places, the virus continues to rage among those who have not received a shot.
Unvaccinated people are being hit hardest where the more contagious, more powerful delta variant is dominating.
"With the arrival of delta, we will have two very different epidemics one a mild cold in vaccinated individuals, and then we continue to have deadly infections in unvaccinated individuals," said William Powderly, an infectious-disease specialist and director of the Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis.
"The people who need to come to hospital, who end up in the intensive care unit, and the people who die are almost exclusively unvaccinated individuals," he said, noting that his hospital has three times the covid-19 patients it had in late June.
"That's just indicative of the more virulent quality of the delta variant," Williams said. "It will make people sick, even people that are young and would not have felt any consequence from the original wild variant."
Frighteningly, he said, far more children are being hospitalized, which was very rare until recently. As of mid-July, a dozen children were in Arkansas Children's Hospital, he said, and two were on ventilators.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/interactive/2021/unvaccinated-case-rate-delta-surge/
