Although COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths driven by the Delta variant are still significant, we may achieve herd immunity soon, according to a recent CNN report.
Justin Lessler, an epidemiology professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, said he thinks the next couple of months “will be bumpy,” but things should start to improve by late this year or early next year, said the outlet.
As of this month, more than 39 million COVID-19 cases and 600,000 deaths have been reported in the U.S, according to data from Johns Hopkins University compiled by CNN.
More than 159,000 cases diagnosed each day, said CNN, a rate not seen since January, when vaccines were not widely available. There is also an average of 1,329 deaths a day, a seven-day average and 100,057 hospitalizations, a rate not seen since January.
Included in the rising numbers are children infected with and hospitalized for COVID-19. Between Aug. 20 and 26, an average of 330 children were admitted to hospitals every day with Covid-19, according to the CDC. Dr. Mark Kline, physician-in-chief of Children's Hospital New Orleans said that, as of Aug. 9, “half of the children that we've admitted have been under the age of 2."
Even as cases in children rise, there is debate about whether to require masks in schools, said CNN. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends masks in schools for everyone older than 2.
“There are still a lot of people out there who are susceptible. That's one reason why this has been so bad,” Lessler said. “Yes, we have a lot of immunity, and yes, we're in a better place than we were, but there are still huge pockets of susceptible people and those people cluster together. They interact.”
Lessler also said that relaxed mitigation efforts – such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changing mask recommendations – have also contributed to rising COVID-19 rates.
Florida, Texas, California, Georgia and North Carolina accounted for more than 40 percent of the cases over a one-week period, according to CNN data as of Wednesday. Florida and Texas alone accounted for a third of all deaths during that period.
“We've driven the virus from a systemic problem to a regional problem,” said Dr. Amesh A. Adalja, senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
He said those Southern-sate case surges are happening by choice rather than nature.
“That's the trajectory that we're on -- and that we have achieved in some states -- but certainly not the South,” he said. “It sounds dismal if you live in those states, but that's success in [the other] states.”
Compared with the five states driving up infection rates, some areas of the country are trending down, including Mississippi and Arkansas, which are both down by 10 percent; California, which is down nine percent; and Texas, which is down 3 percent.
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Increased vaccination rates should help prevent severe COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and death, according to the CDC. As of Tuesday, CNN reported that around 370.2 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had been administered in the U.S.
At the current pace, 899,462 doses are being administered each day on average, w42ith 6,311 people are getting their first dose each day.
So far, 25 states have fully vaccinated more than half of their residents and half the U.S. is fully vaccinated.
Booster shots are also recommended by the CDC for certain immunocompromised people and about 996,000 people had received their booster dose.
“We are already getting the benefit of community immunity,” Lessler said. “It's not an absolute number but a continuum. We will turn the corner when we reach a critical threshold of immunity and that's when cases will start to go down -- we always get there, either the virus or the vaccine gets us there. But that (community immunity) is still what is going to get this under control.”
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