PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia's COVID-19 numbers continue to go up, and the delta variant appears to have taken over as the main strain of the virus.
The city is now averaging 268 new cases each day, up from 180 last week and a low of 23 per day just six weeks ago.
The percent of positive tests is also up to 7%, from less than 1% in early July.
Hospital cases are rising, too, including serious cases that require ventilators.
Sequencing from the University of Pennsylvania shows the delta variant squeezing out every other version of the virus.
100% of the samples Penn has collected and sequenced so far in August have been the delta variant.
Philadelphia is still vaccinating about 20,000 people each week.
Close to 79% of the city's adults have had at least one dose, and nearly two-thirds are fully vaccinated.
Recent studies have shown the vaccines are less effective in stopping people from getting infected with the delta variant compared to the alpha variant.
However, the studies show vaccines are still effective at keeping delta variant cases from becoming serious and requiring hospitalization.
So far, the city has not seen a recent rise in the death rate from COVID-19.
