Covid-19: the United States sees the emergence of a "pandemic of the unvaccinated"

The American health authorities launched on Friday July 16 a strong call for vaccination against Covid-19, stressing that the toll of the pandemic had started to rise again in the least vaccinated regions of the United States.

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reaching

" said Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), the main federal public health agency, at the time. of a press conference. Over the past seven days, the United States has recorded an average of 23,300 new cases daily (up 70% from the previous week), 2,790 hospitalizations (+ 36%) and 211 deaths (+ 26%).

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Unvaccinated

" noted Jeff Zients, the coordinator of the pandemic response to the White House. This resurgence of the disease is fueled by the Delta variant, which now represents more than 80% of new cases, according to the specialized site cov-spectrum.

A recent study published by the scientific journal

shows that this variant, initially detected in India, grows faster in the body than previous forms of the disease, making infected people more contagious. The vaccines currently available in the United States, from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, remain very effective in protecting against it, but the vaccination campaign has slowed down considerably in recent weeks in the country. The target set by Democratic President Joe Biden that 70% of adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine by July 4, National Day, has not been met. This rate capped 10 days later at 67.9%.

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Large swathes of the United States where conservatives hostile to vaccines are in the majority, such as Missouri, Arkansas or Louisiana, have much lower rates and are today the most affected by the rebound of the pandemic.

But health authorities stress that 80% of people over 65, the most vulnerable, are vaccinated, which should limit the most serious cases and deaths.