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Vaccination Center in Los Angeles (archive image)
Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP
The Florida numbers had recently been alarming.
Last Friday, according to the Washington Post, the US state had to report a new high in the entire pandemic with 21,683 infections.
On average, the daily value there was around 16,000 in the past week.
For the entire country, an average of more than 72,000 new infections per day were reported again.
Such values were last achieved in February.
But in the midst of the new virus escalation, there are also cautious positive developments from the USA: Due to the rapidly increasing numbers, significantly more people there have recently been vaccinated again.
The vaccination campaign had stalled since June, with only around half a million injections being administered each day.
However, the trend has now reversed in the face of the new wave attributed to the particularly contagious Delta variant.
816,000 vaccinations were given on Sunday (local time), including 517,000 primary vaccinations, a senior White House official wrote on Twitter.
The latest data showed a "steady increase," said Cyrus Shahpar.
Fauci does not expect a new lockdown
According to the official, the vaccination numbers in the past few days were well above those of the previous week.
On Saturday, for example, there were 712,000 cans, an increase of 77 percent compared to the previous week (403,000).
On Friday there was an increase of 43 percent.
In April, a good three million doses had been administered daily.
Despite the spread of the delta variant, the USA does not expect a new lockdown.
This is what the Chief Medical Advisor to the White House, Anthony Fauci, told ABC News.
"It will get worse," says Fauci.
But because of the vaccination quota, he is optimistic that an extreme situation like last winter will not be repeated.
USA are close to Biden's intermediate goal
In the United States, almost 50 percent of the population of around 330 million people have so far been fully vaccinated, and around 58 percent have received at least the first injection.
US President Joe Biden had set the target in the spring that by the national holiday on July 4th, 70 percent of adults should have received at least the first vaccination.
The target was missed despite ample supplies and vaccination incentives, it was only 67 percent.
Well, about a month later, it should soon be that time: The latest increase caused the adult rate to rise to 69.9 percent by Sunday.
Biden himself had once again increased the pressure on unvaccinated people at the end of last week.
"If you are indeed unvaccinated, then you are a problem - for yourself, for your family and for those you work with," warned the US president.
For the more than two million civilian employees of the US government, the requirements have been tightened again, and the US military is also to be put to the test.
With the strict rules, the White House apparently wants to make vaccinations the only convenient solution - but without explicitly relying on a politically controversial vaccination requirement.
jok / dpa
