US COVID-19 cases, driven by Delta variant, hit highest level since February

US average of daily COVID-19 cases hit the highest level since February on Sunday (local time), fuelled by the Delta variant.

Hospitals in the South are running out of space or staff as all the beds are taken up by Covid victims, with some patients unable to get the care they would normally receive, reported CNN.

Infected people need immediate Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment which is not available at the hospital. An ECMO treatment uses external machinery that can function as the heart and lungs. It's been used in some severely ill Covid-19 patients, including young adults.

Across the country, states are struggling to fend off the Delta variant -- the most contagious strain of coronavirus yet. But the situation is particularly worrisome in several Southern states, reported CNN.

Louisiana set a new record for COVID-19 hospitalizations last week.

Florida's hospitalizations recently jumped 13 per cent above the state's previous peak on July 23, 2020, according to a survey by the Florida Hospital Association.

The US now is averaging more than 100,000 new COVID-19 cases every day -- the highest in almost six months, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Because it can take days or weeks for some COVID-19 cases to lead to hospitalization or death, doctors are bracing for an ugly repeat of scenes from 2020.

The vast majority of those getting hospitalized with or dying from COVID-19 are not fully vaccinated, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week.
For adults previously infected with COVID-19, vaccines give better protection against re-infection than natural immunity on its own, according to a CDC study published Friday.

The study suggests people who got COVID-19 in 2020 and didn't get vaccinated were more than twice as likely to be re-infected in May or June 2021, compared with people who also had Covid-19 but were later fully vaccinated, reported CNN.

There is no minimum time to wait between recovering from COVID-19 and getting vaccinated, the CDC said.

Moreover, almost half the country is not fully vaccinated, including children under 12 who are not yet eligible but are still vulnerable to COVID-19, reported CNN.

Scientists say the Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox, with each infected person potentially infecting eight or nine other people.

Delta may also cause more severe disease than other strains of coronavirus, according to studies cited in an internal CDC presentation.

According to CNN, now some hospitals are seeing younger COVID-19 patients than before.