US Covid-19 Hospitalizations Top 50,000 For First Time Since February. With The Delta Variant, Herd Immunity Will Be Harder To Reach, NIH Director Says
(CNN) -- The surge of Covid-19 fueled by the Delta variant and low vaccination rates is sending the country backward in the pandemic, with hospitalizations reaching wintertime levels.
For the first time since February 27, more than 50,000 Covid-19 patients were hospitalized Monday, according to new data from the US Department of Health and Human Services.
The 50,625 hospitalizations on the HHS dashboard is more than triple the number from one month ago, when about 16,000 patients were hospitalized.
At this point, it might not be possible to reach herd immunity, the director of the National Institutes of Health said.
"The idea that we could get actually 80% of the public completely unable to harbor this virus, maybe that's not going to be achievable with the Delta variant," NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins said Tuesday.
"But we could still get to a place where this becomes a nuisance instead of a threat to your life."
Full vaccination is the best way to mitigate the pandemic, Collins told CNN.
"If you are vaccinated, your likelihood of getting infected and spreading this virus is greatly reduced," he said.
'We no longer think we're giving adequate care to anybody'
Florida has the most Covid-19 hospitalizations in the US -- 10,682 as of Monday, according to HHS data. But Louisiana is approaching its record for this pandemic, with 1,839 Covid-19 hospitalizations.
Now, the ICU of Louisiana's largest hospital is stretched to its limit. As of Monday, 23 people were waiting for space to open up in the ICU, said Dr. Catherine O'Neal, chief medical officer of Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge.
"You have people with chest pain sitting in an ER right now while their families sit in the waiting room. And they are wringing their hands. And they are calling everybody they know" to get into an ICU, O'Neal said.
About two weeks ago, the hospital had 36 Covid-19 patients. As of Monday, it had 155. .
"No one diagnosis should take up one quarter of your hospital," O'Neal said. "We no longer think we're giving adequate care to anybody because these are the darkest days of the pandemic."
O'Neal stressed the need for more people to get vaccinated. And because the vaccines don't fully kick in until two weeks after the final dose, she said it's important to keep wearing masks.
New mask mandates and vaccine requirements
The Delta variant is several times more contagious than the original strain of novel coronavirus and appears to cause more severe disease, according to an internal presentation from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While fully vaccinated people are still less likely to get infected, the CDC updated its guidance last week, saying even vaccinated people in areas with substantial or high transmission should mask up when in indoor public places.
That guidance covers more than 90% of the US population -- about 300 million people, according to a CNN analysis of CDC data published Monday.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards temporarily reinstated his state's mask mandate for all people age 5 and older, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, in indoor public places. The mandate goes into effect Wednesday.
No one should mistake the current situation as "just another surge," he said.
"We've already had three of these. This is the worst one we've had thus far," the governor said.
Wearing masks is important to help keep "our kids back in school and in-person and maintaining our growing economy by keeping businesses open," Louisiana State Health Officer Dr. Joseph Kanter said.
New York City will soon require proof of vaccination to enter any restaurant, fitness center or indoor entertainment venue in the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday.
The policy will go into effect in the next few weeks.
Proof of vaccination can be in the form of a vaccine card, the NYC COVID SAFE app or the New York State Excelsior app, de Blasio said.
The FBI has warned forged vaccination cards could lead to legal consequences, including possible prison time.
Protecting children too young to get vaccinated
With more students returning to school -- and those under age 12 not yet able to get vaccinated -- parents may want to consider wearing masks at home, Collins said.
"It's clear that this variant is capable of causing serious illness in children. You have heard those stories coming out of Louisiana pediatric ICU's where there are kids as young as a few months old who are sick from this," the director of the National Institutes of Health said.
The CDC has a list of ways parents can help keep their children safe, including:
-- Get vaccinated yourself. Covid-19 vaccines reduce the risk of people getting and spreading Covid-19.
-- If your child is 2 years or older, make sure your child wears a mask in public settings.
-- If your child is younger than 2 years or cannot wear a mask, limit visits with people who are not vaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown. And keep distance between your child and other people in public.
'The vaccines are doing exactly what we're asking them to do'
Reports of infections among vaccinated people, known as breakthrough infections, have caused some concern among the public. But experts say they are not as alarming as they may seem.
"The vaccines are doing exactly what we're asking them to do when it comes to keeping you out of the hospital, out of serious disease and certainly preventing your death," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Vaccines provide an eight-fold reduction in people getting the disease and a 25-fold reduction in both Covid-19 related hospitalizations and deaths, Fauci said.
"An important point to bring up is that the greater percentage of people that are vaccinated, even with a high degree of protection, the absolute number of breakthrough infections might appear high," he said.
"You can expect breakthrough infections. Most of these infections are going to be asymptomatic or mild."
"The bottom line of what we are saying is ... Get vaccinated," Fauci said.
But there's promising news in states hit hardest by this surge, White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients said.
"In the states with the highest case rates, daily vaccination rates have more than doubled," Zients said Monday.
"The eight states with the highest current case rates have seen an average increase of 171% in the number of people newly vaccinated, each day over the past three weeks," he said.
"Louisiana has seen a 302% increase in the average number of newly vaccinated per day, Mississippi 250%, Alabama 215%, and Arkansas 206%," Zients said.
"Americans are seeing the risk and impact of being unvaccinated and responding with action. And that's what it's going to take to get us out of this pandemic."
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2021 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.
