According to White House advisers, Florida accounted for one-fifth of the new COVID-19 cases reported in the United States last week.
The government’s coronavirus response coordinator, Jeff Zients, said at a virtual press conference on Friday that the Sunshine State accounted for 20% of new cases nationwide.
“As the more infectious Delta variant continues to spread across the country, we may continue to increase COVID cases in the coming weeks, which are concentrated in communities with lower vaccination rates,” Zients said.
“In fact, in the past week, only four states accounted for more than 40% of all cases, and one-fifth of the cases only occurred in Florida,” Zients continued.
data The Florida Department of Health found that the state had a positive rate of 11.5% in the past week. In the week starting on July 9, the state recorded 45,603 new cases, almost twice the number of the previous week.
Health officials on Friday reported 59 new virus-related deaths in the past week. The state’s cumulative death toll is 38,388.
More than 9.7 million Floridians were fully vaccinated with this disease. These people either received a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine or completed a series of two injections.
The national prevalence of Delta variants has soared in recent weeks, leading to an increase in new coronavirus cases in every state.
Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the United States, is restoring mask regulations for all residents, regardless of their vaccination status, to help curb the high transmission rate of the virus.
The Mayor of Orange County, Florida, Jerry Demings, urged vaccinated and unvaccinated residents to strongly consider wearing masks in crowded indoor areas.
“Unvaccinated Americans account for almost all recent COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths,” Zients said at the White House COVID-19 briefing on Friday. “Every COVID-19 death is tragic, and those deaths that are happening now are even more tragic because they are preventable.”
Eva Marie Uzcategui/AFP via Getty Images
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Responded to this sentiment on Friday, saying that the COVID-19 outbreak is becoming an “unvaccinated epidemic.”
The director of the agency, Dr. Rochelle Varensky, said: “The good news is that if you are fully vaccinated, you will be protected from hospitalization and death from COVID, and even from known variants, including The popular Delta variant in the country.” At the press conference.
Varensky added: “If you are not vaccinated, you are still at risk.”
Weekly newspaper Contacted the Florida Department of Health to comment on the state’s rising number of cases, but did not receive a response before publishing.
