As the highly contagious Delta variant of Covid-19 rampages among unvaccinated Americans, putting the health care system under serious strain, the number of hospitalizations for the coronavirus has crossed the 100.000 threshold for the second time after December of last year, Reuters reports.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, as of Thursday there are 100,317 Americans hospitalized with Covid-19 after their number have more than doubled in the past month, with more than 500 hospitalizations each hour on average over the past week.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) data shows that the all-time peak number of hospitalizations in the United States was reached January 6 when there were 132,051 Covid-19 patients in hospital beds, but the rapid vaccination campaign brought that level to record low 13,843 on June 28.
But then, the Delta variant changed everything in July when Covid-19 admissions rose suddenly nationwide with Florida on top of the ladder followed by Texas and California with 30% of intensive care unit beds in hospitals in the country held by Covid-19 patients. In Alabama, Florida and Georgia that number is also record- more than 95%.
The situation in Mississippi is so critical they decided to open a field hospital in a parking garage.
According to HHS, the new pandemic wave has also increased the number of hospitalized children with over 2,000 confirmed and suspected pediatric Covid-19 hospitalizations or about 2.3% of the nation’s Covid-19 hospitalizations while 32% of them are in California, Florida and Texas.
The new hospitalizations wave in the US is prompted in nearly all cases by the Delta variant that vaccines appear to be a bit less effective against and that leads to more severe infections in younger people.
According to data, allegedly over 90% of the hospitalized Americans are unvaccinated and this latest COVID spike is heavily concentrated in the South, which is the least-vaccinated region of the country.
Considering the fact that jabs still do a good job of preventing serious infections that require hospitalization, it’s not surprising the Delta variant is taking tougher toll on children that are largely not eligible for vaccination.
Due to the heavy strain many healthcare systems are under due to rapid and numerous hospitalizations, the word is that as the region runs short on ICU beds, Dallas-area medical officials discussed the possibility of prioritizing vaccinated patients over the unvaccinated in extreme scenarios,.
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