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In several states, unvaccinated people are admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) at the same rate as the wave of winter. Vaccinated people are beginning to realize that a pleasant summer without pandemic restrictions was probably just a fantasy, as they once again begin to weigh the risks associated with going to work, visiting relatives, and being around people.
The march of the Delta strain into the US began in the Ozark Highlands and the South, in states and regions where vaccination rates are low. But the virus outbreak has shown that even in the most vaccinated areas, human immunity to a strain that spreads easily remains insufficient.
In the state of Texas, where only half the population has been vaccinated, Gov. Greg Abbott approached hospitals Monday with a request to postpone scheduled surgeries and instructed the health department to seek help from doctors and nurses in other states. The Republican governor has not repealed his order that prohibits government entities from wearing face masks and maintaining a physical distance.
Many experts hope that the wave of the delta strain will break without causing the same mortality as last year: vaccinated people can become infected, but they are much less likely to die. In regions with a high number of vaccinated people, the number of hospitalizations is increasing relatively slowly. However, these ripples have only just begun to build, and the ICU can take several weeks to fill patients.
In any case, one thing is clear: The pandemic in the United States is not over yet, especially in areas where people avoid getting vaccinated or oppose renewed requirements to wear masks and other public health safety measures.
In Washington state, according to the Benton-Franklin Health District, the number of cases began to rise nearly a month ago, with no signs of slowing down, said Malvina Goodwin, an agency employee. The department hires people to install an additional lane for visitors to try out; 800 people gather here every day.
In Benton County, 51 percent. In Franklin County, 42 percent of the population was vaccinated with at least one dose of the vaccine, compared with about 65 percent nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC ) About half of all ICU beds in Benton are occupied by COVID-19 patients, about 7 percent. points more than a week ago. This level is almost equal to the level of the state of Mississippi.
Nationally, officials report a dangerously low number of ICU beds available. In at least one state, they could be counted on the fingers of one hand, up to eight, said Arkansas State Governor Asa Hutchinson.
“We recorded the largest increase in hospitalizations per day and exceeded our previous record for COVID-19 hospitalizations,” he wrote on Twitter.
Healthcare workers in Texas and neighboring states are experiencing a shortage of ICU beds, said resuscitator Rhiana Ireland, who has personally faced an alleged groundbreaking case.
Ireland said he spent several hours unsuccessfully trying to find an ICU bed for a 22-year-old patient from southeast Texas, even looking for them in Colorado, North Dakota and Montana. Doctors were only able to provide him with medical oxygen and steroids due to a lack of remdesivir or monoclonal antibodies at his hospital. “I know what you need, but I can’t get it,” he said.
Ms Ireland acknowledged that both she and her colleagues were not only tired but also frustrated as they realized that the vaccines could have prevented a new outbreak.
“It feels worse now than in December,” Ireland said, coughing and breathing with the help of an inhaler.
Hospitalizations are expected to increase across the country in the coming weeks, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. According to IHME, there is already a shortage of people to attend to patients.
“There is a serious shortage of nurses,” said Dr. Carlos Javier Carden, chairman of the board of DHR Health Hospital in Rio Grande, Texas. States like Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida, where the virus outbreaks began, are instructive stories.
In the state of Florida, adult ICU employment jumped to 5,804, almost seven times more than since mid-July; some hospitals have converted conference rooms and cafes into patient room areas. In Florida, overall vaccination rates are close to the national average, but in some counties, the situation is reminiscent of the southern US Deep and lagging.
In the United States, the spread of the delta variety through increased travel and numerous gatherings has inevitably increased infections and among vaccinated individuals and communities, said Bertha Hidalgo, associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Approximately 90% of the infection may be required to effectively stop the spread of the infection. Vaccination rate: It is impossible to reach this level because children under the age of twelve are not vaccinated, said Ajay Sethis, associate professor of health sciences at the University of Wisconsin.
The delta strain reveals the limited efficacy of the vaccines. Although they provide very good protection against serious forms of illness and death, they are less effective in trying to prevent infection. Vaccinated and infected people can spread the virus, and many places in the US no longer require face masks.
Still, this wave of the virus shouldn’t be as painful as previous ones, precisely because of vaccines, said Robert Kim-Farley, a professor of epidemiology and public health sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“While we may have cases of infection, we will not have the same level of hospitalizations or mortality that we experienced during last year’s viral tsunami after a series of holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas,” he said.
Today some of the most vulnerable are better protected. About 90 percent. Americans 65 and older have been vaccinated with at least one dose of the vaccine, CDC data shows.
Forecasting models being developed suggest that the peak of the outbreak should be reached in the third week of August, and mortality will begin to decline a little later, starting in September, said Ali Mokdad, a professor at the Institute for Parameters and Evaluation. Of the health. By then, many more people should be protected, either by vaccination or by natural infection.
“Just as a fire goes out when the wood runs out, so does the virus when there is nothing left to infect,” he said.
However, there is still a lot of “fuel”.
“Sometimes whole families come,” says CJ Carden. “You know, in South Texas, an ordinary family lives in the same house multiple times.”
Many patients are under the age of 50, he said, and most of them have not been vaccinated.
“The most important message: for the love of God, I beg you to get vaccinated,” said CJ Carden. “Do it for yourself, for your neighbor, for your grandmother, uncle, aunt, for your entire family, for all the people you love and care about.”
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