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Louisiana is now leading the U.S. by number of new cases of the coronavirus-borne illness COVID-19, while Arkansas has record numbers of hospitalized patients leaving just eight ICU beds open, as the highly transmissible delta variant of the virus continues to spread rapidly in states with low vaccination rates.
Louisiana has fully vaccinated just 38% of its residents and its seven-day average of new cases stood at 5,380 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 84% from two weeks ago. Hospitalizations are up 124% and deaths are up 221%, the tracker shows.
In Florida, hospitalizations are roughly equal to where they were in their previous peak last summer and case numbers recently set fresh records.
In Texas, where roughly 9,500 patients are currently in hospitals, Gov. Greg Abbott is asking healthcare workers from other states to come and help deal with the onslaught and has urged hospitals to postpone non-emergency treatments, the Washington Post reported.
Yet the governor has also issued an order banning face masks mandates, even as unvaccinated children, who are succumbing to the virus in growing numbers, are about to go back to school. Now local officials are challenging that order, the paper reported.
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, a Democrat and elected official, said Monday evening he has filed a temporary restraining order against the ban, on the grounds that the governor lacks the legal authority to impose it.
“The enemy is not each other. The enemy is the virus and we must all do all that we can to protect public health,” Jenkins said in a tweet thread.
Abbott is joined by Florida Gov. Rick DeSantis, who has gone so far as to threaten to cut funding to schools that enforce a face mask mandate, escalated the matter on Monday saying the state could defund the salaries of school district superintendents and county school board members, as USA Today reported.
Some 43% of Florida’s ICU beds are now occupied by COVID-19 patients, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine tracker is showing that almost 167 million Americans are fully vaccinated against COVID, equal to 50.2% of the overall population. That means they have had two doses of the vaccines developed by Pfizer
PFE,
and German partner BioNTech
BNTX,
and Moderna
MRNA,
or one of Johnson & Johnson’s
JNJ,
one-shot regimen, the only three vaccines to have won emergency use authorization in the U.S. to date.
Among adults 18 years and older, 61.1% are fully vaccinated and 71.1% have had at least one dose. But rates vary widely from state to state and many of the states in the deep South lag the national average.
On Monday, the Pentagon said it would require members of the U.S. military to get the COVID-19 vaccine by Sept. 15, according to a memo obtained by the Associated Press. That deadline could be pushed up if the vaccine receives final FDA approval or infection rates continue to rise.
“I will seek the president’s approval to make the vaccines mandatory no later than mid-September, or immediately upon” licensure by the Food and Drug Administration “whichever comes first,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says in the memo to troops, warning them to prepare for the requirement. “I will not hesitate to act sooner or recommend a different course to the president if l feel the need to do so.”
See also: Can my employer make me get vaccinated?
Elsewhere, Australia’s biggest city Sydney is still failing to contain an outbreak with yet another daily record of new cases at 356, the AP reported.
The New South Wales government also reported four more COVID-19 deaths Tuesday. The death toll since the latest outbreak was detected in Sydney in mid-June is now 32. One of the latest deaths is a man in his 80s who was infected overseas, while the rest caught the virus locally.
More than 80% of the state’s 8.2 million people are in lockdown, including the greater Sydney region. The Sydney lockdown began June 26, and hopes are fading that restrictions will be eased as planned on Aug. 28.
In China, cases set another seven-month high of 143, 108 of which were locally transmitted, AFP reported. The outbreak has led to millions of Chinese people being locked down and the city of Wuhan tested all of its 11 million residents.
India’s daily case load is currently at its lowest level since March, Reuters reported. That is according to its official numbers, although some maintain they are not accurate given a lack of testing and stress on a shaky healthcare system. India recorded 28,204 infections in the last 24 hours, according to government data.
In the U.K., more than 75% of adults are fully vaccinated, according to the Department of Health and Social Care. Some 89% have received at least one dose. But academics are warning that with the delta variant, the idea of ‘herd immunity’ is not possible, the Guardian reported.
Latest tallies
The global tally for the coronavirus-borne illness headed above 203.5 million on Tuesday, while the death toll climbed above 4.30 million according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. leads the world with a total of 35.9 million cases and in deaths with 617,435.
India is second by cases at 31.9 million and third by deaths at 428,682 according to its official numbers, which are expected to be undercounted.
Brazil is second in deaths at 563,562, but is third in cases at 20.2 million. Mexico has fourth-highest death toll at 244,690 but has recorded just 2.9 million cases, according to its official numbers.
In Europe, Russia continues to pull ahead of the U.K. by deaths at 163,629, while the U.K. has 130,667, making Russia the country with the fifth-highest death toll in the world and highest in Europe.
China, where the virus was first discovered late in 2019, has had 106,051 confirmed cases and 4,848 deaths, according to its official numbers, which are widely held to be massively underreported.
