Officials speaking at vaccination sites are now using the growing threat from the Delta variant to encourage people to get vaccinated, warning them that unvaccinated Americans will be susceptible to infections caused by the highly transmissible variant, which now accounts for 20% of U.S. infections, according to a news report from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota.
The United States reported 3,484 new COVID-19 cases yesterday and 75 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracker.
Sunday on "Face the Nation," former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, predicted that the Delta variant will cause small but dangerous outbreaks in the coming months. "It's going to be hyper-regionalized, where there are certain pockets of the country [where] we can have very dense outbreaks,” he said.
Also on the talk show was Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, which has seen hospitalizations go up 30% in recent weeks because of rising infections. Hutchinson said many people in his state are vaccine hesitant or believe conspiracy theories about the vaccine.
Many vaccine-hesitant Americans have said they will be more trusting of the vaccines once they gain full FDA approval. According to The Hill, there is a growing call for the FDA to speed up the approval process. Until formal approval is gained, some fear the vaccines will always be thought of as risky or experimental.
