If we want kids back in school and the economy to prosper, more of the US needs to get vaccinated, expert says

CNN —  

The United States is facing a pivotal moment in the coronavirus pandemic, given that the Delta variant is spurring surges in cases and hospitalizations: It must increase vaccinations or risk magnifying the impact, the surgeon general said.

“If we want to keep our kids in school, if we want to protect the economy, if we want our country to get through this pandemic, we have to leave no stone unturned in making sure people get vaccinated,” US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday.

Murthy’s comment came after President Joe Biden announced that all federal employees must attest to being vaccinated against Covid-19 or face strict protocols including regular testing, masking and other mitigation measures.

On Friday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shared a new study that led to its new indoor mask guidance, showing the Delta variant produced similar amounts of virus in both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals if they get infected.

“High viral loads suggest an increased risk of transmission and raised concern that, unlike with other variants, vaccinated people infected with Delta can transmit the virus,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said in a statement Friday.

The finding “was a pivotal discovery leading to CDC’s updated mask recommendation,” Walensky said.

Also emerging late this week: The Delta variant appears to cause more severe illness and spread as easily as chickenpox, according to an internal document from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The document – a slide presentation first reported by The Washington Post – outlines unpublished data that shows fully vaccinated people, even if they don’t get sick, might spread the Delta variant at the same rate as unvaccinated people.

Meanwhile, coronavirus case rates have jumped as the Delta variant has increased its grip in the US.

The US averaged more than 66,900 new daily cases over the last week – an average that’s generally risen since the country hit a 2021 low of 11,299 daily cases on June 22, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Hospitalizations have also risen. More than 39,000 Covid-19 patients were in US hospitals on Monday – a number that’s generally risen since a 2021 low of nearly 15,988 on June 27, according to Department of Health and Human Services data.

Data shows a difference between areas with high and low vaccination rates.

Average hospitalization rates are nearly three times higher in states that have fully vaccinated less than half of their residents compared with those that have vaccinated more than half of their residents, according to a CNN analysis of federal data.

And Covid-19 case and death rates over the past week are more than twice as high among states that have vaccinated less than half of their residents, on average.

With only 49.4% of Americans fully vaccinated, former US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams said Thursday that he anticipates more closures as the Delta variant keeps spreading. And with some mask and vaccine mandates already implemented, Murthy anticipates more will be added.

“The private sector is already stepping up to create verification systems,” Murthy said. “What we are going to see more and more, Anderson, in the weeks and months ahead is, I believe, we’re going to see more universities, more hospitals, more businesses, more retail establishments looking to put rules in place to require people to get vaccinated.”

The study released by the CDC Friday described 469 Massachusetts residents infected in a July outbreak in Barnstable County, which includes Provincetown. No deaths were reported among the residents.

About 74% – or 346 cases – had been fully vaccinated. Of those, 79% reported symptoms. Genetically sequenced cases revealed the Delta variant as the main culprit.

Meanwhile, the internal CDC document that said the Delta variant appears to cause more severe infection advises that the agency should “acknowledge the war has changed.”

It recommends vaccine mandates and universal mask requirements.

CDC Director Walensky confirmed the authenticity of the document.

“I think people need to understand that we’re not crying wolf here. This is serious,” she told CNN.

The document says the Delta variant is about as transmissible as chickenpox, with each infected person, on average, infecting eight or nine others. The original lineage was about as transmissible as the common cold, with each infected person passing the virus to about two other people on average.

Some states are seeing consequences unfold.

In Louisiana, a Baton Rouge medical center said that because it needs to divert staff to treat a crush of Covid-19 patients, it is de-prioritizing other care.

That facility, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, said this week it halted the scheduling of non-urgent surgical procedures that would require an inpatient bed.

“We’re becoming victims of the unvaccinated,” Dr. Christopher Thomas, a critical care physician at the medical center, told CNN’s “Newsroom” on Friday.

“We currently are overwhelming our bed capacity. We’re creating burnout for our teams. And honestly we’re beginning to impact the health care of the rest of the community,” he said.

About 140 Covid-19 patients were at Our Lady of the Lake as of Thursday, 30 of whom had been admitted over the previous 24 hours – the most since the pandemic began, according to a hospital spokesperson.

About 97% of the hospital’s intensive-care patients Friday morning were unvaccinated, Thomas said.

Louisiana’s vaccination rate is among the lowest in the country, with just 37% of residents fully vaccinated as of Thursday, according to data from the CDC.

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced he was reinstating a public health emergency because of the rise in Covid cases.

“Anytime you are having staffing shortages in hospital(s). Whenever, today I believe, it’s four Covid patients that are waiting in ambulances to be able to find a hospital to go to. That constitutes an emergency and a public health crisis” Hutchinson said.

In central Florida, Advent Health said it had about 1,000 Covid-19 patients as of Thursday, surpassing the January peak of around 900, according to a press release.

In West Virginia, Gov. Jim Justice said the state’s Covid-19 task force will begin assessing the state’s hospital and nursing home preparedness.

Justice said the state will be working with Pfizer to conduct a “battlefield assessment” about the efficacy of the vaccine’s antibodies on fighting the Delta variant.

“The enemy is coming, and the enemy is this Delta variant,” Justice said.

CNN’s Michael Nedelman, Lauren Mascarenhas, Hannah Sarisohn, Paul LeBlanc, Elizabeth Cohen, Dakin Andone, John Bonifield, Miguel Marquez, Shawn Nottingham and Deidre McPhillips contributed to this report.