More ‘suffering ahead’
The top infectious disease expert in the United States has warned that the country will experience more "pain and suffering in the future" as coronavirus infections are surging, especially in parts of the country where large segments of the population remain unvaccinated.
In an interview with ABC's This Week programme on Sunday, Dr Anthony Fauci said "an outbreak of the unvaccinated" has spurred a dramatic increase in the seven-day average of new COVID-19 infections in the US.
"Things are going to get worse if you look at the acceleration of the number of cases, the seven-day average has gone up substantially," said Fauci, explaining that some 100 million people who are eligible for COVID-19 jabs have not been inoculated.
"We're looking not I believe to lockdown, but we're looking to some pain and suffering in the future because we're seeing the cases go up," he said, "which is the reason why we keep saying over and over again, the solution to this is get vaccinated and this would not be happening."
Covid-19 vaccines have been available across the US for months and 60.4 percent of adults are considered fully inoculated, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
However, many people have not been vaccinated for a variety of reasons, including ideological and political views – and health officials for weeks have been desperately calling on people to get their jabs as the highly contagious Delta variant is spreading.
According to data from Johns Hopkins University, the seven-day rolling average for daily new cases in the US rose from 30,887 on July 16 to 77,827 on July 30.
The seven-day rolling average for the country's daily new deaths rose over the same period from 253 on July 16 to 358 on July 30.
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