As the number of COVID-19 cases across the country is rising, three states have contributed to over 40% of all recent positive cases, according to the White House on Thursday.
White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said Florida, Texas and Missouri were contributing the highest number of cases, with Florida accounting for one in five positive cases for the second week in a row.
Those states also have some of the lowest rates of vaccination, Zients said, adding that “within communities, these cases are primarily among unvaccinated people.”
But in Florida and other states with high case numbers, he said, such as Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri and Nevada, people are also becoming vaccinated at greater rates than the rest of the country, an encouraging trend.
“People in these states are feeling the impact of being unvaccinated and are responding with action,” Zients said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently said he would not impose another mask mandate, while some other states and local officials have implemented them to combat the delta variant.
Nearly half the country has been fully vaccinated, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but a rise in case numbers is being attributed to the highly spreadable delta variant.
While breakthrough infections do occur among the vaccinated, Zients said 97% of hospitalizations and deaths have been among unvaccinated individuals.
Also in the news:
►Nine firefighters battling the largest wildfire in the nation, the Bootleg Fire in the Fremont-Winema National Forest in Southern Oregon, have tested positive for COVID-19. They are being quarantined away from the fire camp.
►Students, teachers and staff at Chicago Public Schools will be required to wear masks indoors when school begins in August, officials said.
►Several North Carolina hospital systems will require all employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in order to continue working in-person, the North Carolina Healthcare Association announced Thursday. The move comes as the country’s largest hospital association is calling for all health care workers to get vaccinated.
►In Kentucky, 95% of all cases, 92% of hospitalizations and 89% of all deaths between March 1 and July 21 were among partially vaccinated or unvaccinated people, according to Gov. Andy Beshear. Those percentages are from a total of 61,292 cases, 3,109 hospitalizations and 447 deaths.
📈Today’s numbers: The U.S. has had more than 34.2 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 610,264 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The global totals: More than 192 million cases and 4.1 million deaths. More than 162 million Americans — 48.8% of the population — have been fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
📘What we’re reading: A Houston hospital has its first case of the lambda variant of the coronavirus, but public health experts say it remains too soon to tell whether the variant will rise to the same level of concern as the delta. What to know.
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Italy to require health passes for public activities
The Italian government on Thursday approved a measure that will require individuals participating in public life to present health passes containing information about their COVID-19 status beginning Aug. 6.
The “green” passes will be issued to those who can prove they have received at least one vaccine dose in the last nine months, recovered from COVID in the last six months or tested negative in the last 48 hours.
People will be required to have passes to access public spaces like restaurants, movie theaters, gyms and sports events.
Daily cases in Italy have been on the rise, in part due to large celebrations held after Italy won Europe’s soccer championship against England earlier this month.
Italy’s premier, Mario Draghi, said the goal of the passes is to keep the economy open while ensuring people can enjoy public life “with the assurance they won’t be next to contagious people.”
China rejects WHO’s plan to study origins of OOVID-19
China on Thursday rejected the World Health Organization’s plan for the second phase of a study into the origins of COVID-19, dismissing a theory that the virus might have leaked from a Chinese lab as a scientifically unsupported rumor. A previous joint investigation including WHO and China found it “extremely unlikely” the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus last week unveiled a plan to revisit labs and markets in Wuhan, the city where the first cases were identified. Tedros also called for greater transparency from Beijing.
“It is impossible for us to accept such an origin-tracing plan,” Zeng Yixin, vice minister of the National Health Commission, said at a news conference.
The U.S. and some allies claim China has not been forthcoming about details of the early days of the pandemic. Former Vice President Mike Pence, who led President Donald Trump’s virus response team, last week claimed evidence strongly suggests the coronavirus “leapt out of the Chinese lab.”
China accuses critics of politicizing an issue that should be left to scientists.
Contributing: The Associated Press.
