July 6, 2021 – Although President Joe Biden missed his goal of partially vaccinating 70% of American adults against COVID-19 by July 4, the mark was hit in 19 states and territories, as well as the District of Columbia.
The latest data from the CDC says that 67.1% of people over the age of 18 have received at least one dose of vaccine, with 58.2% being fully vaccinated. Biden announced the 70 percent target in early May.
The New York Times, citing information from the CDC, said the states and territories with more than 70% of partially vaccinated adults are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Guam, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey . New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Washington, DC.
Vermont leads the way, with 85.3% of the population receiving a dose.
The state with the worst vaccination rate is Mississippi with 46.3%, followed by Louisiana, the US Virgin Islands, Wyoming and Alabama.
Coronavirus cases have now risen in nearly half of the states, USA Today reported, citing data from Johns Hopkins University. Health experts believe that the increase in cases and hospital stays is caused by the spread of the highly communicable Delta variant.
Alaska and Arkansas cases more than doubled in the past week, and South Carolina and Kansas cases rose more than 50%, USA Today reported.
Even more worrying, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in places with low vaccination rates has risen sharply.
One of those places is Springfield, MO, where the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients rose 27% over the weekend of July 4th, The Associated Press reported.
The city’s two hospitals, CoxHealth and Mercy Springfield, treated 213 COVID-19 patients on Monday, up from 168 on Friday, the AP said. The two hospitals only had 31 COVID-19 patients on May 24.
“From what we’ve seen last month, everyone is holding their breath, especially after a holiday weekend like this, knowing that there were big gatherings,” said Erik Frederick, Mercy Springfield’s chief administrative officer.
The influx of patients was so extreme that at one point over the weekend Mercy Springfield ran out of ventilators and had to borrow some from other hospitals, Frederick said.
The state had the highest number of new cases per capita in the past 14 days, USA Today said. Only 55.7% of the state’s population had received at least one dose of vaccine.
In Mississippi, new COVID-19 cases increased nearly 15% in June, with about 95% of those hospital admissions being unvaccinated, USA Today said.
Comments are closed.