While Americans speculate COVID will soon take a back seat in the United States following Biden's July 4 celebration - "independence from the pandemic", Biden is faced with yet another crisis - "pandemic of the unvaccinated", according to CDC's director. Meanwhile, Biden bashed those who used disinformation to obfuscate the main issues now, saying disinformation can literally kill people.
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Just when Americans are envisioning everyone living normally again, a more localised COVID crisis have reared its ugly head.
This marks yet another setback for doctors and nurses, who have been working day and night to stamp out the virus.
The highly contagious Delta variant is spreading so rapidly cases in the United States are up around 70 percent over the last week, while hospitalisations have climbed about 36 percent. COVID-related deaths also rose by 26 percent over the last week.
This recent spike is now considered a more localized crisis because it appears to impact communities where vaccination rates remain sluggish, despite the Biden administration's efforts to prod more Americans into getting COVID shots.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 99 percent of COVID deaths and 97 percent of hospitalisations in the U.S. are among people who have yet to get inoculated.
This has the CDC's director saying the crisis is literally the consequence that those unvaccinated have to bear.
"This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated. We are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country that have lower vaccination coverage, because unvaccinated people are at risk." Said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Also, as many Americans are still adamant that getting a vaccine is unnecessary in the fight against the pandemic, many hospitals and vaccinated Americans are left holding the bag: Hospitals have to deal with a large number of COVID patients, in addition to dealing with a backlog of cancer screenings, operations and other procedures; For vaccinated Americans, many of them said this surge would not have happened, had those unvaccinated gotten a jab sooner, as this recent spike in COVID infections will likely prompt the U.S. government to impose mask mandates, as well as other anti-virus restrictions.
While many criticise those unvaccinated and the Delta variant for jeopardising the country's plans to reopen, their President is grappling with yet another problem - the spread of inflammatory remarks, misinformation and disinformation.
(Reporter: What's your message to platforms like Facebook?) "They're killing people. I mean, they really - Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they're killing people." Said Biden.
Biden bashed those spreading inflammatory remarks and disinformation about the pandemic, saying they are muddying the waters, and purposely stirring up trouble. He also warned that false information about vaccines would not only obfuscate the main issues now, but would also pose a public health risk to the nation.
New COVID infections and deaths are expected to increase in the following weeks, as the government scrambles to convince those using possible side effects as a pretext to refuse to get inoculated to change their minds, thereby helping their nation emerge from COVID's shadow.
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