US COVID-19 cases surge, nearly tripling over 2 weeks

▪ According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU) data, the US seven-day rolling average of daily new COVID-19 cases rose to over 37,000 on July 20th. The measure was below 13,700 on July 6th.

▪ CDC data reported that 83.2% of the total cases in the US between July 4th to July 17th were caused by the COVID-19 Delta variant (B.1.617.2).

▪ Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, stated, “Delta would be less of a threat if we were able to vaccinate all the adults who are eligible for vaccination, but the fact that we haven’t has enabled delta to take root and to spread as quickly as it has.”

▪ On July 16th, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said, “This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated. We are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country that have low vaccination coverage because unvaccinated people are at risk. And communities that are fully vaccinated are generally faring well.”

▪ On July 21st, JHU’s COVID-19 cases and tests tracker reported an increase in the weekly trend of new COVID-19 cases in 49 US states – Colorado alone showed no change in the trend since last week.