On Saturday, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health reported 11 new deaths from Covid-19, along with 3,318 new positive cases and 1,008 hospitalizations.
Public Health said that hospitalizations are up 45% since last Saturday. 23% of those currently hospitalized are in the ICU.
The number of deaths and confirmed cases reported today may reflect delays in weekend reporting. But today’s data brings the County to a total of 24,682 deaths and 1,300,313 positive cases.
COVID-19 Daily Update:
July 31, 2021
New Cases: 3,318 (1,300,313 to date)
New Deaths: 11 (24,682 to date)
Current Hospitalizations: 1,008 pic.twitter.com/oSYHyh10Ey
Covid test results have now been made available to more than 7,322,000 people, with 16% testing positive. Today’s daily test positivity rate is 6.1%.
Three of today’s new deaths were of people over the age of 80. Three people who died were between the ages of 65 and 79, while an additional three were between 50 and 64 years of age. The other two people who passed away were between the ages of 30 and 49.
On Saturday, Public Health reiterated that Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations are surging across the county and the country, also noting the efficacy of vaccines in combating the virus.
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“The data overwhelmingly shows the vaccines to be effective at preventing serious illness that causes hospitalization, and death. To really beat back transmission, however, we need to have higher levels of vaccination, particularly among our younger residents,” said Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer. “The tragic reality is that almost every single person hospitalized and dying from COVID-19 is unvaccinated and these hospitalizations and deaths are, for the most part, preventable.
COVID Vaccines are Extraordinarily Safe, Effective Against the Virus and Variants of the Virus and Readily Available Without an Appointment – 11 New Deaths and 3,318 New Confirmed Cases of #COVID19 in L.A. County. Click https://t.co/5nnHhHedjG for More Information. pic.twitter.com/9UwonkoPlV
“We recognize that many teens and young adults that have not yet been vaccinated have heard or read that the vaccines aren’t safe and that COVID causes only mild illness. Neither is true,” added Ferrer. “Almost 25,000 LA County residents have died from COVID-19, and COVID is now the leading cause of death. And the three authorized vaccines used in the United States have undergone the most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history.”
Covid vaccines remain available to L.A. residents and workers 12 years and older.
L.A. County’s health order, requiring residents to mask up in indoor public spaces, regardless of vaccination status, remains in effect, after being reintroduced on July 17.
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The CDC reported 6,587 Covid-19 breakthrough cases as of July 26, including 6,239 hospitalizations and 1,263 deaths.
At that time, more than 163 million people in the United States were fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
Most of the breakthrough cases -- about 74% -- occurred among adults 65 or older.
Since May, the CDC has focused on investigating only hospitalized or fatal Covid-19 cases among people who have been fully vaccinated. The agency says the data relies on "passive and voluntary reporting" and are a "snapshot" to "help identify patterns and look for signals among vaccine breakthrough cases."
"To date, no unexpected patterns have been identified in the case demographics or vaccine characteristics among people with reported vaccine breakthrough infections," according to the CDC.
The agency shared a study this week that showed the Delta variant produced similar amounts of virus in vaccinated and unvaccinated people if they get infected. Experts continue to say that vaccination makes it less likely you'll catch Covid-19 in the first place. But for those who do, the findings suggest they could have a similar tendency to spread it as unvaccinated people.
That study also convinced CDC leaders to update the agency's mask guidance on Tuesday, recommending that fully vaccinated people also wear masks indoors when in areas with "substantial" and "high" Covid-19 transmission to prevent further spread of the Delta variant. Guidance for unvaccinated people remains to continue masking until they are fully vaccinated.
Pace of vaccinations is going up
But experts say those vaccinated, while they may be able to transmit the virus, remain very well protected against getting seriously ill. Amid the latest surge of Covid-19 cases nationwide fueled by the Delta variant, local leaders across the US are reporting that the majority of new infections and hospitalizations are among unvaccinated people.
The Delta variant is now so contagious, one former health official recently warned that people who are not protected -- either through vaccination or previous infection -- will likely get it.
Amid concerns over the rising cases and the dangerous strain, the country has seen a steady rise in the pace of vaccinations in the past three weeks -- and an even sharper increase in states that had been lagging the most, according to a CNN analysis of CDC data.
The seven-day average of new doses administered in the US is now 652,084, up 26% from three weeks ago.
The difference is even more striking in several southern states: Alabama's seven-day average of new doses administered is more than double what it was three weeks ago. The state has the lowest rate of its total population fully vaccinated in the US, at roughly 34%.
Arkansas, with just 36% of its population fully vaccinated, has also seen its average daily rate of doses administered double in the last three weeks.
Louisiana, which had by far the most new Covid-19 cases per capita last week and has only fully vaccinated 37% of its population, saw daily vaccination rates rise 111% compared to three weeks ago.
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Less than 0.001% of fully vaccinated Americans died after a Covid-19 breakthrough case, CDC data shows - CNN
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NPR's Kelsey Snell talks with public health professor Robert Blendon about mistrust in government health agencies and who unvaccinated Americans might trust to be messengers on the COVID-19 vaccine.
KELSEY SNELL, HOST:
As concern over the spread of the delta variant mounts, public health officials have been doubling down on the importance of getting more Americans to get their COVID shots. They say getting vaccinated is still the best protection against the virus, regardless of which variant one is exposed to. Here's how President Biden's chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, put it yesterday speaking to NPR.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
ANTHONY FAUCI: There's a really, really good reason to get vaccinated, and that is to save yourself from getting a severe infection that would lead to hospitalization and deaths.
SNELL: And reports suggest that new vaccinations are increasing in some areas. Today, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain tweeted that more Americans are getting their first COVID shots now than at any time in the past eight to 10 weeks. But the question remains - is the message getting through to enough people? And do Americans still trust what public health officials are telling them? We asked Dr. Robert Blendon to help us with those questions. He's a professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard University, and he joins us now via Skype. Dr. Blendon, thanks for being with us.
ROBERT BLENDON: Pleasure being here.
SNELL: Well, you did a poll in the spring with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation - which we should note is an NPR funder - and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. It found a growing distrust in public health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. Did you get a sense of why that's the case?
BLENDON: First of all, it's important to realize there are big differences in this country in talking about the average views. We have been focusing with our own polling and others since then on people who are not vaccinated. And the people who are not vaccinated are a share of the American public. But they do not trust federal authorities, federal public health scientists, Washington for medical advice. And I use the phrase very clearly medical advice. They might trust them for other things. But when it comes time to how they deal with health issues, they absolutely do not trust the people that are on radio and TV every day from Washington. And that's important to realize if you're going after the people who are not vaccinated, it's a different audience.
SNELL: So this is a question of their personal health decisions. And they don't, as you're saying, trust Washington or public health officials with that. So who did they trust for health guidance?
BLENDON: It would be clinicians in their community who they would normally get advice from. But I have to add a very important point here, which has been missed. The people not taking the vaccine report that they're not very worried about COVID. Anybody that's been involved in vaccine campaigns knows that the step is, first, people get worried. Just think about polio. When I was a child, my parents just in their head saw these pictures of kids in iron lungs and children who have disabilities for the rest of their life. What we find from very recent surveys are that people who are in the cultures that aren't getting the vaccine are not worried.
SNELL: So you're saying that with over 600,000 deaths in the U.S., there are still some people who don't feel a threat. And so I'm wondering - is part of the problem how the message is delivered? You know, this week's new mask guidance from the CDC was criticized for being too vague and too confusing. You know, are there examples that you have seen where somebody has found the right alchemy to reach people?
BLENDON: We're in these states - we've seen in the last few weeks an increase in vaccination. So there is some movement. But I need to make a point of something that happened here, North Miami, a collapse of a building where 98 people died. Their pictures were all over the paper. How terrible it was. The president came down to be with the family. The governor did.
We have thousands of people dying every month. Their pictures aren't anywhere, it's human stories that move them, and they're not human stories. I don't know that Susan just died that I knew. I don't know about her story. I don't know how grieving her family is.
SNELL: So it's a question of personal connection with the stories that are being told and that - the numbers that people are seeing.
BLENDON: Yes, critical care physicians and nurses went on social media and said, I'm dealing with people near death. And they're begging for a vaccine, and they're saying they're sorry they didn't take it. Well, that's a story that really could impact how people were saying I'm not going to take this vaccine think because it's people like them. And they realize that they could be worried if they were going to be in that ICU. That's who people would trust, and it would have to be local.
And that's why the decision of the 60 medical organizations to recommend health organizations requiring their employees to absolutely take the vaccine has a chance of having a big secondary effect. And these are all organizations that have local in-community hospitals, clinics, medical groups. And as they try to move their own employees forward, they are going to have an educational effect, and they're not going to be seen as anything to do with Washington.
SNELL: So you believe that those changes will drive regular everyday people who might not have the vaccine to go and then get the shot?
BLENDON: Yes. And they'll hear about it locally. And it'll be their voices - Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi - saying you just can't come to our hospital. You're endangering people's lives. And it will be a local voice of clinicians, and they're likely to have people dealing with the critically ill. And I emphasize this all the time. You want to talk about those who get critically ill.
It's like, again, when I was a child, most people with polio did not end up in an iron lung. But for parents, that picture, it could be your child, had a staggering impact on them. But we're now pushing a vaccine on people who aren't sure they're at risk of dying here. And that's where the message has to change. And it has to come from people who you trust for medical advice, which means if I live in Nashville, it's going to be a physician and nurse at institutions I go to that tell me this.
SNELL: That was Dr. Robert Blendon. He's professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard University. Thank you so much for being with us.
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So he did his part to keep himself and his community safe: mostly stayed home, wore his mask and had only a close group of people he interacted with.
He got vaccinated as soon as he could and was enjoying a return to the normalcy he had longed for. As Covid-19 vaccinations climbed in the spring and cases plummeted, local and state leaders did away with mandates and restrictions meant to curb the spread of the virus. Experts touted that Americans who got their shots could cautiously return to pre-pandemic activities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced fully vaccinated people could -- finally -- shed their masks.
"I was one of those people, the second the CDC said vaccinated people don't need masks outdoors or indoors, I was like 'Hallelujah,'" McCullough told CNN.
But with Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations now surging again and officials across the US suddenly reimposing restrictions after a summer of semi normalcy, McCullough and many other vaccinated Americans are becoming increasingly angry at those who are refusing the shot.
"I did what I had to do," McCullough told CNN. "Now, these people who are making this selfish decision are going to make me suffer the consequences."
In Alabama -- the least vaccinated state in the country -- Gov. Kay Ivey called out residents who are refusing to get their shots, saying "it's time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks" for the rise in cases in her state.
In Alexandria, where McCullough lives, roughly 58.4% of residents 12 and older are fully vaccinated. The city was "elevated to a state of substantial COVID-19 community transmission," according to a city news release. Health officials there are urging residents to wear masks in public indoor settings. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam made the same recommendation to residents Thursday, adding that "getting vaccinated is the surest way we can bring this pandemic to an end."
McCullough says he's now back to bringing his mask with him when he goes out and worries his community could soon face a fresh round of strict restrictions.
"The repercussions are going to fall on people like me, that took responsibility," he said. "And that's infuriating."
'It just feels like it's not going to end'
Roughly 57.4% of the US population has received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine and roughly 49.5% is fully vaccinated, according to CDC data. Much like face masks, the vaccines became highly politicized in some parts of the country, resulting in vastly different coverage rates. And vaccine hesitancy and refusal were fueled by misinformation and falsehoods that continue to run rampant online.
Average Covid-19 hospitalization rates are nearly three times higher among states that have fully vaccinated less than half of their residents compared to the average among those that have vaccinated more than half, a CNN analysis of federal data found. And Covid-19 case and death rates over the past week were on average more than twice as high among states that have vaccinated less than half of their residents.
President Joe Biden this week said the pandemic rages on "because of the unvaccinated."
"If you're not vaccinated, you're not nearly as smart as I thought you were," Biden said.
Tim Hildreth, 39, who lives in nearby Powder Springs, said it's frustrating to feel like he's slipping back out of the normalcy that he briefly got a taste of after he was vaccinated.
"I'm done with these mandates to protect people who won't go out of their way to do it themselves," Hildreth said.
He said he worked from home during the pandemic, and his young daughter was always masked up when she went to school. Hildreth got the vaccine because he was eager to go back to a pre-pandemic lifestyle and be able to attend concerts and sports events.
But now, amid a fresh surge, he says, "it just feels like it's not going to end."
Expert: It makes sense to be angry with returning guidelines
Experts say it's expected many will feel angry with returning mask measures.
"It's very hard to pull the finish line away from somebody when it feels like they finally have the ribbon at the end in sight," American Psychological Association chief science officer Mitch Prinstein told CNN.
"I think we can also understand the anger in the context of exhaustion, anxiety, uncertainty, and you know, a serious division of ideology too," Prinstein added. "These factors are very real and very concerning right now."
Jenny Tolford, who lives in a rural northern California community, said the thought of not being able to go back to normal any time soon is "exhausting."
"It looked like we were starting to get a handle on it," Tolford said. "It's just frustrating, it's exhausting, to feel like we're just going backwards and we're just kind of, now it just seems like, we're just circling the drain."
Tolford said that while she has gotten the vaccine, Covid-19 measures and vaccinations are a point of division in the largely conservative community she lives in. There are residents who will "shame you for wearing a mask," she said, and others who have gotten the vaccine "talk quietly about it."
Covid-19 vaccine refusal has grown among far-right Republicans in the past few months, according to survey data published Wednesday by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Interfaith Youth Core. About 46% of Republicans who most trust far-right news said they will refuse to get vaccinated, up from 31% who said the same in March.
Refusal to get vaccinations in her community, Tolford said, is being fueled by misinformation on social media.
'That's not freedom'
While Tolford said she understands people's feelings about being forced to take a shot, she said a lot of people view their decision to refuse as a "Constitutional-like freedom," when, really, it's a communal public health issue.
"Why should those who don't seem to want to do what's best for the public now get to just benefit from being open again, while they also just spread Delta variant around?" she said.
"Those of us who got vaccinated, we want to live our lives," Tolford said. "The way to do it was to get vaccinated and we've done it and now you guys still don't want to put other people first and put the greater good of society first, so maybe you guys need to just go stay home. Maybe it's time for you guys not to be able to do everything because you don't want to participate."
Tolford said she supports the idea of vaccine passports and would also support vaccines being mandated by employers. Some companies -- including Google and Facebook -- have already announced vaccine requirements for their employees. President Biden announced on Thursday a requirement that all federal employees be vaccinated against Covid-19 or face strict protocols.
Hildreth and McCullough also support the idea of businesses mandating vaccines.
"Personal liberty is really exaggerated in this country, to the point where people are just flat out being put in danger," McCullough said. "That people think that they have this authority, and this autonomy, to just put others at risk, is infuriating."
He said he worries about the virus continuing to mutate and eventually becoming much worse than the current circulating variants.
"It's not freedom that you make this decision that then impacts my freedom," he said. "That's not freedom one bit."
CNN's Jen Christensen and Deidre McPhillips contributed to this report.
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ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Florida reported 21,683 new cases of COVID-19, the state’s highest one-day total since the start of the pandemic, according to federal health data released Saturday, as its theme park resorts again started asking visitors to wear masks indoors.
The state has become the new national epicenter for the virus, accounting for around a fifth of all new cases in the U.S. as the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus continues to spread.
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has resisted mandatory mask mandates and vaccine requirements, and along with the state Legislature, has limited local officials’ ability to impose restrictions meant to stop the spread of COVID-19. DeSantis on Friday barred school districts from requiring students to wear masks when classes resume next month.
The latest numbers were recorded on Friday and released on Saturday on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website. The figures show how quickly the number of cases is rising in the Sunshine State: only a day earlier, Florida reported 17,093 new daily cases. The previous peak in Florida had been 19,334 cases reported on Jan. 7, before the availability of vaccinations became widespread.
The state reported 409 deaths this week, bringing the total to more than 39,000 since its first in March 2020. The state’s peak happened in mid-August 2020, when 1,266 people died over a seven-day period. Deaths usually follow increases in hospitalizations by a few weeks.
DeSantis has blamed the surge on a seasonal increase — more Floridians are indoors because of the hot weather with air conditioning circulating the virus. About 60% of Floridians 12 and older are vaccinated, ranking it about midway among the states.
The Florida Hospital Association said Friday that statewide COVID-19 hospitalizations are nearing last year’s peak, and one of the state’s largest health care systems, AdventHealth’s Central Florida Division, this week advised it would no longer be conducting nonemergency surgeries in order to free up resources for COVID-19 patients.
Universal Orlando Resort and SeaWorld on Saturday became the latest theme park resorts in Florida to again ask visitors to wear masks indoors, with Universal also ordering its employees to wear face coverings to protect against COVID-19, which has been surging across the state.
All workers at Universal’s Florida park on Saturday started being required to wear masks while indoors as the employees returned to practicing social distancing. The home to Harry Potter and Despicable Me rides also asked visitors to follow federal and local health guidelines by voluntarily wearing face coverings indoors.
“The health and safety of our guests and team members is always our top priority,” Universal said in a statement.
Health officials on Friday announced that coronavirus cases in Florida had jumped 50% over the past week with COVID-19 hospitalizations in the state nearing last year’s peak.
SeaWorld on Saturday posted on its website that it was recommending that visitors follow recently updated federal recommendations and wear face coverings while indoors.
The change in policy this week at the theme park resorts came after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that everyone wear masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status.
Crosstown rival Walt Disney World started requiring employees and guests older than 2 to wear masks on Friday, but it also went a step further. The Walt Disney Co. said in a statement that it will be requiring all salaried and non-union hourly employees in the U.S. who work on site to be fully vaccinated.
Disney employees who aren’t already vaccinated will have 60 days to do so and those still working from home will need to show proof of vaccination before returning. Disney said it was discussing the vaccine requirements with the union, and added that all new hires will be required to be fully vaccinated before starting work at the company.
Ayana Campbell, 14, received a Covid shot at Jackson State University in Mississippi on Tuesday.Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press
Vaccinations are rising in U.S. states where lagging demand left entire regions vulnerable to a Delta-driven surge of coronavirus cases. The shift offers a sign of hope, even as the country’s known cases since the start of the pandemic surpassed 35 million on Saturday.
For the third consecutive week, states with the highest number of coronavirus cases also had the highest vaccination rates, Karine Jean-Pierre, the deputy White House press secretary, said on Friday.
In Mississippi, where 44 percent of adults have been fully vaccinated, the seven-day average of people receiving a first dose was 5,203 on July 27, more than triple the average from July 1, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The same pattern is in play for other less vaccinated states where infections are surging. From July 1 to July 28, Louisiana almost quadrupled its seven-day average of administered first doses. And in Missouri, where the Delta variant spurred an outbreak in early July, the number of first doses administered daily almost doubled over a month.
More than 850,000 shots were recorded on Friday, raising the daily national average to more than 650,000 from about 500,000 three weeks ago. But the overall rate is less than a fifth of the U.S. peak average of 3.4 million shots, reached in mid-April.
The C.D.C. said on Friday that about 190.5 million people had received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, and about 164.2 million people were fully vaccinated, some by Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine but many more by the two-dose series made by Pfizer-BioNTech and by Moderna.
That still leaves more than half the country not fully vaccinated, including about 48 million children under 12, who are not eligible. Only full vaccination affords high protection from severe disease if someone infected with the Delta variant.
The national outlook is quickly worsening. Louisiana, which was averaging fewer than 400 cases a day at the start of July, is now averaging more than 4,100 cases a day, the most ever. The county that includes Jacksonville, Fla., is averaging almost 1,200 cases a day.
As a whole, daily case reports in the United States have risen 150 percent over the past two weeks, pushing the known pandemic total past 35 million.
Between 75 and 80 percent of staff members who tested positive for the coronavirus at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital were fully vaccinated. Jeff Chiu/Associated Press
At least 233 staff members at two major San Francisco hospitals, most of them fully vaccinated, tested positive for the coronavirus this month, and most, according to a hospital official, involved the highly contagious Delta variant.
Some of the cases were asymptomatic, most involved mild to moderate symptoms and only two required hospitalization, officials said. The infections were determined to be Delta-related because most samples in San Francisco were tested for the variant, which is now dominant in the city.
About 75 to 80 percent of the more than 50 staff members infected at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital were fully vaccinated, Dr. Lukejohn Day, the hospital’s chief medical officer, said in an interview on Saturday. The University of California, San Francisco Medical Center said in a statement issued on Friday that 153 of its 183 infected staff members had been fully vaccinated.
The statement from the U.C.S.F. Medical Center said that two of the infected staff members required hospitalization. None of the infected staff members at San Francisco General have been hospitalized and most had mild to moderate symptoms, Dr. Day said. The asymptomatic cases were discovered through contact tracing.
Without vaccinations, Dr. Day said, the hospitalization rate would be much worse.
“We’re concerned right now that we’re on the rise of a surge here in San Francisco and the Bay Area,” Dr. Day said. “But what we’re seeing is very much what the data from the vaccines showed us: You can still get Covid, potentially. But if you do get it, it’s not severe at all.”
On July 11, San Francisco ordered that workers in high-risk workplaces, including hospitals, be vaccinated by Sept. 15. The U.C.S.F. statement said that the hospital was “doubling down on our efforts to protect our staff. This includes requiring all employees and trainees to comply with the new UC-systemwide Covid-19 vaccination mandate, with limited exceptions for medical or religious exemptions.”
Staff members at both hospitals have continued to wear personal protective equipment, Dr. Day said. But the number of staff infections reported in July is about as many as during the peak of the winter surge.
“We’re nervous that we could potentially exceed it,” Dr. Day said.
The highly contagious Delta variant is now responsible for almost all new Covid-19 cases in the United States, and cases are rising rapidly. On Tuesday, for the first time since February, the country logged more than 100,000 confirmed cases.
Many places in the United States with some of the country’s lowest vaccination rates are seeing more new cases than at any point in the outbreak. For example, the areas encompassing Branson, Mo., and Harrison, Ark., have set records this month, and Louisiana now has daily case rates more than 10 times higher than in June.
A new internal report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited evidence that vaccinated people experiencing breakthrough infections of the Delta variant, which remain infrequent, may be as capable of spreading the virus as infected unvaccinated people.
Vaccines remain effective against the Delta variant, particularly against hospitalization and death. About 97 percent of those recently hospitalized by the virus were unvaccinated, the C.D.C. said.
Demonstrators in Paris protested against France’s health pass and other coronavirus protocols on Saturday. Similar protests took place in other cities, including Marseille, Rennes and Strasbourg.Alain Jocard/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
PARIS — Pascale Collino, 64, is far more afraid of the Covid-19 vaccines than of the disease itself. So when the French government decided to implement a new health pass policy barring those without proof of vaccination or a recent negative test from many indoor venues, she took to the streets in protest.
“We have to be on the front-lines of this fight,” Ms. Collino said on Saturday near the French health ministry in Paris, where a large crowd had converged, banging pots and cowbells.
For the third week in a row, thousands took to streets around France to protest against the government’s health pass law, which was passed by Parliament recently but still needs a final greenlight from a top constitutional council, expected next week, before it can be fully enforced.
The protests come as authorities try to stem a new wave of infections that is starting to put pressure on France’s hospitals, where 85 percent of Covid-19 patients are unvaccinated, according to a government report published this week.
Over 200,000 people marched in Paris, where 3,000 police officers were deployed, and in other cities, including Marseille, Rennes and Strasbourg, according to the French interior ministry. The growing size of the protests from week to week and their motley mix of demonstrators have become an increasing source of concern for the government.
The demonstrators are united in their distrust of the media and of President Emmanuel Macron’s government, but that is where the similarity ends. They include far-right and far-left activists, Yellow Vest members and vaccine conspiracy theorists, as well as vaccinated people who argue that the health pass is oppressive and unfair. They also encompass families angry over new rules dictating that unvaccinated middle and high school students, but not vaccinated ones, will be sent home if a coronavirus infection case is detected in their class.
One march that started in northern Paris ended with violence on the Place de la Bastille, where some protesters set trash cans on fire and threw projectiles at riot police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons.
Around France, three police officers were injured, and 19 people were arrested, the interior minister said.
In southern Paris, Ms. Collino, maskless and carrying a French flag, said she was angry that health workers were forced to get vaccinated by this fall, and that access to bars, restaurants, movie theaters, museums, gyms and other indoor venues would be restricted.
Around her, families waved French flags and protesters shouted “freedom” and “resistance” while carrying makeshift cardboard signs with slogans like “Don’t give in to blackmail” or “No to segregation.”
When the protesters passed a statue of Louis Pasteur, the renowned 19th-century French scientist credited with discovering the principles of vaccination, few seemed to take notice. One elderly man, who was walking past the demonstrators, did. “Pasteur must be turning over in his grave,” he grumbled.
The march there was organized by Florian Philippot, a former member of the far-right National Rally party who has become a figurehead of the anti-health pass movement. Two video journalists for the Agence France-Presse left the march after protesters insulted them, spat on them and prevented them from filming, the agency reported.
“We no longer have the freedom to seek the treatment that we want,” said Ms. Collino, a retired I.T. specialist who lives in the nearby town of Sèvres. She did not trust officials to tell the truth about vaccines and said that she had taken it upon herself to seek out information about the pandemic online.
Her attitude, however, has isolated her from some friends and family who favor the health pass policy, as do a majority of French people, according to recent polls. Millions have rushed to get their Covid shots since the pass was announced. But Ms. Collino said she would rather die than get vaccinated.
“I don’t understand why they are in favor while I’m against,” she said.
A coronavirus testing clinic at a high school in Brisbane, Australia, on Saturday.Jono Searle/Getty Images
Parts of the Australian state of Queensland entered an emergency three-day lockdown on Saturday after authorities found six cases of the coronavirus, the latest setback to the country’s efforts to get the highly infectious Delta variant under control.
The lockdown covers Brisbane, Australia’s third-largest city, and surrounding areas, and is the strictest that officials have imposed. Nonessential businesses were ordered to close, and residents prohibited from having visitors or traveling more than about six miles from home.
“I know that the news of a snap lockdown may come as a shock to many families, but we know that this Delta virus is incredibly contagious, and we have to go hard and we have to go fast,” the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said on Twitter.
Cities and states in Australia have gone in and out of lockdown for several weeks as outbreaks driven by the Delta variant outpace the country’s sluggish vaccination effort.
Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales, reported another 210 cases of the Delta variant, bringing the total number of infections in its accelerating outbreak to more than 3,000. Of the cases reported on Saturday, nearly two-thirds were in people younger than 40, health officials said.
A weekslong lockdown in greater Sydney, where the state’s cluster is centered, has been extended until Aug. 28. On Saturday, a week after a demonstration against the lockdown led to dozens of arrests, police set up checkpoints and enforced a no-go zone in central Sydney to deter plans for a follow-up demonstration.
About 300 Australian troops also began deploying to New South Wales to help enforce the lockdown. A statement from Australia’s defense department said the soldiers would help state police ensure that residents were following stay-at-home directives.
Other countries in the Asia Pacific region have also tightened restrictions in recent days in response to surges of the Delta variant. Japan on Friday expanded a state of emergency to four more areas in addition to Tokyo, and said that the measures in the capital would be in place at least until the end of August. Authorities in the Philippines said that the capital, Manila, would enter a strict two-week lockdown beginning Aug. 6.
In China, as an outbreak of the Delta variant spread on Saturday to Fujian province and the city of Chongqing, authorities were conducting mass testing in several provinces. Only about 200 cases have been found so far across the country, but it is the largest outbreak in China in months.
A commuter wearing a face mask arriving in downtown Chicago on Tuesday.Scott Olson/Getty Images
What a difference a week makes. In just a few days, state and local authorities have imposed mask mandates, companies have put off returning workers to their offices, and the federal government and the military have pressured their employees to get vaccinated.
It started on Tuesday when the federal health officials reversed themselves and recommended that even people fully vaccinated against the coronavirus should wear masks again in public indoor spaces in parts of the country where the highly contagious Delta variant of the virus has been surging. They also said everyone in public schools should wear a mask, sparking heated debates across the country.
Some state and local governments, schools and businesses scrambled to follow the new guidelines, while others defiantly declared they would not. On Friday, Cornell University directed all faculty, staff, students and visitors to wear masks inside campus buildings and facilities, while Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed an executive order giving parents the final say on whether their children wear masks in school.
By Friday, government documents leaked to the media had painted a grim picture of the Delta variant as more contagious, more likely to cause severe illness and more able to break through vaccines than other known versions of the virus. One document said officials must recognize that “the war has changed.”
“This virus is in the driver’s seat and we are chasing it,” said Dr. Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington and former C.D.C. scientist. “The only way we stay ahead of it is through vaccination and wearing a mask. If we don’t, we will always be catching up.”
It was a sharp turnaround from the national mood in early July, when President Biden had promised Americans that a more normal life would resume in time for Independence Day parties, describing the holiday as the start of a “summer of freedom.” Instead, in one episode in Provincetown, Mass., an outbreak that began after the town’s Fourth of July festivities has grown to more than 880 cases — almost three-quarters of them among fully vaccinated people.
In recent days, Atlanta and St. Louis have reissued mask mandates that apply to teens and adults. An indoor mask mandate will be reimposed in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. Nevada’s new mask mandate went into effect on Friday for counties with substantial or high transmission, which includes Las Vegas. The mandate in Kansas City will resume on Monday.
Both New York City and Los Angeles, the nation’s two biggest public school systems, had previously announced they would maintain universal masking policies. This week, The Los Angeles Unified School District took precautions further and announced that weekly coronavirus testing would be required for in-person instruction.
Vaccines are effective against the worst outcomes of infection, even with the variant, reducing the risk of death. But the lagging vaccination effort has fallen behind the ever-evolving virus. Fewer than half of adults are fully vaccinated.
This week, vaccine mandates gained momentum. Mr. Biden announced Thursday that all civilian federal employees must be vaccinated against the coronavirus or be forced to submit to regular testing, social distancing, mask requirements and restrictions on most travel. The Pentagon announced a similar vaccine policy hours later. New York, California, Puerto Rico and others followed suit.
Employers held off for months on making decisions about vaccine mandates, worried about legal and political pushback. But this week ushered in a steady stream of announcements from Walmart, the Walt Disney Company, Google, Facebook, Uber and others introducing new requirements that some employees be vaccinated. And The New York Times indefinitely delayed its return to office, which had been scheduled for September.
“Once you get a little momentum, you get a sort of tidal wave,” said Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, who was a member of Mr. Biden’s Covid-19 Advisory Board during the transition between presidential administrations.
Over the past week, more than 77,200 coronavirus cases, on average, have been reported each day, up 150 percent from two weeks ago, according to a New York Times database. Reported new deaths are up 10 percent, to an average of 301 per day for the past week. Hospitalizations are up, to an average of roughly 39,400 per day, a 74 percent increase from two weeks ago.
Experts predicted that cases would peak around mid-August, and that there would be new surges tied to a return to schools and the holiday season this winter.
An electronic information board warning of a “variant of concern” circulating in Blackburn, England.Oli Scarff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The spread of the super-contagious Delta variant has prompted new restrictions around the world and spurred stark new warnings from public health officials.
“It is one of the most infectious respiratory viruses we know of and that I have seen in my 20-year career,” Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said last week.
The variant is as transmissible as chickenpox — meaning far more than the common cold virus, SARS, smallpox and seasonal flu. And even though the vaccines still provide strong protection against severe illness and death, fully vaccinated people can still be infected by and transmit Delta to others, according to an internal C.D.C. document obtained by The New York Times.
Fatality rate
(log scale)
More
deadly
1918 “Spanish” flu
Spreads faster
Delta variant
More transmissible than Ebola or smallpox, and as contagious as chickenpox.
Original
version of
coronavirus
Seasonal
flu
Chickenpox
Common cold
Average number of people infected by each sick person
Fatality rate
(log scale)
More
deadly
1918 “Spanish” flu
Spreads faster
Delta variant
More transmissible than Ebola or smallpox, and as contagious as chickenpox.
Original version of corona-
virus
Seasonal
flu
Common
cold
Chickenpox
Average number of people infected by each sick person
Fatality rate
(log scale)
More
deadly
Spreads faster
1918 “Spanish” flu
Delta
variant
As infectious as chickenpox.
Original
version of
coronavirus
Seasonal
flu
Common
cold
Chickenpox
Avg. number of people infected by each sick person
Here are answers to some common questions about the Delta variant.
Why are people worried about the Delta variant?
Delta, formally known as B.1.617.2, is believed to be the most transmissible variant yet. It is believed to be roughly twice as contagious as the original virus. An internal C.D.C. document, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, said that Delta was as transmissible as chickenpox.
People who are infected by Delta may carry 1,000 times more virus, and for a longer period of time, than those infected by the original virus. Other evidence suggests that the variant may be able to partially evade the antibodies made by the immune system after a coronavirus infection or vaccination.
Where is it spreading?
Delta has been reported in 182 countries, and is now the most common variant in many of them. Over the past month, infections have nearly doubled in most regions of the world, the W.H.O. said at a news briefing on Friday.
Delta was first identified in the United States in March. It spread quickly. In early April, Delta represented just 0.1 percent of cases in the United States. The C.D.C. now estimates that the number has hit 82.2 percent.
If I’m vaccinated, do I need to worry about getting sick?
There is not yet good data on how all of the vaccines hold up against Delta, but two doses of several widely used shots, including those made by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca, appear to retain most of their effectiveness against the Delta variant, research suggests.
Delta may cause more frequent infections in people who have been fully vaccinated than other variants. However, these infections tend to be mild or asymptomatic. The vaccines prevent more than 90 percent of severe disease, the C.D.C. document notes.
If I’m vaccinated, can I transmit Delta?
The C.D.C. believes it’s possible. Although vaccinated people are less likely to become infected by Delta than those who are unvaccinated, those who do contract the virus may carry just as much of the virus in their noses and throats as unvaccinated people, Dr. Walensky said this week.
“Delta variant vaccine breakthrough cases may be as transmissible as unvaccinated cases,” the internal C.D.C. document said.
Will Delta return us to last year’s pandemic peak?
After a long and steady decline, cases are on the rise again in the United States, likely fueled by Delta. Roughly 71,000 new infections are reported each day, up from about 11,000 a day a little over a month ago.
But case numbers remain far below last winter’s peak, and experts do not expect them to rise that high again. However, Delta is driving outbreaks in areas where vaccination rates are low.
What can I do?
Get vaccinated. Inoculation is likely to slow the spread of variants and reduce the odds that more dangerous variants emerge. Face masks can provide additional protection.
Researchers at Wuhan University sequenced short stretches of the coronavirus from early cases. Some of those genetic sequences then went missing.Roman Pilipey/EPA, via Shutterstock
A batch of early coronavirus data from China that went missing for a year — prompting questions about whether they had been purposely deleted — has emerged from hiding.
Last month an American scientist discovered that more than 200 genetic sequences from Covid-19 patient samples isolated in Wuhan, China, early in the pandemic had puzzlingly been removed from an online database.
A Seattle virologist, Jesse Bloom, managed to track down 13 of the sequences on Google Cloud. In an online report, he wrote that it “seems likely that the sequences were deleted to obscure their existence.”
But now an odd explanation has emerged, stemming from an editorial oversight by a German scientific journal called Small. And the sequences have been uploaded into a different database, overseen by the Chinese government.
The story began in early 2020, when researchers at Wuhan University sequenced a short stretch of genetic material from virus samples at a Wuhan hospital.
They posted their findings online in March 2020 and uploaded the sequences to an online database maintained by the National Institutes of Health. Their results were published in June 2020 in Small.
But a year later, Dr. Bloom, who was researching the origin of Covid-19, could not find the sequences in the database, and the N.I.H. said the authors of the study had asked that the data be withdrawn.
On July 5, more than a year after the Wuhan University researchers withdrew the sequences from the N.I.H. database and two weeks after Dr. Bloom’s report was published, the sequences were quietly uploaded to a different database maintained by China National Center for Bioinformation.
On July 21, the disappearance of the sequences was brought up during a news conference in Beijing, where Chinese officials rejected claims that the pandemic started as a lab leak. A high-ranking Chinese health official, Dr. Zeng Yixin, said the authors had asked for the data to be removed after editors at Small deleted a paragraph in which they were described.
An editor at Small, which specializes in science at the micro and nano scale and is based in Germany, confirmed that account.
On their own, the sequences can’t resolve the open questions about how the pandemic originated, whether through a contact with a wild animal, a leak from a lab or some other route.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s director general, said a worldwide rise in Covid-19 cases has disparately impacted poorer countries with lower vaccination rates, and that deaths in Africa have spiked 80 percent in four weeks.Leo Correa/Associated Press
Confirmed coronavirus infections have jumped in much of the world, and deaths from the disease in Africa have increased by 80 percent over the last four weeks, the director-general of the World Health Organization said on Friday.
The continued spread of the virus and its variants, and its disparate impact on poorer countries with lower rates of vaccination, reflect a global failure, said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“The pandemic will end when the world chooses to end it,” he said at a news conference. “It is in our hands. We have all the tools we need. We can prevent this disease, we can test for it, and we can treat it.”
Dr. Tedros said that nearly four million new infections had been reported to the W.H.O. in the past week, and the organization expected the world to surpass 200 million total known cases in the next two weeks. However, the totals are underestimates, because countries often undercount cases — sometimes by very large margins. The known global death toll of roughly 4.2 million is assumed to be similarly skewed.
The global spread of the virus is now largely driven by the highly transmissible Delta variant and worsened by inconsistent use of public health measures, increased social mixing and mobility, and the inequitable use of vaccines and other treatments, Dr. Tedros said.
“Hard-won gains are in jeopardy or being lost, and health systems in many countries are being overwhelmed,” he said.
Things are still not as bad as they were not long ago; more than 500,000 new cases are being recorded daily, compared with more than 800,000 three months ago, according to data from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Vaccination rates range greatly, from more than 80 percent of adults in some countries to less than 1 percent in some of the world’s poorest nations, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford.
And even with increased vaccine production and more generous donations to Covax, a vaccine sharing initiative, meeting the needs of lower-income countries with large unvaccinated populations would be difficult, Dr. Tedros said.
“Many African countries have prepared well to roll out vaccines, but the vaccines have not arrived,” Dr. Tedros said, calling for a donation of $7.7 billion to a partnership for tests, treatments and vaccines, as well as more financing for Covax.
Carmele Ameda, a registered nurse, checked in on coronavirus patients at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami last week.Scott McIntyre for The New York Times
MIAMI — The resurgence of the coronavirus has burdened hospitals anew across the country, with a rush of patients fueled by the virus’s virulent Delta variant catching doctors off guard. Florida has reported the highest daily average hospitalizations in the nation, 36 for every 100,000 people over the past two weeks, according to data compiled by The New York Times. In Jacksonville, hospitals have more Covid patients than ever before, despite the availability of vaccines.
Health workers like Alix Zacharski, a nurse manager at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital, feel disbelief that they must endure another surge. She remains tired from the previous one. And she cannot get her head around having to treat patients the same age as her adult children who are gasping for breath because of a preventable infection.
Last year, Ms. Zacharski feared the unknown. Now she is armed with hard-earned knowledge from the past 14 months — and vaccinated, as a sticker on her hospital badge boasts. But the virus continues to move into uncharted territory.
“We are scared of seeing what we saw, and this time affecting the younger population,” she said. “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire career.”
Jackson, Florida’s largest public hospital, had 232 Covid-19 patients on Friday, still half the 485 it had on July 27, 2020, its pandemic peak. But a sharp rise in recent hospitalizations prompted administrators to limit visitors and warn that more stringent measures could soon be necessary.
Jackson has also admitted some vaccinated people, but almost all have been transplant patients with compromised immune systems.
Carlos Migoya, Jackson’s chief executive, said the vaccination rate among the hospital’s employees — 60 percent as of Thursday — was too low, a problem plaguing many hospitals, which have started to mandate the shots.
About 61 percent of Miami-Dade County residents are fully vaccinated, higher than the state average of 49 percent. Miami-Dade holds one of the highest vaccination rates among the nation’s large, socially vulnerable counties, those characterized by high poverty rates, crowded housing and poor access to transportation.
County health care workers going door to door to promote Covid-19 vaccines in Springfield, Mo., earlier this month.Jill Toyoshiba/The Kansas City Star, via Associated Press
The Covid-19 vaccination effort has become so polarized in Missouri that some people are responding to the state’s Delta-driven surge by trying to get shots in secret, a doctor there said.
In a video circulated by her employer, Dr. Priscilla A. Frase, a hospitalist and the chief medical information officer at Ozarks Healthcare in West Plains, Mo., said this month that several people had pleaded for anonymity when they came in to be vaccinated, and that some appeared to have made an effort to disguise themselves.
“I work closely with our pharmacists who are leading our vaccine efforts through our organization,” she said, “and one of them told me the other day that they had several people come in to get vaccinated who have tried to sort of disguise their appearance and even went so far as to say, ‘Please, please please, don’t let anyone know that I got this vaccine.’”
It was not clear how many people had tried to alter their appearance to avoid recognition, or how they had done so. Dr. Frase, who wore a mask in the video, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Some people, she said in the video, are “very concerned about how their people that they love, within their family and within their friendship circles and their work circles, are going to react if they found out that they got the vaccine.”
“Nobody should have to feel that kind of pressure to get something that they want, you know,” she added. “We should all be able to be free to do what we want to do, and that includes people who don’t want to get the vaccine as well as people who do want to get the vaccine. But we’ve got to stop ridiculing people that do or don’t want to get the vaccine.”
Missouri’s vaccination rate is lagging. According to a New York Times database, 41 percent of Missouri residents have been fully vaccinated, compared with more than 49 percent nationwide. In Howell County, Mo., where Ozarks Healthcare and Dr. Frase are based, only 20 percent of residents are fully vaccinated.
On Thursday, Missouri reached a seven-day average of nearly 2,500 new cases of Covid-19 — an increase of 39 percent over the previous two weeks. Hospitalizations were up 38 percent over the same period.
Roselyn Estampador, 65, who lost her son to Covid-19 in January, visits his room with her daughter, Jeneffer Haynes, 37.Rosem Morton for The New York Times
The coronavirus pandemic, which brought social-distancing measures that included restrictions on gatherings, had left millions of bereaved Americans unable to grieve with others for those they’ve lost — as of July, over 600,000 Americans have died from Covid.
Sheltering at home during the pandemic meant many went without a communal release of grief. Others felt cheated by online ceremonies devoid of touch, embraces and social connection. Postponed funerals, memorials and celebrations of life are now being held, with hopes that the gatherings will ease feelings of guilt and, at last, open a path for solace.
For Jeneffer Haynes of Gaithersburg, Md., losing her 30-year-old brother, John Estampador, to Covid-19 in January and having to be alone with her grief was “absolutely indescribable,” she said.
At the funeral in June, she had been asked to stand 10 feet away from his coffin and not embrace the few people there, including her mother, who cried: “Bye, John John. Bye, John John.”
Barbara Sabat said she needed to have a ceremony for her mother, Meryl, this summer in Bensalem, Pa., because if she did not, her feelings of regret would never subside. “I’m in grief purgatory,” she said.
And the country’s Delta-driven surge has raised the prospect of further postponements. Those who lost someone to Covid-19 are at an increased risk of developing prolonged grief disorder, in which a person’s bereavement is so intense that it disrupts day-to-day activities, experts said. The disorder, they added, affects about 10 percent of people who lose someone close to them.
Because the pandemic disproportionately killed Black people, Indigenous people and other people of color, prolonged grief disorder is likely to become more prevalent in those communities, which already lack adequate mental health resources, experts said.
“When you don’t have that process of a funeral, it can stunt your grieving,” said Kenneth Fowler, a traumatologist based in Tallahassee, Fla.
At least 26 Olympic athletes, including six from the United States, have tested positive for the coronavirus.Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
A cluster of coronavirus cases has emerged among police officers providing security at the Tokyo Games, sending 50 officers into quarantine as the Olympics reach their midway point and the city grapples with a surge of infections.
Kazuhiro Kimura, a spokesman for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, said that 14 officers who were assigned to guard Olympic competition venues had become infected and were in quarantine. Another 36 officers were identified as close contacts and also quarantined.
According to the police, four officers developed symptoms on July 23, the day of the opening ceremony. Officials did not disclose which venues the officers had been assigned to, but said that they wore masks while on duty and did not have contact with members of the public.
Tokyo 2020 organizers on Saturday reported 21 new infections among people credentialed for the Games, bringing the total number of reported cases connected to the Olympics to 246, including 26 athletes.
Athletes who have tested positive for the coronavirus
Scientists say that positive tests are expected with daily testing programs, even among the vaccinated. Little information on severity has been released, though public reports suggest that cases among athletes have generally been mild or asymptomatic. Some athletes who have tested positive have not been publicly identified.
July 30
Paula Reto
South Africa
Golf
South Africa
July 29
Germán Chiaraviglio
Track and field
Argentina
Sam Kendricks
United States
Track and field
United States
July 28
Bruno Rosetti
Rowing
Italy
July 27
Evangelia Platanioti
Artistic swimming
Greece
July 26
Jean-Julien Rojer
Netherlands
Tennis
Netherlands
July 25
Jon Rahm
Golf
Spain
July 24
Bryson DeChambeau
United States
Golf
United States
July 23
Finn Florijn
Netherlands
Rowing
Netherlands
Jelle Geens
Triathlon
Belgium
Tokyo and the rest of Japan are experiencing the worst surge of the pandemic. On Saturday, officials in Tokyo reported more than 4,000 new infections, the first time the city’s daily count had surpassed that figure.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced on Friday that the government would expand a state of emergency to four areas besides Tokyo, and that the restrictions in the capital would be extended until the end of August — past the conclusion of the Olympics and into the start of the Paralympic Games.
With only 28 percent of the population fully vaccinated, the highly contagious Delta variant has taken root in Japan. More than three-quarters of cases in Tokyo are now being caused by the variant, according to the health ministry.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan announced that the government would expand a state of emergency to other areas besides Tokyo, and that the restrictions in the capital would be extended until the end of August after the Olympics concludes.
