'Pandemic of the unvaccinated': US Covid cases rising in all 50 states

The White House Covid Response team is warning Americans that the US outbreak is becoming "a pandemic of the unvaccinated" and nearly all hospital admissions and deaths are now among those who have not got their shots.

More than 160 million Americans are already vaccinated but Covid-19 is now surging in all 50 states, riding on the delta variant and slowing vaccination rates. Virus maps and models are awash in red. Emergency room physicians are wringing their hands over the mixed signals on masks earlier in the season.

The seven-day average of new cases is up nearly 70 percent over the last week, hospital admissions have climbed about 36 percent and deaths by 26 percent, according to data from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"There is a clear message that is coming through: 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," CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Friday.

Things are so grim in LA county that it has reinstated a mask mandate irrespective of vaccination status. Here, the coronavirus positivity rate has increased nearly 700 percent since last month. In the last week alone, 10 percent of all US counties have moved into "high transmission risk".

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US Government's top medical adviser, said about 100 countries have now been slammed by the Delta variant. According to Fauci, the "extraordinary surge" of the delta variant is now dominant in 50-70 percent of all US cases.

The "extreme vulnerability" of people who are not vaccinated will account for infections, hospitalizations, and, ultimately, deaths, Fauci warned. He pointed to lab studies and clinical effectiveness studies showing that all three US vaccines in the mix are 96 percent effective against hospitalization in case of the delta variant.

The US accounts for the world's highest Covid-19 toll, from the start of the pandemic. The virus has killed more than 608,700 people in the US alone, from the time it first arrived on the country's west coast in January 2020.