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But virus variants, particularly the delta variant, have been a major concern for many experts when it comes to those who are still not immune to the coronavirus.
The Midwest and the South lag behind in vaccination rates compared to coastal states, with Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Wyoming among the slowest.
In Missouri, where 43.4% of the total population is at least partially vaccinated, the delta variant is on the rise.
“We’ve seen a fivefold increase in patients hospitalized in less than four weeks. Our doctors describe them as younger and sicker. They often come to us later in the disease process, so we have fewer treatment options for them,” said Steve Edwards, CEO of CoxHealth, a system of hospitals and clinics in Missouri, told CNN on Friday.
About four weeks ago, he said, Edwards’ health system had been seeing about one death per week. However, for now, he said, one or two people die every day.
“We can’t pinpoint why one patient is doing poorly and the other doing well,” Edwards said. “There’s just something different about how this variant affects our patients’ immune system.”
He added that doctors are also struggling in determining the health paths of patients compared to January.
Edwards explained that while the low vaccination rate in southwestern Missouri, where his hospitals operate, is a contributing factor to the rise in cases, the delta variable also plays a large role in the increase.
“I think the delta version is what fuels this,” he said. “A large part of the South and the Midwest and a lot of places that have low vaccination rates — if you encounter a delta variant, you’re going to see a similar kind of patient increase as we’re starting to see now.”
As of Friday, 44.7% of the total US population was fully vaccinated while 53.1% had received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The good news is that the virus is almost “rare” in parts of the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, said CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Rayner.
“But in other parts of the country, like Missouri, it’s not like that at all,” Reiner said. “We have to really speed up the pace in the South, or we’ll see a lot of people die and they simply don’t need to die.”
There are other variables as well
The risks of a delta variable cannot be overstated.
The CDC began describing it as a different type of concern last week due to its potential to transmit more easily or cause more serious illness. Federal health officials also speculated that it might become the dominant strain in the United States.
But other variants have emerged in parts of the United States.
One of them is the gamma variant, also known as P.1, which quickly spread to dominate Brazil.
Gamma, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also classified as a variable of concern, has been detected in every state where the CDC contains different information. The latest tracking data shows that gamma prevalence is greater than 15% in multiple regions, including the West and Northeast.
“I’m very concerned about P.1,” said Dr. Scott Lindquist, a government epidemiologist for infectious diseases in Washington State.
“We’ve seen it all over the state of course, but we’re seeing it in some outbreaks in eastern Washington, and we’re seeing it in counties with low vaccination rates, and I’m very concerned about the role that page 1 plays. It’s going to take. It’s increased in this state.”
To date, none of the most common variants shows a significant ability to avoid the effects of full vaccination. But many of them have shown the ability, both in laboratories and in real life, to re-infect people who have recovered from a natural coronavirus infection and infect people who have only been partially vaccinated.
Vaccine experts agreed that fully vaccinated people with a strong and broad immune response should be concerned about the variants.
The gamma variant has become common in Rhode Island, making up 20% of all variants, according to Dr. Philip Chan, consultant medical director for the state Department of Health.
Meanwhile, the US Department of Health and Human Services has halted distribution of two Eli Lilly monoclonal antibody treatments in nine states, citing low efficacy against both Gamma and Delta variants. Those states are Rhode Island, Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the gamma variant “significantly reduces susceptibility” to nocturnal treatment and neutralization reduces post-infection and post-vaccine immunity.
Dr. Peter Hotez told CNN that antibody resistance is a major problem with this variant.
“If you haven’t been vaccinated or if you only receive one dose of the vaccine, you are at risk,” said Hotez, MD, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.
The potential effects of Covid-19 on the brain
A British study found that some people with Covid-19 experienced a loss of gray matter in the brain, particularly in areas that affect the sense of smell and taste.
The researchers, from the University of Oxford and Imperial College, compared brain scans of 782 people who volunteered as part of a larger study and who had MRI scans for three years — before and after the pandemic.
The study found that those who had contracted Covid-19 had evidence of brain cell loss compared to similar people who did not have the infection.
It is not yet clear what the results mean because the researchers did not provide details about the topics. The study has not been peer-reviewed, and is a preprint that has been published online.
The researchers noted that it was difficult to know whether the effect on smell and taste was a symptom of infection with the virus or due to the possible course of infection.
CNN’s Virginia Langmaid and Nadia Koonang contributed to this report.
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