As the Delta variant continues to rip through regions of the US, the White House on Thursday announced that the states of Texas and Florida alone accounted for almost 40% of new Covid hospitalizations across the US last week.
In the deep south states of Louisiana and Mississippi, among the lowest vaccinated populations in the country, hospitals reached capacity this week as deaths began to climb and health officials warned the crisis would deepen into next week.
Just seven states, including Alabama, Arkansas and Missouri, accounted for about half of Covid hospitalizations in the US despite making up about a quarter of the population, according to the White House coronavirus taskforce coordinator, Jeff Zients.
All seven states have vaccination rates well below the national average.
During remarks on Thursday, Joe Biden praised frontline healthcare workers battling surging Covid patient populations.
“You know, our healthcare workers are heroes,” the president said. “They were the heroes when there was no vaccine. Many of them gave their lives trying to save others. And they’re heroes again with a vaccine. They’re doing their best to care for the people refusing to get vaccinated, unvaccinated folks who are being hospitalized and dying as a result of not being vaccinated.”
The comments came as the federal government authorized third doses of the Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines for certain people with weakened immune systems, while assuring that the vast majority of people who had received two shots were still fully protected. The move follows similar announcements in France, Germany and Israel.
Roughly 2.7% of US adults are immunocompromised, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including those who are organ transplant recipients, certain cancer patients and those with HIV.
“Today’s action allows doctors to boost immunity in certain immunocompromised individuals who need extra protection from Covid-19. As we’ve previously stated, other individuals who are fully vaccinated are adequately protected and do not need an additional dose of Covid-19 vaccine at this time,” said the acting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner, Dr Janet Woodcock.
Despite the Delta variant crisis, the Biden administration has found itself in an escalating war of words with some Republican state leaders, who have sought to ban mask-wearing in the areas most affected by rising cases.
The Florida governor, Ron De Santis, an ardent conservative who has sought to falsely link the rise in Covid cases with immigration at the US southern border, has issued a statewide order banning masks despite the surging cases and has threatened to financially penalise local school leaders if they seek to impose their own mandates.
In turn, the Biden administration has said it is exploring ways to compensate any schools that implement mandates, amid pushback from some of the largest school districts in the state.
On Thursday, Biden addressed the issue head on during his remarks and stated: “To the mayors, school superintendents, educators, local leaders who are standing up to the governors politicizing mask protection for our kids – thank you … Thank God that we have heroes like you, and I stand with you all.”
Meanwhile, a mask mandate in Nevada has drawn a federal lawsuit from attorneys seeking class-action status for claims that the constitutional rights of thousands of parents and children at Las Vegas-area schools are being violated.
The complaint filed on Thursday seeks an immediate court order to invalidate a directive Sisolak enacted last week that generally requires K-12 students and school employees in the Las Vegas and Reno areas to wear masks on buses and inside school buildings, regardless of vaccination status.
The Associated Press contributed reporting