After an all-too-brief respite, the United States is again at a crossroads in the pandemic. The number of infections has ticked up — slowly at first, then swiftly — to 51,000 cases per day, on average, more than four times the rate a month ago. The country may again see overflowing hospitals, exhausted health care workers and thousands of needless deaths.
True, the speed and ferocity with which the delta variant is tearing through Asia, Europe, Africa and now North America has taken many experts by surprise. It now accounts for about 83% of the infections in the United States. And some number of vaccinated people will become infected. Breakthrough infections were expected to be vanishingly rare with the original virus, but recent data suggest they may be less so with the delta variant. It is roughly twice as contagious as the original coronavirus, and some early evidence hints that people infected with the variant carry the virus in much higher amounts.
After a brisk vaccination campaign in the spring, the pace has slowed to about 537,000 doses per day, according to data gathered by The New York Times. Some responsibility for the lag lies with the frank refusal of conservative leaders — often Republicans — to champion the vaccines. Politics is a driver for only some of these people, noted Dr. Richard Besser, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In New Jersey, where he lives, the rates vary drastically because of socioeconomic factors. In mostly white Princeton, 75% of adults are immunized, versus 45% in Trenton, just 14 miles away, which is heavily Black and Latino.
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