US crosses milestone of 100,000 new coronavirus infections a day for a second time

The Covid-19 outbreak in the United States crossed 100,000 new confirmed daily infections on Saturday, a milestone last exceeded during the winter surge and driven by the highly transmissible delta variant and low vaccination rates in the South.

Health officials fear that cases, hospitalisations and deaths will continue to soar if more Americans do not embrace the vaccine. Nationwide, 50 per cent of residents are fully vaccinated and more than 70 per cent of adults have received at least one dose.

“Our models show that if we don’t (vaccinate people), we could be up to several hundred thousand cases a day, similar to our surge in early January,” Centres for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky said on CNN this week.

It took the US about nine months to cross 100,000 average daily cases in November before peaking at about 250,000 in early January. Cases bottomed out in June, averaging about 11,000 per day, but six weeks later the number is 107,143.

Hospitalisations and deaths are also increasing, though all are still below peaks seen early this year before vaccines became widely available. More than 44,000 Americans are currently hospitalised with Covid-19, according to the CDC, up 30 per cent in a week and nearly four times the number in June. More than 120,000 were hospitalised in January.