Young, Restless And Unvaccinated: Deadly Combination Driving COVID Surge In US

The latest leap in COVID-19 cases in the United States is fuelled by young, unvaccinated people who are increasingly occupying the coronavirus wards at local hospitals, say health experts.

"We're seeing more and more young people get into serious trouble, namely severe disease, requiring hospitalization and occasionally even tragic deaths in quite young people," said Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden.

Health experts think young people are restless and tired of restrictions. The increasing rate of vaccinations has fuelled their confidence into venturing out, thereby causing an uptick in cases.

"Cases are increasing nationally, and we are seeing this occur predominately in younger adults," said Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She attributed this to the rise in "youth sports and extracurricular activities" over the last four weeks.

States like Florida, Pennsylvania, and Maryland are seeing more young people in hospitals while Michigan leads in hospitalizations among younger and unvaccinated people.

In Michigan, COVID-19 hospitalizations have risen by more than 1,100 patients in the past week. As of Tuesday, 3,554 were hospitalized for confirmed or suspected cases.

Nearly half of new infections nationwide are in just five states: New York, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Together these states reported 44% of new cases (nearly 197,500 new cases) last week, said data by John Hopkins University. These five states account for just 22 percent of the U.S. population.

The surge is pronounced in Michigan, where the seven-day average of daily new infections reached 6,719 cases Sunday. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, however, said she does not plan to tighten restrictions.

On Wednesday, the U.S. recorded 79, 075 cases, taking the total number to 31,560,438 cases so far.

The situation has prompted some to seek additional vaccine doses to those places. However, the White House still stands by its policy of dividing vaccine doses among states based on population.

Meanwhile, a new variant of the coronavirus, first detected in India, was found in a patient in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The variant, which Indian media has dubbed “Double Mutant,” carries two mutations that allow it to latch itself onto cells and transmit at a faster rate. However, researchers have not yet determined whether the new variant is more infectious or is resistant to vaccines.

So far, 150 million coronavirus shots have been administered since Biden took office. About 40% of U.S. adults have now received at least one dose, says data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

White House senior adviser for COVID-19 response Andy Slavitt told CNN that the U.S. is on track to vaccinate half of all adults by the weekend with at least one COVID-19 shot.

"We do have to remember that there are 100 million-plus adults that still haven't been vaccinated," he added. Biden announced Tuesday that every adult in the country will be eligible to be vaccinated by April 19.