ATLANTA (NewsNation Now) — As the U.S. grapples with the spread of the highly contagious COVID-19 delta variant, there are now new threats of an even worse strain: delta plus.
“The delta variant is currently the greatest threat in the U.S. in our attempt to eliminate COVID-19,” said top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci.
New data shows nearly all recent COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are in people who weren’t vaccinated and deaths per day now fall under 300. Officials say it’s a demonstration of how effective the vaccines are.
“I am concerned about the variant. I think we all should be concerned about the variant, but the fact of the matter is we’ve got access to vaccines that can protect us from these variants,” said Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
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Currently, about 63% of U.S. adults have received at least one shot and 53% are fully vaccinated.
But those numbers aren’t enough for President Joe Biden to meet his Independence Day vaccination target.
“We think it will take a few extra weeks to get to 70% of all adults with at least one shot,” said White House COVID-19 team response leader Jeff Zients.
The miss, according to officials, is largely due to vaccine hesitancy in young adults, aged 18-26.
“Every other day I’m contemplating, ‘Maybe I should just go get the darn thing,’ it really is something that I debate pretty much at least weekly,” said Andrew Leavitt on his hesitancy to receive the vaccination.