The director of the National Institutes of Health said the time is now for coronavirus vaccine holdouts to get the shot as case numbers spike nationwide.
Dr. Francis Collins, during an appearance Sunday on Fox News, also said masks are necessary again for everyone, regardless of vaccination status, as the delta variant of the coronavirus fuels stunning new surges in cases.
We’re in a world of hurt and it’s a critical juncture to try to do everything we can turn that around,” Collins said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the U.S. is now seeing roughly 130,000 new COVID-19 cases daily — a more than a 700% jump from early last month, Fox News reported.
Collins said he worries that the numbers haven’t bottomed out.
“I will be surprised if we don’t cross 200,000 cases a day in the next couple of weeks, and that heartbreaking considering we never thought we’d be back in that space again,” he said. “That was January-February, that shouldn’t be August. But here we are with delta variant, which is so contagious, and this heartbreaking situation where 90 million people are still unvaccinated who are sitting ducks for this virus and that’s the mess we’re in.”
As of Monday, only 50.7% of the U.S. population, or about 168 million people, are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, while roughly 40% of Americans have yet to receive at least one dose of a vaccine, according to CDC data.
