| The delta variant, a strain of COVID-19 believed to be more transmissible and dangerous than others, is likely to break out in some U.S. communities, one health expert says.
“It’s not going to be as pervasive,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, told CBS. “It’s going to hyper-regionalized. There’s certain pockets of the country where you’re going to have very dense outbreaks.”
Those pockets will be ones with low vaccination rates and low rates of prior infection, Gottlieb said, like in many rural and southern communities.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 46.1% of the total U.S. population has been vaccinated against COVID-19. Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Wyoming are among the states with the lowest vaccination rates, with less than 35% of their population fully vaccinated.
The national figure is far from the 70 to 85% of the population experts including Dr. Anthony Fauci estimated would likely need to become immune through vaccine or prior infection to control the virus’ spread — and with vaccine rates declining, some officials worry the U.S. will not get to that threshold.
Though the rate of vaccination may be slowing, Gottlieb said he’s optimistic that some unvaccinated Americans will soon make the decision to get the vaccine as they go back to work and school in the fall.
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