Once again running out of icu beds. Well bring you an indepth report out of the of texas. Plus, gymnastics superstar Simone Biles withdraws from two more olympic events. Well get the latest from tokyo. Live, from cnn center, this is cnn newsroom. With robyn curnow. So, hospitals around the u. S. Are beginning to strain as the Delta Variant affects more and more people. An average of 77,000 new cases are turning up daily and trending higher. Most of these cases are among people who are unvaccinated. The centers for Disease Control says delta is as contagious as chickenpox and can cause severe illness. Up like earlier variance, a single case of delta has the potential to infect many more people. Health experts say the unvaccinated are at risk, and right now, thats about half of americans. And new revelations about the Delta Variant have prompted a shift in policy at the cdc and White House, and its Driving A Push to get even more americans vaccinated. F Phil Mattingly has more. Reporter
Classrooms, many parents are worried that their children, who are too young to be vaccinated, will contract the virus. So in georgia, that fear has become a reality, just two days after starting their School Year, more than 100 students at one school in atlanta are now in quarantine after nine students and five staffers tested positive. So cnns Natasha Chen is following that story for us. Natasha, you have some Breaking News about what that school is now discussing. What have you learned . Reporter yeah, alisyn, just within the past hour, we got the update with the number of cases, as of this afternoon. As you mentioned, 14 total cases, more than A Hundred students in quarantine. And now, the drew Charter School behind us is discussing possibly having mandatory vaccination for staff. The head of school, peter mcknight, told me that about three quarters of the staff were are already vaccinated, but now theres discussion about whether to make that mandatory for all employees. Now, of the
And sars. And we now know that the Delta Variant does not just affect the unvaccinated. It is causing breakthrough cases among the vaccinated. This new data shows if you are infected, you can carry the same viral load in your Nose And Throat whether you are vaccinated or unvaccinated. And each infected person on average can infect 8 or 9 others. This Delta Variant causes more severe illness than earlier strains, so here is where being vaccinated really pays off. Vaccines still protect almost 100 against death and still roughly 96 against hospitalization. The cdc director, rochelle walensky, says she is not crying wolf here and other doctors agree. We Cant Pussyfoot around with this thing. We have to get more people vaccinated because this virus is better at its job than the original but its going to take a while to do that, even if were successful, so until then, we have to go back to more universal masking or else this thing is going to spread like wild fire. So we now know the reason
reporter: and it s a window of a virus that top government officials not was nearly under control. the study of 429 massachusetts residents infected in pr providence, massachusetts. 469 infected, the cdc calling it a pivotal discovery. but critically, the new data also underscoring the primary thrust of the administration s response. it s so darn important that everyone get vaccinate. reporter: among the participants in the study, zero died, five were hospitalized. making it clear that transmission is possible it remains the unvaccinated driving the surge in hospitalizations and deaths around the country. this is a much different variant than the one we dealt with previously. it s highly transmissible and it s causing a new wave in cases
Look at how quickly it spreads. you can see the models on your screen. this is compared to the original strain. and then there s that cluster in provincetown, massachusetts. 469 residents there got infected with covid in a july 4th outbreak. and of those, 74%, meaning 346 people, had been vaccinated. most of them did show covid symptoms, although no one died and only four people had to be hospitalized. well, so, what does this say about vaccines? the vaccines still are very effective against severe disease, hospitalization, and death, according to the cdc. and that s critical. as covid cases are surging again across the country, largely fueled, of course, by this delta variant, all of that red you re seeing, those are the viral hot spots right now. so while vaccinations are inching up, infections, hospitalizations, and deaths are rising, too.