Vaccination Rates, Not Holiday Weekends, Are Now the Major Cause of COVID-19 Case Increases

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Smaller gatherings over the Labor Day weekend don’t appear to have had a major impact on COVID-19 cases. Ross Helen/Getty Images
  • COVID-19 cases in the United States have decreased during the past 2 weeks, although some states are becoming “hot spots.”
  • Experts say it doesn’t appear that travel and gatherings during the Labor Day weekend had a major impact on COVID-19 transmission.
  • They say low vaccination rates and large gatherings without mask mandates are bigger factors.

More National Guard troops are being dispatched to Kentucky hospitals this week as nearly 70 percent of the state’s 96 hospitals are facing severe staffing shortages after a sharp spike in COVID-19 admissions.

The state is considered a COVID-19 hotspot. New cases have averaged more than 4,000 per day the past week, with only about 51 percent of the state’s eligible residents are fully vaccinated.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear urged residents to get vaccinated and not count on getting monoclonal antibody treatments. He said that the federal government is dealing with supply shortages because of extraordinary demand for the antibody treatment.

“What this shortage ought to tell you is that if you’re unvaccinated and you get really sick, not only might there not be a bed in the hospital for you because they are so full, but that monoclonal antibody treatment might not be there for you either,” Beshear said.

Source: healthline