More than 3.8 million people have died from COVID-19 globally.
More than half of U.S. adults are now fully vaccinated.
COVID-19 cases remain high in some parts of the world, like India, where few people have been vaccinated.
Update on COVID-19 numbers
Globally, there have been more than 177.1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 3.8 million associated deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The United States has reported more than 33.5 million confirmed cases and more than 600,000 associated deaths.
Currently, more than 175.8 million people in the United States have received their first COVID-19 vaccine dose. More than 147.7 million people are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
6/17/21 1:39 p.m. PDT — Delta variant now variant of concern
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has declared that the delta variant, first detected in India, is now a variant of concern (VOC), meaning it poses a significant threat to unvaccinated people, reported NPR.
“A very recent data — literally yesterday and the day before — shows that, in fact, it is a more dangerous virus in the sense that it can potentially make people more severely ill,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), told NPR.
“So the combination of more transmissibility and a greater severity of disease appropriately prompted the CDC to elevate it to a variant of concern,” he said.
According to NPR, this virus variant is the most contagious yet, and the CDC estimates it may be responsible for nearly 10 percent of all new cases in the United States.
In certain western states, the delta variant may be responsible for nearly 20 percent of cases.
This risk has public health officials stressing the benefits of vaccination, which is shown to be highly effective against the delta variant.
“If you are vaccinated, you’re going to be protected, which is another very good reason to encourage people strongly to get vaccinated,” Fauci told NPR. “If you are not vaccinated, you are at risk of getting infected with the virus that now spreads more rapidly and gives more serious disease.”
Rising COVID-19 cases in England are driven by unvaccinated people
COVID-19 cases are rising exponentially across England and are driven by younger and mostly unvaccinated people, according to scientists, reported the Guardian.
According to the Guardian, a study commissioned by the U.K. government called the REACT study found that infections increased by 50 percent between May 20 and June 7, which coincided with the rise of the delta variant that now dominates in the United Kingdom.
“We observed that growth was being driven by younger age groups, with five-fold higher rates of swab-positivity among younger children (ages 5 to 12 years) and young adults (18 to 24 years) compared with those aged 65 years and older, and 2.5-fold higher rates among those below 50 years compared with those 50 years and above,” the study authors wrote.
The study authors added that their findings suggest that imminent expansion of the vaccine program to people ages 18 and above “should help substantially to reduce the overall growth of the epidemic.”