Given current conditions, the U.S. is predicted to potentially see as many as 100,000 more COVID-19 deaths by the beginning of December.
Last week, a widely cited model from the University of Washington researchers showed a projection of 100,000 more deaths in the U.S. by Dec. 1. If that prediction turns out to be accurate, that would bring the total COVID-19 death count in the country to around 730,000.
President Biden’s chief medical advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, appeared on CNN’s State of the Union to share his thoughts on the model and to again urge those who are still refusing to get vaccinated to think of the collective good.
“What is going on now is both entirely predictable but entirely preventable,” Fauci said Sunday. “We know we have the wherewithal with vaccines to turn this around. The reason you see the numbers that are so alarming that you just gave is that we have around 80 million people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated who are not yet vaccinated. We could turn this around and we could do it efficiently and quickly if we could just get those people vaccinated.”
Current CDC data shows that about 173 million people in the U.S. (i.e. 52.3 percent of the total population) are currently fully vaccinated. Meanwhile, just under 62 percent of the total U.S. population has now received at least one dose.
Recent months have seen undervaccinated regions in the country putting up distressingly high COVID-19 infection numbers, due to the convergence of the Delta variant and a sustaining refusal from certain political leaders to earnestly promote vaccinations to their constituents. Instead, for example, you have preposterousness like this GOP congressman comparing vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.
A recent poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that roughly half of American workers support employers instituting vaccine mandates.
To secure your own vaccine appointment, hit this site to find the location nearest you.
