COVID dip in five US states with lowest vaccination rates

Five least vaccinated states in the United States are seeing a dip in average daily COVID-19 cases over the last two weeks. West Virginia, which has the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rate in the US, with only 42% of its population fully inoculated, has seen its daily average of new cases fall by 7%, even though hospitalisations have climbed 6% over the last 14 days. Idaho, which is 45% fully vaccinated, has seen average cases fall by 24% over the last two weeks, along with a 9% drop in hospitalisations, according to data from the New York Times.

Wyoming and Alabama, both of which are 46% fully vaccinated, saw their case numbers drop by 48 and 41% respectively. Cornavirus-related hospitalisations in Wyoming are down 22%, but Alabama’s has risen by 1%.

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Mississippi, which has 47% of its population fully vaccinated, has seen its daily cases drop 41% over the last 14 days, while hospitalisations rose by 6%.

As of December 1, 197.8 million people have been fully vaccinated in the US.

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On Wednesday, the country reported its first case of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in a fully-vaccinated person in California who had returned from South Africa on November 22. The person had mild symptoms and was isolating, Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, told a White House press conference.

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“We know what we need to do to protect people: Get vaccinated if you’re not already vaccinated, get boosted if you’ve been vaccinated for more than six months with an mRNA or two months with J&J, and all the other things we’ve been talking about—getting your children vaccinated, masking in indoor congregate settings, etc,” Fauci said.

First detected in South Africa last month, the B.1.1.529 strain was renamed as Omicron by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on November 26 and flagged as a “variant of concern.”