COVID-19 Hospitalizations, Cases Surge In US Southern States

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 10th August, 2021) The number of new hospitalizations and cases due to the novel coronavirus have surged in the US southern states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama.

"We saw the largest single-day increase in hospitalizations and have eclipsed our previous high of COVID hospitalizations," Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said on Monday.

Hutchinson said there are only eight Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds available in the state. He emphasized that vaccinations will help reduce the number of hospitalizations in the future.

Arkansas's health department reported that 103 people were hospitalized overnight in the state, bringing the total number of hospitalizations to 1,376.

Louisiana for a sixth day in a row reported record-high hospitalizations on Monday with 2,720 people currently in hospitals due to the disease, according to the state's health department.

Ninety-one percent of the patients hospitalized with COVID-19 are not fully vaccinated.

The Mississippi Department of Health on Monday reported 6,912 new cases of COVID-19 and 28 deaths; ninety-seven percent of all the new cases are in the unvaccinated. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves said the recent data suggests the Delta variant is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

The state of Florida and Alabama have also had record number of COVID-19 cases recently.

Florida has been hit the hardest in the Delta variant wave of infections. In the first week of August, the state reported 134,506 new coronavirus cases.