Health officials concerned holiday travel could cause spike in COVID-19 cases
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Health officials are concerned Labor Day travel could cause another spike in COVID-19 cases, especially among the unvaccinated population.
This comes as the start of the school year has brought an uptick in cases among children who are not vaccinated.
Dr. Nancy Tofil, the Director of the Division of Pediatric Critical Care at the UAB & Children's of Alabama said the Delta variant is hitting the unvaccinated population hard.
"Most are either unvaccinated or under the age of 12 and unable to get vaccinated," Tofil said. "The numbers have been three or four times what we were seeing last winter at its peak."
The CDC is warning people who are traveling to take caution during the holiday and has a warning to the unvaccinated population.
"If you are unvaccinated, we would recommend not traveling," CDC Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky said.
According to the CDC, the U.S. has averaged over 150,000 cases a day for the past week. This is an increase of nearly 5% compared to the previous week.
The Missouri State Dashboard reports the state averaging over 1,500 cases a day for the past seven days of data available. This data set is from Aug. 27 - Sept. 2.
The state has seen 38 COVID-19 deaths during this time period.
The State Vaccine Dashboard has seen an uptick in vaccine orders within the past month. The most recent Aug. 30 vaccine order was for 65,900 vaccines. The order was up over 40 thousand vaccines from the July 26 order of 20,560 vaccines.
According the the dashboard, 52.2% of Missourians have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine. Nearly 40% of kids between the ages of 12-17 have gotten vaccinated and 63.3% of adults are vaccinated.
