As the nation experiences a sudden peak in coronavirus cases, Florida, Texas and Missouri are home to 40% of the new patients identified, Yahoo News reports, with the Delta variant accounting for nearly seven out of eight new cases.
White House pandemic response coordinator Jeff Zients stated at a press briefing Thursday that 20% of new cases–one in five–come from Florida, where Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has drawn a line in the sand as an anti-public health standard-bearer in the GOP.
Zients added that “virtually all” hospitalizations and deaths — a full 97 percent — are among unvaccinated people. “The threat is now predominantly only to the unvaccinated,” he said.
DeSantis’s careless message, however, may be hitting an unwilling audience according to data Zients cited. Florida–along with Arkansas, Louisiana, Nevada and Missouri, where new cases are spiking–saw the rate of vaccinations rise faster than the national average.