The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Wednesday the delta variant of the coronavirus accounts for more than 93 percent of all new COVID-19 cases in the country.
The CDC’s updated figures for the week ending July 31, show the delta variant, including its sub-lineages, all of which are classified as variants of concern, made up more than 93 percent of all U.S. cases during the last two weeks of July.
The variant accounts for even higher percentages in specific regions of the country. In the Midwest including Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, delta accounts for more than 98 percent of all cases.
In a region including North and South Dakota, Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming, the delta variant accounts for more than 95 percent of all cases.
The figures represent a rapid increase in the variant’s prevalence since the end of May, when it accounted for about three percent of all cases.
The CDC also says the daily average of new cases over the past week rose to 66,606 per day, from 40,597 the previous week, an increase of more than 64 percent.
While drastically lower than peaks of new cases at the height of the U.S. pandemic in January, when the U.S. saw almost 300,000 new cases per day, the latest surge in new cases is markedly higher than in May, when the daily average sank to just over 8,000 cases.
