People who are vaccinated against Covid-19 are 11 times less likely to die of the disease a study published on Friday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. We have the scientific tools we need to turn the corner on this pandemic. Vaccination works and will protect us from the severe complications of Covid-19," CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Friday. Citing the study, Walensky said those who were unvaccinated were about four and a half times more likely to get Covid-19.With more than 75 million eligible Americans still not vaccinated, hospitals in many states overwhelmed and fears that cases could grow further in the fall, experts and officials are scrambling to slow the Covid-19 pandemic. "The one thing that we do know for sure... 160,000 cases a day is not where we want to be," the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Thursday. "
Unfortunately, that is where we are right now. "In mid-June, before the surge in cases driven by the more transmissible Delta variant, the US reached a seven-day average of about 11,000 new cases a day, according to Johns Hopkins University data. On Thursday, President Joe Biden outlined a plan that imposes stringent new vaccine rules on federal workers, large employers and health care staff requirements that could apply to as many as 100 million Americans. "We've been patient, but our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us," Biden said, his tone hardening toward Americans who still refuse to receive a vaccine despite ample evidence of their safety and full approval of one -- the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine -- from the US Food and Drug Administration. The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration are assessing the need for booster shots, and it is likely the elderly will be among the first to receive them when the Biden administration starts to roll them out later this month. More than 250,000 children had fresh cases of Covid-19 in the last week of August, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) said in a report published on Wednesday. This is the highest weekly rate of new paediatric cases since the Covid-19 pandemic began.