The Delta variant is driving a surge in the coronavirus pandemic in the US as the Labor Day weekend begins, with new daily cases four times higher than they were a year ago despite rising vaccination rates.
On Friday, the national seven-day rolling average of daily new cases was nearly 163,000, an increase of more than 300 percent from Labor Day weekend 2020, according to a DailyMail.com analysis of Johns Hopkins data.
Hospitalizations also doubled, and deaths were up 80 percent from last Labor Day. The figures came despite 62 percent of the total US population now having received at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccine. Fifty-three percent of the population is fully vaccinated, the CDC says.
Vaccination does appear to be reducing deaths among the most vulnerable, however, with deaths and hospitalizations rising at a slower rate than overall cases.
All three measures remain well below their US peak in early January, and there are signs that the latest wave might be cresting, with the CDC estimating that more than 80 percent of the population now has immunity either through recovering from infection or getting vaccinated.
However, just as Delta shows signs of burning out, the concerning Mu variant has established a foothold in Los Angeles, as well as in Miami.
The Delta variant is driving a surge in the coronavirus pandemic in the US as the Labor Day weekend begins. Above, a doctor checks on a Covid patient inside the ICU at Adventist Health Glendale near Los Angeles on Wednesday
The Mu variant was first identified in Colombia and scientists still know little about it, but the variant does display mutations that make experts fear it could evade natural immunity and vaccines.
Mu, also known as B.1.621, 'has a constellation of mutations that indicate potential properties of immune escape,' according to a pandemic bulletin published by the WHO.
Its name comes from the Greek alphabet, which scientists are now using to name new variants as they emerge - including Delta.
On Friday, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health confirmed for the first time that it had tracked confirmed cases of the Mu variant in the area.
The department said that it had identified 167 Mu variant specimens in LA County between June 19 and August 21, with the majority of Mu specimens sequenced in July.
'The identification of variants like Mu, and the spreading of variants across the globe, highlights the need for L.A. County residents to continue to take measures to protect themselves and others,' said LA County Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd, Director of Public Health
'This is what makes getting vaccinated and layering protections so important,' added Ferrer.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Thursday that the United States is 'keeping a very close eye' on the Mu variant of COVID-19 but it is 'not an immediate threat,' noting that the highly contagious Delta variant now accounts for 99 percent of US cases.
'Yes, we certainly are aware of the Mu variant. We're keeping a very close eye on it,' Fauci said at a briefing.
'This variant has a constellation of mutations that suggest that it would evade certain antibodies, not only monoclonal antibodies, but vaccine and convalescent serum- induced antibodies,' Fauci said.
'But there isn't a lot of clinical data to suggest that. It is mostly laboratory, in-vitro data. Not to downplay it, we take it very seriously.'
Chaplain Elias Molina works inside the ICU at Adventist Health Glendale on Wednesday in southern California. At the moment the hospital has 65 covid patients in their 515 bed hospital. Most of the covid patients are unvaccinated
The Mu variant is also confirmed in Miami. Medics transfer a patient on a stretcher from an ambulance outside of Emergency at Coral Gables Hospital
