NIH Director Warns There Are No Signs Of Delta Variant Slowing Down: Americans Could Face Another Shutdown

This coming week’s increase in the number of patients affected by the Delta version of the H1N1 virus might push the United States back to the most dangerous period of the pandemic, warned the director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, on Sunday.

“This is going very steeply upward with no signs of having peaked out,” Collins said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Due to the highly contagious characteristics of the Delta form, Covid-19 instances have risen once again. In July, about 130,000 new instances were being reported every day, which is 700% greater than what had been reported as of July 1st. There could be over 200,000 additional cases every day by the end of the week, Collins added.

“Here we are with [the] Delta variant, which is so contagious, and this heartbreaking situation where 90 million people are still unvaccinated, who are sitting ducks for this virus, and that’s the mess we are in,” Collins said.

“We are in a world of hurt,” he said, “and it’s a critical juncture to try to do everything we can to turn that around.”

While monitoring public health data, experts are concerned that the virus may no longer be immunogenic, thus a booster dose will be required.

Collins assures that vaccinated individuals are protected from serious disease and hospitalization, the decision to make the vaccination mandatory has not yet been made.

Until there’s greater evidence, he cautioned individuals not to receive extra shots on their own.

“At this time, the only people who are at risk are those who have not been vaccinated,” said Collins.

“The big message right now this morning,” he said, is “for the people who aren’t vaccinated, this is the moment to absolutely get off the fence and take care of this because you are a sitting duck for this virus. It’s looking for you.”