Month: July 2021

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director, said on Tuesday that the more contagious delta variant of COVID-19 now makes up 83% of sequenced samples in the United States. Walensky said in a Senate committee hearing: “This is a dramatic increase, up from 50% for the week of July 3.”

Health experts confirm that the delta variant is more transmissible than any other identified COVID-19 variant so far.  Recent data from Israel, evaluating effectiveness of the Pfizer/BionTech mRNA vaccine against the delta variant, found the vaccine to be 64% protective against infection, and that the vaccine is 93% effective in preventing severe disease and hospitalizations. Other studies indicate that the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are also effective against the delta variant.

However according to the CDC, more than half of the U.S. is not yet fully vaccinated, which is becoming increasingly worrisome to health experts. If many of these people do not get inoculated, Dr. Anthony Fauci said the U.S. can expect a “smoldering” outbreak for “a considerable period of time.”

The rise of the delta variant comes as the U.S. sees a new uptick in COVID-19 cases and an increase in hospitalizations and deaths. The average of new daily cases this week is up 66% from last week and 145% from two weeks ago, as cases surge in 44 states, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. In addition, hospitalizations are up 26% from last week. 99.5% of deaths are among the unvaccinated.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and three crewmates soared into space aboard a Blue Origin rocket from Texas, landing safely in the desert about 10 minutes later.  The New Shepard suborbital rocket lifted off about 9:12 a.m. EDT from the company’s Corn Ranch launch site 160 miles east of El Paso.

Bezos’ brother, Mark Bezos, rode into space with crewmates Wally Funk, an 82-year-old aviation pioneer from Texas, and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen — the youngest and oldest to ever fly in space. Daemen also became the first paying customer on a private company’s spacecraft, after a Blue Origin auction June 12.  The four crew members ascended the launch tower and reached the capsule via a walkway about 30 minutes before liftoff, where they were strapped into seats in the capsule for the countdown. The rocket, about five stories tall, accelerated to about 2,200 mph emitting 110,000 pounds of thrust, creating gravity forces of about three times the normal pull on Earth. After reaching space, the crew experience a few minutes of weightlessness before returning to Earth.

Bezos became the second person to reach space aboard his own company’s private spacecraft, the Blue Origin capsule. Just nine days earlier, Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic, launched from the public Spaceport America, which is owned by the state of New Mexico. Bezos said he chose July 20 for the launch because it is the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. Bezos said at a news conference that his company plans two more flights this year with people on board, and that he hopes Blue Origin can eventually build orbital rockets and facilities on the moon — and even asteroids or Mars.

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