Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday urged Americans to set aside politicized squabbling over COVID-19 vaccination and mitigation efforts and to instead unite against the “common enemy” in a pandemic that continues to threaten public health across the nation.

New cases of the virus are at their highest rate in six months, with the highly transmissible delta variant continuing to spread and severely impact unvaccinated people, particularly in Southern states with below-average vaccination rates. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that the surge in the South was “entirely predictable and entirely preventable” based on vaccination rates and the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing severe illness and death.

According to the latest information, Chattooga County is now considered an “Extremely High Risk” area for un-vaccinated residents.  The vaccination rate in Chattooga County has improved some over the past two weeks.  There is now 28.69% of the population fully vaccinated and 31.37% have received at least one dose of the vaccine. That adds up to about 7,120 people fully vaccinated and 7,786 who are partially vaccinated.

Fauci said the U.S. must manage to get an “overwhelming” majority vaccinated; currently, at least 90 million more are eligible but not yet vaccinated, predominantly in the South, he noted.
The CDC urges people in areas of high or substantial risk to wear masks in indoor public settings regardless of vaccination status. The data is acquired using population and positivity rates. The full CDC map of the United States is available here.