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The delta variant accounts for more than 98.8% of American cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday. The report, which compiles data up to Aug. 14, was released as the United States hit 37 million cases since the start of the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University data. August has been the third-worst month for coronavirus cases in 2021. Only January and February reported more cases throughout the entire month. (Aspegren, 8/18)

The United States reported more than 1,000 COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday, equating to around 42 fatalities an hour, according to a Reuters tally, as the Delta variant continues to ravage parts of the country with low vaccination rates. Coronavirus-related deaths have spiked in the United States over the past month and are averaging 769 per day, the highest since mid-April, according to the Reuters tally. (Maan and B, 8/18)

Since Americans first began rolling up their sleeves for coronavirus vaccines, health officials have said that those who are immunized are very unlikely to become infected, or to suffer serious illness or death. But preliminary data from seven states hint that the arrival of the Delta variant in July may have altered the calculus. Breakthrough infections in vaccinated people accounted for at least one in five newly diagnosed cases in six of these states and higher percentages of total hospitalizations and deaths than had been previously observed in all of them, according to figures gathered by The New York Times. (Mandavilli, 8/17)

Officials in the Biden administration responsible for communicating with the public have repeatedly said this has become a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” Such words may not ring true to people who got their coronavirus shots and still became sick. A growing number of studies suggest that coronavirus vaccines continue to provide strong protection against severe disease and hospitalization, but their ability to prevent mild illness is less robust today than the original clinical trial studies demonstrated a year ago. (Achenbach and Guarino, 8/17)

The Delta variant of the Covid-19 virus appears to be breaking through the protection vaccines provide at a higher rate than previous strains, a Wall Street Journal analysis found, though infections among the fully inoculated remain a tiny fraction of overall cases, and symptoms tend to be milder. U.S. states counted at least 193,204 so-called breakthrough cases among vaccinated people between Jan. 1 and early August, according to data that health departments in 44 states and Washington, D.C., provided to the Journal. The figure represents 0.1% of the more than 136 million fully vaccinated people in those states and the capital. (Whelan and Hopkins, 8/17)