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Missouri now has the nation's highest rate of new COVID-19 infections due to a surge largely in a politically conservative farming region in the northern part of the state. Another hot spot is the southwestern corner, which includes Springfield and Branson, the country music mecca in the Ozark Mountains where big crowds are gathering again at the city’s theaters and other attractions. While over 53% of all Americans have received at least one shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most southern and northern Missouri counties are well short of 40%. One county is at just 13%. (Aspegren, 6/24)

As the U.S. emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, Missouri is becoming a cautionary tale for the rest of the country: It is seeing an alarming rise in cases because of a combination of the fast-spreading delta variant and stubborn resistance among many people to getting vaccinated. Intensive care beds are filling up with surprisingly young, unvaccinated patients, and staff members are getting burned out fighting a battle that was supposed to be in its final throes. (Hollingsworth, 6/23)

The rapid spread of the delta variant of the coronavirus is poised to divide the United States again, with highly vaccinated areas continuing toward post-pandemic freedom and poorly vaccinated regions threatened by greater caseloads and hospitalizations, health officials warned this week. The highly transmissible variant is taxing hospitals in a rural, lightly vaccinated part of Missouri, and caseloads and hospitalizations are on the rise in states such as Arkansas, Nevada and Utah, where less than 50 percent of the eligible population has received at least one dose of vaccine, according to data compiled by The Washington Post. (Cha, Adam, Guarino and Bernstein, 6/23)

The growing threat of the delta coronavirus variant in the European Union has prompted a fresh warning from the bloc’s disease prevention agency about the pace of vaccinations and not rushing reopenings. The mutation, first seen in India, is considered even more infectious than the alpha strain, and could hamper efforts to get past the pandemic. It accounts for at least 20% of new cases in Ireland and parts of Germany, while in localized hotspots such as Lisbon, the figure is above 60%. (Loh, 6/23)

In a risk assessment today, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) estimated that the Delta (B1617.2) variant will make up 90% of SARS-CoV-2 viruses in Europe by the end of August. Also, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday in its weekly snapshot of the pandemic that 6 more countries have detected the Delta variant, raising the total to 85, as a number of nations battle steady rises in COVID-19 cases. (Schnirring, 6/23)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that Europe is “on thin ice” in its battle against the coronavirus, as the highly contagious delta variant threatens to undo progress made in reducing infections. In what may be her last government declaration to the German parliament, Merkel said the further response to the pandemic would be a main topic of discussion among European Union leaders at a meeting in Brussels on Thursday. (6/23)

Authorities in Sydney are rejecting calls from some health experts for Australia’s most-populous city to enter lockdown to control a delta strain outbreak, despite case numbers doubling in the past two days. In a balancing act that’s being backed by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Thursday said the city’s current restrictions were correct, even as the cluster has grown to around 40 cases and now includes a lawmaker from her own state government. (Scott and McKay, 6/24)

Both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines maintained effectiveness against the Delta variant in a recent study, with researchers noting "no evidence of widespread complete escape from neutralization." The study, of which a pre-proof appeared in Cell, said it would "seem likely from these results" that the vaccines would provide protection against the B.1.617 variant, "though an increase in breakthrough infections may occur as a result of the reduced neutralizing capacity of sera." The Delta variant, which first originated in India, has been dubbed a variant of concern by both the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization as it’s increasingly turning up in surveillance data across the world. (Hein, 6/23)