SOUTHERN STATES

Florida, the southeasternmost US state, is experiencing its most devastating COVID-19 surge yet, fueled by the Delta variant. Its hospitals are being stretched to the brink once again, with mounting wait times and limited oxygen.

"Intensive care units in Florida are filling up, and final moments with loved ones, separated by face shields and glass barriers, have become a resurgent reality," reported the financial news website Business Insider on Sunday.

An explosion in the virus' highly-transmissible Delta variant has mired the state in its most vicious fight with the disease in recent weeks -- on Saturday, nearly 24,000 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the Sunshine State, in comparison with just 1,250 new infections on June 1.

"Florida has become the epicenter of a new wave of infections in the United States, and its vaccination rate is far short of states like Connecticut and New York," said the report.

Florida's COVID-19 hospitalizations recently jumped 13 percent above the state's previous peak on July 23, 2020, according to a survey by the Florida Hospital Association.

About half of adults in Florida, or 50.8 percent, are fully vaccinated, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University (JHU). The Delta variant is preying upon the roughly the other half of adults in the state who have not been vaccinated.

While the country is struggling to fend off the Delta variant, the most contagious strain of coronavirus yet, COVID-19 hospitalizations are reaching all-time highs in parts of the US South, with some patients unable to get the care they would normally receive, CNN reported on Sunday.

At the United Memorial Medical Center, Houston, Texas, "we have no beds. The emergency department is full of patients just waiting to be able to get into the hospital," Chief of Staff Joseph Varon was quoted as saying Sunday morning. "Over the last 12 hours, we have lost more patients than ... in the last five to six weeks."

"Something very scary now is happening in the Southern United States. We are seeing this massive surge of hospitalizations of young people that we've never seen before in hospitals across the South," Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, was quoted as saying.

"It's many, many young people, including, I'm sorry to say, many children's hospital admissions. And for the first time that I can remember, we're starting to see pediatric intensive care units get overwhelmed, which we never really saw before," he added.