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Melissa Harris-Perry: Back with you now on the takeaway, I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. Last week, my little quarantine pod took a good old-fashioned family road trip. After looking at the same four walls for all year, 12 hours in a minivan with kids and dogs managed to feel like freedom. As we traveled south from North Carolina to New Orleans, stopping for snacks, gas, and stretches along the way, we started to feel like we were the last mask-wearing people in the country.

It prompted my youngest who's seven to ask at one point, "Mommy, is the coronavirus over now?" I can't tell you how much I wish I could have responded with an enthusiastic, "Yes, don't worry, baby we're all good." I'm sorry to report that, Isn't the case. [music] In fact, the number of new cases per day in the US has doubled over the past three weeks.

The overwhelming majority of these cases are among the un-vaccinated. Just to make a point, the unvaccinated are a more diverse group than you might think. It's not just about ideology, It's not just about region, It's not just about race or age. Right now with this new, more contagious Delta variant that is responsible for more than half of these COVID cases, we are in a real situation. You've been talking to us about this as well at 877-869-8253.

Susan: Hi, this is Susan from Vashon on Washington. The spread of the Delta variant is definitely a warning to me that the pandemic is not over. I am continuing to mask up in public places, also continuing regular hand-washing. However, I cannot resist the opportunity to hug.

Barbara: I'm not as cautious as I was last year, but I still wear a mask whenever I go into a store or a public place. I wash my hands constantly. I try to keep a social distance and I rarely eat out anymore. It's sad, but I just don't think we're through the pandemic completely yet. This is Barbara in San Jose.

Doug: I feel safe from the Delta variant. I vaccinated with the RNA-type Moderna vaccine. I still mask up when a business or proprietor wishes it, to be polite and respectful, but otherwise, I am mask-free. This is Doug in [unintelligible 00:02:38].

Catherine: Hi, this is Catherine calling from Ridgewood New Jersey. Yes, it is definitely making me realize how much the pandemic is not over. I continue to wear a mask when I enter a public establishment, regardless of what the regulations say. I also continue to prefer outdoor dining or empty off-hour restaurants. It just seems safer.

Mike Rahimi: Hi, this is Mike Rahimi from The Bronx, New York. I'm not at all concerned than the Delta variant. I have been fully vaccinated since the early part of March this year. I also had COVID 15 months ago. Everything that I read said that the MRN vaccines are 94% effective at preventing me from getting a serious case for hospitalization.

Teresa Goodell: Hi, this is Teresa Goodell from Beaverton, Oregon. Yes, I am still wearing a mask. I'm concerned about the spread of the Delta variant. I'm sticking with the plan. I'm going to go on and wearing a mask in public places. I'm also limiting contact with people from outside my household and close friends. I know people who are immunocompromised and I don't want to put them or my shelf and family at risk.

Michael: Yes. My name is Michael and I am in Buffalo, New York. I'm a physician in a high volume emergency department. The Delta variant is causing a spike in COVID among people who are not vaccinated and it's causing deaths. It's heartbreaking because people seem to think that the vaccine is experimental or it's not approved, or it's been so politicized that they don't want to get the vaccine until they get sick.

They didn't really believe that they could get sick, but now it's spiking back and they get sick and they get very sick and some of them die. It's breaking my heart that such a disinformation campaign is costing so many lives, is very upsetting.

Melissa Harris-Perry: With me now to discuss the rising COVID rates and the Delta variant is Emily Martin associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan. Emily, welcome back to the show.

Emily Martin: Thanks for having me, Melissa.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Okay. Cases are rising in more than half of us states. Can you talk about where the geographic hotspots are?

Emily Martin: Absolutely. We are definitely seeing rises in states like Arkansas is the highest state right now, but Tennessee is the fastest climbing. We're seeing a lot of cases in Florida. I think Missouri has really been in the news for high cases and a lot of hospitalizations. Nevada has been in the news, Louisiana. We see a lot of big climbs in, Southern states, particularly as well.

Melissa Harris-Perry: When you said Florida, just in that moment, my knees buckled a little bit because our family was planning our annual August Florida vacation. We have a seven-year-old who cannot be vaccinated yet and it feels like, man, we're going to have to say again this year, can't do it

Emily Martin: This is a big challenge for families of young kids and kids that are too young to be vaccinated. I know, my family, we've got a vacation planned for August with a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated kids. We're going to have to be more careful than I think we were hoping we would have to be.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me about this vaccinated and unvaccinated. Again, our seven-year-old, that's not an option to be vaccinated yet. Even though the adults in the family are vaccinated, we're modeling, wearing the masks, and washing the hands, and all of those things we've been doing for a year and a half. What do we know about the populations of folks who are unvaccinated?

Emily Martin: The national percentage if you look overall at adults nationwide, we're approaching 70%, which is good news. We need to be higher, but 70% is pretty good. Really if you break that down, what it looks like is, we've got almost 90% of our 75 and older adults are vaccinated. Over 90% of our 65 to 75 adults are vaccinated. If we get down to the 18-year-olds to the 40-year-olds, those in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, we're only looking at about half of those adults are vaccinated.

What we're going to start to see is this concentration of infection in these lower age groups that aren't taking up the vaccine as fast as the older adults. Now, granted, it hasn't been recommended for those adults for as long. We prioritize the older adults because they're at higher risk of hospitalization, but younger adults can still infect children. You really need to get the numbers up in those younger groups.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Now let's talk about Delta for a moment. During a family road trip, I had a conversation just briefly with someone at a gas station who said, "Oh, I was going to get vaccinated, but now there's the Delta variant, I'm not going to, because there's no vaccine against the variant." I thought, "I don't think that's right. I don't think that's right." Help our listeners. If you are vaccinated, are you still at risk relative to Delta?

Emily Martin: The vaccine absolutely works against the Delta variant. There may be small differences in how the vaccine works, but we are monitoring this really closely and groups all over the world, including my research group, monitors this too. What we know right now, the vaccine is working against the Delta variance. It does spread faster. There's some data that says that it causes more severe infection. The balance is definitely on the side to still get vaccinated against this variant.

Melissa Harris-Perry: If we don't reach the vaccination levels that we want to in the general population, will that have an impact on the effectiveness of the vaccine relative to this variant?

Emily Martin: It will have an impact on how the vaccine works in any individual person. It will impact the fact that, the vaccine we think is reducing 80 to 90% of infections. That leaves about 10 to 20% of infections left behind. That 10 to 20%, it's a much bigger bucket if you've got a community with a lot of transmission.

Basically, the more disease you have in the community, the more likely you are to have those rare events where a vaccinated person gets infected. We need to do both. We need to vaccinate and we need to do what we need to do to get the rates down overall in the community.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Let's talk about young children who at least, as of now, aren't able to have the vaccinations. It seems that at least in some places we're seeing more cases of children getting, not simply the COVID positive test, but getting severely sick. Am I right or is that just that now we're reporting on it more? What's going on with kids?

Emily Martin: There's a few things going on. Yes. We're reporting on it more. Kids are as the highest rate of unvaccination because they're not even eligible. We've got all these unvaccinated susceptible kids and so that's where a lot of our infection is happening.

The more infection we have, the more we see these rare events, which are kids getting hospitalized, kids getting into the intensive care unit, having really heartbreaking outcomes. For the average kid, it's not a very high-frequency event, but if you infect enough children, then yes, you're going to start to see these hospitalizations.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Recently in Los Angeles County, there's been a recommendation all residents wear masks in public indoor spaces, vaccinated and unvaccinated. Do you think that other cities and states will follow suit on that?

Emily Martin: Yes. I've watched a lot of organizations and local governments struggle with this question because it's very difficult to figure out who is vaccinated and who is not vaccinated. If you're having big increases in your community, that's the scenario where a policymaker may want to make this one-size-fits-all recommendation. Across the board, we have to do something, let's mask everybody. I know the masking is more controversial, but at the same time, it's low cost. It's not as economically devastating as other measures that people might want to take and so I wouldn't be surprised if we see this in isolated geographic events around the country.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Keep the economy open, but wear a mask, right? Before we had to all go home and maybe this could at least keep us out, keep the economy humming. What about schools? For example, I guess middle schools and high schools where most of the young people are of age to be vaccinated, and for college campuses, which seems to fall right in that spot of young adults who you've talked about are less likely to be vaccinated. Should they be? I don't mean this is a political matter. I mean purely as an epidemiological one, should schools and colleges and universities be requiring vaccination?

Emily Martin: Well, if we don't require vaccination, it's very difficult to get from 50% to the 80% or 90% that we need without it. If we don't get there, then we don't have that-- I know herd immunity is a thought experiment, but we don't have those high levels that we need to be able to slow down transmission. The alternative to requiring it means that some schools and colleges are going to be looking at fall like situations where they may have to take pauses in education. They may have to require masks more than they want to. It's going to be a more complex situation in the fall compared to having high vaccination rates.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Emily Martin is an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan. Thank you so much for joining us.

Emily Martin: Absolutely. Thank you.

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