An epicenter of the Delta variant in the West shows its threat; hospitals are filling up there and in rural Missouri

The threat of the stronger Delta variant of the coronavirus among unvaccinated Americans is being illustrated in several states and areas such as Grand Junction, Colorado, which has become an epicenter of its spread in the rural West.

Mesa County (Wikipedia map, adapted)

“At this point nationally, we see that about 10% of cases are due to this Delta variant, but here in Colorado it’s about 40%, and here in Mesa County it’s approaching 100%,” State Epidemiologist Rachel Herlihy told locals on a Tuesday visit to Grand Junction. “In addition, it causes more severe illness, so we’re seeing double the hospitalization rate with this Delta variant.”

"State officials have targeted the county in their efforts to step up vaccination rates. But while they have identified a variety of ways, they are still looking for more," reports Charles Ashby of the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. "Gov. Jared Polis came to town Tuesday to ask area medical officials and business leaders for ideas on how to do more, especially now that the Delta variant of the virus accounts for nearly all of the new infections."

Polis told the locals, “Mesa County is an epicenter for the Delta variant, and we also have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the state . . . We want action before it hurts the economy and hurts more people or fills up your hospitals, which are already rapidly approaching being full.”

Only 40 percent of Mesa County's eligible residents are fully vaccinated, and 44% are partially vaccinated. The county's hospitals are 95% full, Dasha Burns of NBC News reports from Grand Junction: "It seems like a case of deja vu," resembling the crisis of the early pandemic.

Elsewhere, "The new strain is already taxing hospitals in rural Missouri, and caseloads and hospitalizations are on the rise in states such as Arkansas, Nevada and Utah, where less than half of the eligible population has received a vaccine," The Washington Post reports.

Vaccines work against the Delta variant, but not enough people are vaccinated, physician and medical-school professor Dhruv Khullar warns in The New Yorker: "People who’ve been fully vaccinated can, by and large, feel confident in the immunity that they’ve received. But those who remain susceptible should understand that, for them, this is probably the most dangerous moment of the pandemic."