Gottlieb: Parts of U.S. could see 'very dense outbreaks' as Delta variant spreads

 As the U.S. continues to navigate its way through the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said areas of the country could experience "very dense outbreaks" with the concerning Delta variant continuing to circulate. 

"It's going to be hyper-regionalized, where there are certain pockets of the country [where] we can have very dense outbreaks," Gottlieb said Sunday on CBS News' "Face the Nation."  

The most vulnerable areas continue to be those with low vaccination rates and low rates of immunity from prior infections. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, many southern states have vaccination rates that lag behind the national average.

"I think as you look across the United States, if you're a community that has low vaccination rates and you also think that there was low immunity from prior infection, so the virus really hasn't coursed through the local population, those communities are vulnerable," he said. "So, I think governors need to be thinking about how they build out health care resources in areas of the country where you still have a lot of vulnerability."  

Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, a state where hospital admissions are up 30%, expressed concern about the Delta COVID-19 variant and low vaccination rates in his state.   

"The Delta variant is a great concern to us. We see that impacting our increasing cases and hospitalizations," Hutchinson said on "Face the Nation." The governor also noted that vaccine hesitancy is high in his state, which he attributed to conspiracy theories, the pause in Johnson & Johnson's one-shot regimen in April and individuals simply not believing in the efficacy of the virus.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gottlieb-covid-19-delta-variant-face-the-nation/