New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that older adults who are not vaccinated are at a significantly higher risk of being hospitalized with COVID-19 than seniors who are vaccinated.

The CDC looked at adults who were 65 years old and up.

Those who had not been vaccinated were nearly 50 times more likely to end up in the hospital compared to those who were fully vaccinated and boosted.

Unvaccinated seniors were 17 times more likely to be hospitalized compared to their peers who only received two doses of the shot.

The risk went down, but not significantly, for unvaccinated adults between 50 and 64 years old.

The European Medicine Agency also released data today that showed getting fully vaccinated and boosted is the best protection against the Omicron variant.

The variant has caused breakthrough cases among the vaccinated.

But health experts say people who have received the booster shot are unlikely to develop severe symptoms and have a significantly lower risk of death from COVID-19.

As the new COVID-19 omicron variant spurs global travel bans, experts say concerns over its impact should prompt millions of unvaccinated Americans to get their shots — and for those who are eligible, to get their boosters.

"I would hope that within the next week or two weeks, so many of those people will take advantage of the vaccine," Dr. William Schaffner, a professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told CNN on Friday. "That will help us in the immediate term. And I would anticipate that, as bad as Omicron might be, our vaccine still will be partially effective."

Dr. Anthony Fauci echoed that, pointing to vaccinations and boosters as effective mitigation tools.

"I'm saying this absolutely clearly, that if ever there was a reason for unvaccinated people to get vaccinated and for those who have been vaccinated when your time comes up to go and get a booster shot," Fauci told NBC News on Friday.

"The booster shots give you a very, very important edge," he said, noting that boosters increase the level of antibodies that protect against the virus.

Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that 196 million Americans, or 59% of the U.S. population, was fully vaccinated as of Friday. An additional 37.5 million have received booster shots, the data shows.

On Friday, the U.S. moved to restrict travel from eight mostly southern African countries starting Monday as the World Health Organization deemed omicron, first detected in South Africa, a variant of concern. Travel into the U.S. will be restricted for those entering from Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, Malawi and South Africa.

Omicron has raised concerns for health officials because there's a possibility it could be more contagious than the original novel coronavirus strain, the WHO said, and it also has a significant number of mutations.

After a pandemic that has lasted nearly two years, experts and global leaders are anxious about the impact of the omicron variant, and many nations have issued travel bans. Besides South Africa, the newly identified variant has been detected in Botswana, Hong Kong and Belgium.

Two cases of the variant have also been detected in the U.K., Secretary of State for Health Sajid Javid said Saturday, prompting British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to announce a series of "targeted" measures to combat the variant.

There have been no indications so far that the variant has made its way into the U.S., Fauci told CNN Friday. On Saturday morning, however, he told NBC he "would not be surprised" if the variant was already in the U.S., saying, "it almost invariably is going to go all over."

The U.S. variant surveillance system has reliably detected new variants in the past, the CDC said.

"We expect omicron to be identified quickly, if it emerges in the U.S.," the agency said in a statement.

Vaccine makers are working to determine effectiveness against omicron

Meanwhile, vaccine makers have disclosed they are taking action to address the emergence of a new variant.

Moderna is working quickly to test the ability of its vaccine to neutralize omicron, the company said Friday, and data is expected in the coming weeks.

The strain includes mutations "seen in the Delta variant that are believed to increase transmissibility and mutations seen in the Beta and Delta variants that are believed to promote immune escape," Moderna said in a news release.

"The combination of mutations represents a significant potential risk to accelerate the waning of natural and vaccine-induced immunity."

If its current vaccine and booster are insufficient against the variant, Moderna explained that one possible solution is boosting people with a larger dose, which the company is testing.

The company is also evaluating two multivalent booster candidates to see if they provide better protection against omicron — both of which include some of the viral mutations present in the variant. Moderna said it is also testing an omicron-specific booster.

"For several days, we have been moving as fast as possible to execute our strategy to address this variant," Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in the news release.

Scientists at BioNTech, the German company that partnered with Pfizer to make its COVID-19 vaccine, are also investigating the impact of the variant on their shot, with data expected within the upcoming weeks.

A Johnson & Johnson spokesperson told CNN in a statement the company was also testing the effectiveness of its vaccine against omicron.

COVID-19 travel restrictions aren't all that effective, experts say

The Biden administration's decision to curtail travel from eight countries is a precautionary measure as the U.S. government learns more about the Omicron variant of coronavirus.

But some experts say travel restrictions aren't as effective as they may seem.

"Travel bans are modestly effective. They can obviously influence travel directly from that country to the United States," said Schaffner, the doctor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

"But obviously U.S. citizens will be permitted to come back. They could bring the virus. And people could go from the country of interest, South Africa for example, and go to other countries that are not on the travel ban, and enter, if you will, by the side door. So travel bans are somewhat effective, but let's not expect a miracle," he said.

U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents and noncitizens who are the spouses of citizens or permanent residents are exempted from the new restrictions.

Dr. Megan Ranney, a professor of emergency medicine and Associate Dean of Public Health at Brown University, said universal vaccination requirements for all air travel would be more effective.

"Or having quarantines when people arrive in the U.S. from other countries. Neither of those are particularly politically palatable right now, but they would make a much bigger difference in the spread of this variant," Ranney told CNN on Friday.

Three-quarters of eligible Americans have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and some are now able to receive an additional booster shot. But the virus still poses a great threat to more than 70 million people who remain unvaccinated.

"The most vulnerable are those unvaccinated," said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC on Friday approved a third shot of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine to an expanded group of Americans.

"Starting today, if you are six months out from your last dose of the Pfizer vaccine, you are eligible for a booster if you fall into one of three high-risk groups," U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said during a briefing.

"Number one: You are 65 or older. Number two: You have a medical condition that puts you at high risk of severe illness with COVID and these conditions include obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic kidney disease and others. And Number three: You work or live in a setting where you are at high risk of exposure to COVID. This includes health care workers, teachers, those living in shelters or prisons and grocery store workers," Murthy said.

Walensky acknowledged that even with more Americans becoming eligible, the country must ramp up initial vaccination numbers for the pandemic to subside.

"I want to be clear: We will not boost our way out of this pandemic," she said Friday.

The U.S. has fully vaccinated more than 55% of all residents as of Friday, CDC data shows, while 75% of the vaccine-eligible received at least one dose of inoculation.

A recent CNN analysis showed the average rate of COVID-19 deaths in the 10 least vaccinated states was more than four times higher over the past week than the rate in the 10 most vaccinated states.

CDC vaccine advisers had recommended that booster shots should be made eligible for people over 65 and those with health risks — stopping short of expanding that threshold to include those who may be disproportionally exposed to the virus at their jobs. But Walensky moved to account for the occupational exposure group in her guidance.

"Some people really voted ... with enthusiasm to say our health care workers, our frontline workers, people who were vaccinated early, people who work in congregate settings, in correctional facilities, grocery workers, really do merit the vaccine," Walensky told CNN's Erin Burnett. "The question wasn't 'yes or no,' the question was 'wait or do now,'" she added.

Ultimately, the decision for boosters was about "providing rather than withholding access" and the need to protect society as a whole, Walensky explained.

Boosters are ready now

The boosters are already available, with CVS Health announcing Friday that nearly 6,000 of its locations started offering appointments for a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

And because federal health officials have only authorized Pfizer's booster shot, "individuals who initially received the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) COVID-19 vaccine are not eligible for a booster at this time," the company said.

Those who choose to go for the booster shot will be asked to "self-attest to their eligibility" outlined by public health officials, CVS said. They also must be recipients of Pfizer's initial two doses.

Walensky reassured those who received Moderna or J&J vaccines that health officials haven't forgotten them and are working to determine next steps.

"We will, with similar urgency, evaluate the available data in the coming weeks to swiftly make additional recommendations for other populations at risk, and people who received the Moderna and J&J vaccines."

Murthy, the U.S. surgeon general, noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration "is working with Moderna and J&J to get and process their data as quickly as possible with the goal of making booster recommendations for Moderna and J&J recipients in the coming weeks. This is a high, high priority."

In California, Los Angeles County on Friday also began offering the booster shots to its residents who show proof of vaccination and affirm their eligibility, the county's public health department said in a news release. People who live in long-term care facilities, are over 18 with underlying medical conditions or are frontline workers are also eligible for the third dose, department officials said.

Many schools closed due to COVID-19 outbreaks, study finds

The headaches facing school officials and parents were underlined in a study released Friday on the impact so far of the pandemic on in-person learning.

About 1,800 schools closed between Aug. 1 and Sept. 17 because COVID-19 cases were detected, which affected the education and well-being of 933,000 students, according to the CDC study.

Nearly 60,000 teachers in 44 states were also affected by closures, and the number of closures was highest in the South, the study found.

Examining data from 8,700 districts nationwide, the CDC study found that "the largest number of districts with full remote learning (14) were in the West Census Region, followed by the South (11). Seven Midwest and two Northeast districts offered full remote learning."

The study noted that the timing of return to school may be a factor in school closures because the schools in the South returned earlier in August than other parts of the country — which typically start in late August or early September.

COVVID-19 outbreaks forced 300 Tennessee schools to close, the study shows, noting that was the most in the nation — followed by Georgia, Kentucky, Texas and South Carolina.

The CDC recommends that people in schools wear masks even if they're vaccinated as well as screen testing and physical distancing to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

On Friday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they found that people who were unvaccinated against COVID-19 were 11 times more likely to die from the virus than those who were fully vaccinated.

In its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the CDC said that unvaccinated patients were over 10 times more likely to be hospitalized.

According to the study, the CDC analyzed data from more than 600,000 COVID-19 cases in 13 states from April through mid-July.

The study also showed that unvaccinated people were 4.5 times more likely to contract COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people.

"These findings reaffirm the high protection of COVID-19 vaccines against moderate and severe COVID-19 resulting in ED, UC, and hospital visits and underscore the importance of full COVID-19 vaccination and continued benefits of COVID-19 vaccination during Delta variant predominance," the CDC said in its report.

In another study released Friday, the CDC said that the Moderna vaccine was more effective in preventing hospitalizations than the Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

Video above: Fourth-grade teacher supports vaccine mandate

An unvaccinated elementary school teacher who took off their mask to read to students ended up infecting more than half of them last May — and they went on to infect other students, family members and community members, California public health officials reported Friday.

It's a prime example of how easy it is to undermine efforts to protect children too young to be vaccinated, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said.

The teacher came to work even though they had COVID-19 symptoms and then took off their mask to read to the young students, a team at Marin County Public Health reported in the CDC's weekly report on death and disease. The teacher assumed the symptoms indicated allergies, not infection, the investigators found.

In the classroom of 22 students, 12 became infected — including eight out of 10 students in the two front rows.

And that's despite layers of measures intended to prevent transmission of the virus.

"The school required teachers and students to mask while indoors; interviews with parents of infected students suggested that students' adherence to masking and distancing guidelines in line with CDC recommendations was high in class. However, the teacher was reportedly unmasked on occasions when reading aloud in class," the report read.

"Throughout this period, all desks were separated by six feet," it added. "All classrooms had portable high-efficiency particulate air filters and doors and windows were left open."

It wasn't enough to protect the kids.

Eventually, 27 people, including the teacher, were infected. None were seriously ill and all recovered. Those cases that were analyzed involved the delta variant of coronavirus, although the researchers said they were not necessarily able to test everyone who may have been infected in the outbreak.

The CDC highlighted the case as an example of how schools need to follow all recommendations if they want to protect students and staff.

"The introduction of the virus into the classroom by a teacher who worked in school, while she was both symptomatic and unvaccinated and who was unmasked when reading aloud to a class, resulted in cases within the classroom, across the school and among families of students and staff in the community," Walensky told a White House COVID-19 briefing Friday.

"We know how to protect our kids in school. We have the tools."

The CDC's guidance for schools lists vaccination as the No. 1 way to protect everyone. "Vaccination is the leading public health prevention strategy to end the COVID-19 pandemic. Promoting vaccination can help schools safely return to in-person learning as well as extracurricular activities and sports," it says.

Kids under 12 are not eligible for vaccination, and the CDC says it's important for the adults around them to get vaccinated to protect them.

Dr. Lisa Santora, deputy health officer for the county, said officials there had been urging teachers to be vaccinated since January, but many had not done it. "We saw firsthand that it wasn't kids who were going to get teachers sick. It was going to be the reverse," Santora told CNN.

Santora said Marin County had organized "Super Saturday" events to encourage teachers and staff to get vaccinated, but some teachers still remain unvaccinated. "Adults are underestimating their risk of hospitalization when they are choosing not to get vaccinated," she told CNN.

She said 90% of people in hospitals with COVID-19 in the county right now are unvaccinated — and many are between the ages of 30 and 50.

The outbreak at the elementary school was a heads up to the county that the Delta variant was going to make it harder to prevent outbreaks, she said.

"We had a few of the adults who were part of the outbreak -- they were parents of children in school — they were vaccinated. That was another indication to us that delta was different," she said.

"Among the five infected adults, one parent and the teacher were unvaccinated; the others were fully vaccinated," the report reads. "The vaccinated adults and one unvaccinated adult were symptomatic with fever, chills, cough, headache, and loss of smell. No other school staff members reported becoming ill."

The county was able to conduct an intensive contact tracing operation that painted a good picture of what happened. Several children appeared to have been infected during a sleepover, and some from the infected teacher's class appear to have infected siblings.

Testing of most of the children who were exposed was key because many of the children never developed symptoms.

"The school was on point with all of their mitigation strategies," Santora said. "I think if it wasn't delta, I don't think we would have seen this."

Nonetheless, the CDC concluded, schools can safely open for in-person classes if they take care.

Los Angeles County officials studied cases in their schools from September to March. They counted 463 cases among students in that time that could be linked back to a school exposure, and 3,927 among staff who were back in person. This was a far lower case rate than in the community at large during the same period, they reported.

"In schools with safety protocols in place for prevention and containment, case rates in children and adolescents were 3.4 times lower during the winter peak compared with rates in the community," they wrote.

"This analysis reflects transmission patterns before the more transmissible SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 (delta) variant became predominant in the United States. A multipronged prevention strategy, including masking, physical distancing, testing, and most recently vaccination of children and adolescents aged 12 years and above, will remain critical to reducing transmission as more students return to the classroom," they added.

"These findings from a large and diverse county present preliminary evidence that schools provided a relatively safe environment during the 2020-21 school year."

A young mother had just celebrated her first wedding anniversary and was one of six members of a Jacksonville church to die over a 10-day span.

Another Florida woman had just given birth to her first child but was only able to hold the newborn girl for a few moments before dying.

A California man died a few weeks shy of his 53rd birthday while his wife was on a ventilator at the same hospital in Oakland, unaware of his passing on Aug. 4.

The COVID-19 death toll has started soaring again as the delta variant tears through the nation's unvaccinated population and fills up hospitals with patients, many of whom are younger than during earlier phases of the pandemic.

The U.S. is now averaging about 650 deaths a day, increasing more than 80% from two weeks ago and going past the 600 mark on Saturday for the first time in three months.

Data on the age and demographics of victims during the delta surge is still limited, but hospitals in virus hotspots say they are clearly seeing more admissions and deaths among people under the age of 65.

Florida hospital officials are seeing an influx of young, healthy adults filling their wards across the state, many requiring oxygen. In the past week in Florida, 36% of the deaths occurred in the under-65 population, compared with 17% in the same week last year when the state was experiencing a similar COVID surge. Florida is the national leader in coronavirus deaths, averaging more than 150 a day in the past week.

The younger patients mark a shift from the elderly and frail, many living in nursing homes, who succumbed to the virus a year ago before states made seniors a priority to get inoculated first. More than 90% of seniors have had at least one shot, compared to about 70% for Americans under 65.

At a predominantly Black church in Jacksonville with a hipster vibe, contemporary music, and a strong social media presence reflective of its young, energetic congregation, six members died over 10 days starting in late July. All were under the age of 35.

They were "all healthy, all unvaccinated," laments Pastor George Davis of Impact Church, who knew each one personally and has struggled with his own grief at the funerals. He's held two vaccination events for his congregation of about 6,000 where over 1,000 received shots.

Among the church members who died were a 24-year-old man Davis watched grow up since he was a toddler and a woman from his worship team who celebrated her first wedding anniversary only weeks before she died. Her husband recovered.

Davis said the young woman was "just the picture of health, vibrant."

"There is a sense among younger people that they are somehow invincible," said Dr. Leana Wen, public health professor at George Washington University and former Baltimore Health Commissioner. "Unfortunately, though, some people who are hospitalized are going to die and that’s going to mean some people who are younger; and as you’ve seen these are people in some cases who are leaving behind young children."

Among those parents are Kristen McMullen, who had decorated her baby’s room with rainbows and suns, fully embracing her favorite season, summer — after which she would name her first child.

The 30-year-old woman fell ill three weeks before her due date and was admitted to a hospital in Melbourne, Florida, with COVID-19.

After an emergency cesarean section, McMullen was able to hold her baby girl for a few moments before being rushed off to an intensive care unit, where she later died.

"She would say that she was scared and that she didn’t want to die," her aunt Melissa Syverson said, struggling to talk in between sobs. "She was fighting to get back to the baby."

McMullen’s aunt said her family did not want to disclose whether McMullen was vaccinated.

Carlos Reyes was skeptical of the vaccine and so was his wife, Maria — until they and their two teenage children had to be rushed to the hospital in Oakland.

Their 14-year-old son, Sergio, did not need to stay after getting oxygen while 19-year-old Emma joined her parents in the intensive care unit. She was released after a few days, and the parents were put on ventilators.

Their 32-year-old daughter who has an auto-immune disease was the only one vaccinated when they fell ill.

"We were all just a little hesitant at the beginning," said the couple's oldest daughter, Jasmine Rivas Fierro, 34.

Their four children didn’t want to break their mother's heart by telling her while she was still in intensive care that Carlos had died a day after their 22nd anniversary.

"She loved him so much," Rivas Fierro said of her mother, who is still in the hospital.

The family is telling people that they must be fully vaccinated to attend Carlos' funeral next week.

Cindy Dawkins also left behind four children, ranging in age from 12 to 24. She died Aug. 7, less than a week after she celebrated her 50th birthday with her family at Universal Studios in Orlando. She had a cough and seemed tired that day before her condition quickly deteriorated and she had to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.

Her family believes she contracted the virus at her waitressing job at a bistro in their hometown of Boynton Beach, Fla., where her coworkers have also tested positive. She was healthy and had been getting tested regularly but was still mulling over getting the vaccine.

"Maybe the vaccine would have helped fight it, but I don’t know if it would have completely stopped it," her 20-year-old son, Tre Burrows, said.

As the family wrestles with grief and sorts out guardianship of Dawkins' youngest children, they are also saddened by what could have been. Dawkins came to the U.S. from the Bahamas when she was in high school and her children say she was close to becoming an American citizen, an event the family planned to celebrate with a trip over Thanksgiving.

"Everything was finally going right," her daughter Jenny Burrows said. "And then this happened."

SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - Side-by-side X-rays of COVID-19-positive lungs illustrate the impact vaccines can have.

University of California San Diego radiologist Dr. Albert Hsiao has been interpreting X-rays of COVID patients since the pandemic began.

In one image, the vaccinated person's lungs reveal a lot of black space, which means it's filled with air. In another image, the unvaccinated person's lung is much cloudier, which means the infection has taken over.

“Cloudy, white areas that you see, areas of the lung that are filled with fluid or immune cells, or the virus itself,” said Dr. Hsiao.

In contrast, Dr. Hsiao says, the clearer X-ray shows the vaccine at work. It recognizes the virus as a foreign invader and then fights it.

“The vaccine prevents the virus from replicating as rapidly, as freely, in a vaccinated person as in an unvaccinated person. It allows the immune system to have a head start before the virus gets out of control,” said Dr. Hsiao.

Another set of side-by-side images are from the same patients' lungs. An AI algorithm has identified and colored in the areas of infection. In the images, the unvaccinated person’s lungs are filled with color.

That patient remains hospitalized. The vaccinated patient was sent home.

“These X-rays are an illustration of how remarkable and effective the vaccines are in protecting us from this virus,” said Dr. Hsiao.

It's not known whether either patient's virus has been sequenced, but it's likely both are cases of the delta variant.

This story was originally reported by Michael Chen at 10news.com.

Video above: CDC document warns delta variant appears to spread as easily as chickenpox

Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Sunday that more "pain and suffering" is on the horizon as COVID-19 cases climb again and officials plead with unvaccinated Americans to get their shots.

Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, also said he doesn't foresee additional lockdowns in the U.S. because he believes enough people are vaccinated to avoid a recurrence of last winter. However, he said not enough are inoculated to "crush the outbreak" at this point.

Fauci's warning comes days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed course to recommend that even vaccinated people return to wearing masks indoors in parts of the U.S. where the delta variant is fueling infection surges. With the switch, federal health officials have cited studies showing vaccinated people can spread the virus to others.

Most new infections in the U.S. continue to be among unvaccinated people. So-called breakthrough infections can occur in vaccinated people, and though the vast majority of those cause mild or no symptoms, the research shows they can carry about the same amount of the coronavirus as those who did not get the shots.

"So we're looking, not, I believe, to lockdown, but we're looking to some pain and suffering in the future because we're seeing the cases go up, which is the reason why we keep saying over and over again, the solution to this is get vaccinated and this would not be happening," Fauci said on ABC.

According to data through July 30 from Johns Hopkins University, the seven-day rolling average for daily new cases in the U.S. rose from 30,887 on July 16 to 77,827 on July 30. The seven-day rolling average for the country's daily new deaths rose over the same period from 253 on July 16 to 358 on July 30, though death reports generally lag weeks after infections and even longer after hospitalizations.

Currently, 58% of Americans 12 years and older are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC's data tracker.

However, people are "getting the message" and more are rolling up their sleeves amid the threat of the delta variant, according to the director of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Francis Collins said on CNN's "State of the Union" that vaccinations are up 56% in the U.S. in the last two weeks.

Louisiana, which has the most new cases per capita among states in the past 14 days, has seen vaccinations up threefold over that period, Collins said.

"That's what desperately needs to happen if we are going to get this delta variant put back in its place, because right now it's having a pretty big party in the middle of the country," Collins said.

Collins also said that even with the prevalence of the delta variant, the shots are working "extremely well" and reduce a person's risk of serious illness and hospitalization "25-fold." The guidance for vaccinated people to start wearing masks indoors again in certain places with worsening outbreaks, he said, is mostly meant to protect unvaccinated and immunocompromised people.

The CDC has also recommended indoor mask-wearing for all teachers, staff, students and visitors at schools nationwide, regardless of vaccination status.

CHICAGO — Thousands of fully vaccinated people have contracted the coronavirus, but experts say these breakthrough cases are rare.

“The total number of individuals who are vaccine breakthroughs is pretty low compared to the number of cases that are out there,” said Dr. Emily Landon, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Chicago Medicine.

But according to Dr. Landon, that risk can easily go up and have far-reaching impacts beyond the person infected.

“The more contact and close contact you have with people who are unvaccinated, the more likely you are to have a breakthrough infection,” said Landon.

As of July 19^, the CDC documented nearly 6,000 cases of fully vaccinated people who were hospitalized or died from COVID-19, and 74% of them were 65 or older.

But the agency acknowledges those numbers are under-counted.

In Massachusetts, for example, where 63% of the residents are fully vaccinated, 5,000 breakthrough cases have been reported with 80 deaths.

“Every time someone gets COVID, whether they're vaccinated or not, it gives the virus an opportunity to spread to someone else or to mutate inside their body,” said Dr. Landon.

It’s why vaccination rates matter.

More than 160 million people in the U.S. have already been fully vaccinated, but that’s less than 50% of the total population.

“The more people that are vaccinated, the fewer cases of COVID we're going to see in general and the fewer variants we're going to see emerge,” said Dr. Landon.

And with the more contagious delta variant twice as transmissible, experts warn the more the virus can circulate among the unvaccinated, the more likely the chance of breakthrough cases and potentially vaccine-resistant mutations, which could lead to more spread.

“Any individual who is symptomatic, whether they've been vaccinated or not, should consider themselves to be contagious.”

In the end, experts like Dr. Landon say vaccination is key. But being fully vaccinated doesn’t mean someone is fully protected.

“For people who aren't willing to follow the science, it turns out it might be better for all of us to just wear a mask so that we know that everybody's protected," Dr. Landon said.