Tag Archives: United States

U.S. consumer confidence falls to 6-month low; house prices post record gains

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. consumer confidence fell to a six-month low in August as concerns about soaring COVID-19 infections and higher inflation dampened the outlook for the economy.

The survey from the Conference Board on Tuesday also showed consumers were less upbeat about the labor market. They were less inclined to buy a home and big-ticket items like motor vehicles and major household appliances over the next six months, supporting the view that consumer spending will cool in the third quarter after two straight quarters of double-digit growth.

Still, more consumers planned to go on vacation, indicating a rotation in spending from goods to services was underway as economic activity continues to normalize following the upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Increased spending on services, which account for the bulk of economic activity, should keep a floor under consumer spending.

“While the resurgence of COVID-19 and inflation concerns have dampened confidence, it is too soon to conclude this decline will result in consumers significantly curtailing their spending in the months ahead,” said Lynn Franco, senior director of economic indicators at the Conference Board in Washington.

It mirrored the University of Michigan’s survey of consumers, which showed sentiment tumbling in August because of rising prices for goods like food and gasoline, as well as the resurgence in COVID-19 cases that has been driven by the Delta variant of the coronavirus.

The Conference Board’s so-called labor market differential, derived from data on respondents’ views on whether jobs are plentiful or hard to get, slipped to 42.8 this month from 44.1 in July. This measure closely correlates to the unemployment rate in the Labor Department’s closely watched employment report.

Fewer households intended to buy long-lasting manufactured goods such as motor vehicles and household appliances like washing machines and clothes dryers, the survey showed. But the share of consumers planning to go on vacations rose, with most expecting to travel domestically and many intending to fly to their destinations. That should help to offset the drag from reduced spending on goods.

Despite the anticipated slowdown, the foundation for consumer spending remains strong, with households sitting on at least $2.5 trillion in excess savings accumulated during the pandemic. Gross domestic product growth estimates for the third quarter are around a 5% annualized rate. The economy grew at a 6.6% pace in the second quarter.

Stocks on Wall Street were trading mostly lower after recent strong gains. The dollar was largely flat against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices were lower.

HOME PRICES JUMP

The Conference Board survey also showed less enthusiasm among consumers for home purchases over the next six months amid higher house prices, which are sidelining some first-time buyers from the market.

Demand for housing soared early in the pandemic as Americans sought more spacious accommodations for home offices and home schooling, but supply severely lagged, fueling house price growth. COVID-19 vaccinations have allowed some employers to recall workers to offices. Schools and universities have reopened for in-person learning.

A separate report on Tuesday showed the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index jumped a record 18.6% in June from a year ago after rising 16.8% in May. Economists, however, believe that house price inflation has peaked, with homes becoming less affordable especially for first-time buyers.

“Some early data suggests that the buyer frenzy experienced this spring is tapering, though many buyers still remain in the market,” said Selma Hepp, deputy chief economist at CoreLogic. “Nevertheless, less competition and more for-sale homes suggest we may be seeing the peak of home price acceleration. Going forward, home price growth may ease off but stay in the double digits through year-end.”

A separate report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) showed its house price index rose a record 18.8% in the 12 months through June. House prices surged 17.4% in the second quarter compared to the same period in 2020. FHFA believes house prices peaked in June.

The FHFA index is calculated by using purchase prices of houses financed with mortgages sold to or guaranteed by mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Paul Simao)

U.S. completes withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan

(Reuters) -The United States completed the withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan, the Pentagon said on Monday, after a chaotic evacuation of thousands of Americans and Afghan allies to close out U.S. involvement there after 20 years of conflict.

The operation came to an end before the Tuesday deadline set by President Joe Biden, who has drawn heavy criticism from both Democrats and Republicans for his handling of Afghanistan since the Taliban made rapid advances and took over Kabul earlier this month.

The withdrawal was announced by General Frank McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command, who said the final flights did not include some of the dozens of Americans who remained behind.

More than 122,000 people have been airlifted out of Kabul since Aug. 14, the day before the Taliban regained control of the country two decades after being removed from power by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

The United States and its Western allies scrambled to save citizens of their own countries as well as translators, local embassy staff, civil rights activists, journalists and other Afghans vulnerable to reprisals.

The evacuations became even more perilous when a suicide bomb attack claimed by Islamic State – enemy of both the West and the Taliban – killed 13 U.S. service members and scores of Afghans waiting by the airport gates on Thursday.

Biden promised after the bloody Kabul airport attack to hunt down the people responsible.

The departure took place after U.S. anti-missile defenses intercepted rockets fired at Kabul’s airport.

Two U.S. officials said “core” diplomatic staff were among 6,000 Americans to have left. They did not say whether that included top envoy Ross Wilson, expected to be among the last civilians to depart.

A U.S. official said initial reports did not indicate any U.S. casualties from as many as five missiles fired on the airport. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks.

In recent days, Washington has warned of more attacks, while carrying out two air strikes. It said both hit Islamic State targets, one thwarting an attempted suicide bombing in Kabul on Sunday by destroying a car packed with explosives, but which Afghans said had struck civilians.

Tuesday’s deadline for troops to leave was set by Biden, fulfilling an agreement reached with the Taliban by his predecessor, Donald Trump to end the United States’ longest war.

But having failed to anticipate that the Taliban would so quickly conquer the country, Washington and its NATO allies were forced into a hasty exit. They leave behind thousands of Afghans who helped Western countries and might have qualified for evacuation.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus and Idrees Ali and Rupam Jain; Additional reporting by Joseph Nasr in Berlin; Writing by Clarence Fernandez, Peter Graff, William Maclean and Steve Holland; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Catherine Evans and Peter Cooney)

Abortion providers ask U.S. Supreme Court to block Texas’ six-week ban

By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) – Abortion rights groups filed an emergency request at the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to block a Texas law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, which is set to take effect on Wednesday.

The groups, including Planned Parenthood and other abortion and women’s health providers, told the court that the law would “immediately and catastrophically reduce abortion access in Texas, barring care for at least 85% of Texas abortion patients” and would likely force many abortion clinics to close.

The groups challenged the law in federal court in Austin in July, contending it violates a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

The law, signed on May 19, is unusual in that it gives private citizens the power to enforce it by enabling them to sue anyone who assists a woman in getting an abortion past the six-week cutoff.

The law is among of a number of “heartbeat” abortion bans enacted in Republican-led states. These laws seek to ban the procedure once the rhythmic contracting of fetal cardiac tissue can be detected, often at six weeks – sometimes before a woman realizes she is pregnant.

Courts have blocked such bans as a violation of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

The state of Mississippi has asked the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in a major case the justices agreed to hear over a 2018 law banning abortion after 15 weeks. The justices will hear arguments in their term that begins in October, with a ruling due by the end of June 2022.

The Texas lawsuit seeks to prevent judges, county clerks and other state entities from enforcing the law through citizen lawsuits. The plaintiffs also sued the director of an anti-abortion group that they said has threatened enforcement actions under the new law.

A federal judge rejected a bid to dismiss the case, prompting an immediate appeal to the New Orleans, Louisiana-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which halted further proceedings in the case. On Sunday, the 5th Circuit denied a request by the abortion providers to block the law pending the appeal.

The plaintiffs on Monday asked the Supreme Court to block the Texas law or allow proceedings in the lower court to continue.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York, additional reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. coronavirus hospitalizations hit eight-month high over 100,000

By Anurag Maan

(Reuters) -The number of coronavirus patients in U.S. hospitals has breached 100,000, the highest level in eight months, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, as a resurgence of COVID-19 spurred by the highly contagious Delta variant strains the nation’s health care system.

A total of 101,433 COVID patients were hospitalized, according to data published on Friday morning.

U.S. COVID-19 hospitalizations have more than doubled in the past month. Over the past week, more than 500 people with COVID were admitted to hospitals each hour on average, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The United States reached its all-time peak for hospitalizations on Jan. 14 when there were over 142,000 coronavirus-infected patients in hospital beds, according to HHS.

As the vaccination campaign expanded in early 2021, hospitalizations fell and hit a 2021 low of 16,000 on in late June.

However, COVID-19 admissions rose suddenly in July as the Delta variant became the dominant strain. The U.S. South is the epicenter of the latest outbreak but hospitalizations are rising nationwide.

Florida has the highest number of COVID-19 hospitalized patients, followed by Texas and California, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. More than 95% of intensive care beds are currently occupied in Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

The Delta variant, which is rapidly spreading among mostly the unvaccinated U.S. population, has also sent a record number of children to hospital. There are currently over 2,000 confirmed and suspected pediatric COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to HHS.

Three states – California, Florida and Texas – amount to about 32% of the total confirmed and suspected pediatric COVID-19 hospitalizations in the United States.

Children currently make up about 2.3% of the nation’s COVID-19 hospitalizations. Kids under 12 are not eligible to receive the vaccine.

The country is hoping for vaccine authorization for younger children by autumn with the Pfizer Inc vaccine.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said this week that the nation could get COVID-19 under control by early next year if vaccinations ramp up.

The United States has given at least one dose of vaccine to about 61% of its population, according to the CDC.

The United States, which leads the world in the most deaths and cases, has reported 38.5 million infections and over 634,000 deaths since the pandemic began last year, according to a Reuters tally.

(Reporting by Anurag Maan in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Michael Perry)

U.S. COVID-19 tests again in short supply as infections soar, schools reopen

By Carl O’Donnell

(Reuters) – U.S. companies are scrambling to boost production of coronavirus tests increasingly in short supply as COVID-19 cases soar and schools and employers revive surveillance programs that will require tens of millions of tests, according to industry executives and state health officials.

Test manufacturers including Abbott Laboratories, Becton Dickinson and Co, and Quidel Corp in recent months scaled back production of rapid COVID-19 tests, which can produce results on-site in minutes, as well as test kits that are sent to laboratories for analysis. The move followed a nearly 90% decline in testing and a similarly large drop in COVID-19 cases in the United States.

Abbott in June shut down two production lines in Maine and closed a manufacturing plant in Illinois. Around the same time, Quidel shifted production away from COVID-19 tests. Becton Dickinson had also scaled back production in recent months.

Now, with the Delta variant pushing U.S. COVID-19 cases well above 100,000 per day, test makers are working to quickly reverse course, industry executives and state officials told Reuters.

“We’re hiring people and turning on parts of our manufacturing network that were idled or slowed when guidance changed and demand plunged,” Abbott said in a statement.

However, test makers including Abbott and Becton Dickinson cautioned that there may be supply constraints in the near term.

“With the rise of cases from the Delta variant… there is currently some tightness in supply as manufacturers ramp back up,” said Troy Kirkpatrick, a spokesperson for Becton Dickinson, adding that the company expects inventory levels “will normalize over the next couple of weeks.”

Demand for COVID-19 tests has been largely driven by healthcare providers, employers and schools, he added.

Supplies could tighten even further as more state governments and private employers demand staff either get vaccinated or agree to regular testing. Pfizer Inc and Goldman Sachs are among major employers requiring staff to be regularly tested.

Testing in schools is a top priority for federal and state officials as a minority of the roughly 70 million school-age U.S. children have been vaccinated. Those under 12 are not yet eligible for the shots.

Demand for diagnostic tests has surged nearly six-fold in the past two months, from around 250,000 per day in early July to nearly 1.5 million in mid-August, according to U.S. federal data. The data only tracks diagnostic tests that are run in laboratories.

That demand is only expected to grow.

More than half a dozen states, including California, Delaware, and South Carolina, have set up comprehensive surveillance testing programs for their public K-12 schools, while Pennsylvania and Arkansas are among at least a dozen other states developing similar plans. Even in states without such plans, many local school districts are rolling out surveillance programs.

Ysleta Independent School District in El Paso, Texas, expects to need around 40,000 Abbott rapid tests per month to monitor students for COVID-19, said Lynly Leeper, the district’s chief financial and operational officer.

Her school district had been planning to shut down its testing program until the Delta variant sent cases soaring in the state in recent weeks.

SUPPLY CHAIN CONCERNS

Delaware, which was among the first to roll out a comprehensive surveillance testing program in July, has already begun to see some test shortages, said Dr. Rick Pescatore, an associate medical director in the state’s public health agency.

The surge in test demand has sounded alarms among federal officials, who are “concerned that people are going to start shutting down our supply chain,” limiting the flexibility to respond to a spike in cases, said Quidel Chief Executive Douglas Bryant told Reuters.

The recent increase in surveillance testing “really stresses the supply chain,” said Dana Lerman, medical director at The COVID Consultants, a physicians group that provides COVID-19 testing and advisory services. Her organization has seen demand for rapid tests increase 200% since June.

Even if test makers are able to keep up with rising demand from U.S. schools, states will still face challenges covering the expense of widespread testing, which experts say will cost the average school district at least $1 million each year.

Ysleta in El Paso said it expects it will cost around $3 million to safely test its students this school year, and is relying on Texas to provide it with funds.

The Biden administration granted $10 billion to help states developing COVID-19 testing programs. Experts said the sum is far short of what states will need to cover testing for the full school year.

“More federal funding will be necessary,” said Dr. Antonia Sepulveda, president of the Association of Molecular Pathology that represents diagnostic testing laboratories, “for institutions to continue comprehensive testing programs.”

(Reporting by Carl O’Donnell; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot)

Exclusive-U.S. urges Mexico to clear migrant camps near border -sources

By Dave Graham

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The United States has urged Mexico to clear ad-hoc camps housing thousands of migrants in border cities due to concerns they pose a security risk and attract criminal gangs, officials familiar with the matter said.

Facing domestic criticism over a jump in illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has pressed Mexico to curb the flow of migrants to help ease pressure on the nearly 2,000 mile (3,200 km) frontier.

Two of the biggest camps to have sprung up in northern Mexico are in the city of Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas, and in Tijuana, opposite San Diego, California.

Government officials and migrant advocates say the Reynosa camp is home to at least 2,500 people, is unsanitary and has drawn drug gang members looking to recruit desperate migrants. The Tijuana camp is of a similar size, rights groups say.

For weeks, the U.S. government has been asking Mexico to clear the camps, in part because the sheer volume of people in them could jeopardize security if they made a sudden rush for the border, two officials familiar with the matter said.

The State Department and the White House declined to comment. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

Mexico’s Foreign Ministry did not reply to requests for comment. The National Migration Institute declined to comment.

The officials emphasized the importance of eradicating conditions that encouraged cartel members to try to extort migrants, or to pressure them into joining their ranks.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered Biden to comply with a Texas-based federal judge’s ruling to revive a Trump administration immigration policy that forced thousands of asylum seekers to stay in Mexico to await U.S. hearings.

That has alarmed Mexican officials, who are concerned the country will struggle to cope with more people after the number of apprehensions or expulsions by U.S. agents of migrants crossing the border more than doubled this year.

Mexican authorities have stepped up efforts to expel migrants in the country illegally, many from Central America. In the past few weeks it has sent thousands of them to southern Mexico by plane in order to speed up the process.

(Reporting by Dave Graham; Additional reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Mexico to discuss U.S. court ruling on migrants with Washington

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico said on Wednesday it will discuss with Washington a U.S. Supreme Court order to uphold an immigration policy implemented under former President Donald Trump that forced thousands of asylum seekers to stay in Mexico to await U.S. hearings.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied U.S. President Joe Biden’s bid to rescind Trump’s “remain in Mexico” policy, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols program. Mexican officials have privately expressed concern that the policy could strain Mexico’s ability to absorb more migrants.

Biden’s ending of the policy was his first major step in dismantling Trump-era immigration actions after he took office in January pledging to implement a more humane approach to dealing with mass migration.

In a statement on Twitter overnight, Roberto Velasco, a senior official in the Mexican foreign ministry responsible for North American relations, said the U.S. government had been in touch with Mexico over the Supreme Court decision.

“Mexico isn’t part of the judicial process, which is a unilateral measure by the United States,” Velasco said.

Velasco added that on Wednesday the two countries “will exchange information” to determine what steps Mexico will take “based on the respect of sovereignty and human rights.”

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday that the foreign ministry would hold a news conference on the matter later in the day.

In a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court rejected the Biden administration’s effort to block a Texas-based judge’s ruling requiring the government to revive the policy. The brief order by the justices means that U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling now goes into effect.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it regretted the Supreme Court’s decision and would continue to “vigorously challenge” the judge’s ruling.

Arrests of migrants caught trying to cross the U.S. border with Mexico have reached 20-year highs in recent months.

(Reporting by Dave Graham; Editing by Will Dunham)

After Taliban takeover, concerns mount over U.S. counterterrorism ability

By Idrees Ali, Humeyra Pamuk and Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With no U.S. troops or reliable partners left, jails emptied of militants and the Taliban in control, doubts are mounting within President Joe Biden’s administration over Washington’s ability to stem a resurgence of al Qaeda and other extremists in Afghanistan, six current and former U.S. officials told Reuters.

Afghan security forces whom the United States helped train crumbled as Taliban militants made their way through Afghanistan in less than two weeks, leaving the United States with few partners on the ground.

“We’re not in a good place,” said a U.S. defense official, who requested anonymity to discuss the issue.

Weeks before the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by al Qaeda, the lack of visibility regarding potential extremist threats is a chilling prospect for officials.

U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in 2001 for sheltering al Qaeda militants, leading to America’s longest war.

The U.S. troop departure ordered for Aug. 31 by Biden and the subsequent collapse of Afghan security forces have stripped the CIA and other spy agencies of protection, forcing them to close bases and withdraw personnel as well.

The Biden administration cannot rely on neighboring countries because it has so far been unable to strike accords on bases for U.S. counterterrorism forces and drones, officials said.

That has left Washington dependent on staging counterterrorism operations from U.S. bases in the Gulf and counting on the Taliban to adhere to the 2020 U.S. pullout deal to stop militant attacks on the United States and allies.

But it is a costly endeavor. Flying military aircraft out of the Middle East, the nearest military hub Washington has in the region, may ultimately cost more than the 2,500 troops that had been in Afghanistan until earlier this year, the officials added.

Even deploying scarce U.S. resources to monitor militants in Afghanistan will effectively have to compete with the administration’s key priority in Asia of countering China.

The Group of Seven industrialized nations made it a priority that Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers break all ties with terrorist organizations and that the Taliban must engage in the fight against terrorism, an official at the French presidency said on Tuesday after a meeting of G7 leaders.

‘SEVERE DISADVANTAGE’

U.S. military leaders estimated in June that groups like al Qaeda could pose a threat from Afghanistan to the U.S. homeland in two years.

But the Taliban takeover rendered that estimate obsolete, officials said.

Nathan Sales, the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism until January, estimated it would now take al Qaeda six months to reconstitute the ability to conduct external operations.

The Taliban freed hundreds of detainees from prisons, stirring fears that some may include leading extremists.

While the Taliban vowed to uphold their commitment to prevent al Qaeda from plotting international attacks from Afghanistan, experts questioned that pledge.

Daniel Hoffman, a former chief of CIA covert Middle East operations, expressed doubt that the Taliban would constrain al Qaeda, noting their decades-old ties and shared ideologies.

“The country is a petri dish of threats: ISIS, al Qaeda and the Taliban. They all have us in their crosshairs,” he said.

Biden has said the United States will closely monitor militant groups in Afghanistan and has the ability to track and neutralize rising threats.

But he wrongly said last week that al Qaeda was “gone” from the country, confusing U.S. officials.

His national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Monday that Biden was referring to al Qaeda’s capability to attack the United States from Afghanistan.

A series of United Nations reports say that hundreds of al Qaeda fighters and senior leaders remain in Afghanistan under Taliban protection.

U.S. military planners say some intelligence can be gathered by satellites and aircraft flying from bases in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. But they acknowledge such operations are expensive.

“Our intelligence community and our military operators are going to be at a severe disadvantage in trying to identify where these al Qaeda cells are located, what they’re planning, and it’s going to be incredibly difficult for us to take them off the battlefield,” said Sales.

In 2015, U.S. military officials were surprised to learn that al Qaeda was operating a massive training camp in the southern Kandahar province. That was with thousands of U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan.

“Even when we had forces on the ground and a very robust air coverage, we would often be surprised by what al Qaeda was able to do,” said Kathryn Wheelbarger, a former senior Pentagon official.

Pakistan has said it will not host U.S. troops and countries in central Asia are reluctant to accept American requests because of concerns that it may anger Russia.

“I just do not believe over-the horizon can work, particularly in Afghanistan,” Wheelbarger said, referring to counterterrorism efforts from outside Afghanistan.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali, Humeyra Pamuk and Jonathan Landay; Editing by Mary Milliken and Peter Cooney)

U.S. cannot say how many Afghan refugees it has received, situation ‘fluid’

By Andrea Shalal and Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A senior U.S. official on Tuesday could not say how many Afghans have been evacuated to the United States, adding that the situation remains “fluid” because of the swiftness of the operation.

Pressed to provide numbers, the official said the U.S. government was “moving as quickly as we can to get them out of harm’s way.”

“I don’t have exact numbers for you right now or a breakdown,” the official told reporters during a phone briefing. “Even if I did, it would shift as this process continues.”

President Joe Biden’s administration has scrambled to evacuate U.S. citizens and Afghan allies amid the chaos at Kabul airport ahead of an Aug. 31 deadline for U.S. forces to pull out of Afghanistan.

In the rush, the Biden administration has not said exactly how many Afghans have been allowed to enter the United States, a figure that could show the country’s commitment to resettling vulnerable Afghans but also potentially fuel concerns that Afghans could be entering the country without adequate security vetting.

Flights have arrived in the United States in recent days carrying U.S. citizens and Afghans.

After being tested for the coronavirus upon arrival, Americans can head to their homes, while others will go to a variety of U.S. military bases, where they will receive assistance in applying for work authorization, the senior official said on Tuesday.

The arriving Afghans will be connected with refugee resettlement organizations, said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal government operations.

Other Afghans evacuated by the United States have been sent to third-country transit points in Europe and Asia, the official said.

U.S. law enforcement and counterterrorism officials are carrying out “robust security processing” before those evacuees are allowed to enter the United States, including biometric and biographical checks, the official said.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin and Grant McCool)

U.S. data show rising ‘breakthrough’ infections among fully vaccinated

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Some 25% of SARS-CoV-2 infections among Los Angeles County residents occurred in fully vaccinated residents from May through July 25, a period that includes the impact of the highly transmissible Delta variant, U.S. officials reported on Tuesday.

The data, published in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly report on death and disease, shows an increase in so-called “breakthrough” infections among fully vaccinated individuals.

The CDC is relying on data from cohorts, such as the Los Angeles County study, to determine whether Americans need a third dose of COVID-19 vaccines to increase protection. Government scientists last week laid out a strategy for booster doses beginning on Sept. 20, pending reviews from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the CDC.

The new data released on Tuesday involved more than 43,000 reported infections among Los Angeles County residents aged 16 and older. Of them, 10,895, or 25.3%, occurred in fully vaccinated persons, 1,431, or 3.3%, were in partially vaccinated persons, and 30,801, or 71.4%, were in unvaccinated individuals.

The vaccines did, however, protect individuals from more severe cases. According to the study, 3.2% of fully vaccinated individuals who were infected with the virus were hospitalized, just 0.05% were admitted to an intensive care unit and 0.25% were placed on a ventilator.

Among the unvaccinated who fell ill, 7.5% were hospitalized, 1.5% were admitted to an intensive care unit and 0.5% required breathing support with a mechanical ventilator.

In addition to the LA County data, the CDC on Tuesday released an update on the HEROES cohort study among healthcare workers that showed a significant drop in vaccine effectiveness among vaccinated frontline workers in eight states who became infected with the coronavirus.

Vaccine efficacy during the period of the study when Delta was predominant fell to 66% from 91% prior to the arrival of the Delta variant, according to the report.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen, Editing by Mark Porter)