MEMPHIS, Tennessee — This afternoon, Shelby County Health Officer Dr. Bruce Randolph and interim Shelby County Health Director Dr. LaSonya Hall and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris provided an update on the Delta variant strain.
The gathering was intended to 'sound the alarm' about a recent uptick in the more contagious Delta variant.
Dr. Randolph said Delta cases make up 72% of recent cases, higher than the national average. It's now the dominant COVID strain locally.
The positivity rate is also closer now to 9%, compared to 2.9% just two weeks ago.
Dr. Randolph added that there are now 203 Delta cases confirmed and/or suspected in Shelby County, compared to roughly 120 as of this past Friday.
18 of those - about 9% - where those fully vaccinated, according to SCHD.
The transmission rate is also now 1:1.52, the highest since April 2020 in the early days of the pandemic. Anything above 1:1 is problematic for doctors.
As of Thursday, just 34.7% of entire Shelby County population has been fully vaccinated.
"You have to ask yourself this, are you going to wait until children are dying before you're convinced that this virus is real and that you need to be vaccinated?" Dr. Randolph said. "Get vaccinated. That's the one weapon, the one solution to this problem."
Mayor Harris said they are not yet at the point of whether to consider any new restrictions but acknowledged the recent trends are troubling.
"There is a chance this is a blip, but we still want to be in a position to raise the alarm because these blips can pick up acceleration really, really fast," Mayor Harris said.
While the recent COVID-19 trends locally aren't as significant as previous peaks in the past 16 months of the pandemic, they also are heading in the wrong direction.
Thursday marked the seventh straight day in Shelby County with more than 100 reported new cases.
That also includes a 432% increase in the 7-day case average from July 1 - when it was 25.6 - to Thursday, when it was 136.3.
The 14-day case average in Shelby County is also now above 100 for first time since May 26 and the 183 new reported cases Thursday were the highest one-day new case uptick since April 30th.
As of last Friday, those with the Shelby County Health Department reported 87 confirmed Delta variant cases, with at least 29 additional suspected cases.
About 1 in 10 of those - 8 - were people who had been vaccinated, including two above the age of 65 who were hospitalized.
