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The delta mutation is causing a surge in COVID-19 cases, here in Idaho and across the country. This is not the first variant to spike infections — and it won’t be the last.

The pace of new infections is falling in some of the states that saw the earliest impact of the delta variant this past summer, while in states like West Virginia and Kentucky, the variant is still taking hold.

This fall’s crowded college and professional football stadiums could create ripe conditions for COVID-19 to spread among unvaccinated fans, experts say.

In his most forceful pandemic actions and words, President Joe Biden on Thursday ordered sweeping new federal vaccine requirements for as many as 100 million Americans — private-sector employees as well as health care workers and federal contractors — in an all-out effort to curb the surging COVID-19 delta variant.

People who were not fully vaccinated this spring and summer were more than 10 times more likely to be hospitalized, and 11 times more likely to die of covid-19, than those who were fully vaccinated, according to one of three major studies published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The WHO recently labeled Mu (B.1.621 and first discovered in Colombia) a variant of interest as preliminary data indicated it may better elude immunity from prior infection or vaccination.

Complete protection against infection has long been hailed as the holy grail of vaccination. It might simply be unachievable.

The summer that was supposed to mark America’s independence from COVID-19 is instead drawing to a close with the U.S. more firmly under the tyranny of the virus, with deaths per day back up to where they were in March.

While experts say there certainly is more the federal government can do, they also say part of the challenge is that a segment of the American population is simply refusing to get the vaccine, allowing the virus to continue to spread.

Cases are starting to fall in some hard-hit Southern states, but nearly half of Americans are not fully vaccinated, allowing the Delta variant to persist.

The U.S. health care system is again buckling under the weight of a COVID-19 surge that has filled more than 100,000 hospital beds nationwide and forced some states to consider enacting "crisis standards of care" — a last resort plan for rationing medical care during a catastrophic event.

The recent spread of the highly contagious Delta variant has thrown back-to-school plans into disarray, temporarily driving tens of thousands of students back to virtual learning or pausing instruction altogether.