Indyweek covered a recent Durham public school board meeting designed to weigh the pros and cons of requiring mandatory COVID vaccine shots for teachers and staff. The board members opted to develop a plan of action based on data that will indicate what percentage of school employees have already received the vaccine.
David Weber, MD, MPH, professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases, was interviewed for the article and explained that the “exponential rise” in new COVID cases is driven by the Delta variant.
He pointed to data that underscored the likelihood of unvaccinated people becoming sicker, struggling with serious disease, and even dying: He said 83 percent of UNC Hospital’s COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated, 87 percent in the ICU are unvaccinated, and 100 percent of those who have died since the emergence of the Delta variant were unvaccinated.