President Joe Biden has shifted his messaging in recent days to feature the “delta variant” of the coronavirus in an effort to drive up vaccination rates among young adults.
“Here’s the deal: The Delta variant is more contagious, it’s deadlier, and it’s spreading quickly around the world – leaving young, unvaccinated people more vulnerable than ever,” Biden wrote on social media on Thursday.
Biden shared a video featuring Dr. Anthony Fauci speaking about the rise of the Delta variant, pointing out young people were “most at risk” of getting the virus because they were not vaccinated yet.
“Younger people are less likely to be vaccinated. That puts the entire cohort of young people at greater risk,” Fauci said.
The Biden White House is struggling to convince young American adults to get vaccinated, as they failed to meet their July 4th goal of getting 70 percent of American adults vaccinated.
Fauci said in the video that coronavirus vaccines were over 90 percent effective at protecting people from getting hospitalized by the virus.
“The way to stop the delta variant is to get vaccinated,” he said.
The delta variant of the coronavirus was first discovered in India and is spreading around the world, as U.S. government health officials warn that it may also spread in the United States.
Israeli health officials reported that as many as half of the new coronavirus cases in Israel are in vaccinated people, driven by the spread of the Delta variant.