U.S. COVID-19 daily deaths increase to highest level since March: CNN

WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- The average number of daily COVID-19 deaths in the United States has increased to its highest level since early March amid a surge of the highly contagious Delta variant.

"The country is once again at a point where an average of more than 2,000 people are dying of COVID-19 every day," reported CNN on Wednesday, citing data from Johns Hopkins University.

Most of the recent COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths in the United States have been among unvaccinated individuals.

Over the past week, with some eight people out of every 100,000 residents dying from COVID-19, the average death rate in the 10 least vaccinated states was about four times higher than the rate in the 10 most vaccinated states, according to a CNN analysis.

As of Tuesday, 54.8 percent of the total U.S. population is vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

U.S. President Joe Biden earlier this month rolled out a new rule that will require all private employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workers are either vaccinated or tested once a week. However, the vaccine mandates have spawned a strong pushback from several Republican states.