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The coronavirus pandemic continues and the Delta variant poses challenges with hospitalizations

and deaths rising. I'm Arlen Neidout. This is The Heat.

Last week, US President Joe Biden expressed the urgency of getting vaccinated after cases

and deaths surge to a six-month high.

Yes, cases are going to go up before they come back down. It's the pandemic of the unvaccinated.

I know I've said it constantly and others have as well. The vaccination of the unvaccinated.

This comes as the FDA looks to approve COVID-19 booster shots for those who are immunocompromised.

But the World Health Organization is pleading for a worldwide moratorium for now on booster shots.

I understand the concern of all governments to protect their people from the Delta variant.

But we cannot and we should not accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of vaccines

using even more of it while the world's most vulnerable people remain unprotected.

We have a lot to discuss. Let's bring it up.

Joining us from Tampa, Florida is Erin Marie Ashefsky. She is a registered nurse and author of Undercover Episinter Nurse.

With us from Austin, Texas, Dell Big Tree is the CEO of the informed content action network and the host of the high-wire with Dell Big Tree.

From Gathersburg, Maryland, George C. Benjamin is the executive director of the American Public Health Association.

And from Fairfield County, Connecticut is William Haselteen. He is a former professor at Harvard Medical School, a virus expert,

and chair and president of Access Health International.

Welcome to all of you to the show and bill Haselteen. Let me start with you at this stage looking at the vaccination picture in the United States.

Half of all Americans have been vaccinated fully and about 70 percent have at least received one shot.

Big effort now underway by the federal government as well as some big businesses urging people to get vaccinated right now.

But given the spread of the Delta variant right now, mainly among unvaccinated people, what is your assessment of the pandemic in the country right now?

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