Hi, I'm Dan Pramette, and welcome to Axios Recap, where we dig into one big story.

Today is Tuesday, June 22nd.

Media and home prices are up to an all-time record.

Actual sales of existing homes are down, and we're focused on the variance.

The White House today acknowledged that the U.S. is unlikely to hit

its goal of vaccinating at least 70 percent of adults by July 4th. Why it matters is more than 30

percent of U.S. adults and all kids under 12 remain unvaccinated at a time when a highly

contagious COVID-19 variant is sweeping through the country.

This is the so-called Delta variant, which could become our dominant coronavirus strain within

just a few weeks. In fact, it's already become the dominant strain in both the UK and in India.

Two things to know. First, if you're fully vaccinated, the latest research says you shouldn't

worry too much about Delta in terms of your personal health.

Research does remain ongoing, but it appears that the vaccines do protect against severe illness from not just the original virus, but also the variants of concern, which are alpha, gamma, and delta at this point, which originated in the UK, Brazil, and India, respectively.

Two, if you're not vaccinated, yeah, worry, go get your shots.

The bottom line is that Delta is a stark and deadly reminder that we're not through this

pandemic yet, even though so many of us are socializing unmasked and feeling like life

is returned to normal. The longer it takes us to get everyone vaccinated

is just more time for new variants to arise because mutations occur from person to person

transmission. And it's possible that one of those new variants would be better at getting

around our vaccines than Delta has proved to be. So today we'd like to go deeper with former

CDC director, Dr. Tom Frieden, to learn more about the Delta variant, what it means for public health, and how vaccine manufacturers plan to keep up.

That conversation in 15 seconds.

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