From New York Times, I'm Michael Obaro. This is an alien.

Today, in the United States, the worst of a pandemic was supposed to be over by now.

Why it's not. An update on the state of the virus with my colleague, a poor,

Montevili. It's Wednesday, September 8th.

Hello, Michael. Yes. Hello. I'm sorry that I'm unconsciously late. That's okay.

I really was. I think I was late because my cat vomited on the carpet,

which she does constantly. Cats, kids, interruptions.

Your kids vomit? Well, not anymore. No, but they just interrupt.

A poor, but we are talking to you right after the Labor Day holiday in the US, which traditionally

marks the end of the summer. And this summer was supposed to be the summer of liberation

from COVID, the summer of freedom from the pandemic as President Biden called it.

It doesn't seem that that's what it's become. So let's talk about what this summer was in theory

going to look like, what it might have looked like, and what it turned out to be.

Well, let's begin by talking about what it could have been. The summer could have continued

to be the summer of liberation. We could have continued to see rising vaccination rates

and a variant that responded beautifully to the vaccines and continued on this lovely path

being free of the pandemic. Instead, what we've had is a summer of delta.

And I think delta more than anything else has really shown us that this virus cannot be underestimated.

It's a lesson we knew already, but I think delta has delivered it with a really tough punch

and shown us that we are really far from being done with this virus.

So let's talk through the data from this summer, the infection rates, the hospitalization rates,

the death rates, and where those ended now that the summer is over and how they contrast

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