Fauci: Divergent vaccination rates could create "two Americas"

The big picture: The low vaccination rates across parts of the U.S. will make these communities particularly vulnerable to the highly transmissible Delta variant of the virus, Fauci said.

• "When you have such a low level of vaccination superimposed upon a variant that has a high degree of efficiency of spread, what you are going to see among under-vaccinated regions — be they states, cities or counties — you're going to see these individual types of blips," he said.
• "It's almost like it's going to be two Americas," Fauci added.
• "You're going to have areas where the vaccine rate is high, where there's more than 70% of the population has received at least one dose. When you compare that with areas where you may have 35% of the people vaccinated, you clearly have a high risk of seeing these spikes in those selected areas," the infectious disease expert explained.

These spikes could be "entirely avoidable" if more people get vaccinated, Fauci noted.