US urges pregnant women to get themselves vaccinated against COVID-19 amid Delta surge

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended pregnant people get vaccinated against COVID-19. The CDC cited new safety data that found no increased risk of miscarriages among those who were vaccinated during the 20 weeks of gestation. Dr Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director, in a statement urged pregnant women to get inoculated in order to protect themselves against Coronavirus.

"CDC encourages all pregnant people or people who are thinking about becoming pregnant and those breastfeeding to get vaccinated to protect themselves from COVID-19," Walensky said in a statement.

CDC recommends pregnant people get vaccinated

The United States CDC has announced that COVID-19 vaccination is recommended for all people 12 years and older, including people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or trying to get pregnant. Furthermore, Walensky in her statement informed that the "vaccines are safe and effective." She mentioned that due to the Delta variant of COVID-19, there is an urgent need to increase vaccinations. 

"The vaccines are safe and effective, and it has never been more urgent to increase vaccinations as we face the highly transmissible Delta variant and see severe outcomes from COVID-19 among unvaccinated pregnant people", Walensky informed in the statement. 

For the new guidance, CDC has cited new research that has proved that pregnant people can receive mRNA vaccines without any increased risk to themselves or their babies. The findings suggest that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy are safe. The US CDC has revealed a new analysis that shows no increased risk of miscarriage among nearly 2,500 pregnant women who received mRNA vaccine before 20 weeks of pregnancy. The new guidelines from the CDC come at a time when the US has been witnessing a rise in COVID-19 cases driven by the highly transmissible Delta variant.  

COVID-19 situation in the US

Meanwhile, 71.3% of the adults in the United States have been inoculated with one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. According to US CDC, the US reported 132,384 new COVID-19 cases which brought the overall tally to 36,125,176. The country reported 664 new deaths which took the total number of fatalities to 616,459. According to US CDC, 196,077,952 people have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine while 167,105,507 people have received both doses of vaccine. 

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