A top US public health official warned on Sunday that the country's efforts to contain the outbreak were "failing", as the daily number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the US hit a six-month high. "We really shouldn't be in this situation." 'On that front, yes, we have failed,' National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins said on ABC's 'This Week.'

The rise in cases of the highly contagious Delta strain of the virus has brought a string of bad news: the daily total of new cases in the United States has surged to 118,000, the highest since February; According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the average number of deaths in seven days jumped to 454 on Friday from 251 two weeks earlier; More and more young people are being affected and children's hospitals in states such as Florida are "overwhelmed".