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Unvaccinated people are 11 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than those who are fully vaccinated, new research has found, bolstering evidence that the inoculations continue to provide powerful protection, even against the delta variant. The latest studies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on Friday also found that vaccinated people were nearly five times less likely to get infected and 10 times less likely to get so sick they ended up in the hospital. The CDC "looked at COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in 13 states and offers further evidence of the power of vaccination," Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said at a White House COVID-19 briefing on Friday. (Romo, 9/10)

Idaho buckles under a covid surge —

Jeremy Smith and his wife Sheena are on a four-wheeler, leading me up a dirt road on the 20 acres of mostly undeveloped land they live on near Sagle, in the Idaho panhandle. We stop near a big grove of trees and get out. It's beautiful. "We've got some Douglas fir. This is a grand pine. This is a maple," Smith says as he walks along a private trail. Smith and his extended family have been hunkering down here since the pandemic began. They are a minority in this very conservative part of Idaho. They take COVID-19 seriously and wear masks. And unlike 65% of the people in Bonner County, they're fully vaccinated. (Hegyi, 9/12)

Northern Idaho has a long and deep streak of anti-government activism that has confounded attempts to battle a COVID-19 outbreak overwhelming hospitals in the deeply conservative region. A deadly 1992 standoff with federal agents near the Canadian border helped spark an expansion of radical right-wing groups across the country and the area was for a long time the home of the Aryan Nations, whose leader envisioned a “White Homeland” in the county that is now among the worst hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Hospitals in northern Idaho are so packed with COVID-19 patients that authorities announced last week that facilities would be allowed to ration health care. (Geranios, 9/12)

In other updates on the spread of the coronavirus —

As Alaska’s hospitals grapple with short staffing, limited capacity and a health care system under serious strain, the state has reported ever-rising record numbers for COVID-19 hospitalizations. But those tallies are complicated. They include people who may have been admitted for something else and test positive for the virus, but they also omit others who have been hospitalized for COVID-19 for so long that they’re not infectious anymore. That all makes it harder to discern the true burden placed on health care facilities using a single number, Dr. Anne Zink, Alaska’s chief medical officer, said in an interview Friday. (Krakow, 9/12)

An onslaught of new coronavirus cases in West Virginia illustrates the dangers that states with low vaccination rates face as the delta variant spreads in the United States — and controversy over vaccine mandates explodes. West Virginia currently has the highest rate in the United States of new cases per day relative to population, and hospitalizations related to covid-19 are also among the highest in the country. New daily cases have increased by 52 percent over the past week, according to Washington Post data — by far the sharpest spike in the country. (Pietsch and Timsit, 9/13)

Teenagers in many of the cities and towns hardest hit by COVID-19 are getting vaccinated at alarmingly low rates, according to an analysis from a Harvard University researcher, raising concerns there could be a fresh surge in infections as schools open for in-person classes across Massachusetts. The analysis, which focused on 42 communities that have had some of the state’s highest infection rates through most of the pandemic, found that 37 of them recorded teen vaccination rates lower, and in some cases dramatically lower, than the state average for teens. (Lazar, 9/11)

Despite one of the state’s highest vaccination rates, the rural South Texas county is struggling to reach the goal of herd immunity. (Hardy, 9/11)

High vaccination rates, geography and a sense of community in the wake of 2019’s Walmart shootings help keep El Paso’s delta numbers low, experts and locals say. (Brooks Harper, 9/13)

Also on the surge —

The annual migration for many snowbirds is weeks away, but the Covid-19 waves in warm-weather locales like Florida and Arizona are causing some seasonal residents to rethink travel plans. Others say they’re determined to make the trip after missing a season in the sun. Fully vaccinated and equipped with latex gloves to pump gas, Robert Slack and his wife, Lois Slack, plan to drive 1,400 miles from their Ontario, Canada, home to Winter Haven, Fla. (Ansberry, 9/11)

Thirteen western lowland gorillas at Zoo Atlanta are receiving treatment for COVID-19 after initial tests came back positive, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution reported. Zoo Atlanta confirmed in a statement on Friday that "a number" of its 20 gorillas had tested presumptively positive, and that the zoo believes they were infected by a fully vaccinated team member. (Saric, 9/12)

Restaurants’ plans to return diners to indoor tables are unraveling. Chains such as McDonald’s Corp. and Chick-fil-A Inc. are slowing their dining rooms’ reopenings, given the Delta-driven surge in Covid-19 infections. Other restaurants are again losing customers, and trying to squeeze more diners into outdoor patios while weather still allows. (Haddon, 9/12)