A man receives COVID-19 test at a mobile testing site in New York, the United States, on Aug. 31, 2021. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

The Delta variant's two-month surge has generated a sharp rise in public fears about contracting the coronavirus, undermined confidence in U.S. President Joe Biden's leadership and renewed divisions over vaccine and mask mandates, according to a poll.

With more than 160,000 new cases a day and about 100,000 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in the United States, this Labor Day holiday appears gloomy amid wide-ranging, bitter realization that the coronavirus is going to remain a fact of American life for the foreseeable future.

The seven-day average of confirmed cases of the pandemic stood at 160,901 nationwide on Saturday, with its 14-day change recording a 7-percent rise. COVID-19-related deaths were 1,544 on Saturday, with the 14-day change realizing a 53-percent hike, according to The New York Times (NYT).

"The irony is that things got so good in May and most of June that all of us, including me, were talking about the end game," John Swartzberg, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, Berkeley, was quoted as saying. "We started to enjoy life again. Within a very few weeks, it all came crashing down."

The resurgence of the pandemic has left the country "exhausted, nervous and less certain than ever about when normalcy might return," said NYT on Sunday.

SHARPER IMPACTS

The impacts of the resurging pandemic are more apparent on campuses and at airports as the summer is fizzling out.

The recent spread of the highly contagious Delta variant has thrown back-to-school plans into disarray, temporarily driving tens of thousands of students back to virtual learning or pausing instruction altogether, reported The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

Since the school year kicked off in late July, at least 1,000 schools across 31 states have closed because of COVID-19, according to Burbio, a Pelham, NY, data service that is monitoring school closures at 1,200 districts nationwide, including the 200 largest.

"The shutdowns are hitting classrooms especially hard in the Deep South, where most schools were among the first to open, a possible warning of what's to come as the rest of the nation's students start school this month," said the report.

In the meantime, the U.S. airline industry's recovery has been grounded by the recent spike in COVID-19 cases, prompting travelers to cancel travel plans for Labor Day weekend, reported The Hill this week.