COVID-19 infections continue to spike nationwide with nearly 5,400 new cases reported in Texas on Friday.

Of those cases, a total of 557 came from Hidalgo and Cameron counties.

As the Delta variant fuels a new spike in infections, a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that this wave is not expected to peak until October.

According to UT Health Rio Grande Valley's chief medical officer, the virus keeps evolving. But the more people are vaccinated, the less opportunity the virus has to mutate.

Dr. Michael Dobbs says that the host of the virus is primarily unvaccinated people. When the virus is inside an unvaccinated body that doesn’t have the immunity provided by the vaccine, there's a chance it can reproduce and change - creating a mutation.

"If the mutation happens to be something that's favorable to the virus transmitting, then that type of virus, that strain, will take over and become the most dominant one eventually and that's what we're seeing with the Delta variant,” Dr. Dobbs said.

What makes Delta a more dangerous strain is that it's much more easily transmissible than other variants. That's why Dr. Dobbs says the vaccine offers everyone the best protection against COVID and is key in stopping the virus from mutating further. 

"The way to eradicate it is to get vaccinated, for everyone to get vaccinated and not provide the virus hosts,” Dr. Dobbs said.