Hospitalizations hit COVID highs for those under 50 and for children
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The United States accounts for more than one-fifth of the world’s total COVID-19 cases for the first time since mid-February, before vaccines were widely available, a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows.
And hospitalizations have hit pandemic highs among all ages under 50, reported the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We’re seeing a lot of people get seriously ill,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Biden administration’s lead adviser on the pandemic, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “The hospitalizations are on the brink of actually overrunning the hospitals, particularly intensive care units.”
Every county in the states of Connecticut and Massachusetts are the site of high or substantial transmission of the coronavirus, the CDC said Sunday.
Dr. Geoff Lifferth, the chief medical officer at Sumner Regional Medical Center, a 167-bed hospital in suburbs of the health care mecca of Nashville, said what many Tennessee doctors knew to be true: The coronavirus, empowered by the new variant, is overtaking hospitals faster than ever.
“There are no beds,” he warned on Facebook Thursday.
“As an ER doc and a health care administrator, the past week has been one of the most exhausting and disheartening of my career. The delta variant has burned through us with a ferocity that’s hard to describe.”
Also in the news:
►The Texas Supreme Court stepped in Sunday evening to block lower-court orders that had allowed Dallas and San Antonio — and cities, counties and schools across Texas — to impose mask mandates contrary to an executive order by Gov. Greg Abbott. The temporary restraining orders, issued by separate District Court judges and upheld Friday by intermediate appellate courts, had halted enforcement of Abbott’s July 29 edict.
► A community in rural east central Mississippi is overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases, two weeks after it hosted the Neshoba County Fair that brought thousands of people who lived in cabins, attended shoulder-to-shoulder outdoor concerts and horseraces and listened to political speeches — including one by Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, who decried federal guidance on mask-wearing as “foolish.”
►Poland has sent 1 million COVID-19 vaccines to Sydney where the delta variant continues to spread, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Sunday.
►CVS and Walgreens pharmacies began administering the newly authorized third coronavirus vaccine shot to individuals with immunocompromising conditions on Saturday. People who completed their first two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccines at least 28 days ago and have a qualifying condition can schedule their booster shots on the companies’ websites.
►Sunday, the U.S. reported 665,000 doses administered, including 404,000 newly vaccinated, said White House COVID-19 Data Director Cyrus Shahpar. 72% of adults have at least one dose and the U.S. is nearing 70% of all eligible people (ages 12 and up) with at least one dose.
📈 Today’s numbers: The U.S. has had more than 36.6 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 621,600 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The global totals: More than 207.13 million cases and 4.3 million deaths. More than 168.3 million Americans — 50.7% of the population — have been fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
📘 What we’re reading: Should kids wear masks in school? These states have banned mandates, despite experts’ pleas.
Keep refreshing this page for the latest news. Want more? Sign up for USA TODAY’s Coronavirus Watch newsletter to receive updates directly to your inbox and join our Facebook group.
A man was stabbed and a news reporter was kicked after a fight broke out between anti-vaxxers and counter-protesters at a Los Angeles protest over vaccine mandates, Los Angeles police said Saturday.
The identity of the man with the stab wound was not released and no information was given about the extent of his injury, the Los Angeles Times reported. No arrest has been reported in connection with the stabbing, or in the attack on KPCC radio reporter Frank Stoltze, said Officer Mike Lopez of the Los Angeles Police Department.
“Not wearing a mask and being anti-vax isn’t patriotism — it’s stupidity,” City Council President Nury Martinez said in a statement. “We have to be able to have differences of opinions without resorting to violence. Attacking counter-protesters and journalists has no place in a democracy and certainly no place in Los Angeles.”
The director of the National Institutes of Health says the U.S. could decide in the next couple of weeks whether to offer coronavirus booster shots to Americans this fall.
Dr. Francis Collins told “Fox News Sunday” that federal health officials are looking at the U.S. numbers “almost daily” but no decision has been made because cases so far still indicate that vaccinated people remain highly protected from COVID-19, including the delta variant.
The New York Times reported that White House officials are looking at October for a booster vaccine rollout, beginning with those who received initial doses first — nursing home residents and health care workers.
The World Health Organization has called for a moratorium on booster shots in wealthy countries to send to poorer countries so they can vaccinate their populations.
As COVID-19 hospitalizations in Escambia County in Florida climb to levels not seen so far in the pandemic and schools are back in session, the growing number of children hospitalized with the coronavirus has experts worried.
Studer Family Children’s Hospital Pediatrician-in-Chief Jason Foland said Friday that last week, he saw a two-week-old baby with COVID-19 go into cardiac arrest and has recently seen more children, from newborns to teenagers, who are in the intensive care unit or need critical care due to COVID-19.
This week, Escambia County started specifically tracking pediatric hospital admissions due to COVID-19 complications on its online dashboard. On Friday, there were 12 children under the age of 18 who were being treated for COVID-19 at Escambia County hospitals.
That’s out of 357 total COVID-19 hospitalizations — yet another all-time record during the pandemic — among the county’s three major hospitals, Ascension Sacred Heart, Baptist and West Florida hospitals.
While the number of pediatric COVID-19 hospitalizations is relatively low compared to the overall population, the highly transmissible delta variant is causing the illness to spread incredibly easily among people and especially vulnerable children, according to Foland.
“(The parents are) scared and terrified,” he said. “They know the odds here, right, they know that statistically very few kids get complications from COVID but now it’s their kid and now they’re really worried about it.”
— Emma Kennedy, Pensacola News Journal
Contributing: The Associated Press.