The state just announced new COVID emergency plans.
The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.
More than 686,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.7 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The average number of daily deaths in the U.S. has risen about 20% in the last week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The U.S. is continuing to sink on the list of global vaccination rates, currently ranking No. 46, according to data compiled by The Financial Times. Just 64.7% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the CDC.
Brazilian Minister of Health Marcelo Queiroga said Tuesday that he has tested positive for COVID-19 while in New York City for the United Nations General Assembly.
Queiroga, who accompanied Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to the event, announced his diagnosis on Twitter and said he will quarantine.
In a letter to the Texas Education Agency, the U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday said it is beginning an investigation into Texas schools' ban on mask mandates, and how that could potential be an infringement of students’ civil rights.
The investigation will focus on "whether, in light of this policy, students with disabilities who are at heightened risk for severe illness from COVID-19 are prevented from safely returning to in-person education, in violation of Federal law,” the letter states.
The Department of Education’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, Suzanne Goldberg, laid out the process of the investigation in the letter, but also made clear that it could be resolved at any time if masks in schools are reinstated.
"OCR’s Case Processing Manual provides several ways for this investigation to be resolved, including an option to reach a voluntary resolution agreement prior to the completion of an investigation,” the letter reads. “If TEA expresses an interest in resolving the investigation in this way and OCR determines this form of resolution is appropriate based on the investigation, we will follow the steps set out in Section 302 of the Case Processing Manual.”
The U.S. daily death average has now climbed over 1,400 despite skewed reporting from the weekend, according to federal data.
About one-third of the nearly 9,500 virus-related deaths in the last week came from just three states: Texas, Georgia and Alabama.
About 90,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, compared to more than 100,000 patients about three weeks ago, according to federal data. But in the past month, at least 10 states -- Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia -- have reported record hospitalizations.
West Virginia is leading the nation in cases, followed by Alaska, Montana, Idaho, Alabama, Wyoming, Kentucky, North Dakota, Tennessee and Ohio, according to federal data.
-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos
In Louisiana, 1,268 COVID-19 cases have been reported since Monday, and over half of those are people under 40.
Those ages 5 to 17 make up 21% of the cases, state health officials said. Louisiana residents ages 18 to 29 make up 16% and people between the ages of 30 to 39 account for 16%.
Louisiana has lost 13,558 residents to COVID-19 since the pandemic began, state health officials said.
The state currently has 1,239 COVID-19 patients in hospitals.
