Unvaccinated people 11 times more likely to die in COVID-19 delta surge

A federal judge in Utica, New York, sided Tuesday with 17 health care workers who object to the state vaccine mandate for health workers on religious grounds, granting their request for an injunction.

Unlike other judges who have heard similar cases about vaccine mandates, Judge David Hurd concluded “the public interest lies with enforcing the guarantees enshrined in the Constitution and federal anti-discrimination law” and not the wider public health.

The plaintiffs said they hold the sincere religious belief that they “cannot consent to be inoculated ... with vaccines that were tested, developed or produced with fetal cell[ ] line[s] derived from procured abortions.” According to plaintiffs, the COVID-19 vaccines that are currently available violate these sincere religious beliefs “because they all employ fetal cell lines derived from procured abortion in testing, development or production.”

-ABC News' Aaron Katersky

Central Maine Medical Center updated its website Monday to say it would be suspending pediatric, heart attack and trauma admissions. Patients who arrive at the Lewiston medical center will be evaluated, stabilized and transferred to another hospital if needed, the statement said.

While the announcement didn't cite a reason for the suspended admissions, ABC affiliate WMTW said Central Maine Healthcare is enduring a staffing shortage.

Maine and New Hampshire have been struggling with COVID-19 numbers recently even though their populations are highly vaccinated, according to federal data.

Hospital admissions are no longer trending down in HHS Region 1, which includes Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island, federal data show.

-ABC News' Alexandra Faul

More than 6 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.

Although the weekly case rate remains exceptionally high, the U.S. is reporting about 95,000 fewer child cases now compared to one month ago, according to a weekly report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.

Even with the decline, last week children still accounted for 24.8% of the week's cases, the report found.

The South is no longer reporting the highest number pediatric cases and has now been surpassed by the Midwest.

Severe illness due to COVID-19 remains "uncommon" among children, the two organizations wrote in the report. However, AAP and CHA warned that there is an urgent need to collect more data on the long-term consequences of the pandemic on children, "including ways the virus may harm the long-term physical health of infected children, as well as its emotional and mental health effects."

About 43.3% of adolescents ages 12 to 17 are fully vaccinated, according to federal data.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos

Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN Monday night that "the best way to assure that decline in cases, hospitalizations and deaths [will] continue is to continue to get a lot more people vaccinated."

"We need the overwhelming proportion of those unvaccinated people to get vaccinated. Then we can be quite confident that if we can do that, you will not see a resurgence," Fauci said.

About 68 million eligible Americans remain completely unvaccinated.

Despite continued pushback, Fauci said that newly implemented vaccine mandates are working.

"Sometimes mandates can help. As sensitive an issue as that is, it is really getting people more vaccinated," Fauci said. 

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos