Jesse Jackson, wife hospitalized with COVID-19

The civil rights pioneer was vaccinated in January.

ByEmily Shapiro, Julia Jacobo, Morgan Winsor, Erin Schumaker, and Meredith Deliso
Last Updated: August 23, 2021, 7:23 AM EDT

The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.

More than 628,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.4 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.

Just 59.9% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Aug 16, 2021, 9:58 AM EDT

Positivity rate climbs to 25% at Children's Hospital New Orleans

The positivity rate has climbed to 25% at Children's Hospital New Orleans, Dr. Mark Kline, the hospital's physician-in-chief, told ABC News on Sunday.

The hospital had 12 pediatric patients on Sunday. Half of them were under 2 years old, Kline said.

Five of the 12 patients in the hospital were in the ICU: an 8-week-old, a 3-month-old, a 13-month-old, a 23-month-old and a 17-year-old, Kline said.

"As we see more children infected and ill with COVID-19, it occurs to me that our children have become the collateral damage of many adults who frame refusal of masks and vaccines as an issue of personal freedom rather than the common-sense public health measures that they are," Kline said.

"Children currently have no way out of this pandemic other than through the advocacy and personal responsibility of their parents and all adults," Kline added. "So far, we are failing them miserably."

-ABC News' Mark Abdelmalek

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