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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Here's how the news is developing today. All times Eastern.
Aug 16, 2021, 11:19 AM EDT

Doctor talks treating kids with RSV, COVID-19

As COVID-19 cases surge pediatricians are experiencing a first: sick children facing both respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, and COVID-19.

The emergency entrance is seen at Nemours Children's Hospital in Orlando, Fla., Aug. 14, 2021.
Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images via Shutterstock

"We've not seen this before -- we have two very highly contagious respiratory viruses circulating at the same time, particularly throughout the South around Texas and neighboring states," Dr. Jim Versalovic, pathologist-in-chief at Texas Children's Hospital, told ABC News Live on Monday.

Infants, young children and older adults are most at-risk for RSV, a respiratory virus that's usually more prevalent in the fall and winter. RSV kills 100 to 500 children under 5 each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"It's not surprising now to see children being impacted with both viruses, particularly infants and young children who are most susceptible to respiratory syncytial virus," Versalovic said.

He said in "recent weeks we've had 30% or more of our pediatric ICU beds [filled] with RSV infections," including some children also with COVID-19, which "could "mean more severe respiratory illness."

"We do know how to treat these children with RSV and with COVID. And so, for now we're managing that, but it is certainly a new challenge for us," Versalovic said.

Parents walk their children on the first day of school at West Tampa Elementary School in Tampa, Fla., Aug. 10, 2021.
Octavio Jones/Reuters

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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