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.
Here's how the news is developing today. All times Eastern.
Aug 16, 2021, 12:48 PM EDT
Pfizer/BioNTech submit early booster shot data to FDA
Pfizer/BioNTech have submitted early booster shot data to the Food and Drug Administration.
A woman receives the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease vaccine as a booster dose at Skippack Pharmacy in Schwenksville, Pa., Aug. 14, 2021.
Hannah Beier/Reuters
Phase 1 data found that people given a third shot eight to nine months after their primary doses had a boosted immune response and higher neutralizing antibody levels against the delta variant.
Pfizer/BioNTech plan to continue to study booster shots and submit additional data to the FDA.
It's not clear when or if the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might recommend booster doses for all. Only severely immunocompromised people are currently eligible.
-ABC News' Sony Salzman
Aug 16, 2021, 11:45 AM EDT
Vaccines mandated for all New York health workers
All health workers in New York state, public and private, must get vaccinated by Sept. 27, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday.
A health center advertises for the COVID-19 vaccine in a neighborhood near Brighton Beach on July 22, 2021, in the Brooklyn borough of New York.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images, FILE
This includes staff at hospitals and long-term care facilities, including nursing homes, adult care and other congregate care settings.
Seventy-five percent of the state's hospital workers and 68% of nursing home workers are already vaccinated.
-ABC News' Aaron Katersky
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."
