COVID-19 updates: LA has highest daily death total since April

There are over 4,300 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Los Angeles County.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.5 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 849,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

About 62.9% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


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Quebec considering health tax for unvaccinated residents

COVID-19 hospitalizations are increasing in Quebec and Quebec Premier François Legault says the biggest challenge is staffing.

"To get through the next few weeks, we're going to need 1,000 more employees in hospitals and 1,500 more employees" at one of Quebec's long-term care facilities, Legault wrote on Facebook.

About 10% of adults in Quebec are unvaccinated, but they make up half of the COVID-19 ICU hospitalizations.

"This means that unvaccinated adults are nine times more likely to be hospitalized than vaccinated adults. This is a huge burden on our health network," he said. "This is why we are considering a payable health contribution for all adults who refuse, for non-medical reasons, to get vaccinated," he said.

"The amount has not been decided yet, but it will be a significant amount," he added.

-ABC News' Christine Theodorou


COVID is leading killer of law enforcement for 2nd year in a row

The vast majority of law enforcement deaths last year -- 301 out of a total 458 deaths -- were due to COVID-19, the second year in a row COVID-19 was the leading cause of line-of-duty deaths, according to a new report from the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund.

"Law enforcement officers nationwide continue to be exposed to the Covid-19 virus in the course of their daily assignments; therefore, the number of line-of-duty deaths is sadly ever-increasing," the report said.

The vaccination status of the 301 officers who died is not known.


CDC says it will update mask guidance

The CDC says it plans to update its mask guidance to “best reflect the multiple options available to people and the different levels of protection they provide.”

The CDC did not say when its guidance will be updated. In the meantime, the CDC said in a statement, “any mask is better than no mask, and we encourage Americans to wear a well-fitting mask to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”

Since the arrival of omicron, health experts have urged Americans to upgrade their cloth masks to an N95 or KN95 because the new variant is so highly transmissible. But these higher-grade masks are costly and hard to find.

Prior to omicron, CDC director Rochelle Walensky resisted suggesting N95 masks for the average American because the CDC didn’t want to discourage people from wearing any mask.

Dawn O’Connell, a top official at the Health and Human Services Department, said Tuesday that the Biden administration plans to increase production of N95s. There are already 737 million N95 masks in the strategic national stockpile available for medical workers.

-ABC News' Anne Flaherty


22,000 more Americans may die from COVID over next 2 weeks

Forecast models used by the CDC suggests COVID-19-related deaths will significantly increase over the next four weeks.

The model forecasts that 22,000 more Americans could die from COVID-19 in just the next two weeks.

The CDC obtains these forecasts from the COVID-19 Forecast Hub at UMass Amherst, where a team monitors and combines forecasting models from the nation’s top researchers. The team then creates an ensemble -- displayed like a hurricane forecast spaghetti plot -- usually with a wide cone of uncertainty.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos


Inside an Ohio children's hospital facing a COVID surge

More than 300 children with COVID-19 are in Ohio hospitals, including Dayton Children's Hospital, where workers are seeing a significant increase in pediatric COVID-19-related hospitalizations.

Dr. Vipul Patel, chief of pediatric intensive care at Dayton Children's, told ABC News the ICU is now busier than at any other point in the pandemic.

COVID-19 is only exacerbating previously existing health issues for many children, Patel explained, adding that many parents are shocked to see their children become so sick, and some families have even expressed regret for not vaccinating their kids. Nationwide, about 35% of eligible children (ages 5 to 17) are fully vaccinated, according to federal data.

Dayton Children's respiratory therapist Hillary O’Neil said it's been particularly difficult to see children who are too young to understand what is happening sick and scared.

“You can see it in the faces of kids that can’t talk -- their eyes get really big and they, we watch them struggle to breathe,” O’Neil said. “Then on top of that we watch their parents struggle to watch their child, and that is sometimes just as hard as watching the kids.”

Jackie Kerby, whose baby, Enaeshya, is hospitalized with COVID-19, told ABC News, "She’s getting these fevers in the night, and they’re not coming down. … I am terribly scared."

Across the U.S. more than 5,000 children are currently hospitalized with a confirmed or suspected case of COVID-19, according to federal data. On average, hospital admissions among children have quadrupled over the last month.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos, Kayna Whitworth