COVID-19 updates: No unemployment benefits for vaccine refusal in this state
The state just announced new COVID emergency plans.
The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.
More than 686,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.7 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. The average number of daily deaths in the U.S. has risen about 20% in the last week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The U.S. is continuing to sink on the list of global vaccination rates, currently ranking No. 46, according to data compiled by The Financial Times. Just 64.7% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the CDC.
Latest headlines:
Over half of Louisiana's new cases are among people under 40
In Louisiana, 1,268 COVID-19 cases have been reported since Monday, and over half of those are people under 40.
Those ages 5 to 17 make up 21% of the cases, state health officials said. Louisiana residents ages 18 to 29 make up 16% and people between the ages of 30 to 39 account for 16%.
Louisiana has lost 13,558 residents to COVID-19 since the pandemic began, state health officials said.
The state currently has 1,239 COVID-19 patients in hospitals.
Pelosi visits art installation commemorating Americans lost to COVID
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday visited the public art installation on the National Mall that commemorates the American lives lost to COVID-19.
More than 660,000 white flags were planted in the biggest participatory art installation on the National Mall since the AIDS Quilt. The installation is open to the public from Sept. 17 to Oct. 3.
Feds sending resources to North Carolina, Alaska, West Virginia, Tennessee
FEMA is preparing to send 50 ambulances and 100 personnel to North Carolina to help with shortages statewide, according to a federal planning document obtained by ABC News.
Alaska and West Virginia have each asked the Department of Health and Human Services to provide 50 ventilators, the document said, while the Defense Department is sending a 23-person military medical team to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
-ABC News' Brian Hartman
Biden addresses UN, touts global vaccine donations
President Joe Biden kicked off his first speech at the United Nations General Assembly since taking office by focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic, the global death toll and the need to "act together."
"Will we work together to save lives, defeat COVID-19 everywhere and take the necessary steps to prepare ourselves for the next pandemic, if there will be another one? Or will we fail to harness the tools at our disposal as the dangerous variants take hold?" Biden said Tuesday.
"To fight this pandemic, we need a collective act of science and political will. We need to act now to get shots in arms as fast as possible. Expand access to oxygen, tests, treatments, to save lives around the world," he said. "And for the future, we need to create a new mechanism to finance global health security."
The president touted global vaccine donations, saying the U.S. has sent more than 160 million doses to 100 other countries.
Biden said he would announce "additional commitments" at Wednesday's virtual COVID-19 summit.
-ABC News' Justin Ryan Gomez
Florida letting parents choose whether to quarantine asymptomatic, close-contact children
The Florida Department of Health issued an emergency rule Wednesday that lets parents choose whether to quarantine their children if they are deemed a close contact of someone who tested positive for COVID-19.
In such cases, parents can let their children "attend school, school-sponsored activities, or be on school property, without restrictions or disparate treatment, so long as the student remains asymptomatic," the emergency rule stated.
The move is the state's latest to empower parents when it comes to coronavirus measures in schools. In July, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order giving parents the choice of whether to send their kids to school with masks, setting off an intense back-and-forth between the state and districts that mandated masks in the weeks since.
DeSantis touted the new "symptoms-based approach" during a press briefing Wednesday.
"Quarantining healthy students is incredibly damaging to their educational advancement," he said. "It's also incredibly disruptive for families all throughout the state of Florida."
At least one superintendent in Florida has spoken out against the new quarantine rule.
"I find it ironic that the new state rule begins with the phrase 'Because of an increase in COVID-19 infections, largely due to the spread of the COVID-19 delta variant,'" Carlee Simon, superintendent of Alachua County Public Schools, said in a statement posted to Twitter Wednesday.
"In fact, this rule is likely to promote the spread of COVID-19 by preventing schools from implementing the common-sense masking and quarantine policies recommended by the vast majority of health care professionals, including those here in Alachua County," she added.
-ABC News' Will McDuffie