Jesse Jackson, wife hospitalized with COVID-19

The civil rights pioneer was vaccinated in January.

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.


0

Pfizer/BioNTech submit early booster shot data to FDA

Pfizer/BioNTech have submitted early booster shot data to the Food and Drug Administration.

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


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.

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


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.

"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.


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


Frontline workers warn of increase in pediatric COVID-19 related hospitalizations

The average number of people being admitted to the hospital each day with COVID-19 in the U.S. has surged by more than 480% since the end of June, marking the highest number of patients seeking care in over six months.

Doctors are warning of the alarming rates of people entering the hospital with life-threatening conditions.

"What was more terrifying this time is that these people are drowning, they're drowning, and it is an awful thing to see,” Dr. Enrique Lopez, surgical tntensivist at Phoebe Health in Georgia said Monday in a new video message.”And you would look up on the monitor and their oxygen saturation would be near perfect and they would just sit there just starving for air just begging to breathe.”

Nationally, more than 83,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 nationwide. Several Southern states are experiencing their worst surge yet, with front line workers raising the alarm about overwhelmed ICUs, and patients waiting in hallways at some hospitals.

"They're just saying over and over again I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe, and it was so different than it was last time," said Lopez. "Now, it wants kids, and those ICUs for those pediatric patients are filling up."

Likewise, as cases have increased, so have pediatric hospital admissions, experts say.

"Even though it's uncommon, it can be very severe and even life threatening in some cases," said Dr. Zac Aldewereld, assistant professor of pediatric critical care medicine and pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Pittsburgh. "And yet we have a vaccine to prevent it."

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos