Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the CDC, said parents should not get to choose if their kids wear masks in school.

"Allowing it to be an issue of personal choice is fine if it only affected your child, but it doesn't. It affects everyone around your child as well," Besser told "Good Morning America" Tuesday.

"There's a lot we don't know about this virus," Besser said. "I urge parents, I urge schools, I urge governors, not to underestimate what we're dealing with."

Mississippi's top health official warned Monday that the state's top-level hospitals have no ICU beds left, and things are going to get worse.

Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs cited the latest stats on the growing number of COVID-19 cases, stating there were 6,912 new cases and 28 deaths recorded.

"Keep in mind - this will translate into around 500 new hospitalization in coming days, and we have ZERO ICU beds at Level 1-3 hospitals, and we have

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced several measures Monday to curb the state's growing COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.

Health care personnel from other states will be coming to Texas to assist the Texas Department of State Health Services with their recent wave of cases, Abbott said.

The governor sent a letter to the Texas Hospital Association urging them to suspend elective surgeries.

He also announced the health department will open more antibody fusion centers and vaccine sites for residents.

Arkansas saw its highest number of people hospitalized with the coronavirus since the pandemic began, according to state health data.

The number of hospitalizations rose by 103, its biggest one-day increase, to 1,376, which is five hospitalizations higher than the previous record set in January, the state health data showed.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson tweeted that only eight ICU beds remained in the entire state. He encouraged more people to get a vaccine.

As of Monday, 49.3% of eligible residents in Arkansas have received one vaccine shot, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In hard-hit Louisiana, where the positivity rate is about 15%, Gov. John Bel Edwards told "GMA 3"there's no indication the state has reached the peak of this surge.

Louisiana has more than 2,700 COVID-19 patients in hospitals, the governor said, noting that during the previous surge's peak, hospitalizations only reached 2,100.

"We are having the worst situation in terms of the pandemic across the board here in Louisiana. And unfortunately, we don't see anything that indicates that we have peaked," he said. "Cases continue to go up, hospitalizations, and 20% of new infections over the past couple of weeks have been in children under 18."

The governor has reinstated a mask mandate for August as cases skyrocket.

Edwards noted that "the two sectors of the economy hit hardest by COVID related to oil and gas because the demand fell so much for those products, and then to tourism because people stopped traveling."

"This is a very serious blow. But we believe and hope that this is going to be a relatively temporary change, not unlike the one that we had last March, and that sometime over the next several weeks, we will get past this surge and then continue to get people vaccinated and that the confidence will increase," he said.