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.


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Treatment for severe COVID patients seeing global shortages 

Less than two months after the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization for the treatment Actemra for severely sick COVID-19 patients, there are already global shortages due to an "unprecedented surge in worldwide demand," the manufacturer, Roche, said.

Actemra helps fight the inflammatory immune reaction some COVID-19 patients have with severe infection.

Roche said employees have been "working around the clock" to boost production and distribution.

"Despite all these efforts, the unfortunate reality is that due to the unprecedented surge in worldwide demand -- with US demand spiking to well-beyond 400% of pre-COVID levels over the last two weeks alone -- we will experience shortages of Actemra/RoActemra globally over the weeks and months ahead," Roche said. "This is due to global manufacturing capacity limits, raw material supply constraints, the complex, labour-intensive process of manufacturing biologics and the dynamically evolving nature of the pandemic."

The World Health Organization added Actemra to its list of COVID-19 treatments in July following FDA authorization.

-ABC News' Sasha Pezenik


Proof of vaccination required to attend CES 2022

The massive annual technology conference CES, taking place in Las Vegas in January 2022, will require proof of vaccination, the Consumer Technology Association said Tuesday.

"For those who may be unable to travel to Las Vegas, CTA will again create a digital event that will run in parallel with the in-person program," CTA said.


Biden administration ships 1st of 500 million vaccine doses to Rwanda

The Biden administration on Tuesday will ship the first 188,370 doses of a 500 million dose commitment of the Pfizer vaccine to Rwanda, according to a senior administration official. The 500 million dose pledge was announced at the G7 summit in June and the contract the U.S. negotiated with Pfizer identified late August as the goal for initial shipments.

The U.S. is also sending 300,000 additional U.S. surplus doses to Rwanda Tuesday, making this first total shipment 488,370. All the doses will be distributed through Covax, the World Health Organization's vaccine-sharing initiative.

-ABC News' Sarah Kolinovsky


Chicago Marathon will require vaccination or negative COVID test

The 35,000 runners at this year's Chicago Marathon must provide proof of vaccination or a negative test administered within 72 hours.

The marathon is set to take place Sunday, Oct. 10.

-ABC News' Joshua Hoyos


Unvaccinated Black people 'biggest group' driving COVID spike: Texas Lt Gov

Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told Fox News Channel host Laura Ingraham that "African-Americans who have not been vaccinated" are the "the biggest group in most states" driving the spike in COVID-19 cases, during a Thursday interview.

Patrick doubled down on his comment, adding that "over 90% of them vote for Democrats and their major cities and major counties."

"It's up to the Democrats to get -- just as it's up to Republicans to try to get as many people vaccinated," he said. "In terms of criticizing the Republicans for this, we are encouraging people who want to take it to take it, but they are doing nothing for the African-American community that has significant high number of unvaccinated."

NAACP President Derrick Johnson pushed back in a statement: "Lt. Governor Dan Patrick lives in an alternate reality, where facts don’t matter," Johnson said.

"He’s delusional. Black Texans are not the driving force behind the surge of COVID cases in Texas. His statement is not only baseless, it’s racist. Falsely casting blame on the Black community is one of the oldest tricks in the book, and we expect better from an elected official.”

-ABC News' Brian Hartman