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(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.

More than 650,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.5 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 62.3% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Sep 08, 6:45 pm
Kentucky reaches record number of hospitalizations

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced new grim COVID-19 data and said the state has reached a record high positivity rate of 14.1%, and a hospitalization rate of 2,424.

There are 674 residents in ICUs, Beshear said.

In the last 24 hours, 4,468 newly coronavirus cases and 30 new deaths, including that of a young teen, were reported, according to the governor.

“No matter what age you are, this thing is deadly and it’s out there. You need to get vaccinated and you need to wear your mask,” he wrote on Twitter.

Today I am sad to share another tough report in our battle with COVID-19. For Wednesday I am announcing 4,468 newly reported cases and 30 new deaths, including a 15-year-old from Shelby County. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/jMOWZtcT6B

— Governor Andy Beshear (@GovAndyBeshear) September 8, 2021

Sep 08, 6:31 pm
Nearly 94% of NFL players partially vaccinated: ESPN

Nearly 94% of all NFL players and 99% of the league’s football-related staff members are at least partially vaccinated, ESPN reported Wednesday.

The season begins Thursday night with a match between the Dallas Cowboys and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The league has mandated that coaches and staff be vaccinated and has been going back and forth with the NFL Players Association about a requirement for players.

Currently, unvaccinated players are being tested daily and required to follow a series of protocols, while those fully vaccinated are tested once a week. Still, the NFL Players Association has now demanded all players be tested daily, regardless of their vaccination status.

Sep 08, 3:53 pm
Biden to lay out next steps on testing, vaccine requirements, school safety

President Joe Biden will lay out a six-prong strategy to combat the delta variant on Thursday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.

“He’s going to outline the next phase in the fight against the virus and what that looks like, including measures to work with the public and private sector, building on the steps that we’ve already announced, the steps we’ve taken over the last few months, requiring more vaccinations, boosting important testing measures and more, making it safer for kids to go to school,” Psaki said Wednesday.

-ABC News’ Molly Nagle

Sep 08, 2:38 pm
Over 95% of US counties reporting high community transmission

More than 95% of U.S. counties are now reporting high community transmission, the highest level since CDC tracking began, according to federal data.

The average daily case rate (per 100,000) is now higher among children ages 5 to 17 than all adult age groups.

Death rates are continuing to surge with about 1,000 Americans dying from COVID-19 each day, according to federal data.

Americans between the ages of 18 and 49 made up about one-third — 34.4% — of the patients hospitalized as of Aug. 28.

-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Sep 08, 2:32 pm
Over 95% of US counties reporting high community transmission

More than 95% of U.S. counties are now reporting high community transmission, the highest level since CDC tracking began, according to federal data.

The average daily case rate (per 100,000) is now higher among children ages 5 to 17 than all adult age groups.

Death rates are continuing to surge with about 1,000 Americans dying from COVID-19 each day, according to federal data.

Americans between the ages of 18 and 49 made up about one-third — 34.4% — of the patients hospitalized as of Aug. 28.

-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Sep 08, 1:30 pm
Fauci: 3rd shot likely going to become standard regimen

In an interview with the podcast “In the Bubble,” Dr. Anthony Fauci told former White House adviser Andy Slavitt that he predicts three doses will become the standard dosing regimen for COVID-19 vaccines going forward.

Fauci cited new data from Israel that vaccine protection against hospitalization dropped in recent months from some 97% to 77% or 78%.

The vaccines still provide extraordinary protection, but the combination of the delta variant and waning immunity with time are causes for concern, he said.

Fauci added that that he thinks it will probably be the end of 2022 or early 2023 before much of the world is vaccinated.

-ABC News’ Anne Flaherty

Sep 08, 1:06 pm
Kentucky hospitals on brink of rationing care: Governor

Kentucky is “quickly approaching that point” where hospitals will need to start rationing care, Gov. Andy Beshear warned on CNN.

Over two-thirds of Kentucky’s hospitals have critical staffing shortages, the governor said. FEMA and National Guard teams have been called in and nursing students have been deployed across the state, he said.

“We’ve got one hospital in Morehead called St. Clair that’s closed three operating rooms to expand ICU bed space,” he said. “We had a hospital in Danville, Kentucky, that’s not used to treating really sick patients, that had a morgue for two — and had seven individuals pass away in their hospital over one weekend.”

“We’ve set up tents outside Pikeville Medical Center to triage whether people really need to be in the hospital or not,” Beshear continued. “We’re in a very precarious situation.”

-ABC News’ Brian Hartman

Sep 08, 11:09 am
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade participants must be vaccinated

All participants in this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade must be vaccinated and wear face coverings, the department store announced Wednesday. Singers, dancers and musicians may be exempt from wearing face masks.

The number of participants will see a 10 to 20% cut this year and social distancing will be followed, Macy’s added.

Last year, much of the parade was pre-taped due to the pandemic. There were no high school band performances and limited spectators on the street.

The marching band and other specialty group performances that were initially set to perform last year will get to participate in this Thanksgiving’s parade, Macy’s said.

Sep 08, 10:40 am
Supreme Court to resume in-person oral arguments

The Supreme Court will resume in-person oral arguments on Oct. 4 for the first time since the pandemic began.

All arguments will be in person from Oct. 4 through the rest of the year. The courtroom will only have staff, counsel of cases on the docket and hard-pass court reporters there in person, with the court staying closed to the general public.

The court says it will continue to offer a real-time live audio feed of arguments.

-ABC News’ Devin Dwyer

Sep 08, 10:03 am
Only 20% of people in low, lower-middle-income countries have had 1st vaccine dose

Just 20% of people in low and lower-middle-income countries have received their first vaccine dose, compared to 80% of people in high and upper-middle income countries, according to the World Health Organization and COVAX, the initiative aiming to provide equitable vaccine access across the world.

“The global picture of access to COVID-19 vaccines is unacceptable,” COVAX said, adding that its ability to reach lower income countries is “hampered by export bans, the prioritisation of bilateral deals by manufacturers and countries, ongoing challenges in scaling up production by some key producers, and delays in filing for regulatory approval.”

COVAX said it expects to have access to 1.425 billion doses of vaccine this year, with about 1.2 billion available for lower income economies participating in COVAX’s Advance Market Commitment.

“This is enough to protect 20% of the population, or 40% of all adults, in all 92 AMC economies with the exception of India. Over 200 million doses will be allocated to self-financing participants,” COVAX said. “The key COVAX milestone of two billion doses released for delivery is now expected to be reached in the first quarter of 2022.”

Sep 08, 6:02 am
US surpasses 40 million cases and 650,000 deaths

The United States has recorded more than 40 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and over 650,000 deaths from the disease since the start of the pandemic, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. surpassed the grim milestones on Tuesday, as the highly contagious delta variant continued to spread across the nation. The U.S. has reported more COVID-19 cases and deaths than any other country in the world.

Sep 07, 9:56 pm
Pediatric cases reach highest point of pandemic

The U.S. reported 251,781 COVID-19 cases among kids during the week ending Sept. 2 — the highest week of pediatric cases since the pandemic began, according to the weekly report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.

After declining in the early summer, new cases among kids are rising “exponentially,” the organizations wrote, with the weekly figure now standing nearly 300 times higher than it was in June, when just 8,400 pediatric cases were reported over the span of one week.

Last week children represented 26.8% of all reported COVID-19 cases. Regionally, the South had the highest number pediatric cases, accounting for approximately 140,000 of last week’s cases.

The rate of pediatric hospital admissions per 100,000 people is also at one of its highest points of the pandemic, up by 600% since the 4th of July, according to federal data.

Severe illness due to COVID-19 remains “uncommon” among children, the two organizations wrote in the report. According to the nearly two dozen states which reported pediatric hospitalizations, 0.1%-1.9% of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in hospitalization. ​Similarly, in states which reported virus-related deaths by age, 0.00%-0.03% of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in death.

However, the AAP and CHA warned that there is an urgent need to collect more data on the long-term consequences of the pandemic on children, “including ways the virus may harm the long-term physical health of infected children, as well as its emotional and mental health effects.”

About 37.7% of children ages 12 to 15 and 46.4% of adolescents ages 16 to 17 have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Sep 07, 9:50 pm
About 1 in every 500 Americans has died from COVID

The country’s daily death average continues to surge, now standing at more than 1,100 deaths reported a day. This marks the nation’s highest average in nearly six months.

On Tuesday, the death toll crossed 650,000 Americans lost to the virus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, meaning that 1 in every 504 Americans has died from the virus.

The U.S. COVID death toll is now more than 218 times higher than the number of lives lost during the U.S. attacks on Sept. 11. It is also rapidly approaching the total number of American deaths that were recorded during the 1918 influenza pandemic.

Prior to the Labor Day holiday, the U.S. daily case average stood around 150,000 cases a day. About a year ago, around Labor Day, the country was averaging about 38,000 new cases a day.

Sep 07, 6:36 pm
Tucson pauses vaccine mandate for city employees following AG legal threat

Tucson, Arizona, officials announced a pause on the city’s policy to require its public employees to receive a COVID-19 vaccine after Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich called it illegal and threatened to cut funding if the city went through with the plan.

Tuscon City Manager Michael Ortega said in a statement the city council is evaluating the mandate’s legal position.

“Until we have a better understanding of our legal position in relation to today’s report, I have instructed staff to pause on the implementation of the policy,” he said.

Brnovich said Tuscon’s rule violated Gov. Doug Ducey’s July executive order that banned any state or local office from requiring their staff get a vaccine against the coronavirus or any vaccine that has only received an emergency order.

“COVID-19 vaccinations should be a choice, not a government mandate,” he said in a statement.

Tucson Mayor Regina Romero said in a statement that the attorney general was “prioritizing his political ambitions over his responsibility to objectively interpret the law.”

As of Tuesday, over 606,000 residents in Pima County, Arizona, the county that includes Tucson, have had one COVID-19 shot, according to the Pima County Health Department. That represents roughly 56.7% of the county’s 1.07 million population, according to the U.S. Census numbers.

The county has recorded more than 4,000 new cases since Aug. 5, according to health department data.

Sep 07, 5:57 pm
Idaho hospital officials plead with public to get vaccinated as they run out of beds

Idaho hospital officials are pleading for the public to get vaccinated and take COVID-19 warnings seriously after the state declared a crisis in its standards of care.

Kootenai Health, a northern Idaho hospital, currently has 113 patients with COVID-19, an increase from the 90 patients they had last week, officials said. Administrators had to set up 22 beds in a conference room to deal with the influx of patients.

Dr. Robert Scoggins the chief of staff at Kootenai Health, said the hospital was not built for a pandemic this size. Currently, 39 patients are in the intensive care units and 19 are on ventilators, all on high levels of oxygen, he said.

The hospital said it could see as many as 140 patients in the coming weeks.

“The message that I’d like to send out to people is that we’re near the limit that we can handle in this facility,” Scoggins said in a news conference. “We’ve done a lot of things to expand our care to take care of more patients, but it keeps growing. If we had everyone in the community vaccinated, we would not be in this position.”

-ABC News’ Flor Tolentino and Nicholas Kerr

Sep 07, 4:00 pm

Louisiana hospital reports significant decline in number of patients

In hard-hit Louisiana, the Ochsner Health System is seeing a significant decline in COVID-19 patients, now down to 530 — dropping by nearly 250 patients in the last week, hospital CEO and president Warner Thomas said.

But in the wake of deadly Hurricane Ida, releasing patients from hospitals has been difficult, as some patients have no homes to return to, he said.

Sep 07, 3:30 pm

Oregon hospitals ‘scrambling’ with cases, hospitalizations ‘hovering at or near pandemic highs’

Hospitals in Oregon are “scrambling” to stay afloat with cases and hospitalizations “hovering at or near pandemic highs,” the state epidemiologist, Dean Sidelinger, said at COVID-19 briefing Tuesday.

Oregon saw 16,252 new cases in its most recent weekly report – which is 13 times higher than the reported cases for the week ending July 4, Sidelinger said.

Hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions are “alarmingly high” and hospitals are at a “saturation point” where they aren’t “able to provide care to everyone arriving at their door,” Sidelinger warned.

Sep 07, 3:08 pm

Former NBA player on 10th day in ICU

Former Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers player Cedric Ceballos, 52, tweeted that he’s on his 10th day in the ICU battling COVID-19.

On my 10th day in ICU, COVID-19 is officially kicking my but, I am asking ALL family, friends , prayer warriors healers for your prayers and well wish for my recovery.
If I have done and anything to you in the past , allow me to publicly apologize.
My fight is not done…..
Thx pic.twitter.com/r9QZBpfmEI

— Cedric Ceballos (@cedceballos) September 7, 2021

Sep 07, 2:03 pm

Military medical personnel head to Idaho, Arkansas, Alabama

About 60 military medical personnel are heading in three, 20-person teams to Arkansas, Alabama and Idaho to help treat hospitalized COVID-19 patients following a request from FEMA, the U.S. Army North said.

The personnel, including doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists, were sent to hospitals in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Ozark, Alabama; and Little Rock, Arkansas.

Six teams had previously been dispatched to six other hospitals: three in Louisiana, two in Mississippi and one in Dothan, Alabama.

Sep 07, 1:43 pm

Crisis Standards of Care enacted as ‘last resort’ at 10 Idaho hospital systems

A Crisis Standards of Care plan has been enacted at 10 hospital systems in Idaho, which is only done as a “last resort,” Dave Jeppesen, director of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, said in a statement Tuesday.

The hospitals were chosen due to their “severe” shortages in beds and staffing as a result of a “massive increase” in COVID-19 hospitalizations, state officials said.

Crisis Standards of Care “means we have exhausted our resources to the point that our healthcare systems are unable to provide the treatment and care we expect,” Jeppesen said. “This is a decision I was fervently hoping to avoid.”

“When crisis standards of care are in effect, people who need medical care may experience care that is different from what they expect,” state officials said. “For example, patients admitted to the hospital may find that hospital beds are not available or are in repurposed rooms (such as a conference room) or that needed equipment is not available.”

Sep 07, 12:37 pm

75% of American adults have had at least 1 vaccine dose

Seventy-five percent of U.S. adults have now had at least one vaccine dose, Cyrus Shahpar, the White House’s COVID-19 data director, tweeted Tuesday.

Sunday-Tuesday just in: +1.51M doses reported administered over Saturday’s total, including 681K newly vaccinated and 105K additional doses. As usual, lower reporting over the holiday weekend. Just hit 75% of adults with at least one dose!

— Cyrus Shahpar (@cyrusshahpar46) September 7, 2021

Sixty-four percent of U.S. adults are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.

Sep 07, 10:36 am

Biden to layout administration’s strategy to combat delta

President Joe Biden on Thursday will deliver remarks on his plan to stop the spread of the delta variant and to boost vaccinations, the White House confirmed Tuesday.

Biden “will lay out a six-pronged strategy … working across the public and private sectors,” a White House official said.

On Friday, while addressing August’s disappointing jobs report, Biden said, “there’s no question the delta variant is why today’s jobs report isn’t stronger. … Next week, I’ll lay out the next steps that are going to — we’re going to need to combat the delta variant, to address some of those fears and concerns.”

Part of the strategy Biden referenced Friday is to ask states and local governments to consider using federal funding to extend unemployment benefits in hard-hit areas.

“I want to talk about how we’ll further protect our schools, our businesses, our economy, and our families from the threat of delta,” Biden said Friday. “As we continue to fight the delta variant, the American Rescue Plan we passed continues to support families, businesses and communities. Even as some of the benefits that were provided are set to expire next week, states have the option to extend those benefits and the federal resources from the Rescue Plan to do so.”

Sep 07, 7:05 am
3rd person dies in Japan after receiving contaminated Moderna vaccine

A third person has died in Japan after receiving a dose from one of three batches of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine that have since been recalled due to contamination, according to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

The 49-year-old man died on Aug. 12, one day after getting his second shot of the two-dose vaccine. His only known health issue was an allergy to buckwheat, the Japanese health ministry said in a statement Monday.

Two other men, aged 30 and 38, also died in August within days of getting their second Moderna shot. In all three cases, the men received doses from a batch manufactured in the same production line as another lot from which some unused vials were reported to contain foreign substances at multiple inoculation sites in Japan.

The deaths remain under investigation, and the Japanese health ministry said it has yet to establish any casual relationship with the vaccine.

The contaminated lot and two adjacent batches were suspended from use by the Japanese health ministry last month, pending an investigation. Moderna and its Japanese distribution partner Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. ultimately recalled the three lots, containing about 1.63 million doses, after an investigation confirmed the foreign matter to be high-grade stainless steel from manufacturing equipment.

The Japanese health ministry said that, based on the companies’ analysis, it is unlikely the stainless steel contaminants pose any additional health risk.

Moderna and Takeda have yet to release statements on the third fatality, but the companies have previously said there is currently no evidence that the other two deaths were caused by the vaccine.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW ORLEANS, La.) — The nation is still grappling with the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, which made landfall Aug. 29 and knocked out power to more than 1 million customers in Louisiana.

At least 82 people have died due to the storm — which hit Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane — as well as the devastation it left across eight states.

In Louisiana, 26 have died due to the storm’s wrath. The Louisiana Health Department confirmed two more storm-related deaths Tuesday in St. Tammany Parish: a 68-year-old man who fell off a roof while making repairs to damage caused by Ida and a 71-year-old man who died due to a lack of oxygen during an extended power outage. On Wednesday, they announced an additional 11 deaths, all in Orleans Parish and nine from heat-related illness due to power outages. The two others died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

In the Northeast, at least 52 have died. The Harrison Police Department in Westchester County, New York, confirmed on Monday the recovery of a woman’s body who went missing during last week’s flooding.

President Joe Biden surveyed the damage of Ida’s remnants in New York and New Jersey on Tuesday.

Biden said that amid the storm’s destruction, there was also an “opportunity” to open the country’s eyes and get people to heed the urgent warnings from scientists, adding, “I think we’ve all seen –even the climate skeptics are seeing — that this really does matter.”

Biden has touted the extreme weather as a critical reason why Congress should pass his infrastructure package.

Recovery efforts continue in the South, where 70% of the 948,000 Entergy utility customers who lost power finally had it restored, the company said Wednesday.

In Louisiana, 301,000 customers remained with outages Wednesday evening, and in New Orleans, 83% of customers who lost power had it restored and 35,000 customers remain in the dark, Entergy said. On Wednesday evening, Entergy said it hoped to have 90% of customers in New Orleans back on line that night.

A team of 26,000 workers is restoring downed and damaged power lines. However, some hard-hit areas, including Lafourche Parish and Plaquemines Parish aren’t forecast to have power restored until Sept. 29, according to the company’s estimation.

In Louisiana and Mississippi, 30,679 poles, 36,469 spans of wire and 5,959 transformers were damaged or destroyed — that’s more than Katrina, Ike, Delta and Zeta combined.

Access to water remains a major problem in the state, with boil water advisories still in place in the parishes of Jefferson, Lafourche, St. Charles, St. Tammany, St. John the Baptist, Plaquemines and Tangipahoa.

Tuesday marked the last day for locals to evacuate to Ida shelters in northern Louisiana.

About 14,000 people in Lafourche Parish were left homeless after Ida razed through and destroyed 75% of the structures there.

“We are working feverishly, as hard as we can to get all people what they need to keep their lives going and to rebuild our community,” Lafourche Parish President Archie Chaisson said to CNN on Monday.

Nursing home deaths are also a mounting concern in the state.

Among those who died in Louisiana, seven were nursing home residents who were transferred to a warehouse in Independence in Tangipahoa Parish and later died. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry has opened an investigation into the deaths. Only five of the seven deaths were confirmed by the state to be storm-related.

The Louisiana Health Department is investigating nursing homes that transferred patients there and ordered all of them to shut down Saturday.

On Tuesday, officials announced they revoked the licenses for seven nursing homes that evacuated to the facility ahead of Ida. Those nursing homes were: River Palms Nursing and Rehab in Orleans Parish, South Lafourche Nursing and Rehab in Lafourche Parish, Maison Orleans Healthcare Center in Orleans Parish, Park Place Healthcare Nursing Home in Jefferson Parish, West Jefferson Health Care Center in Jefferson Parish, Maison De Ville Nursing Home in Terrebonne Parish, Maison Deville Nursing Home of Harvey in Jefferson Parish.

“Ultimately, lives were lost — these were grandparents, neighbors and friends, and we know families are hurting. We as a Department are taking formal regulatory action,” the LDH said in a statement.

On Saturday, during wellness checks at eight New Orleans facilities, five nursing home residents were found dead, the city said in a news release. None of those have been confirmed to be storm-related. In response, the city determined all eight facilities were “unfit” and evacuated nearly 600 residents to hospitals and shelters.

Also in Louisiana, at least four people have died and 141 were treated in hospitals for carbon monoxide poisoning in the wake of Ida, according to the Louisiana Department of Health, prompting officials to urge the public for safe generator use.

Officials advise placing generators at least 20 feet away from a home and assure all air entry points near the unit and home are properly sealed.

ABC News’ Sarah Kolinovsky and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) –There was mid-flight chaos on one American Airlines flight over the Labor Day holiday after a passenger began growling and berating the flight attendants on board.

“What? What? What? What are you going to kick me off this flight?” the 61-year-old man taunted the flight crew.

At one point, a flight attendant had to block him from gaining access to the galley.

“Now!” the flight attendant shouted. “Sit Down Now!”

Once the plane landed in Salt Lake City, authorities boarded the aircraft and took the passenger, who they said was intoxicated, into custody.

“Really? Really? Really?” the man says as he is taken off the plane.

“His behavior was so bizarre,” Dennis Busch, a fellow passenger, told ABC News. “Not particularly threatening towards us other passengers but it was very surreal.”

The man was later cited for disorderly conduct and public intoxication.

Monday’s incident is just the latest in a surge of aggressive behavior on planes.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it has received nearly 4,200 reports of unruly passengers since the start of the year. More than 3,000 of them are people who refuse to wear a mask.

The subsequent fines for unruly behavior during flights have soared in 2021, with the FAA reporting last month that it has proposed more than $1 million in penalties this year alone.

Airline crews have reported incidents in which visibly drunk passengers verbally abused them, shoved them, kicked seats, threw trash at them, defiled the restrooms and in some cases even punched them in the face.

The FAA had hoped its zero-tolerance policy for in-flight disruptions, which could lead to fines as high as $52,500 and up to 20 years in prison, would be enough to deter potential offenders, but they’ve still seen hundreds of incidents per month.

In-flight tensions are unlikely to wane as the mask requirement for planes was extended from September into January.

FAA Administrator Steve Dickson has urged airport police to arrest more people who are unruly or violent on flights.

“While the FAA has levied civil fines against unruly passengers, it has no authority to prosecute criminal cases,” Dickson told airport executives.

He said they see many passengers — some who physically assaulted flight attendants — interviewed by local police and then released “without criminal charges of any kind.”

The agency has looked into more than 682 potential violations of federal law so far this year — the highest number since the agency began keeping records in 1995. But it is unclear how many people have actually paid the FAA’s proposed fines.

ABC News’ Sam Sweeney, Gio Benitez, and Amanda Maile contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Just 49% of Americans see the United States as safer from terrorism than it was before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, down from 64% a decade ago, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll.

Forty-one percent instead say the United States has become less safe since 9/11, reflecting both renewed partisan divisions and the tumultuous withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan.

A vast 86% in this poll, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, also say the events of Sept. 11 had a lasting effect on the United States. But underscoring the public’s sour mood on this issue, 46%, a new high, say it’s been a change for the worse. That easily exceeds the 33% who see a change for the better, half as many as said so in spring 2002.

See PDF for full results, charts, and tables.

Shifts

Views of the country’s security from terrorism have shifted sharply across the years, given both international developments and partisan U.S. politics. Confidence peaked in 2003 and 2004, fell steeply in 2005 after the London transit bombings, held especially high among Republicans during the Bush administration, plummeted among Republicans two years later under the Obama administration, then rose sharply across groups after the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011.

Ten years later, the latest decline may reflect multiple factors, including pessimism after the fall of Afghanistan and Republican-led dissatisfaction with the Biden administration.

Specifically, compared with 2011, the sense that the country is safer from terrorism now than it was before 9/11 is down 28 percentage points among Republicans, to 41%, compared with a slight 9-point decrease among Democrats, to 57%. It’s down 12 points among independents, to 52%.

The see-saws have been dramatic:

These patterns are mirrored in terms of political ideology, with 59% of moderates and 55% of liberals currently seeing improved safety, versus just 39% of conservatives.

Just 16% of Americans overall say the country is “much” safer from terrorism, again near all-time lows. An additional 33% of Americans call it safer, but just somewhat so. Those who see the country as less safe divide evenly, 21% somewhat less safe, 20% much less. There’s another partisan split here, with 36% of Republicans saying the country is much less safe from terrorism than before 9/11, versus 15% of independents and 11% of Democrats.

Another result shows that 9/11 isn’t unique in its perceived impact. About as many Americans, 82%, say the coronavirus pandemic will change the country in a lasting way as say this about 9/11. And, also similar to current views on 9/11, 50% call it a change for the worse.

Partisan differences narrow when considering the lasting effects of the 9/11 attacks. Thirty-one to 36% of Republicans, Democrats and independents alike say the country has changed for the better, while 43% to 49% say it’s changed for the worse.

But these gaps widen by ideology, with liberals most likely to say the country has changed for the worse, 59%, versus 44% of moderates and 45% of conservatives.

Beyond partisan and ideological differences, 57% of older Americans say the country is less safe from terrorism post 9/11, versus 37% of those younger than 65. Men are more likely than women to say the country has changed for the worse, 53% versus 40%, as are college graduates compared with those without a degree, 55% to 41%.

Methodology

This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone Aug. 29-Sept. 1, 2021, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,006 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 percentage points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 30-24-36%, Democrats-Republicans-independents.

The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates with sampling and data collection by Abt Associates of Rockville, Maryland. See details on the survey’s methodology here.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(RICHMOND, Va.) — A giant statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was removed in Richmond, Virginia, Wednesday, more than a year after the order from Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam.

The 12-ton, six-story monument on Monument Avenue, erected in the state capital in 1890, was deconstructed nearly one week after the Supreme Court of Virginia cleared the way for the removal following several legal battles.

Northam ordered the removal of the state-owned statue in June 2020, amid nationwide protests against symbols of racism and oppression that erupted following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis while in police custody.

“This is an important step in showing who we are and what we value as a Commonwealth,” Northam said in a statement.

Last week, the Supreme Court of Virginia denied or dissolved injunctive relief sought in two lawsuits challenging the statue’s removal — one filed by a descendant of the former owners of the land where the monument stands, the other by several owners and a trustee of property in the area’s historic district — allowing the state to move forward with its plans.

The removal is “extremely complex,” the state’s Department of General Services said, requiring “coordination with multiple entities to ensure the safety of everyone involved.” The removal process began Tuesday evening with crews installing protective fencing on the streets near the monument.

On Thursday, crews will remove plaques from the base of the monument. The 40-foot granite pedestal will remain for now, with its future still to be determined, the state said.

The statue itself will be held “in secure storage at a state-owned facility until a decision is made as to its disposition,” the state said.

This is the sixth and final Confederate statue to be removed from Monument Avenue.

“We are taking an important step this week to embrace the righteous cause and put the ‘Lost Cause’ behind us,” Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney said in a statement. “Richmond is no longer the capital of the Confederacy. We are a diverse, open and welcoming city, and our symbols need to reflect this reality.”

Last year, the busts of Lee and eight other Confederate leaders were removed from the Old House Chamber in the Virginia State Capitol building in Richmond. The Fairfax County School Board has also changed the name of the Robert E. Lee High School in Springfield to the John R. Lewis High School, in honor of the late Georgia congressman and civil rights leader.

A great-great-great-nephew of Lee has previously said that taking down Confederate symbols in public spaces is a “no brainer.”

“I see them as idolatries,” Rev. Robert Lee IV told ABC News last year. “They have been created into idols of white supremacy and racism.”

Over 160 Confederate symbols were renamed or removed from public spaces in 2020, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.

More than 650,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.5 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 62.3% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Sep 08, 6:02 am
US surpasses 40 million cases and 650,000 deaths

The United States has recorded more than 40 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and over 650,000 deaths from the disease since the start of the pandemic, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. surpassed the grim milestones on Tuesday, as the highly contagious delta variant continued to spread across the nation. The U.S. has reported more COVID-19 cases and deaths than any other country in the world.

Sep 07, 9:56 pm
Pediatric cases reach highest point of pandemic

The U.S. reported 251,781 COVID-19 cases among kids during the week ending Sept. 2 — the highest week of pediatric cases since the pandemic began, according to the weekly report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.

After declining in the early summer, new cases among kids are rising “exponentially,” the organizations wrote, with the weekly figure now standing nearly 300 times higher than it was in June, when just 8,400 pediatric cases were reported over the span of one week.

Last week children represented 26.8% of all reported COVID-19 cases. Regionally, the South had the highest number pediatric cases, accounting for approximately 140,000 of last week’s cases.

The rate of pediatric hospital admissions per 100,000 people is also at one of its highest points of the pandemic, up by 600% since the 4th of July, according to federal data.

Severe illness due to COVID-19 remains “uncommon” among children, the two organizations wrote in the report. According to the nearly two dozen states which reported pediatric hospitalizations, 0.1%-1.9% of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in hospitalization. ​Similarly, in states which reported virus-related deaths by age, 0.00%-0.03% of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in death.

However, the AAP and CHA warned that there is an urgent need to collect more data on the long-term consequences of the pandemic on children, “including ways the virus may harm the long-term physical health of infected children, as well as its emotional and mental health effects.”

About 37.7% of children ages 12 to 15 and 46.4% of adolescents ages 16 to 17 have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Sep 07, 9:50 pm
About 1 in every 500 Americans has died from COVID

The country’s daily death average continues to surge, now standing at more than 1,100 deaths reported a day. This marks the nation’s highest average in nearly six months.

On Tuesday, the death toll crossed 650,000 Americans lost to the virus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, meaning that 1 in every 504 Americans has died from the virus.

The U.S. COVID death toll is now more than 218 times higher than the number of lives lost during the U.S. attacks on Sept. 11. It is also rapidly approaching the total number of American deaths that were recorded during the 1918 influenza pandemic.

Prior to the Labor Day holiday, the U.S. daily case average stood around 150,000 cases a day. About a year ago, around Labor Day, the country was averaging about 38,000 new cases a day.

Sep 07, 6:36 pm
Tucson pauses vaccine mandate for city employees following AG legal threat

Tucson, Arizona, officials announced a pause on the city’s policy to require its public employees to receive a COVID-19 vaccine after Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich called it illegal and threatened to cut funding if the city went through with the plan.

Tuscon City Manager Michael Ortega said in a statement the city council is evaluating the mandate’s legal position.

“Until we have a better understanding of our legal position in relation to today’s report, I have instructed staff to pause on the implementation of the policy,” he said.

Brnovich said Tuscon’s rule violated Gov. Doug Ducey’s July executive order that banned any state or local office from requiring their staff get a vaccine against the coronavirus or any vaccine that has only received an emergency order.

“COVID-19 vaccinations should be a choice, not a government mandate,” he said in a statement.

Tucson Mayor Regina Romero said in a statement that the attorney general was “prioritizing his political ambitions over his responsibility to objectively interpret the law.”

As of Tuesday, over 606,000 residents in Pima County, Arizona, the county that includes Tucson, have had one COVID-19 shot, according to the Pima County Health Department. That represents roughly 56.7% of the county’s 1.07 million population, according to the U.S. Census numbers.

The county has recorded more than 4,000 new cases since Aug. 5, according to health department data.

Sep 07, 5:57 pm
Idaho hospital officials plead with public to get vaccinated as they run out of beds

Idaho hospital officials are pleading for the public to get vaccinated and take COVID-19 warnings seriously after the state declared a crisis in its standards of care.

Kootenai Health, a northern Idaho hospital, currently has 113 patients with COVID-19, an increase from the 90 patients they had last week, officials said. Administrators had to set up 22 beds in a conference room to deal with the influx of patients.

Dr. Robert Scoggins the chief of staff at Kootenai Health, said the hospital was not built for a pandemic this size. Currently, 39 patients are in the intensive care units and 19 are on ventilators, all on high levels of oxygen, he said.

The hospital said it could see as many as 140 patients in the coming weeks.

“The message that I’d like to send out to people is that we’re near the limit that we can handle in this facility,” Scoggins said in a news conference. “We’ve done a lot of things to expand our care to take care of more patients, but it keeps growing. If we had everyone in the community vaccinated, we would not be in this position.”

-ABC News’ Flor Tolentino and Nicholas Kerr

Sep 07, 4:00 pm

Louisiana hospital reports significant decline in number of patients

In hard-hit Louisiana, the Ochsner Health System is seeing a significant decline in COVID-19 patients, now down to 530 — dropping by nearly 250 patients in the last week, hospital CEO and president Warner Thomas said.

But in the wake of deadly Hurricane Ida, releasing patients from hospitals has been difficult, as some patients have no homes to return to, he said.

Sep 07, 3:30 pm

Oregon hospitals ‘scrambling’ with cases, hospitalizations ‘hovering at or near pandemic highs’

Hospitals in Oregon are “scrambling” to stay afloat with cases and hospitalizations “hovering at or near pandemic highs,” the state epidemiologist, Dean Sidelinger, said at COVID-19 briefing Tuesday.

Oregon saw 16,252 new cases in its most recent weekly report – which is 13 times higher than the reported cases for the week ending July 4, Sidelinger said.

Hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions are “alarmingly high” and hospitals are at a “saturation point” where they aren’t “able to provide care to everyone arriving at their door,” Sidelinger warned.

Sep 07, 3:08 pm

Former NBA player on 10th day in ICU

Former Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers player Cedric Ceballos, 52, tweeted that he’s on his 10th day in the ICU battling COVID-19.

On my 10th day in ICU, COVID-19 is officially kicking my but, I am asking ALL family, friends , prayer warriors healers for your prayers and well wish for my recovery.
If I have done and anything to you in the past , allow me to publicly apologize.
My fight is not done…..
Thx pic.twitter.com/r9QZBpfmEI

— Cedric Ceballos (@cedceballos) September 7, 2021

Sep 07, 2:03 pm

Military medical personnel head to Idaho, Arkansas, Alabama

About 60 military medical personnel are heading in three, 20-person teams to Arkansas, Alabama and Idaho to help treat hospitalized COVID-19 patients following a request from FEMA, the U.S. Army North said.

The personnel, including doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists, were sent to hospitals in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Ozark, Alabama; and Little Rock, Arkansas.

Six teams had previously been dispatched to six other hospitals: three in Louisiana, two in Mississippi and one in Dothan, Alabama.

Sep 07, 1:43 pm

Crisis Standards of Care enacted as ‘last resort’ at 10 Idaho hospital systems

A Crisis Standards of Care plan has been enacted at 10 hospital systems in Idaho, which is only done as a “last resort,” Dave Jeppesen, director of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, said in a statement Tuesday.

The hospitals were chosen due to their “severe” shortages in beds and staffing as a result of a “massive increase” in COVID-19 hospitalizations, state officials said.

Crisis Standards of Care “means we have exhausted our resources to the point that our healthcare systems are unable to provide the treatment and care we expect,” Jeppesen said. “This is a decision I was fervently hoping to avoid.”

“When crisis standards of care are in effect, people who need medical care may experience care that is different from what they expect,” state officials said. “For example, patients admitted to the hospital may find that hospital beds are not available or are in repurposed rooms (such as a conference room) or that needed equipment is not available.”

Sep 07, 12:37 pm

75% of American adults have had at least 1 vaccine dose

Seventy-five percent of U.S. adults have now had at least one vaccine dose, Cyrus Shahpar, the White House’s COVID-19 data director, tweeted Tuesday.

Sunday-Tuesday just in: +1.51M doses reported administered over Saturday’s total, including 681K newly vaccinated and 105K additional doses. As usual, lower reporting over the holiday weekend. Just hit 75% of adults with at least one dose!

— Cyrus Shahpar (@cyrusshahpar46) September 7, 2021

Sixty-four percent of U.S. adults are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.

Sep 07, 10:36 am

Biden to layout administration’s strategy to combat delta

President Joe Biden on Thursday will deliver remarks on his plan to stop the spread of the delta variant and to boost vaccinations, the White House confirmed Tuesday.

Biden “will lay out a six-pronged strategy … working across the public and private sectors,” a White House official said.

On Friday, while addressing August’s disappointing jobs report, Biden said, “there’s no question the delta variant is why today’s jobs report isn’t stronger. … Next week, I’ll lay out the next steps that are going to — we’re going to need to combat the delta variant, to address some of those fears and concerns.”

Part of the strategy Biden referenced Friday is to ask states and local governments to consider using federal funding to extend unemployment benefits in hard-hit areas.

“I want to talk about how we’ll further protect our schools, our businesses, our economy, and our families from the threat of delta,” Biden said Friday. “As we continue to fight the delta variant, the American Rescue Plan we passed continues to support families, businesses and communities. Even as some of the benefits that were provided are set to expire next week, states have the option to extend those benefits and the federal resources from the Rescue Plan to do so.”

Sep 07, 7:05 am
3rd person dies in Japan after receiving contaminated Moderna vaccine

A third person has died in Japan after receiving a dose from one of three batches of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine that have since been recalled due to contamination, according to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

The 49-year-old man died on Aug. 12, one day after getting his second shot of the two-dose vaccine. His only known health issue was an allergy to buckwheat, the Japanese health ministry said in a statement Monday.

Two other men, aged 30 and 38, also died in August within days of getting their second Moderna shot. In all three cases, the men received doses from a batch manufactured in the same production line as another lot from which some unused vials were reported to contain foreign substances at multiple inoculation sites in Japan.

The deaths remain under investigation, and the Japanese health ministry said it has yet to establish any casual relationship with the vaccine.

The contaminated lot and two adjacent batches were suspended from use by the Japanese health ministry last month, pending an investigation. Moderna and its Japanese distribution partner Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. ultimately recalled the three lots, containing about 1.63 million doses, after an investigation confirmed the foreign matter to be high-grade stainless steel from manufacturing equipment.

The Japanese health ministry said that, based on the companies’ analysis, it is unlikely the stainless steel contaminants pose any additional health risk.

Moderna and Takeda have yet to release statements on the third fatality, but the companies have previously said there is currently no evidence that the other two deaths were caused by the vaccine.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(GUANTANAMO BAY) — After over 560 days of delay, the drawn-out pretrial proceedings of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other detainees accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks got underway again on Tuesday. But it took only a matter of hours for the hearing to run into yet another speed bump.

Mohammed, the alleged architect of the terror plot, along with Walid bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ammar al-Baluchi and Mustafa al Hawsawi, filed into the courtroom of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base’s “Camp Justice,” which hosts the military commissions, for the first time since the pandemic sidelined the military court.

Seated with their defense teams, the men talked amongst each other and appeared engaged in their cases. Mohammed, known in recent years for his vibrantly colored facial hair, sported a bright orange beard along with thick black glasses. Some of the other defendants wore paramilitary attire.

Each detainee spoke out only once during the hearing, affirming that they understood their rights. Mohammed answered “yes,” speaking in English. Bin al-Shibh also responded in English, while the other three men communicated through translators.

While Mohammed has a reputation for courtroom outbursts, in a twist, it was the judge who became the central focus of the day’s hearing.

As part of his debut on the bench in the proceedings, Col. Matthew McCall — who was named to preside over the case last month — conducted a review of his qualifications, opening himself up for questions from the prosecution and the defense.

One of Mohammed’s attorneys, Gary Sowards, latched on to McCall’s circuitous route to his appointment. McCall was initially selected to oversee the trial last year, but withdrew after prosecutors objected, citing his lack of experience. He was reinstated after completing two years as a military judge, meeting the minimum requirement for the war court.

Sowards questioned McCall on whether the prosecution’s complaints had resulted in undue influence over the judiciary, resulting in his temporary removal from the case. The defense argued that this allowed for another judge to step in and — after a prolonged legal fight — authorize the destruction of a CIA black site, a secret international prison where terror suspects were subjected to “enhanced interrogation tactics” like waterboarding, which many human rights organizations consider to be torture.

During the questioning, McCall remained level, describing the situation as legally ambiguous in his estimation, but went along with the withdrawal to avoid complicating an already very complicated case.

“Why create an appellate issue? There are other judges who could do this case,” he said.

But moments later, the prosecution interrupted, informing the bench of a newly issued Military Commission Review on the exact topic of discussion. It determined that McCall could preside, but that all of the decisions he made before clocking two years of experience would be undone — leaving only the ruling on the destruction of the black site in place.

McCall dismissed the court several hours ahead of schedule to allow both sides to regroup and strategize.

But James Connell, a civilian death penalty attorney representing al-Baluchi, needed little time to process the information.

“One of the most important issues in the case is how the torture of these men is going to ultimately affect the trial and trials mean evidence,” Connell told reporters on the base. “The intentional destruction of evidence takes away from the defense and really the American people, information about what actually happened.”

Connell said the defense plans to appeal the order, but lamented yet another delay in a trial that’s dragged on for nearly a decade.

“This order is one more example of why this process takes so long, because each issue has to be separately litigated,” he continued. “Things come up in this military commission that never come up anywhere else. Where else in the world does the Pentagon issue an order telling a judge how to decide a case? It just doesn’t happen anywhere else except here at Guantanamo.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.

More than 649,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.5 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 62% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Sep 07, 5:57 pm
Idaho hospital officials plead with public to get vaccinated as they run out of beds

Idaho hospital officials are pleading for the public to get vaccinated and take COVID-19 warnings seriously after the state declared a crisis in its standards of care.

Kootenai Health, a northern Idaho hospital, currently has 113 patients with COVID-19, an increase from the 90 patients they had last week, officials said. Administrators had to set up 22 beds in a conference room to deal with the influx of patients.

Dr. Robert Scoggins the chief of staff at Kootenai Health, said the hospital was not built for a pandemic this size. Currently, 39 patients are in the intensive care units and 19 are on ventilators, all on high levels of oxygen, he said.

The hospital said it could see as many as 140 patients in the coming weeks.

“The message that I’d like to send out to people is that we’re near the limit that we can handle in this facility,” Scoggins said in a news conference. “We’ve done a lot of things to expand our care to take care of more patients, but it keeps growing. If we had everyone in the community vaccinated, we would not be in this position.”

-ABC News’ Flor Tolentino and Nicholas Kerr

Sep 07, 4:00 pm

Louisiana hospital reports significant decline in number of patients

In hard-hit Louisiana, the Ochsner Health System is seeing a significant decline in COVID-19 patients, now down to 530 — dropping by nearly 250 patients in the last week, hospital CEO and president Warner Thomas said.

But in the wake of deadly Hurricane Ida, releasing patients from hospitals has been difficult, as some patients have no homes to return to, he said.

Sep 07, 3:30 pm

Oregon hospitals ‘scrambling’ with cases, hospitalizations ‘hovering at or near pandemic highs’

Hospitals in Oregon are “scrambling” to stay afloat with cases and hospitalizations “hovering at or near pandemic highs,” the state epidemiologist, Dean Sidelinger, said at COVID-19 briefing Tuesday.

Oregon saw 16,252 new cases in its most recent weekly report – which is 13 times higher than the reported cases for the week ending July 4, Sidelinger said.

Hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions are “alarmingly high” and hospitals are at a “saturation point” where they aren’t “able to provide care to everyone arriving at their door,” Sidelinger warned.

Sep 07, 3:08 pm

Former NBA player on 10th day in ICU

Former Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers player Cedric Ceballos, 52, tweeted that he’s on his 10th day in the ICU battling COVID-19.

On my 10th day in ICU, COVID-19 is officially kicking my but, I am asking ALL family, friends , prayer warriors healers for your prayers and well wish for my recovery.
If I have done and anything to you in the past , allow me to publicly apologize.
My fight is not done…..
Thx pic.twitter.com/r9QZBpfmEI

— Cedric Ceballos (@cedceballos) September 7, 2021

Sep 07, 2:03 pm

Military medical personnel head to Idaho, Arkansas, Alabama

About 60 military medical personnel are heading in three, 20-person teams to Arkansas, Alabama and Idaho to help treat hospitalized COVID-19 patients following a request from FEMA, the U.S. Army North said.

The personnel, including doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists, were sent to hospitals in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Ozark, Alabama; and Little Rock, Arkansas.

Six teams had previously been dispatched to six other hospitals: three in Louisiana, two in Mississippi and one in Dothan, Alabama.

Sep 07, 1:43 pm

Crisis Standards of Care enacted as ‘last resort’ at 10 Idaho hospital systems

A Crisis Standards of Care plan has been enacted at 10 hospital systems in Idaho, which is only done as a “last resort,” Dave Jeppesen, director of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, said in a statement Tuesday.

The hospitals were chosen due to their “severe” shortages in beds and staffing as a result of a “massive increase” in COVID-19 hospitalizations, state officials said.

Crisis Standards of Care “means we have exhausted our resources to the point that our healthcare systems are unable to provide the treatment and care we expect,” Jeppesen said. “This is a decision I was fervently hoping to avoid.”

“When crisis standards of care are in effect, people who need medical care may experience care that is different from what they expect,” state officials said. “For example, patients admitted to the hospital may find that hospital beds are not available or are in repurposed rooms (such as a conference room) or that needed equipment is not available.”

Sep 07, 12:37 pm

75% of American adults have had at least 1 vaccine dose

Seventy-five percent of U.S. adults have now had at least one vaccine dose, Cyrus Shahpar, the White House’s COVID-19 data director, tweeted Tuesday.

Sunday-Tuesday just in: +1.51M doses reported administered over Saturday’s total, including 681K newly vaccinated and 105K additional doses. As usual, lower reporting over the holiday weekend. Just hit 75% of adults with at least one dose!

— Cyrus Shahpar (@cyrusshahpar46) September 7, 2021

Sixty-four percent of U.S. adults are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.

Sep 07, 10:36 am

Biden to layout administration’s strategy to combat delta

President Joe Biden on Thursday will deliver remarks on his plan to stop the spread of the delta variant and to boost vaccinations, the White House confirmed Tuesday.

Biden “will lay out a six-pronged strategy … working across the public and private sectors,” a White House official said.

On Friday, while addressing August’s disappointing jobs report, Biden said, “there’s no question the delta variant is why today’s jobs report isn’t stronger. … Next week, I’ll lay out the next steps that are going to — we’re going to need to combat the delta variant, to address some of those fears and concerns.”

Part of the strategy Biden referenced Friday is to ask states and local governments to consider using federal funding to extend unemployment benefits in hard-hit areas.

“I want to talk about how we’ll further protect our schools, our businesses, our economy, and our families from the threat of delta,” Biden said Friday. “As we continue to fight the delta variant, the American Rescue Plan we passed continues to support families, businesses and communities. Even as some of the benefits that were provided are set to expire next week, states have the option to extend those benefits and the federal resources from the Rescue Plan to do so.”

Sep 07, 7:05 am
3rd person dies in Japan after receiving contaminated Moderna vaccine

A third person has died in Japan after receiving a dose from one of three batches of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine that have since been recalled due to contamination, according to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

The 49-year-old man died on Aug. 12, one day after getting his second shot of the two-dose vaccine. His only known health issue was an allergy to buckwheat, the Japanese health ministry said in a statement Monday.

Two other men, aged 30 and 38, also died in August within days of getting their second Moderna shot. In all three cases, the men received doses from a batch manufactured in the same production line as another lot from which some unused vials were reported to contain foreign substances at multiple inoculation sites in Japan.

The deaths remain under investigation, and the Japanese health ministry said it has yet to establish any casual relationship with the vaccine.

The contaminated lot and two adjacent batches were suspended from use by the Japanese health ministry last month, pending an investigation. Moderna and its Japanese distribution partner Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. ultimately recalled the three lots, containing about 1.63 million doses, after an investigation confirmed the foreign matter to be high-grade stainless steel from manufacturing equipment.

The Japanese health ministry said that, based on the companies’ analysis, it is unlikely the stainless steel contaminants pose any additional health risk.

Moderna and Takeda have yet to release statements on the third fatality, but the companies have previously said there is currently no evidence that the other two deaths were caused by the vaccine.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — There are a “small number” of U.S. citizens in the northern Afghan city Mazar-e-Sharif who have been unable to evacuate on chartered flights, Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed Tuesday, but he said the Taliban had grounded the aircraft because others manifested for these flights did not have valid travel documents.

The chartered flights for approximately 600 people have been held at Mazar-e-Sharif’s airport for over a week now, according to sources who helped organize them, with at least 19 U.S. citizens waiting in the city to board and flee Afghanistan.

A top Republican lawmaker said Sunday these Americans and at-risk Afghans were essentially being held hostage by the Taliban – something that Blinken dismissed Tuesday.

The Taliban have publicly said they will allow safe passage for those who want to leave, but without international flights yet and with overland journeys dangerous, it’s been intensely difficult for those that were left behind by President Joe Biden’s evacuation operations.

Among them are at least 100 U.S. citizens, Blinken said Tuesday, adding that the State Department has been “in direct contact with virtually all of them. We have case-management teams assigned to them to make sure that those who want to leave can in fact do so.”

Four of those Americans were able to evacuate over land to a neighboring country, a senior State Department official confirmed to ABC News Monday, saying the department helped facilitate their travel.

The Taliban were aware and did not impede their transit, the official added. They declined to say which country the family of four arrived in, but said local U.S. embassy officials met them at the border and said they were in “good condition.”

Hours later, however, Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, who served as former President Donald Trump’s White House doctor, accused the State Department of “lying,” saying the agency “didn’t do a damn thing for these people for 12 days except almost get them killed repeatedly.”

“This is an attempt to save face by the administration for the Americans they left behind. This is a woman with three children from age 15 all the way down to two-years-old, and they did nothing to try to expedite this,” Curt Mills, a U.S. Army veteran and Trump appointee at the Pentagon, told Fox News. “It’s like we carried the ball to the 99-and-a-half yard line, and them taking it that last half yard and being like, ‘Look what we did.'”

The State Department declined to comment in response.

But Blinken said Tuesday the agency has been “working around the clock with NGOs, with members of Congress, and advocacy groups” and “conducting a great deal of diplomacy on this,” including with Taliban leaders.

That includes with the NGO Ascend, a Washington-based nonprofit dedicated to empowering women and girls through mountain climbing. Its CEO Marina LeGree told ABC News Sunday that its Afghan members are “among hundreds of individuals — including some American citizens — who have been blocked by the Taliban from leaving Mazar-e-Sharif by charter plane for six days” at that point — now going on eight.

Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, went further, telling Fox News Sunday that the Taliban had created a “hostage situation where they’re not going to allow American citizens to leave until they get full recognition from the United States of America.”

Blinken confirmed the State Department had identified “a relatively small number of Americans” in Mazar-e-Sharif with families trying to evacuate, but he denied there was “any hostage-like situation” or anyone held on aircraft or at the airport.

“It’s my understanding that the Taliban has not denied exit to anyone holding a valid document, but they have said that those without valid documents at this point can’t leave – but because all of these people are grouped together, that’s meant that flights have not been allowed to go,” he added.

Some critics have rejected that, saying the Biden administration must do more to get these flights off the ground and help these U.S. citizens and vulnerable Afghans. But Blinken said while they’re “doing all we can to clear any roadblocks… to make sure that charter flights carrying Americans or others to whom we have a special responsibility can depart Afghanistan safely,” the U.S. has limited ability to help.

“Without personnel on the ground, we can’t verify the accuracy of manifests, the identities of passengers, flight plans, or aviation security protocols, so this is a challenge, but one we are determined to work through,” he said Tuesday in Qatar, visiting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to thank the Qatari government for its help hosting tens of thousands of evacuees.

Qatari teams have flown into Kabul late last week to make repairs at the international airport and negotiate with the Taliban to reopen it securely. Speaking alongside Blinken and Austin, Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told reporters the airport had resumed chartered flights for aid groups and United Nations officials, including the top U.N. aid official Martin Griffiths who visited and met with Taliban leaders Sunday.

“We are about to get everything operational very soon,” Al Thani added, saying negotiations were ongoing with the Taliban to ensure the airport’s management and security — less than two weeks after ISIS-K, the terror group’s branch in Afghanistan, said it attacked a gate and killed at least 182 people, including 13 U.S. service members.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LA.) — The nation is still grappling with the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, which made landfall Aug. 29 and knocked out power to more than 1 million in Louisiana.

At least 69 people have died due to the storm — which hit Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane — as well as the devastation it left across eight states

In Louisiana, 13 have died due to the storm’s wrath. In the Northeast, at least 52 have died.

President Joe Biden will survey the damage of Ida’s remnants in New York and New Jersey on Tuesday.

“Just days after visiting Louisiana to see the damage from the storm there, President Biden will also highlight how one in three Americans live in counties that have been impacted by severe weather events in recent months,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. “Just over the summer, 100 million Americans have been impacted by extreme weather, obviously in the Northeast, out West with wildfires, and then in the Gulf Coast.”

Biden has touted the extreme weather as a critical reason why Congress should pass his infrastructure package.

Recovery efforts continue in the South, where 60% of the 948,000 Entergy utility customers who lost power finally had it restored, the company said Tuesday.

In Louisiana, 54% of customers who lost power have had lights return, but 322,000 remain with outages, and in New Orleans, 73% of customers who lost power had it restored and 55,000 customers remain in the dark, Entergy said.

A team of 26,000 workers are restoring downed and damaged power lines. However, some hard-hit areas including Lafourche Parish and Plaquemines Parish aren’t forecast to have power restored until Sept. 29, according to the company’s estimation.

In Louisiana and Mississippi, 30,679 poles, 36,469 spans of wire and 5,959 transformers were damaged or destroyed — that’s more than Katrina, Ike, Delta and Zeta combined.

Access to water remains a major problem in the state, with boil water advisories still in place in the parishes of Jefferson, Lafourche, St. Charles, St. Tammany, St. John the Baptist, Plaquemines and Tangipahoa.

More rain will is forecast to come down in Louisiana, further inundating the already saturated soil, with temperatures in the upper 80s, according to the National Weather Service.

Tuesday marks the last day for locals to evacuate to Ida shelters in northern Louisiana. Locals in need of shelter can go to one of eight pick-up locations for bus transportation.

About 14,000 people in Lafourche Parish were left homeless after Ida razed through and destroyed 75% of structures there.

“We are working feverishly, as hard as we can to get all people what they need to keep their lives going and to rebuild our community,” Lafourche Parish President Archie Chaisson said to CNN on Monday.

Nursing home deaths are also a mounting concern in the state.

Among those who died in Louisiana, seven were nursing home residents who were transferred to a warehouse in Independence and later died. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry has opened an investigation into the deaths. The Louisiana Health Department is also investigating nursing homes that transferred patients there and ordered all of them to shut down Saturday. Only five of the seven deaths were confirmed by the state to be storm-related.

On Saturday, during wellness checks at eight New Orleans facilities, five nursing home residents were found dead, the city said in a news release. None of those have been confirmed to be storm-related. In response, the city determined all eight facilities were “unfit” and evacuated nearly 600 residents to hospitals and shelters.

Also in Louisiana, at least four people have died and 141 were treated in hospitals for carbon monoxide poisoning in the wake of Ida, according to the Louisiana Department of Health, prompting officials to urge the public for safe generator use.

Officials advise placing generators at least 20 feet away from a home and assure all air entry points near the unit and home are properly sealed.

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