(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 616,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 4.2 million people have died worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 58.7% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing Monday. All times Eastern:
Aug 09, 7:31 am
‘This is not your grandfather’s COVID,’ pediatrician warns
Children with COVID-19 used to make up 1% of patients hospitalized at Children’s Hospital New Orleans. Now they account for about 20%, Dr. Mark Kline, physician-in-chief at Children’s Hospital New Orleans, told “Good Morning America” Monday.
He said about half of the children hospitalized are under 2 years old. Most of the others are between 5 and 10 years old, so too young to be vaccinated.
“This is not your grandfather’s COVID,” Kline said. “This delta variant is an entirely new and unexpected challenge.”
Dr. Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor, warned on MSNBC that with “schools act[ing] as an accelerant, you should assume we’re going to see pediatric intensive care units all across the South completely overwhelmed and even a possibility of small tent cities of sick adolescents and kids.”
Hotez said parents need to know that “delta is something different” and “picking off young people like we’ve never seen.”
“If your adolescent kid is unvaccinated, you should assume there’s a high likelihood that that child is going to get COVID,” he said, adding, “And we haven’t even gotten to the ‘long COVID’ discussion around young people and what that means for their long-term cognitive health.”
(NEW YORK) — Lawmakers and water utilities in the West are urging residents to conserve water as reservoirs hit record lows amid climate change-driven megadrought.
Among the calls to action is a reminder for residents to make choices that lessen use of municipal water when it comes to maintaining landscaping in desert surroundings.
About 30% of water usage for the average American family is used for the outdoors, such as watering lawns and gardens, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
But in the West, where water is zapped almost instantaneously by either the blazing sun or thirsty vegetation, outdoor water usage increases to about 60% of total household use, according to the EPA.
While water is “pretty cheap” in the U.S. at the moment, that could change as the commodity becomes more precious, John Berggren, a water policy analyst with conservation organization Western Resource Advocates, told ABC News.
However, experts say they have noticed a societal shift in how people in the West approach everyday decisions to protect the precious water supply, including when it comes to how to design lawns.
Landscaping should match the environment
In the summer, a “big chunk” of the water supply in the West goes to irrigating non-native turf grass, which is what is generally used for lawns, Berggren said.
There are benefits to turf grass, Berggren pointed out. It’s aesthetically pleasing and cooling — which helps reduce the urban heat island effect — and it offers functionality for recreation, for kids and pets to run around in and as parks and ballfields. Grasses native to the West don’t offer the same recreational functionality.
The typical grass used for homes and ballfields is Kentucky bluegrass, which is not native to the West, which is why it requires so much water for upkeep, he said.
A solution is to remove the turf grass. While people often think ripping up turf grass means replacing it with cement, the best move is actually to replace it with live vegetation that is native to the area, such as shrubs and trees, Berggren said.
“We have so many beautiful native plants that are adapted to our climates out here in the West,” he said. “You’ll have lots of color. You can have lots of green.”
Once established, native plants require little water “beyond normal rainfall,” according to the EPA.
Along with the aesthetics, the plants will also provide collection for storm water runoff and water quality benefits, Berggren said.
Providing incentives to residents could prove effective, experts say
Development codes enacted in municipalities around the West between the 1960s and 1980s had little to no restrictions on how much turf grass property owners could install. But officials and scientists are starting to rethink the approach to turf grass as the decadeslong drought worsens and populations increase, Berggren said.
However, the cost to transform lawns can’t be overlooked. Adding native plants for a xeriscaping project, or designing the landscape to reduce irrigation, can cost up to $5,000, according to home and garden blog Happy DIY Home.
Water providers and conservation programs are incentivizing homeowners to get rid of their turf grass, with some offering between $1 and $3 per square foot to replace it with native plants, Berggren said.
“And so if you’re replacing a couple 1,000 square feet of turf, suddenly, that’s a pretty big incentive to do so, and you can pay for a lot of the project with that program,” he said.
Turf buyback programs have become so important that states are providing the funds to maintain them.
Last month, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox announced the expansion of a statewide turf buyback program as one of four efforts to conserve water amid the megadrought.
First-of-its-kind legislation passed in Nevada
Municipalities and states are also starting to realize that not all areas where there is turf grass are equal, Berggren said. Plots of land where the turf is purely ornamental, such as median strips on highways, are known as non-functional or non-essential turf, and states in the West are starting to do away with them.
For example, if a patch of grass in southern Nevada is green, that means it’s being irrigated with municipal drinking water, Bronson Mack, public information officer of the Las Vegas Valley Water District, said.
“The one thing to really keep in mind is whether or not those communities are irrigating that grass with water resources, or is that grass just getting naturally irrigated from precipitation,” Mack said. “Here in Southern Nevada, we’d only get 4 inches of rain a year. So, it is not enough water to sustain our outdoor landscaping.”
Lawmakers in Nevada recently passed a law banning non-essential turf in the Las Vegas region served by the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Assembly Bill 356 requires grass at non-residential properties to be ripped out within five years. After Dec. 26, 2026, those properties will no longer be able to irrigate non-functional turf with Colorado River water supplied by the water authority, Mack said.
“So their options are to find a new water source, which is pretty challenging to do,” Mack said.
The new legislation is the first of its kind in the country, he added.
More communities are also instilling caps on how much of any given property can contain turf grass, such as 20%, Berggren said.
The new laws are paralleled by a cultural shift to make people re-think how they use their yards. If they find they only use the backyard, the incentives motivate them to replace the grass in the front yard with native plants, Berggren said.
Prior to the early 2000s, homes in Nevada state had wall-to-wall grass, but 20 years later, landscapes in new developments have no grass and use water-efficient material instead, Mack said, adding that nearly 70,000 residential and commercial landscaping projects to remove more than 200 miles of grass have taken place in Southern Nevada alone since then.
“That’s why it’s good to see so many homeowners kind of being proactive in like ripping up their front lawn and putting in nice, beautiful, native vegetation, because then their neighbors see it, and then people driving down the street see it,” Berggren said.
Communities across the Southwest have embraced the trend to transform lawns to be water-efficient, Jay Lund, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis, and the head of the school’s Center for Watershed Sciences, told ABC News.
“A few years ago, I was walking around the neighborhood of a friend in Albuquerque, and you could see that the neighborhood was going through a transition,” he said. “You could see that the older lawn were lush and green.”
More ways to conserve water
Water-efficient irrigation techniques can reduce water usage by up to 15%, according to the EPA.
Something as simple as replacing sprinkler heads can upgrade irrigation systems to save a significant amount of water, Berggren said.
It is not necessary to water grass every day, according to the EPA, which recommends testing the lawn by stepping on a patch of grass instead. If the grass springs back, it does not need water, the agency says.
Better Homes & Gardens recommends that homeowners in the region let lawns brown during the summer, or give them about 1 inch of water per week.
Do not water lawns during the afternoon, as the water will evaporate before the drops even hit the ground. Water lawns early in the morning instead.
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 615,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 4.2 million people have died worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 58.4% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC last week, citing new science on the transmissibility of the delta variant, changed its mask guidance to now recommend everyone in areas with substantial or high levels of transmission — vaccinated or not — wear a face covering in public, indoor settings.
Here’s how the news is developing Monday. All times Eastern:
Aug 08, 8:36 pm
Court rules cruise vaccine mandate does not violate Florida law
A federal judge ruled Sunday in favor of Norwegian Cruise Line and will allow the company to require proof of vaccination on cruises out of Florida despite a state law that bans cruise ships from enacting such an order.
Norwegian sued the state last month contending that the law prevented them “from safely and soundly resuming passenger cruise operations from Miami, Florida.”
Florida’s law threatens to fine companies $5,000 each time they ask a customer to provide proof that they’ve been vaccinated.
Florida has seen a surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the last couple of weeks, with most cases affecting unvaccinated residents.
Judge Kathleen M. Williams wrote in her decision that Norwegian “has demonstrated that public health will be jeopardized if it is required to suspend its vaccination requirement,” and the Florida Department of Health, “identifies no public benefit from the continued enforcement of the Statute Case.”
Neither the cruise line nor the Florida Department of Health issued immediate statements about the ruling as of Sunday evening.
Aug 08, 7:04 pm
Memphis school delays first day of school due to COVID cases
A Memphis area elementary school sent a message to parents Sunday, just hours before the new school year was about to begin, informing them that the first day of classes would be postponed for a week due to COVID-19 cases among the staff.
The letter from Donelson Elementary School administrators didn’t specify how many staff members contracted the virus but indicated they “are simply at a point where opening tomorrow would risk further exposure to students and staff.”
The first day of classes is tentatively rescheduled for Aug. 16, the letter said.
Aug 08, 3:50 pm
Austin hospitals down to 6 ICU beds
Hospitals in Austin, Texas are down to just six available intensive care unit beds as more COVID-19 patients are admitted, officials warned.
City officials said there are 591 COVID-19 patients that are hospitalized. The seven-day average of new coronavirus ICU admissions in Austin’s hospitals has jumped from 23.4 on July 4 to 184 on Aug. 6, the city’s health department data showed.
Over the weekend, the Warn Central Texas system sent out an alert to residents via text message that urged people to wear a mask, get vaccinated and stay home if possible.
Aug 08, 2:44 pm
WHO warns of phony COVID lottery scam
The World Health Organization issued a warning Sunday about online scams involving a phony COVID-19 lottery.
The scammers claim to be a financial management firm in London under the name “Capital Finance, Inc. London,” WHO said.
The fraudsters allege through emails that the “COVID-19 Lottery Compensation Prize” is brought to you by WHO, in association with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), according to WHO.
The emails also state that they come from a group appointed by the WHO to process payment of these prizes, and then solicit personal details and in some cases, money from their victims, WHO warned.
“WHO is not offering or conducting a lottery prize to compensate individuals, whose names or contact details are purportedly selected at random, for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the UN agency said in a statement.
(NEW YORK) — Red flag warnings are persisting across parts of the West as dozens of large wildfires continue to scorch through homes and dry earth.
A cold front bringing gusty winds and the possibility of thunderstorms is expected to pass through parts of southern Montana and southern Wyoming Sunday afternoon. Wind gusts are expected to reach up to 50 mph in some regions, while humidity will remain low — at just 12% to 18%, according to forecasts.
The Dixie Fire, now the second-largest fire in California history after it has been burning near the Feather River Canyon since July 13, had singed through more than 463,000 acres by Sunday morning and was just 21% contained.
Firefighters had previously made progress on containing the Dixie Fire, but the fire re-exploded after jumping containment lines last week amid dangerous fire conditions. It has now destroyed 404 buildings as well as 185 other minor structures, damaged 27 structures and is continuing to threaten 13,871 structures.
Well over 100 home sand businesses in the downtown area of Greenville, California, about 150 miles northeast of Sacramento were decimated after dry, gusty conditions fueled the flames even further on Wednesday night.
Four people in the vicinity of the Dixie Fire are missing, the Plumas County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Saturday. Four firefighters were injured Saturday night while battling the Dixie Fire after a tree branch fell and hit them, according to officials.
The River Fire, near Colfax, California, is now 56% contained after its explosion last week prompted evacuations.
The McFarland Fire in Wildwood, California, just north of the Mendocino National Forest, has blazed through more than 30,000 acres and is 21% contained.
Six firefighters were injured on Friday while battling the McFarland Fire in Shasta Trinity National Forest. The heat was so intense that some suffered from first and second-degree burns, officials said.
Places around the world like the Western U.S. have become a “tinderbox ready to burn with any spark,” Kristina Dahl, senior climate scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists, told George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” Sunday.
“Around the world what we’re seeing is that very hot conditions tend to worsen any drought conditions that places might be experiencing,” Dahl said. “So you end up with severe drought, coupled out with the drying out of vegetation, and that vegetation then becomes fuel for fires to burn.”
Michael Mann, director of Penn State’s Earth System Science Center, told Stephanopoulos that “dangerous” climate change has already arrived.
“We can see the impacts of climate change playing out now in real time on our television screens and in our newspaper headlines,” Mann said. “…at this point it’s a question of how bad we’re willing to let it get.”
The effects of the fires are also being experienced up to 1,000 miles away as the smoke from the fires travels east with the jet stream. Air quality alerts have been issued for nine states.
On Saturday afternoon, Denver had the worst quality ranking in the world, according to IQ Air, a data tool that measures and ranks air quality in cities around the world. Denver remained in the second spot on Sunday afternoon.
Air quality was also dangerous in Utah near Salt Lake City, prompting the National Weather Service to warn residents to remain indoors as much as possible.
8/6 – Smoke concentrations will become very noticeable as the day goes on today. Unhealthy air is expected. What will this mean for you? Avoid/reduce prolonged or heavy exertion. Move activities indoors or reschedule to a time when the air quality is better. #UTwxpic.twitter.com/QldLAhmrHC
Closer to the fires, white ash from the Dixie Fire was falling in the Lake Tahoe Basin, SF Gate reported.
Residents in Sacramento reported seeing hazy skies as a result of the smoke as the weekend rolled in, The Sacramento Bee reported.
Air quality alerts have also been issued in Southern California. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District a health alert Saturday stating that the changing weather pattern would affect air quality in the area through Monday afternoon.
Experts advised residents in the Bay Area that they could expect smoky skies and bad air quality for decades to come.
“I think residents of the Western US are just going to have to get used to smoky skies and bad air quality as we go through the next few decades,” Craig Clements, director of San Jose State University’s Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center, told ABC San Francisco station KGO. “These fires are burning hotter, they’re burning more intensely and so, they are creating a lot of smoke and it could really impact communities. So, we have to get used to that unfortunately.”
ABC News’ Brittany Borer and Jenna Harrison contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins said Sunday he believes vaccine requirements could make a difference in slowing the rapid spread of COVID-19 and acknowledged how politics has polarized public opinion on pandemic mitigation strategies.
“Why is it that a mandate about a vaccine or wearing a mask suddenly becomes a statement of your political party? We never should have let that happen.” Collins told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos.
“Come on, America — we’re incredibly polarized about politics, we don’t really need to be polarized about a virus that’s killing people,” Collins continued. “We ought to be doing everything we can to save lives.”
Saturday marked the fourth consecutive day of more than 100,000 new daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And Friday, the U.S. recorded its highest daily COVID-19 case count in six months, with more than 120,000 new cases reported.
And though more than 50% of Americans are fully vaccinated and that rate increased by 25% in the last week, according to the CDC, due to the rapidly spreading delta variant, some states and counties have reimplemented mitigation strategies, such as mask mandates.
“As a person who runs the National Institutes of Health with 45,000 employees and contractors, I am glad to see the president insisting that we go forward requiring vaccinations or if people are unwilling to do that, then regular testing, at least once or twice a week, which will be very inconvenient,” Collins said.
“I think we ought to use every public health tool we can when people are dying,” Collins added.
“That was about as close as a yes as you could get. You clearly believe that vaccine mandates could make a difference,” Stephanopoulos pressed.
“I do believe they should make a difference,” Collins responded. “I understand how that can sometimes set off all kinds of resistance. But isn’t that a shame?”
“Think about masks in the way that they ought to be thought about: this is not a political statement or an invasion of your liberties. This is a lifesaving medical device.” https://t.co/KfLFZu3Wd8pic.twitter.com/G6BtGJxemH
If more people had gotten vaccinated when vaccines became widely available, the current surge fueled by the delta variant could have been mitigated, Collins said earlier in the interview, responding to a USA TODAY front page headline: “We are failing one another.”
“I’m afraid we should not really have ever gotten in the place we are,” Collins said. “In that regard, yes, we are failing. … Now we’re paying the terrible price.”
As more children are currently hospitalized than at any other point in the pandemic, Stephanopoulos asked Collins whether the delta variant is more serious for children.
“We don’t have rigorous data to show for sure,” Collins responded. “But this is a virus that is not only more contagious, but potentially more lethal.”
With the school year set to begin across the nation, Collins said he would ask parents to think about masks as a “life-saving medical device” and ask their children to wear them.
“We know that kids under 12 are likely to get infected and if we don’t have masks in schools, this virus will spread more widely,” Collins told Stephanopoulos. “It will probably result in outbreaks in schools and kids will have to go back to remote learning which is the one thing we really want to prevent.”
“It’s a small price to pay for being able to keep kids where they need to be to learn,” Collins added.
“Think about masks in the way that they ought to be thought about: this is not a political statement or an invasion of your liberties. This is a lifesaving medical device.” https://t.co/KfLFZu3Wd8pic.twitter.com/G6BtGJxemH
While the current vaccines have high efficacy in stopping the spread of the highly contagious delta variant, Collins said he worries about “the day when a variant arises that is so different from the original Wuhan virus” that it evades the current vaccines and requires the quick development of a booster shot.
“The best way to prevent that from happening is to reduce the number of infections because that’s how mutants happen. It’s because people are infected with the virus and it copies itself slightly wrong and then you get something that’s even worse,” Collins said.
.@NIHDirector tells @GStephanopoulos that health officials “don’t have anxieties yet” about vaccines not protecting against other COVID-19 variants.
As the country awaits the Food and Drug Administration’s full approval of the COVID-19 vaccines, Collins said he has been in close contact with the agency and they hope to issue full authorization within the next month.
“But meanwhile, while people are waiting for that — and I understand that would help — please be clear about this, the vaccines have incredible evidence for their safety and effectiveness. They work against delta. They will save your life,” Collins said.
(NEW YORK) — This weekend, some of Florida’s largest school districts have moved to require masks for students, the latest in a weeklong saga that began when Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order aimed at preventing districts from mandating face coverings for kids.
However, the mandates — issued by districts including Hillsborough (Tampa), Orange (Orlando), and Palm Beach — come with a catch: parents are allowed to opt their children out of them, without providing a reason.
The state’s biggest school district, Miami-Dade, has not announced whether it will mandate face coverings for students. Its latest protocols, issued July 29, require them on school buses but not inside school buildings.
Broward Public Schools, the state’s second-largest district, has not updated its guidance from Wednesday, which said masks are required for students. The guidance did not mention the choice of opting out.
Some large school districts, like Polk, Pinellas, and Lee, are making masks optional for students, according to their most updated guidance.
Florida reported 23,903 COVID-19 cases in a single day on Friday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, making it the state’s third straight day with over 20,000 new COVID cases.
As of Saturday, according to the Florida Hospital Association, there are 13,348 people hospitalized across the state — the highest figure the state has had during the pandemic. Nearly 30% of inpatients have COVID and 43.3% of adult intensive care unit patients have COVID.
(PLUMAS COUNTY, Calif.) — Four people are missing as the Dixie Fire rages on in California, the Plumas County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Saturday.
“We are seeking the public and the media’s assistance is helping us locate the individuals so we can report back to their loved ones,” they said, adding that their investigation unit has already located 21 other individuals who were previously unaccounted for.
The sheriff’s office had said earlier that eight people remained unaccounted for, but some have since been found.
“We request if you know where any of these people are to contact them and have them call the Sheriff’s Office at 530-283-6300 to let us know they are safe, so we can report back to the person(s) looking for them,” the police said.
The names of the five unaccounted for individuals are: Robert Nelson of Chester, Donna Shelton of Greenville, Dianne Doppert of Greenville and Shenandoah Lisenbee of Greenville, according to the statement. Authorities said Shelton was reported safe, but they have not made contact with her.
Cal Fire public information officer Rick Carhart said Saturday afternoon that four firefighters were injured in the west zone during the morning. They were taken to area hospitals. Three have been released, while one remains in the hospital in stable condition.
The Dixie Fire has been burning near Feather River Canyon for weeks and has now scorched through more than 446,723 acres since it sparked on July 13.
It is 21% contained and is now considered the third-largest fire in California history. More than 5,100 fire personnel are currently working on containing and putting it out, according to Cal Fire.
The fire “burnt down our entire downtown. Our historical buildings, families homes, small businesses, and our children’s schools are completely lost,” Plumas County Supervisor Kevin Goss wrote on Facebook.
It is one of 90 large wildfires, many of them uncontained, that are currently burning in the West.
(PLUMAS COUNTY, Calif.) — Five people are missing as the Dixie Fire rages on in California, the Plumas County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Saturday.
“We are seeking the public and the media’s assistance is helping us locate the individuals so we can report back to their loved ones,” they said, adding that their investigation unit has already located 21 other individuals who were previously unaccounted for.
The sheriff’s office had said earlier that eight people remained unaccounted for, but five were located and two others reported missing.
“We request if you know where any of these people are to contact them and have them call the Sheriff’s Office at 530-283-6300 to let us know they are safe, so we can report back to the person(s) looking for them,” the police said.
The names of the five unaccounted for individuals are: Danny Sczenski of Greenville, Glen Gallagher of Greenville, Donna Shelton of Chester, Dianne Doppert of Greenville and Lena Rhynes of Greenville, according to the statement. Authorities said Gallagher and Shelton were reported safe, but they have not made contact with them.
Cal Fire public information officer Rick Carhart said Saturday afternoon that four firefighters were injured in the west zone during the morning. They were taken to area hospitals. Three have been released, while one remains in the hospital in stable condition.
The Dixie Fire has been burning near Feather River Canyon for weeks and has now scorched through more than 446,723 acres since it sparked on July 13.
It is 21% contained and is now considered the third-largest fire in California history. More than 5,100 fire personnel are currently working on containing and putting it out, according to Cal Fire.
The fire “burnt down our entire downtown. Our historical buildings, families homes, small businesses, and our children’s schools are completely lost,” Plumas County Supervisor Kevin Goss wrote on Facebook.
It is one of 90 large wildfires, many of them uncontained, that are currently burning in the West.
(NEW YORK) — The Coast Guard has released a video that shows a nail-biting race to save lives aboard the tragic Seacor Power — an oil industry boat that capsized off the Louisiana coast in April, killing 13 people.
The video shows a rescue worker suspended from a helicopter searching for survivors in murky and turbulent waters. Towering waves batter the vessel, flooding the boat’s deck.
Three men desperately held onto the side of the 175-foot-long boat during the rescue effort, NOLA reported, with one of the three men describing his harrowing rescue.
“When we first got on scene, I remember them right there waving,” the helicopter’s pilot, Jim Peters told NOLA.
As of Aug. 1, the Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board are convening in a series of daily public hearings, expected to last through Aug. 13.
ABC News’ Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 615,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 4.2 million people have died worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 58.4% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC last week, citing new science on the transmissibility of the delta variant, changed its mask guidance to now recommend everyone in areas with substantial or high levels of transmission — vaccinated or not — wear a face covering in public, indoor settings.
Aug 07, 11:41 am
7-day average of daily US vaccinations highest since June
The nation’s current seven-day average of 481,000 new COVID-19 vaccinations a day is the highest rate recorded since June 18, White House COVID Data Director Cyrus Shahpar said.
More young Americans are getting shots as well, with the daily average of 12-to-15-year-olds doubling over the last month.
Aug 07, 10:51 am
Florida reports over 134,000 new COVID-19 cases in past week
Florida’s COVID-19 cases have continued to soar week after week, with 134,506 new virus cases reported over the past week, according to the state Department of Health.
That beats last week’s weekly record of 110,420 new infections.
Now the weekly case positivity rate in the state stands at 18.9%. There were also 175 virus deaths reported over the past week.
-ABC News’ Joshua Hoyos
Aug 06, 11:49 pm
409 positive cases at Tokyo Olympics
As of Saturday, there are 409 positive COVID-19 cases at the Olympics, According to Tokyo 2020’s coronavirus case list.
That is an increase of 22 cases since Friday.
All of the people who tested positive are either Games-concerned personnel, Tokyo 2020 contractors, media or volunteers. One Games-concerned employee was in the Olympic Village at the time of their positive test.
Aug 06, 10:06 pm
Amazon mandates warehouse workers wear masks
Amazon said Friday it was mandating all 900,000 of its warehouse workers wear masks, regardless of whether they are vaccinated.
The company had previously only required unvaccinated workers to wear masks. It blamed the change on the increasing risk presented by the delta variant.
“In response to the concerning spread of new COVID-19 variants in the U.S. and guidance from public health authorities and our own medical experts, we are requiring face coverings indoors regardless of vaccination status,” Amazon said in a statement. “We are monitoring the situation closely and will continue to follow local government guidance and work closely with leading medical healthcare professionals, gathering their advice and recommendations as we go forward to ensure our buildings are optimized for the safety of our teams.”
Many companies have taken the added step of requiring vaccinations, including fellow tech giants Google and Facebook.
Aug 06, 6:27 pm
US records highest single-day COVID case total in 6 months
The U.S. has recorded its highest single-day COVID-19 case total in exactly six months with more than 120,000 new cases reported, according to newly updated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
The country is now averaging more than 96,000 new cases a day.
Additionally, every single state in the country is reporting “high” (a seven-day new case rate ≥100) or “substantial” (a seven-day new case rate between 50-99.99) community transmission.
