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

More than 643,000 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 61.7% 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 Friday. All times Eastern:

Sep 03, 8:46 am
EU to return millions of J&J doses it imported from Africa

The European Union will be returning some 20 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine that were imported from a plant in South Africa, and the shots filled and finished there will no longer leave the African continent.

African Union special envoy Strive Masiyiwa, who heads the regional bloc’s COVID-19 Vaccine Acquisition Task Team, told reporters Thursday that the decision was made at a meeting last week between South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Johnson & Johnson’s South African partner, Aspen Pharmacare, has a contract to import the drug substance for the one-dose vaccine from the American pharmaceutical giant and then package them — the so-called fill-and-finish process — at its facility in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

“All the vaccines produced at Aspen will stay in Africa and will be distributed to Africa,” Masiyiwa said at a press conference Thursday.

The decision came amid criticism of the arrangement, with the World Health Organisation’s director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is Ethiopian, saying last month that he was “stunned” that vaccines will be shipped from Africa to Europe. Just 3% of people in Africa, the world’s second-largest, second-most populous continent, are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. In comparison, 57% of people are fully vaccinated in the European Union and 52% in the United States, according to the WHO.

Sep 03, 3:33 am
Nearly 300 children currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in Texas

Nearly 300 children are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in Texas, state data shows.

According to the Texas Department of State Health Services’ online COVID-19 dashboard, which was last updated on Thursday afternoon, there are 282 pediatric patients in hospitals across the Lone Star State.

The data also shows there are 81 staffed pediatric intensive care unit beds available in all of Texas.

Sep 03, 3:19 am
2-dose vaccine ‘appears to be enough,’ FDA adviser says

Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory committee, said a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine “appears to be enough” to curb infection, rather than adding a booster shot.

“You look at states in the United States that have high immunization rates with a two-dose vaccine, it appears the two doses appears to be enough to be able to control this infection,” Offit, who is also the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told ABC News on Thursday night. “I think the critical issue here is not going to be boosting the vaccinated. I think if we really want to get on top of this pandemic, it’s going to be about vaccinating the unvaccinated.”

The FDA’s vaccine advisory committee is set to hold a key meeting on COVID-19 vaccine booster shots on Sept. 17, just three days before the Biden administration plans to begin offering the shots to Americans.

“If the companies or the FDA can make a case that there has been an erosion in protection against severe critical disease and that that erosion in protection against severe disease would be mediated or eliminated by a third dose, then we could move forward,” Offit said. “But to date, we really need to see those data to be able to make that decision.”

Sep 02, 7:02 pm
Pediatric hospitalizations nearly 4 times higher in states with low vaccination: CDC

Two studies to be published Friday found fewer pediatric hospitalizations among children and communities with higher vaccination rates, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

In one study, national data from August showed that children were nearly four times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 in the states with the lowest vaccination rates when compared to states with the highest rates — proof that “cocooning” children with vaccinated people keeps them safe, Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a White House briefing Thursday.

The second study, which looked at hospitalizations rates in 12- to 17-year-olds across 14 states during July, found that adolescents who were unvaccinated were 10 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than their fully vaccinated peers, Walensky said.

“Both studies, one thing is clear: cases, emergency room visits and hospitalizations are much lower among children and communities with higher vaccination rates,” Walensky said. “We must come together to ensure that our children, indeed, our future, remain safe and healthy during this time.”

Sep 02, 4:11 pm
8 Florida school districts refuse to reverse mask mandates

Eight school districts in Florida told the state’s education commissioner that they would not reverse their mask requirements for students, clearing the way for the state to retaliate by withholding the salaries of school board members.

The eight districts — Duval, Hillsborough, Indian River, Leon, Miami-Dade, Orange, Palm Beach and Sarasota — each wrote a letter to Commissioner Richard Corcoran Wednesday saying they believed they were following state law and had no plans to stop requiring face coverings for students.

Corcoran had given each district until 5 p.m. Wednesday to reverse their mandates, threatening to recommend to the state education board that it withhold the salaries of board members if they did not change course.

The state education department announced Monday it would take such action against board members in Alachua and Broward counties over their school mask mandates.

On Friday, a Florida judge ruled that school boards can enact student mask mandates and ordered the state education department to stop enforcing a state rule requiring districts to allow parents to opt-out.

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(NEW YORK) — Millions of Americans across the country faced devastating flooding from Hurricane Ida this week and are grappling with the risks a new reality poses to their homes.

With more humans building into nature, the fragile interface between weather extremes and the comfort of our homes is becoming more frequent. More than ever, it’s clear that climate change is impacting everywhere we live.

Climate risk nonprofit First Street Foundation has found that 14.6 million American properties are at risk of flood. Six million of those don’t make it on Federal Emergency Management Agency standards maps.

Joe Tirone was one of hundreds in Staten Island who lost their home in Superstorm Sandy in 2012. It’s hard to imagine that where a marsh stands now, there were once several streets full of homes.

He was part of one of the biggest post-storm buyouts in history — meaning he got reimbursed for the full value of his home.

“You’re getting federal money, but it’s run by the state,” he explained. “It’s a little bit complicated, but a miracle. … No other place had done that.”

Since then, he’s led a push for more transparency, saying people need to know if a home they’re going to buy has a chance of flooding. He pointed to the ability to see a pre-owned car’s history before buying.

“Why isn’t there a Carfax for houses? And that got me on a roll where I felt that there really should be more advocacy for homeowners or buyers,” Tirone said. “As a realtor for over 20 years, I believe that we bring a lot of value to any transaction. So to me, it makes perfect sense for us to be the gatekeepers there as far as flood disclosure is concerned.”

Michael Lopes, communications director at the First Street Foundation, said homes at risk of flooding can be at inland or “very high elevations … places in the Pacific Northwest, places that people had never really thought of as being at significant flood risk.”

“The flooding we saw in Tennessee and in Kentucky was shocking to people who just never really experienced this kind of flooding before,” he said.

First Street Foundation takes a step beyond FEMA when assessing whether or not a particular property will flood. They factor in climate change.

“We’re using the 4.5 curve, kind of a middle-of-the-road curve, not the most dramatic, not the least trying to give a sense of how that risk is changing over time,” he said. “Something like heavy rainstorms are just becoming more frequent.”

FEMA says having flood insurance is crucial for flood-prone areas because most homeowners policies don’t cover it. There is a government-run flood insurance program, but it is far from perfect.

“You have middle and lower, middle-income people essentially subsidizing very, very, very wealthy people right now on the coast,” Lopes said.

That’s about to change with a government program called Risk Rating 2.0, which takes effect Oct. 1.

“We’re going to be doing a much better job of clearly identifying flood risk and we’re going to be able to price it fairly,” David Maurstad, FEMA deputy associate administrator for federal insurance and mitigation and senior executive of the flood insurance program, told ABC News. “Currently lower-value homes are paying more than they should and higher-value homes are paying less than they should and Risk Rating 2.0 equity and action changes that inequity.”

FEMA says even 1 inch of water can do $25,000 worth of damage to a home. Just because you aren’t in one of those high-risk areas doesn’t mean you can’t have a serious flood.

“Hurricane Harvey, for example … over 75% of the properties that are damaged were outside the high-risk area,” Maurstad said. “Many of them did not have the flood insurance coverage that they need[ed]. And that’s why equity and action is … going to be so valuable — because it’s going to be able to indicate to people you are at risk, regardless of whether you’re in a particular zone or not.”

Many Americans rent and don’t plan on buying their home. Lower-income neighborhoods tend to have higher burdens when it comes to climate change.

Real estate brokerage Redfin’s own research found that flooding is worse in neighborhoods that have been historically redlined, a term for areas where people are refused a loan due to financial risk. When a Black, brown or poor white town is hit by a storm, the community struggles to recover.

“Disasters contribute to widening equality gap in the United States, you know, especially when you’re looking at it from a financial perspective,” said Rob Moore, senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Poorer people tend to become poorer in the aftermath of a disaster and more-affluent people tend to either stay the same, or in a perverse way, they actually can actually gain financially.”

Even if you don’t think you are in an area that can flood, think again.

“Where it can rain, it can flood,” Maurstad said. “Ninety-nine percent of the counties in the United States have experienced a flood loss, so folks across the nation underappreciate the flood risk that they face. They want to think it’s not going to happen to them.”

Whether you bought your home or rent one, you can find your home’s flood risk at floodfactor.com, a tool developed by First Street Foundation. Lopes said you don’t want to see anything above a 3 out of 10.

“You’re starting to get into some pretty severe risk of experiencing [flooding],” he said. “That doesn’t mean your house is going to be leveled, right, but you’re going to be experiencing some pretty heavy flooding over the next 15 or 30 years.”

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(PHILADELPHIA) — A 9-month-old Afghan girl flying on a U.S. evacuation flight to Philadelphia died Wednesday night, a Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson confirmed to ABC News.

The baby girl arrived with her family from Ramstein Air Base in Germany after they were evacuated from Afghanistan, according to Defense Department spokesperson Lt. Col. Chris Mitchell.

She is the first known case of an evacuee dying after the chaotic evacuation efforts from Kabul that brought 124,000 people to safety.

The baby suffered a medical emergency during the flight, according to Customs and Border Protection, and by the time the plane landed at 9:16 p.m., she was unresponsive, per PPD.

The aircrew flying the C-17 military transport plane requested medical assistance and priority arrival, according to Mitchell, and emergency medical personnel and a translator met the aircraft on arrival and transported her and her father to a local hospital.

The infant was pronounced dead at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia at 10:10 p.m., according to PPD.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the parents and family,” said Mitchell.

Her death is under investigation by Philadelphia police’s special victims unit because of the child’s age, while the Philadelphia medical examiner’s office will investigate the cause of death, the PPD spokesperson said.

ABC News’s Luis Martinez contributed to this report.

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