The latest on the Covid-19 pandemic in the US

Live Nation Entertainment, one of the country’s biggest live entertainment companies, will require all artists and concertgoers to show proof of vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test starting Oct. 4, the company announced Friday.

All employees will also need to be vaccinated to visit any of the company’s events, venues, or offices.

The company said all ticket holders are being alerted directly with details pertaining to their show.

“Vaccines are going to be your ticket back to shows, and as of October 4th we will be following the model we developed for Lollapalooza and requiring this for artists, fans and employees at Live Nation venues and festivals everywhere possible in the US,” Live Nation Entertainment President and CEO Michael Rapino said in a statement.

The Los Angeles-based entertainment company hosts 40,000 shows and over 100 festivals every year, according to its website. With over 40,000 employees worldwide, Live Nation Entertainment sells 500 million tickets annually.

The announcement follows the decision by AEG Presents to require proof of vaccination for all concertgoers and staff members.

There are 473 positive cases of Covid-19 among teachers and students in Brevard Public Schools in Florida after just four days of school.

According to the district’s online dashboard, 385 students and 88 employees have currently tested positive. There are 1,060 people quarantined due to close contact or community contact with those individuals districtwide. School started in Brevard County on Tuesday.

The cases are distributed across more than 50 elementary, middle and high schools. The cases account for less than 1% of the district’s total student population, which is around 73,000.

The Brevard County School Board voted 3-2 to keep masks optional during a meeting on Tuesday that lasted more than five hours. The board also chose not to follow in the path of some Florida districts which have implemented a mask mandate along with an “opt-out” option for parents who do not want their children wearing masks in school.

Maria Oramas gets the first dose of the Pzifer Covid-19 vaccine on Monday, August 9, in Miami.

Florida is the latest state to report 50% of its residents as fully vaccinated, according to the latest data published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Here’s the latest CDC data on vaccination efforts in the United States:

People check in for departure flights at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport on August 5, 2021 in Houston. 

There is currently no discussion inside the Department of Homeland Security about requiring passengers on domestic flights to be vaccinated, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Friday.

“There is not at this time,” said Mayorkas, when asked by CNN’s Pamela Brown if there is any discussion or consideration to mandate vaccines for airline passengers for domestic flights.

The secretary’s remarks come as CEOs of several major American airlines have indicated it is unlikely they would require vaccines for domestic travel.

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said he does not anticipate a vaccination requirement for travel within the United States, but he said it is possible for some international travel. Delta Air Lines’ CEO Ed Bastian also does not foresee vaccinations as a requirement to fly in the US, according to a May interview with CNN’s Poppy Harlow.

Hawaii reached a new single-day record for Covid-19 cases Friday, the state announced.

“The fact is, 1,167 more people are now battling Covid-19, and the overwhelming majority of them are unvaccinated,” Gov. David Ige said in a news conference.

Although Ige acknowledged that part of Friday’s large number was due to lags in reporting, he says the overall trend is still at a level they have not previously seen, with “an average of 729 new Covid infections each day over the last three days.”

“I didn’t expect it to spike to this degree, this fast,” said state health director Dr. Libby Char.

The Department of Health is now ramping up contact tracing, although Char said their efforts to avoid spread are not always met with a favorable response.

“My guys get yelled at on the phone,” Char said. “Please don’t yell and scream at us when we call you, and please share the information that we request.”

Hawaii avoided a Covid-19 surge at the outset of the pandemic by cutting off virtually all outside travel to and between the islands. However, Ige said he does not plan to reinstitute a travel ban right away since tourists currently account for a very small percent of cases.

Still, the state’s health director encouraged Hawaiians to think twice about traveling right now – or, for that matter, doing anything unnecessary that could potentially spread infection.

“If you can go back to thinking of what we did before we had vaccines… that would work really well right now, you know?” said Char.

Cars line up for Covid-19 testing in Miami, on August 3.

Florida reported more Covid-19 cases over the past week than any other seven-day period during the pandemic.

Data published Friday by the state health department reported 151,415 new Covid-19 cases over the past week, for an average of 21,630 cases each day. 

The previous record high was on Aug. 6, 2021, with 134,711 total cases reported over seven days, for an average of 19,244 cases each day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

With this latest update, Florida has the second-highest rate of new cases per capita, with just over 100 new cases per 100,000 people each day over the past week, behind only Louisiana. The US overall is averaging more than 37 new cases per 100,000 people each day.

Over the past week, Florida reported 286 deaths and a new case positivity rate of 19.3%, according the state health department’s Covid-19 Weekly Situation Report.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey issued a “limited, narrowly-focused state of emergency” based on the state’s surge of coronavirus cases, according to a news release from the governor’s office.

The statement from Ivey’s office stressed “there will be absolutely no statewide mandates, closures or the like.” 

According to the governor’s office, the order was “targeted at removing bureaucracy and cutting red tape” to assist medical facilities and staff in the state.

“The proclamation will relax regulatory burdens to allow expanded capacity in healthcare facilities, additional liability protections, increased authority for frontline health care personnel and easier shipment of emergency equipment and supplies,” the statement said.

The Department of Education is sending letters to the governors of Texas and Florida, as well as Florida school district superintendents, amid an escalating battle between the White House and state officials over school mask guidance as the Delta variant surges.  

In a new letter Friday, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona wrote to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida that he is “deeply concerned” by the state’s executive order restricting the implementation of school mask mandates. Cardona also took aim at the recent threat from the governor’s office that the state board of education could move to withhold the salaries of superintendents and school board members who disregard his executive order.

Cardona sent a similar warning to Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and the state’s education commissioner Mike Morath, underscoring how “Texas’s recent actions to block school districts from voluntarily adopting science-based strategies for preventing the spread of COVID-19 that are aligned with the guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) puts these goals at risk and may infringe upon a school district’s authority to adopt policies to protect students and educators as they develop their safe return to in-person instruction plans required by Federal law.” 

This follows statements from White House press secretary Jen Psaki earlier this week, who told reporters that the White House and federal government are continuing to look for ways to support local school districts and educators in Florida, “as they try to follow the science do the right thing and save lives.”

Psaki said later that paying for salaries could be a part of that, and the Department of Education is looking at options. Withholding funds is not the intention, she said.

Previously, Biden and members of his administration have specifically targeted the governors of Florida and Texas for standing in the way of mask and vaccine requirements, pointing to the extraordinary amount of Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations in their states. 

In Friday’s letter to DeSantis and Corcoran, Cardona pointed to how Florida school districts can use funds from federal Covid relief for educators’ salaries, noting that “any threat by Florida to withhold salaries from superintendents and school board members who are working to protect students and educators (or to levy other financial penalties) can be addressed using ESSER funds at the sole and complete discretion of Florida school districts.”

In the letter to Florida school district superintendents, Cardona further emphasized the administration’s support, saying, “I want you to know that the U.S. Department of Education stands with you. Your decisions are vital to safely reopen schools and maintain safe in-person instruction, and they are undoubtedly in the best interest of your students.”

US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky endorsed on Friday the use of a third dose of coronavirus vaccine in immunocompromised people.

Walensky signed off on recommendations the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices approved just hours before.

“Emerging data suggest some people with moderately to severely compromised immune systems do not always build the same level of immunity compared to people who are not immunocompromised. In addition, in small studies, fully vaccinated immunocompromised people have accounted for a large proportion of hospitalized breakthrough cases (40-44%). Immunocompromised people who are infected with SARS CoV-2 are also more likely to transmit the virus to household contacts,” Walensky added.

“While people who are immunocompromised make up about 3% of the U.S. adult population, they are especially vulnerable to COVID-19 because they are more at risk of serious, prolonged illness. Included in CDC’s recommendation are people with a range of conditions, such as recipients of organ or stem cell transplants, people with advanced or untreated HIV infection, active recipients of treatment for cancer, people who are taking some medications that weaken the immune system, and others,” she said.

“A full list of conditions can be found on CDC’s website.”

The recommendation applies to mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna. The US Food and Drug Administration and the CDC said there is not yet enough information to support any recommendation regarding Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine.

“While vaccination is likely to increase protection in this population, even after vaccination, people who are immunocompromised should continue follow current prevention measures (including wearing a mask, staying 6 feet apart from others they do not live with, and avoiding crowds and poorly ventilated indoor spaces) to protect themselves and those around them against COVID-19 until advised otherwise by their healthcare provider,” Walensky said.

“CDC does not recommend additional doses or booster shots for any other population at this time,” she added.

A registered nurse stirs a nasal swab in testing solution after administering a Covid-19 test on July 14 in Los Angeles.

A disproportionate number of vaccine breakthroughs – when a fully vaccinated person gets infected anyway – are among immunocompromised people, a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expert said Friday.

“For breakthrough cases, there’s a larger proportion of immunocompromised ones in comparison to vaccinated cases,” the CDC’s Dr. Heather Scobie told a meeting of CDC vaccine advisers.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted unanimously Friday to recommend a third dose of Covid-19 vaccine for immunocompromised people.

Scobie said 32% of vaccinated breakthrough cases are among immunocompromised people. 

While immune compromised people make up about 2.7% of the adult population – about 7 million people – they’re more vulnerable to infection, said the CDC’s Dr. Amanda Cohn, who is ACIP’s executive secretary. She said vaccine effectiveness is about 59% to 72% in immunocompromised people, compared to 90% to 94% overall.

“They are more likely to transmit SARS-CoV-2 to household contacts,” she added.

“Immunocompromised people are more likely to have breakthrough infection. In small studies of hospitalized breakthrough cases, 40 to 44% were deemed to be immunocompromised.”

Out of 164 million people vaccinated, the CDC has counted 7,101 hospitalizations for Covid-19, with 1,507 deaths. That number is likely an undercount, the CDC says.

The fourth death associated with Florida’s Broward County Public School District is not a teacher, but a graduate with close ties to the district, according to a statement from the teachers union Friday afternoon. 

Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco had previously said that four people who were employees of the district had died of Covid in a 24-hour span this week. In a corrected statement, she said that two teachers and a teacher assistant had died and a fourth death was a graduate who had close ties to the district through her job. 

The three who died included a female teacher and a female teaching assistant from the same elementary school as well as another female teacher from a different elementary school. Fusco said in the statement all three of them were unvaccinated. 

“We grieve their losses along with their families and the school communities they left behind,” Fusco said.

No additional information was provided on the three women, including what schools they were part of.

Clinicians care for a Covid-19 patient in the Intensive Care Unit at Lake Charles Memorial Hospital in Lake Charles, Louisiana, on August 10.

Five states in the US have fewer than 10% of their intensive care unit beds available, according to most recent data from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

The states reporting at or greater than 90% intensive care unit bed occupancy are:

In Alabama, 95% of beds are in use, leaving only 80 available. Mississippi is reporting only 78 open beds across the state.

Five states, meanwhile, have fewer than 60 ICU beds available statewide, according to HHS data: Rhode Island, Vermont, Alaska, Delaware, and Idaho. All five are reporting greater than 70% ICU bed utilization.

Nationwide, 77% of ICU beds are in use, and 23% of ICU beds are in use for Covid-19 patients specifically.

Fifteen states have at least 25% of their ICU beds occupied by Covid-19 patients. Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Texas, and Georgia all have at least 40% of their ICU beds occupied by Covid-19 patients. 

The recommendation for a third dose of Covid-19 vaccine doesn’t include everyone who may be immunocompromised, vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were told Friday.

The US Food and Drug Administration extended emergency use authorization Thursday for Pfizer’s and Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine to provide a third dose to certain people with immune deficiencies. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted to recommend its use in some people.

“The intent of our clinical considerations is to allow for some flexibility for providers to assess their patients’ immunosuppression, and individuals will need to kind of attest to their immunosuppression to get vaccine,” Cohn added.

“But the intent of this is to limit this to individuals for which are considered under the EUA to be moderate or severe, and so for example would not include long-term care facility residents or persons with diabetes, persons with heart disease – those types of chronic medical conditions are not the intent here.”

A person receives a bandage after their first dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine at a mobile vaccination clinic in Los Angeles on August 7.

Vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted unanimously Friday to recommend giving a third Covid-19 vaccine dose to certain people who are immunocompromised.

The US Food and Drug Administration gave emergency use authorization Thursday night for a third dose in certain patients who are likely to have had a poor immune response to a full course of either Pfizer’s or Moderna’s vaccine. There’s not enough data to discuss the possibility for an extra dose of Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot Janssen vaccine, the FDA said.

The EUA covers people with moderate or severe immunocompromise. That might include organ transplant patients, people with certain cancers and others taking certain – but not all – immune-suppressing medications. It will not include people with, for instance, heart disease or diabetes, the CDC’s Dr. Amanda Cohn said.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices said it should be left up to the patients and doctors to decide who needs an extra dose and what the timing of that dose should be. No prescription would be needed for the third dose, and people can self-attest to their conditions.

ACIP did not recommend any tests to see if people have had a sufficient response to the vaccine. No test is FDA-authorized for checking immune response after getting a Covid vaccine.

ACIP members discussed whether it would be safe to recommend giving a third dose of vaccine to immunocompromised children as young as 12 and decided to recommend including children 12 and over – who are included in Pfizer’s EUA – in their recommendation. Moderna’s vaccine is authorized for use in people 18 and older.

The final language of the vote: “An additional dose of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine (≥12 years) or Moderna Covid-19 vaccine (≥18 years) is recommended following a primary series in immunocompromised people.”

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins referenced his temporary restraining order against the governor’s mask ban at a news conference this morning, saying “our hospitals and our people desperately need some time to get bed capacity and doctor capacity up so their hospitals won’t be overrun.” 

Jenkins made his comments at a news conference with Workers Defense Action, the Texas AFL-CIO, and Local Progress Friday morning.   

He said that the majority of people are fine with a mask mandate in schools, county buildings, and businesses. But Jenkins added that many are opposed to wearing a mask, saying there are “a couple of hundred people outside my house every night screaming curse words at my children.” 

The patient to nurse and doctor ratio in North Texas is the worst it’s ever been, going back to the 1930s and 1940s, Jenkins said. 

“Stakes are very high and you know, it’s not asking that much of people to wear a mask,” he said. 

Louisiana Army National Guard soldiers operate a Covid-19 drive-through testing site in New Orleans on August 12.

The French Quarter Festival, scheduled for Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 in New Orleans, has been canceled due to the rise of Covid cases in the area.

The festival had been rescheduled in 2021 from its traditional spring dates after being canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic. 

This is the second major music festival to cancel its fall dates in New Orleans. Jazz Fest, which had been rescheduled for October as well, announced last week it was canceling the festival and will return in the spring of 2022.  

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is meeting now to discuss Covid-19 vaccines for immunocompromised people following last night’s authorization by the US Food and Drug Administration. They are expected to vote around 12:50 p.m. ET.

The advisers are also expected to discuss vaccine boosters for the general population.

Yesterday, the FDA amended the emergency use authorization for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines to allow for an additional dose for certain people with compromised immune systems. That group includes “specifically, solid organ transplant recipients or those who are diagnosed with conditions that are considered to have an equivalent level of immunocompromise,” the agency wrote in a statement Thursday.

Some more context: A recent study by Johns Hopkins researchers found that vaccinated immunocompromised people are 485 times more likely to end up in the hospital or die from Covid-19 compared to the general population that is vaccinated.

Based on an estimate by the CDC, about 9 million Americans are immunocompromised, either because of diseases they have or medications they take.

Currently three coronavirus vaccines are authorized for emergency use in the United States — the two-dose Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for people 12 and older and the two-dose Moderna vaccine and single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine for people 18 and older.

All three are used under emergency use authorization by the FDA, but full approval is pending for Pfizer’s vaccine.

Over 5,000 new Covid-19 cases are being reported today in Mississippi, the state’s department of health said.

The 5,023 new cases reported on Friday are a daily record, MDH tells CNN.

Of the new cases, 98% of those are in unvaccinated individuals, the state’s dashboard shows. 

Mississippi has fully vaccinated just over one million individuals, with nearly 1.3 million receiving at least one dose. No county in the state has fully vaccinated more than 48% of its population, according to the latest information provided by MDH.  

There are at least 1,490 patients hospitalized statewide with the virus with 388 patients in intensive care units, the highest totals since the start of the pandemic, according to the latest information provided on the state’s dashboard. At least 90% of those hospitalized are unvaccinated, it shows.

A growing number of major companies are exploring vaccine mandates for their employees as the Delta variant continues to spread in America and around the world.

The Business Roundtable, a powerful lobbying group chaired by Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, has surveyed member companies on their vaccine requirement plans, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.

That survey, which has not been released publicly, found that more companies are considering mandating vaccines compared with a few months ago, the source said. News of the survey was first reported by The New York Times.

The vaccine requirements reflect a desire from business leaders to make employees more comfortable about piling back into offices and an effort to boost vaccination rates – before even stronger variants emerge.

Some more background: In just the past few weeks, United Airlines, Google, Facebook, Tyson Foods, Equinox, Walmart and Disney announced plans to require at least part of their workforce to get vaccinated. CNN parent company WarnerMedia said Thursday that as of Sept. 6 it will require proof of vaccination to enter US office buildings.

After meeting with the White House on vaccines, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby predicted “widespread” vaccine mandates across the nation.  

“It’s really just a basic safety issue,” Kirby told CNN this week.

Although vaccine requirements are controversial, efforts to fight them in court have thus far proved futile. On Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett declined a request to block Indiana University’s vaccine mandate, providing more evidence that similar policies could pass legal muster. 

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said his city needs more assistance from the state of Texas to deal with the increasingly “dire” Covid-19 situation there.  

“We’ve been asking for the governor in the state to pass along a request for help, which they have been reluctant to do up until the last couple days to bring in nurse contingents, because our hospitals are simply overwhelmed. They’ve reached their breaking point … beyond their limit of capacity,” Nirenberg told CNN’s Erica Hill. 

On Wednesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced that more than 2,500 medical personnel will be deployed to hospitals around the state to care for the increasing number of patients.

Abbott last month issued an executive order, which stated that no governmental entity — including school districts — could require mask-wearing.

On Tuesday, a judge granted a restraining order to leaders of San Antonio and Bexar County, who had filed a lawsuit to get back local control over Covid-19 guidelines.

Abbott “is preventing us from using the tools at our disposal to bring an end to this pandemic, and so we are arguing that in court, and we believe that the law is on our side,” Nirenberg said. 

Watch:

Several educators died due to Covid-19 in Florida’s Broward County, according to School Board Chair Rosalind Osgood.

Osgood told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Friday morning that the school district was made aware of teacher deaths earlier this week. 

Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco said that four people who were employees of the district had died of Covid-19 in a 24-hour span this week. In a corrected statement later on in the day, she said that two teachers and a teacher assistant had died, and a fourth death was a graduate who had close ties to the district through her job. 

The three who died included a female teacher and a female teaching assistant from the same elementary school as well as another female teacher from a different elementary school. Fusco said in the statement all three of them were unvaccinated.

“We grieve their losses along with their families and the school communities they left behind,” Fusco said.

No additional information was provided on the three women, including what schools they were part of.

In her CNN interview, Osgood responded to a question about reports that three of the educators were unvaccinated saying, “I was also told they were unvaccinated” .

She said the school district is using funds to try and incentivize staff at the county’s schools to get vaccinated.

Osgood did not offer up any additional details on the educators this morning.

“We’re in a very, very difficult moment in time,” Osgood told CNN. “We’re losing people to Covid or having people get infected with Covid and then having lifelong complications.” 

Some more background: Broward County defied Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ executive order to leave masking up to students’ parents.

“The eight of us on our board are adamant that we cannot have people in schools without masks because we are living with backlash of people dying with Covid,” Osgood said.

“We feel strongly that the lives of our students and staff are invaluable, and we’re not willing to play Russian roulette with their lives or take a risk of losing people because we have people in schools without masks,” she said.

“Mandating masks is the best procedure right now,” she added.

Broward County has had 138 employees test positive for Covid-19 since Aug. 1, according to the system’s Covid dashboard, which was updated on Thursday. Classes are set to begin next week, according to the school calendar; employees began planning on Wednesday.

Correction: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized one of the four people who died based on information provided by the Broward Teachers Union. That person has been identified as a female Broward County Public Schools graduate with close ties to the school district through her job.

CNN’s Leyla Santiago contributed reporting to this post.

As experts race to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 by encouraging vaccinations and mask-wearing, hospital systems in a handful of states are now straining to keep up with the surge.

Eight states, many of which have lagged the national average for vaccinations, have Covid-19 patients that account for at least 15% of their overall hospitalizations, according to a CNN analysis of HHS data. Those states are:

Of all Covid-19 hospitalizations, these eight states’ combined totals make up approximately 51% of patients, despite accounting for only around 24% of the nation’s population, according to Census data.

The percentages of Covid-19 patients in intensive care units are even worse, with Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi approaching half of ICU beds in use for such patients, according to HHS data Thursday.

Louisiana and Mississippi each announced on Thursday their highest number of Covid-19 hospitalizations since the start of the pandemic.

In Florida, Brevard County officials issued an urgent plea this week for residents to try and avoid using ambulance services with non-emergency calls or going to hospitals for Covid-19 tests.

“Hospital emergency rooms are inundated with patients with symptoms of Covid-19,” according to Brevard County Emergency Director John Scott. All three hospital systems in the county are over capacity and continue to deal with a surge in patients, which creates safety concerns for other emergencies such as traffic accident-related trauma patients or heart attack victims.

First responders and departments are feeling the effects of the Delta surge throughout the country.

In Memphis, Tennessee, the emergency departments are overworked due to the pandemic, with August having the potential to be the busiest month in the history of the city’s fire department, Fire Chief Gina Sweat said.

And Chief Medical Officer Dr. Geoff Lifferth at Sumner Regional Medical Center in Gallatin, Tennessee, said the hospital had no more open beds. In an emotional Facebook post, he said: “As an ER doc and a healthcare administrator, this past week has been one of the most exhausting and disheartening of my career.”

In Wisconsin, Julie Willems Van Dijk, Deputy Secretary in the state’s health department, warned Thursday that the state could experience a crisis similar to the one happening now in Florida.

The US Food and Drug Administration authorized an additional Covid-19 vaccine dose for certain immunocompromised people on Thursday.

A recent study by Johns Hopkins researchers found that vaccinated immunocompromised people are 485 times more likely to end up in the hospital or die from Covid-19 compared to the general population that is vaccinated.

Based on an estimate by the CDC, about 9 million Americans are immunocompromised, either because of diseases they have or medications they take.

Here are key things to know about the decision:

Read more about the FDA’s decision here.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports:

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01:16 - Source: cnn

An Arkansas father of a 1-year-old hospitalized due to Covid-19 pleaded with people to get vaccinated, so other babies don’t need to suffer like his son. 

Kyle Butrum said the hardest part of their situation is that he cannot be in the hospital with his son Carter. 

Butrum said Carter is on oxygen and “it’s been really touch-and-go.”

“His doctors are still treating the buildup in his lungs, trying to get that out with breathing treatments. And that’s moving along. The good thing for him now is that he’s kept his fever down for the past 24 hours. So that’s a good sign. Really what’s hurting him the most at this point, I think, outside the oxygen, is the exhaustion. You know, it’s so difficult for anyone really when you can’t sleep but especially someone that doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation, and a baby is used to sleeping,” he said. 

Butrum said he appreciates people reaching out to offer help, but said “the gravity of the situation is there’s nothing you can do to help me.” 

“That’s how you can help me. I hate to be so blunt about it, but there’s nothing you can do to help me. The only thing you can do to help me is help the next person,” he continued.

Watch:

People across the country will be returning this fall to a physical office, workplace, college or school for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic started.

What will be different? What are you excited about? What are you concerned about? 

We want to hear about your plans for a potential story.

Advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are scheduled to vote on Friday on additional doses of mRNA Covid-19 vaccines for people who are immunocompromised, according to an updated agenda posted online Thursday.

The additional dose would be for immunocompromised people who did not have a strong initial response to vaccination.