here's cbs' mark strassmann. >> at centennial high new school year, new dress code. >> do you have masks. >> reporter: masks required. that is typical across metro atlanta. kathy king has two fifth graders. >> i'm happy that they are doing it. obviously at this age nobody can be vaccinated. >> reporter: after three weeks of classes, by one estimate, more than 23,000 students and staff across metro atlanta have been exposed and are now in quarantine. masking policies vary by school district, even day to day. douglas county changed its policy two days before school began for masks recommended to masks required. >> leading isn't easy. and i know that the decision to wear masks, isn't popular. >> reporter: school superintendent trent norris. how important is it to be flex i believe. >> we want to go back to not wearing masks. >> metro atlanta schools have patch work policies toward masking. many required but sometimes recommended or optional, atlanta public schools mandate masks. their vaccination rates are low, nearly one in five eligible students are fully vaccinated. nearly three in five

cbs' mark strassmann has one family's struggle. >> what if we have to be homeless?hat are we going to do with the kids? >> erin white's family of six had a lifeline -- iowa. >> it's daily break downls. not every once in a while. >> reporter: at 38, her health has broken down, severe ats na, pulmonary hypertension and unidentified auto immune disease. their combined income $60,000. in april they quit to protect protect her. getting the covid vaccine was too risky for her compromised immune system but so was walking into work every day. >> it was a very hard thing to accept that wasn't my job anymore and this is my new reality. >> reporter: in working class keokuk, iowa, the unemployment rate almost 7%-- higher than the statewide average. june 12 governor tim reynolds cut off washington's pandemic relief for the state's jobless. the message to nearly 25,000 iowans: go find a job. >> and the money went away quick and we started to get the taste of losing everything then. >> reporter: the repo man came for their van. they're three months behind on the rent. >> we're los

mark strassmann, cbs news, jackson, mississippi. >>> meanwhile, firefighters are racing to contain a new wildfire near los angeles that's threatening hundreds of homes. the south fire broke out yesterday in san bernardino county. it began as a vegetation fire. it has burned at least 500 acres. so far it has damaged or destroyed a dozen homes and buildings. a thousand people are under mandatory evacuation orders. meantime, crews are struggling to contain the caldor fire. the flames are advancing toward lake tahoe. the popular vacation spot is shrouded in ash and yellow smoke. some residents tell us they're ready to evacuate at any moment. >> we currently packed up for some belongings, personal paperwork, passports and such. and we have it ready to go just in case. >> i honestly don't remember seeing the smoke this thick and this much ash coming down. >> the caldor fire has destroyed about 500 homes since it started this month. it's burned at least 126,000 acres and is 12% contained. >>> president biden and israeli prime minister naftali bennett will meet in person for the first time t

mark strassmann, cbs news, atlanta. >> garrett: here is something you may have noticed. it's getting more expensive to live in america, as the cost of food, clothing, and other consumer items keeps going up. the labor department reported rd today consumer today, consumer prices rose 5.4% compared to last july. here is cbs' carter evans. >> it's been fun planning. >> reporter: karen eccleston is finally getting married this saturday, after waiting a year due to covid delays. but now, high demand for weddings is causing prices to skyrocket. how much more is it costing you? >> at least $10,000 more. i mean, a wedding that costs $20,000 is now $30,000. >> reporter: she's paying top dollar for everything from catering to flowers, even her wedding dress. >> it was, like, double the price. >> reporter: her experience mirrors today's consumer price index, which shows the cost for women's dresses was up almost 20% in july. >> this inflation is impacting across the board. >> reporter: u.s.c. professor nick vyas says manufacturers are still recovering from covid shutdowns that inte

>> dickerson: mark strassmann in atlanta, thank you.e go to the arkansas governor, ag asa hutchinson. >> gordon: good to be here. >> dickerson: we want to go to the issue of masks, because in schools, those under 12 can't get vaccinated. you signed a bill that was against mask mandates, and you changed your position, why? >> facts change, and leaders have to adjust to the new facts and the reality of what you have to deal with. whenever i signed that law, the cases were low, and we were hoping that the whole thing we, but it roared back with the delta variant. we are pushing the vaccines out, but those under 12 cannot get vaccinated in the schools. so i realized we needed to have more options to our local school districts to protect those children. so i asked the legislature to redo the law that prohibited those requirements or those options for the school districts to protect the children. and so it was an error to sign that law. i admit that. thank goodness because if the legislature did not act this week, which they didn't, the court

>> o'donnell: mark strassmann, thank you so much.now to our special back-to-school series. the u.s. department of education says enrollment in public schools during the pandemic has dropped by more than 1.5 million students. some have switched to private schools or at-home learning. others have just vanished from the system. cbs's carter evans now on america's lost students. >> reporter: at tate elementary in las vegas, counselors are working the phones. >> we were just concerned because they haven't started the first day of school. >> reporter: they are looking for children still missing from class, weeks after the school year began. like seven-year-old george gomez. >> so go ahead, take a deep breathe... and let it out. >> reporter: the nervous second grader has not been inside a classroom since kindergarten, after more than a year of remote learning. >> nice to meet you. >> reporter: his mom finally decided to enroll him, after a doctor convinced her. what kept you from putting the kids back in school? >> i kind of like was scared

mark strassmann in atlanta, thank you so much. we want to go to president biden's chief medical advisor, dr. anthony fauci. good morning to you. >> doctor: good morning. >> you heard the numbers in mark's piece. they are horrific. i want to start with the very dire situation in the south, particularly in mississippi, where cases have risen by more than 2,000% in the past month. medical officials there say that the state's largest hospital system could fail within days. what is the federal government doing to help states like mississippi and louisiana? >> doctor: well, if you go out to the immediate, we're sending surge teams to help with the actual implementation of the immediate response. that's fema, that's c.d.c. people, that's people from the assistant secretary for preparedness and response. they're help setting up to provide some treatment, lilike monoclonal antibodies to help with the immediate situation. you know, nancy, as we discussed many, many times, all of this is entirely predictable, and yet on the other hand, entir

>> dickerson: mark strassmann, thank you. we go to president biden's chief medical advisor, dr.nthony fauci. >> doctor: good morning, john. >> dickerson: i would like to start with the new thinking on covid-19, that was part of the c.d.c.'s decision to change its mask guidance. we've been talking about the delta variant for a while, but what is new in your understanding? >> doctor: a confirmation of how easily it spreads from person to person. also, we found that individuals who get breakthrough infections, namely people who are vaccinated who might get infected, almost invariably they get either minimal symptoms or no symptoms at all. but since no vaccine is 100% affective, you're going to see breakthrough infections. but what we've learned that is new, john, in answer to your question, is that when you look at the level of virus in the nasal pharynx, it is quite high and equivalent to the nasal pharynx of unvaccinated people who get infected. that is very different from the alpha variant. in the alpha variant, the level of virus was extremely low in the vaccinated people compa

>> garrett: mark strassmann, thank you.at to have you in the studio. >> good morning. >> garrett: i want to get to afghanista first. three questions there: what is your opinion of president biden's handling of the situation, how open are we going to be refugees, and what are you hearing from the state department on how to do that? >> first i think it is an unmitigated disaster on the handling. i was the first governor in to say we wanted to take more of these people with visas. we've got to stand by them. we've got to get our americans out and those allies out there as well. we're going to do everything we can to help do that. we have a discussion with the state department tomorrow. we've already received some over the past week or two, into our state, and we're going to try to get as many as we can. >> garrett: is that information flow from states satisfactory to you? >> some of the information is a little spotty, some of that is understandable. >> garrett: the coronavirus, you said the pandemic is currently under control

mark strassmann reports from atlanta. >> reporter: today's double trouble along the gulf coast has a and ida. the pu punishing winds and rains, and evacuees spreading the virus. but this pandemic already has a first circle of misery, and it's florida. florida is averaging more than 21,000 new cases a day, and the death toll keeps climbing. case lo loads buckle hospitals. governor ron desantis and his disdain for masking mandates, a state court overruled this threat to withhold state funding from schools that enforce mask mandates. kate brown is alarmed and getting tough. this weekend she reinstated mask mandates indoors and outdoors, regardless ocine status. [yelling] >> reporter: more schools across america will reopen this week. educators have reason to be edgy. more than 180,000 children beeen august 12th and august 19th. some of those cases have dire outcomes. the delta variant can kill kids, including a boy in houston. >> this was a previously totally healthy child who contracted covid and died. >> reporter: without better masking and vaccination rates a leadly forecasting model

mark strassmann is in jackson with more on the story. good morning to you. this is very troubling. >> reporter: good morning. this is saint dominic's hospital in jackson, clobbered by covid the last five weeks. all 64 icu beds are full, more than half by covid patients. see the tent behind me? they've set it up this week. that's where they're going to screen and test overflow covid patients, but the real covid worry throughout the state has been the delta variant's impact on kids. three weeks into mississippi's school year, covid's toll on kids is staggering. almost 12,000 students have tested positive, with nearly 29,000 now quarantined. sadder still, michaela robertson's story. >> justin wadell is his father. she started feeling sick on wednesday, august 11th. she died from covid that saturday. >> we've never seen anything like this happen in three days. it was a shock to everybody. >> reporter: in mississippi, barely one in every three people has been fully vaccinated, the country's second lowest state rate. >> i have no intention of issuing a vaccine man

mark strassmann has the story. >> good morning to you.are issues derailed the first flight. today's launch is the company's expensive doov-over. the main customer is nasa and nasa will be watching closely. >> 3, 2, 1. and liftoff! >> reporter: space is hard. so hard it can make even the biggest aerospace company in the world feel small. >> now passing through max steam. >> reporter: for boeing that was december 2019. >> and we have good indication of separation of the orp capsule. >> reporter: minutes after separating from the rocket's second stage boeing's starliner flew into trouble. its on board engineseer boostin spacecraft into orbit. that did not happen. >> we do have an off nominal insertion reported. >> reporter: another problem, flight controllers could not communicate with starliner. by the time they could, it was too late. without enough fuel to reach the international space station, starliner returned to earth. >> starliner touches down on the desert in new mexico. >> reporter: they recommended 80 actions before starliner flie