hospital. where is the capacity for the pediatric hospital? >> so, our pediatric hospital is full. we have 21 pediatric patients in the hospital today. six in the icu, four on ventilators. definitely the highest number that we've had through the entire pandemic. boarding pediatric patients in our pediatric e.r., i think about ten. so all of our hospitals are full. this asset that is being deployed potentially will be able to take care of some older teenagers, but we're seeing a number, definitely more than we have ever before, of healthy children that are getting hospitalized with covid. >> four kids on ventilators. ten kids that are boarding in the emergency room waiting for hospital beds. as he said, there are more healthy children getting hospitalized with covid than ever before. the contingency planning they're doing here in real time, and explaining to the press in mississippi is stark stuff. this is end of the line stuff. they're hoping they may be able to put older teenagers into the fie

>> last winter our hospitals were close to full. we saw that in other areas of the country including southern california. heartrending hearing stories of hospitals being overwhelmed and and it's is waiting to offload patients who needed to be transferred far away to other parts of the state to find available beds. and hospitals running out of oxygen. we did not get to that point in the bay area. >> we got close. we do not want to get there. we are currently in contra costa county at less than half of hospitalization. and i hope with increased vaccination that we will see an increase in getting vaccinated. and with the addition of the order that we can avoid that scenario. we are driven by the data and we are watching these things closely. we want to make sure that we maintain hospital capacity and watching the data as we have all long on a daily basis. smith-schuster this question is for dr. bob. how will enforcement work in san francisco. >> we are following the science and data and we are grateful that citizens are taking these re

pediatric hospitals. and the case numbers are rising every day. 6,000 and 7,000 new cases every day, that means 500 hospitalizations over the next few days. when the flagship hospital in the state announces that every hospital in the state is above capacity, they're five to ten days away from total failure of the hospital in the state, we're in trouble. total failure of the hospital system. it doesn't mean the hospital's closed, but if you call 911 and you can get yourself an ambulance, that ambulance will be turned away at the hospital. that was the word today, this afternoon, from the university of mississippi medical center, in jackson, in the state capital. today also in mississippi, ellison barber went to ocean springs, mississippi. vaguely near gulfport, on the gulf coast. went there to try to understand what this kind of situation in mississippi means on the units. what it means for doctors and nurses in mississippi right now, who are in the midst of what is a national level crisis. trying to hold

including between hospitals with yours being the hospital of last resort.in the state. if there is now gridlock in a system that counts on movement, how do you solve that? where can there be relief valves? where can the or be targeted resources to free things up again, so that people don't effectively get locked out of care? >> what we are doing right now is we are creating that's. how do you do that? you ask people have never taken care of an icu patient, to take care of an icu patient. you continue to create beds. well that does is leave another person behind. what you really have to do is stem the tide. this is not a disease in which we can continue to take more and more covid patients and not put somebody of. the only way to truly create capacity again and undo that gridlock is to stem the tide. and the only way we're going to see that happen is through vaccination. we have a mask mandate in place. we have not seen the effects of that yet. we have been telling people to socially distance, but our restaurants are at full capacity. businesses are going ba

and hospitals are left with no options. other than to fork out the money and get the nurses that we need to take care of our patients. you know, our nurses, our staff are also part of the community. we talked about the number of cases rising in the state of texas. my staff are not immune. a month ago i had a total of four staff being out due to covid infections. that number today is more than 100. those are staff who are currently not serving our patients in our hospitals. so the situation is bad and it's only getting worse. and i really want to make the point and emphasize the fact that we're not heading towards a crisis, we're in the middle of a crisis. >> wow. let me ask you about vaccinations. we just had jacqueline howard on giving us the analysis that 99.99% of people who are fully vaccinated do not have the cases that send them to hospitals or end in death. is that reflected in the numbers that you have? do you have vaccinated people who are in one of your hospitals? >> i have vaccinated people in my hospitals, but s

failure of the hospital system. if we track back a week or so and we look at the case positivity rate, the number of new positives that we're seeing, the rate of the testing positive and the rate of hospitalizations based on what we are seeing, if we continue that trajectory within the next five, to 7 to 10 days, we're gonna see failure of the hospital system in mississippi. hospitals are full from memphis to meridian, everything is full. if there were schools opening back, a bus of kids, we would not be able to take care of all those kids at this hospital. we're in a pretty serious situation. we see federal teams come in, it needs to open peoples eyes to the fact that this is a serious situation. so we're hopeful that we can get people to wear masks and get vaccinated, and stay way from each other. and that this rapid rate of rise that we are seeing will peak or plateau pretty quickly here, so that we don't get into a situation where there is nowhere to transfer a patient at all. we have to stop ambulances. some of

navy hospital ship comfort. they say their health care system could collapse in a week. >>> also tonight, the severe storms as we come on the air. watching in the east. d.c. up through philadelphia. and the images coming in, a possible tornado in wisconsin. the life-threatening heat from washington state all the way to the northeast. and now the tropical storm set to hit the u.s. by the end of the week. rob marciano timing it out. >>> 24 hours after new york governor andrew cuomo's bomb shell reveal that he will resign, tonight, the lieutenant governor, kay think hochul, making her first public comments. what she declared her message to new yorkers and what she said when asked about governor cuomo. >>> tonight, president biden marking another victory in his push for his agenda, 24 hours after passing his trillion dollar infrastructure plan with democrats and republicans. tonight, the senate now approving his $3.5 trillion budget resolution. but democrats only. and will they stay onboard with this price tag? >>>

our hospital is at its capacity.ng anymore children to be transferred into our children's hospital today. >> i think we lost the doctor there. you can hear in her voice how hard this has been. the darkest days of the pandemic so far. they have run out of beds. she's pleading with people to get vaccinated. it's the only thing that will help her do her job and save lives. >> i think a lot of people have been behaving as if the pandemic is over and it is very clear it is not as she said. the darkest days. >> we all need to help her out. >>> more on breaking news this morning. simone biles wins the bronze in her return to the olympics. ♪ ♪ at usaa, we've been called too exclusive. because we were created for officers. but as we've evolved with the military, we've grown to serve all who've honorably served. no matter their rank, or when they were in. a marine just out of basic, or a petty officer from '73. and even his kids. and their kids. usaa is made for all who've honorably served and their families. are we still excl

it doesn't matter why you need a hospital.d be a stroke or motor vehicle accident, could be a heart attack, could be covid. we reinstituted today the mask mandate. when you are indoors in public spaces, whether you are vaccinated or unvaccinated, that was the cdc recommendation, fully supported by the guidance that came out friday. you were just alluding to it. that while vaccinations do protect against severe disease and death, people are becoming infected and they're infectious, and so we put the mask mandate back in place. we are very hopeful that that's going to give us some breathing room to get this pandemic back under control. >> if people follow it, governor, right? that's your problem that you've had with vaccinations. you've been putting out the message, they just haven't been following. you said 38% vaccination rate puts you 43rd in the united states. over the past week your state is number one in new vaccinations per capita. so hopefully you've got a 14% jump from the lottery. the vaccine rate is now double what it

, general hospital, mid city. hit so badly by this pandemic that they put up a wall recognizing those who contracted covid and survived. louisiana has the worse rate of new cases per day than any other state. louisiana has the second highest rate of hospitalization per capita after florida. it is the fifth worse vaccination rates in the country. governor edwards told me the situation is absolutely dire and he's urging people to get vaccinated immediately. here is our conversation. >> this is all patients. >> that's right. >> it is amazing. >> thank you for doing this. at one point this wall was not full. >> that's correct. >> this is not the first time baton rouge as a special hospital for covid patients. he had to bring in outside staffing, we had 118 medical professionals we brought in. this hospital system so that they can take care of the patients here, 95% patients here covid, not a single icu available at this hospital. >> there maybe even, i think 95 right now but you had 15 a month ago and all of a sudden

and then let's go to hospitalizations where florida this week, the numbers show the rate of hospitalizations is triple the national rate, looking right now at almost 15,500 hospitalizations. and it is not just florida seeing these upticks in the southeast region. let's go to mississippi and this is alarming. take a look at the icu beds and what is left. you zoom in on mississippi and you will see it says zero when it comes to icu. and this has doctors not only concerned over what is happening now, but as you just heard the doctor that ed talked about, many concerned about what is to come. >> the number of new positives that we're seeing, the rate of the testing positives, and the rate of hospitalizations based on what we're seeing, if we continue that trajectory, within the next five to seven to ten days i think we're going to see failure of the hospital system in mississippi. and hospital are full from memphis to gulfport, manchester to meridian. everything is full. >> and we just got off the phone with the mississippi state department of health. they have confirmed that they have reached o

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and have you ever heard of a hospital losing a body?vestigate troubling allegations against two south bay hospitals. patients' bodies misplaced. what our team uncovered tonight. >>> tonight the biden administration rushing to get more people out after the terror attack in kabul. more than 200 americans and afghans killed and injured in twin bombings near the airport. the attacks and the chaos unfolding there have afghan families in the bay area grieving and some military veterans taking action. here's jean elle. >> reporter: deadly suicide bombing near the kabul airport in afghanistan killing more than a dozen members of the u.s. military and hundreds of afghans who were desperately trying to leave will afghans with family here in the bay area. >> the blast, what happened, i lost my first cousin. he was an interpret with the u.s. army. >> reporter: he said his 32-year-old cousin had paperwork in hand hoping to enter the airport and board a plane to safety. when a bomb exploded, killing him. >> he had a pregnant wife and two kids left be

so, how are your hospitals going to cope if hospitalizations continue to surge as expected in floridall, first, let me just underscore that hospitals have very sophisticated surge plans. they are doing everything possible to respond to this demand by postponing, safely postponing those services that can be scheduled at a later date so that they can redeploy their staff into the hospitals at the bedside. they are bringing staff in from other states. they are using contracted staffing. some hospitals had to convert auditoriums, cafeterias to meet patient demand. but it is why we felt so strongly about producing these public service announcements. we need people to get vaccinated. what is so heart breaking is that these hospitalizations for those unvaccinated are preventable. the loss of life for those who are in their 20s and 30s is preventable. we need them to get vaccinated. >> i mean, there really is no excuse. they are putting their lives, the lives of their loved ones at risk. i want to show you a picture from a patient who is apparently waiting for antibody treatment in jacksonvil

now we're at over 135 for our six hospital system. >> so how are your hospitals responding? is that forcing you to cut back in other areas so that you can make room for more covid patients? >> yes, so we had actually starting on thursday we began to postpone non-urgent surgery cases that would require an in-patient bed overnight. so we've started that process, and that's happening all across louisiana at our hospitals. >> wow, that's incredible. let me play this for you. this is a louisiana woman who was hospitalized from covid this week. this is what she told our miguel marquez. >> what does it feel like to have covid? >> exhausting. extremely frustrating. tiring, and the fact that i am here now i am furious with myself. >> reporter: why? >> because i was not vaccinated. >> doctor, she's furious with herself for not taking the step of getting vaccinated. is that a pretty common reaction to the patients that you're seeing coming into your hospitals? >> you know it is. just the other day i was taking care of a patient who had to come in, she was on oxygen. i had to explain to

it just made the month in the hospital worth every minute of it. >> reporter: mom now leaving the hospital as a ring bearer. who can say no to toooo tooo wa. i'm linsey davis. david muir will be back here on monday. have a great evening. good night. >>> building a better bay area. moving forward. finding solutions. this is abc7 news. >>> it just god, like the sayingoe all hell broke loose. >> it was so fast. he was running from it. >> my heart is crushed. >> firefighters, forced to flee for their lives. homes destroyed as wildfires devastate parts of california. >> now smoke from those fires is blowing into the bay area. take a look at this. good afternoon and thanks for joining us, i am larry beil. >> and i am kristen sze. you are watching abc7 news at 4:00, live on abc7, hulu live, and wherever you stream. >> the dixie fire is on the verge of becoming the second largest wildfire in california state history. >> and firefighters trying to get a handle on the river firefe or preparing for a long weekend, with wind picking up. the governor issued a state of emergency for nevada and plumas co

it just made that month in the hospital worth every minute of it. >> reporter: mom now leaving the hospital a ring bearer. who can say no to a baby? thanks so much for watching. i'm linsey davis. david muir will be back here on monday. have a great evening. good night. >>> california's worst wildfires are burning far from the bay area, but the smoke is here. >> skies are gray in the area today because of the wildfire smoke. i will show you how it is affecting our air quality, coming up. >>> there is delta, lambda, and beyond. i am leslie brinkley in the east bay with a sobering look at the future of variants. >>> the paperwork, there is no way to determine its authenticity. these documents could be doctored. >> she really got vaccinated, but she did not get a real cdc card. 7 on your side help to make sure she could take her vacation. >>> building a better bay area. moving forward. finding solutions. this is abc7 news. >>> the worst quality in the bay area right now is in this live picture. it is in the east bay. you can see the haze in the sky above walnut creek. >> the north bay is not do

the hospital. >> you're on the covid wing and you look in the glass doors and there are kids of all ages and they all look just like brody, struggling to breathe and everyone is in a hazmat suit. >> reporter: david, back here in corpus christi, we are at a site where some covid patients who are experiencing mild symptoms are getting regeneron therapy. they are receiving an tip body drugs in the early stages of infection, hopefully presenting them from going to the e.r. and easing the burden on hospitals. >> the tents going up now to try to prevent them from ending up in the hospital. marcus, thank you. and of course, as we await this move from the fda, we wanted to more about what this means, a potential booster shot for the immuno compromised. will this soon be possible for everyone else? i asked dr. anthony fauci about that late today. thank you for joining us on a major night of news involving the virus. >> thank you very much, david. it's good to be with you. >> i wanted to get right to this fd

look, in terms of the state of the hospital system, we're standing in a garage with field hospitals.eaks for itself. i mean health care in mississippi is not good right now in terms of what we can do just from -- just from the standpoint of being able to care for the patients the way that we as physicians would expect to care for a patient. these are not ideal situations. but this is not something that we've ever dealt with before. so we're making the best use of the resources that have been given to us. you know, if people want to know how they can help, go get a vaccine. i hear people all the time they want to do their research about the vaccine. i think you should do the research about what it would be like to be taken care of in a field hospital in a garage versus getting a vaccine. i mean this is -- this is serious business when we're putting patients in a place that we're not normally taking care of patients. >> health care in mississippi is not good right now. people tell me they want to do research about the vaccine. i think you should do research about what it would be like

hospital. >> president and ce, of the florida hospital association, thank you.w much is politics playing into that policy? you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. right back. it's dry. there's no dry time. makes us wonder why we booked fifteen second ad slots. there's no dry time. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ hey google, turn up the heat. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ when i was young ♪ no-no-no-no-no please please no. ♪ i never needed anyone. ♪ front desk. yes, hello... i'm so... please hold. ♪ those days are done. ♪ i got you. ♪ all by yourself. ♪ go with us and find millions of flexible options. all in our app. expedia. it matters who you travel with. ♪ ♪ expedia. oh, son of a poppyseed! ah, there's no place like panera. enjoy the cool, refreshing strawberry poppyseed salad. panera. order on the app today. ♪♪ i thought i was managing my moderate to severe crohn's disease. then i realized something was missing... ...me. my symptoms were keeping me from being there for her. so, i talked to my doctor and learned humira is the #1 prescribed biologic for people with crohn's disease. the maj

severe disease, hospitalization and death. so we are not recommending you go out and get a booster today. instead, starting the week of september 20 fully vaccinated adult should be getting booster shots eight months after their second shot of an mrna vaccine. finally, all of us must do everything we can to protect our communities from covid-19. that means encouraging family and friends, patients and students, coworkers and neighbors to get vaccinated. that is our path to ending the pandemic. i will now turn it over to dr. walensky who will walk us through the data that informed our decision to take action. >> good morning. as dr. murphy mentioned i wanted to provide an update on vaccines. today we are releasing three articles with the data i will now describe that are helping to inform our booster plan. recognizing that for most vaccines there is a reduction in protection over time we have been analyzing the data closely from a number of cohorts in the united states and around the world to understand how long protection from

vivek h. -- they're also administering the vaccines in their clinics and hospitals. according to one estimate, the number of primary care practices which administer vaccinations in their offices jumped from less than 40 percent in april to over 75 percent in mid-july, which means that it's a lot easier now for patients to get vaccinated during routine visits. in addition, four of the country's largest health systems, representing 315 hospitals and more than 30 million annual patient encounters, have just committed to making vaccination more convenient by vaccinating in primary care offices, hospital discharge points, and emergency departments. and an additional 29 healthcare networks have committed to proactively reach out to their unvaccinated patients to make vaccines available at more primary care offices and to arrange transportation to vaccination sites. second, the approval will also support employers and educators in their efforts to vaccinate their workers and students. as our kids and young people return to the classroom, we know that many schools and univer

we're hearing about quite a number of breakthrough hospitalizations. i think the whole point was this could have been framed as something that we knew we were anticipating. we were getting ready for it. now the data is showing up. now is the time to do it. >> where we cut off before the briefing started, i'm wondering if you think they effectively conveyed and explained this enough in order to not contribute to further skepticism amongst those who are still resisting to get the first shot. >> i think that's a concern that they raised when i talked to some of these officials, that was something that they were concerned about. this was always sort of part of the plan. but i don't think that was communicated. i don't think people thought that was always part of the plan. there's no imminent booster needs. all of this just been the last few days we've heard that. this obviously is different. it's not been communicated well. going forward, the idea of what this means, you know, in terms of how people are going to get their shots, who should get their shots,

it comes as covid hospitalizations in the u.s. hit alarming heights not seen since the winter surge >> announcer: this is "nbc nightly news" with lester holt substituting tonight and reporting from new orleans, tom llamas. >> good evening. i'm tom llamas in for lester we are coming to you tonight from an american city in crisis and a region in need of help hurricane ida causing catastrophic damage. the view from above just a glimpse of the actual pain felt on the ground families in la place, louisiana running from ida's surge overnight, and today pulled from their homes in boats hospital staff caring for sick patients as parts of their buildings came apart in grand isle, ida's force and surge captured on camera in realtime and now a cleanup under way so people have some place to stay and tonight you'll meet the nurse who cared for dozens of babies in a nicu unit, unable to see her own children to help infants in need of all of this as new orleans faces a new type of disaster no power anywhere in the city at least one million still

this is sending people to hospital. hospitalizations have doubled.e hoping to get that back under control. >> if we can get our hospital rates down to where they were in mid-june, then we can start talking about easing off on some of these restrictions. >> reporter: health officials said the masks would help. what would really make a difference is if people got vaccinated against the virus. doctors say all who are in the hospital with covid did not ey sick and struggling to breathe. napa and solano did not require a mask mandate. live in walnut creek, amy hollyfield. >>> solano county is not implementing a mask requirement. they said indoor spaces is not where they've seen transmissions and he does not believe a mask mandate will help. >> this is very clearly spreading through social events, people who are going to parties, barbecues, picnics. we're filling our tank with gas to fix a flat tire. >> the county's website said it is strongly recommending that people wear a mask but again, it's not a mandate. >>> local businesses who have arhopi itses con

and prevent hospitalization and deaths. we are still seeing that hold at a high level which is good news. our anticipation is if the trajectory we are seeing continues, we will likely see in the future any increase in breakthrough hospitalizations and death. that is where we used our judgment to make a determination of when that point may be. that is how we came to the eight month mark. there's nothing magical about this number. could have been one week earlier one week later? that is where judgment comes in. that is why we pull the best medical minds together around the department. that ultimately cuts the -- we said we're looking at the data was the end when we see a signal, we will let the public know and tell them what our plan is. that is what we're doing today, putting the best minds together to look at the best data we had. now we are sharing our assessment with the public with a plan for how to make sure the protections people still have today from the vaccine will continue in the future. >> another piece of data we

about 50% of those in the hospital will make it -- 15% of those in the hospital do not make it out. one third of those in the icu will not make it out. two thirds of those on life support will not make it out. let us do the things beforehand that will keep that from happening. get vaccinated. exercise simple precautions to prevent transmission. if you get covid, your first call should be to your doctor or other mechanisms about getting monoclonal treatment. we are trying to make it more available because it keeps you out of the hospital. it keeps you alive. with your family. delta surge isn't going to last forever. we need to buckle down and do what we need to do. thank you all. gov. reeves: i will call on director mccranie to give us an update on the request that have been made. through the emergency management agency and i appreciate him and his team's effort and work as they work around-the-clock to secure the additional resources that a been requested. director. dir. mccranie: good afternoon. just to report -- when i say mima is doing something, it is the state agencies that hel

hospitalizations yesterday crossing the 9,400 point. we hadn't seen those numbers in texas since early february, erica. >> it is massive and he needs hospitals to do that to free up room for covid patients. ed thank you as always. much more from the superintendent for the dallas independent school district. he will join us for live interview in the next hour. >>> meantime in florida govern ron desantis raising the stakes in a standoff with the state's school districts. now he is threatening to withhold paychecks from superintendants and school board members who disregard his executive order and decide to require masks in schools. this comes as florida is seeing a record high number of kids under the age of 17 hospitalized with covid. we are following the latest from gainesville, florida. good morning. >>reporter. good morning, erica, it is the first day of school and we've seen students coming in, parents even dropping them off and teachers wearing masks to school. the principal telling us they haven't had any major issues but i spoke w

first, made a stop at a hospital in germany. matt bradley is outside that hospital now.got to speak to some of the german hospitals. what did they tell you. >> reporter: this is an american hospital, largest u.s. hospital outside of u.s. borders. it has been the destination for wounded warriors from afghanistan to iraq for the last 20 years. that period of time, now the war on terror now appears to have finally kind of closed up and that was real indication of how long this has been. we heard from some of these people, some administrators, some doctors, all of them in uniform. they described how everyone rushed to the scene because they were desperate to help when the wounded people, 31 people coming from the suicide bombing last thursday. about 20 of them serviceman. 10 of them around that were afghan civilians caught up in the terrible blast. we heard from one of the head nurses. she had tours of duty before this, it made her so emotional seeing this once again, more wounded and dead coming from theater of battle. >> there's a lot of compassion. we wouldn't do this if

first of all, the street were empty and calls hospitals were packed. you could hear was the sound of sirens so reporters like both of us, it was an eerie time because there is a paralysis, interacting with their city and we can be out there reporting and all the same ways we normally work so for me it was a gift getting to connect with a group of young people typing in, onto the front line in doing something conductive and valuable for the city when so many were struggling to figure out how to respond. >> can you talk for a moment what was like to be a reporter in those early days of the pandemic? i imagine that's when youho started laying groundwork for this book. people imagine going out and reporting on the street but what kind of workut were you doing tt helped lay the groundwork for this book? >> i'm so glad you asked because it was a strange time particularly in the early weeks and i did reporting on medical students and responding to the crisis. one of the fascinating experience was revising in some ways while reporters were experiencing, it was

we have about 300 patients today with covid in the hospital. that jumped from about 60 patients on a daily basis two weeks ago. the numbers are relatively small, staying relatively flat. not seeing much of an increase on a day-to-day basis right now. we are easily able to take care of this. we have all of the capabilities, the beds, icu's, etc. not under major stress at the moment. taylor: for someone who has hesitancy, what do you tell those about the vaccine, that it is reducing the severe symptoms, hospitalizations, the need for ventilators? >> the big issue that we are focusing on obviously is getting people vaccinated. we have over 81% of our employees vaccinated at the moment. obviously, there is the hesitancy which you are unaware of. we continue to educate people about the importance that the vaccine is safe, that the vaccine works, masks work. you know, what is interesting here and is relevant to the discussions going on around the country, we are fighting a very, very clever enemy here. but we have all the armaments to deal with it, l

and can't even go to the hospital.eems to me, a key issue here, sherry, is -- is the timeline for power restoration. i mean, the one time that i have been in -- in a serious storm's aftermath, which was hurricane irma in florida. it was just so apparent that, you know, 12 hours without power. 24 hours. not great. you just start to push out two, three days in a hot place, you start to really run up against some real limitations for people's health and security. >> this is so, so true. and it's not just the hospitals and, by the way, some of those do not have their air conditioning systems attached. >> yeah. >> to the back-up power. so that is -- um -- exactly as you said, a real threat to patients when it gets hot. but really, the many people at home, including many people at home with covid who are being treated, you know, with oxygen. those are the real priority now. and we've seen that over and over, again. that, you know, hospitals. it's easy to focus on them. but many, many people live at home with durable medical

i spoke with him at the hospital where i was born, baton rouge general hospital mid city, a place hit so badly by this papadopo pandemic that they have put up a wall recognizing those who have contracted covid and survived. louisiana has the worse rate of new cases per day of any state. it has the fifth worse vaccination rate in the country. governor edwards told me the situation is absolutely dire and he is urging people to get vaccinated immediately. here's our conversation. >> this is all, what, patients? >> that's right. that's the wall of lheros. >> thank you for doing this. at one point, this wall wasn't full. >> that is correct. this is not the first time we have used baton rouge general mid city as a special hospital for covid patients. we've had to bring in outside staffing each time, sometimes from the department of defense, but we have 118 medical professionals that we brought in on a state contract to augment this hospital system so they can take care of the patients here. 95 patients here, covid. as you know, not a single icu room available at this hospital. >> i think th

hospitals across the state seeing record numbers of hospitalizations. but it is especially pronounced here at the children's hospital in new orleans. we know that one in three patients is under the age of 12 meaning they cannot get vaccinated. if you want to try to keep the children safe, the best thing that parents and guardians can do is get themselves vaccinated. that essentially creates a natural barrier, if you will, against trying to stop the spread of this delta variant that is reeking havoc. i spoke to a child who ended up in the hospital and had to be put on oxygen after developing pneumonia. i want you to hear what they told me after that excruciaing or deal. >> i never dreamed that she would be in a hospital. it is hard. it is hard as a parent to see your child in a hospital possibly -- you don't know what is going to happen next. >> we have heard from parents all over the state about their child being taken down so quickly by the virus. other people thought that younger patients would fair well. but doctors are seeing this new kind of patien

you know, fewer than 5% of all the hospitals nationally are children's hospitals. so we don't have the luxury of being able to transfer patients to just any hospital because we really take care of the sickest of the sick. children with very complex medical problems. so it would have to be a facility that has capabilities that are similar to ours. and we cover a broad swath of the south. we're very proud of the fact we're standing in the gap for children across louisiana and the central gulf south. and if we're put in a position of having to do that, it would be a significant problem for children and families across a several hundred mile swath of this part of the country. >> that is dr. mark klein, physicians in chief at a hospital in new orleans. the stress for caring for the surge in covid patients was already taking a toll on doctors and nurses. many say they're simply burned out and have been leaving the profession. tara narula has more on this. >> reporter: the nurses with spoke to said both the number of hours they work and the number of patients they're resp

general hospital in the home area.e said they inform the state, we will take those patients and make room, but we need staff. because of the covid pandemic, their staff is just already overstretched, so they want staff to a arrive with the patients. so these are some of the concerns. in the power outages, in many hospitals are operating on backup power. they have already had as you mentioned, difficulty with those generators, you have seen that over and over again in many storms, in the governor today recognize that this is a high priority, because they can fail, they're not, they don't hold up for a long periods of time often. so this is a big issue. >> i also want to bring in a pediatrician on the ground, in new orleans. doctor, tell me what you're hearing from fellow doctors, there and how things are looking generally in new orleans right now. >> people are a little bit frustrated. it's the trifecta. people still have ptsd from hurricane katrina, and then covid-19 with the hospital shortages. and now, with hurricane

this is a hospital in tel aviv.worse. they are doing what they can, expanding the number of beds in the unit, but the number of hospitalisations, people falling seriously ill, is rising fast. it's the same across the country. and suddenly, the immediacy of the problem becomes clear. even as we film, the doctor in charge gets a call. there is a patient, three vaccinations, covid positive, with acute respiratory failure. with covid. it's the second patient in the hospital today who now needs intensive care, but there is only one bed free. i'm afraid the numbers will go up. and i know that i will have to take hard decisions, whom to get into intensive care and whom not. i was afraid of it, all the three waves that we had, we took those decisions. so, what's gone wrong for israel? this, after all, was the first country in the world to offer a vaccine to every resident. but cases are rising, the government reimposing restrictions, even considering a lockdown. one thing that went wrong is just biology, which is the delta

>> yes they have a hospital if you want to call it that.rean hot or the dead were lying among the living and the stencil on was enough to make a man sick. i know it drove some men out of their minds. >> at this american doctor he spoke of was anything he could do about the situation? would they listen to him? >> we had some american doctors who were in the hospital there. they released one of the doctors in the hospital area and they said he wasn't a good doctor, that he wasn't lytic weight conscious. he did not know who to save and to save and who to let die. >> what did they mean by that? >> simply they did not want to attempt to save the lives of anyone who fought their indoctrination program. >> were there any other similar incidents at your camp? >> yes, there were many bill. they gave us a series of lectures, forced readings and discussion. come examinations lasting up to 10 hours a day. there was one instance in which we were forced to listen to a speech that was made by the foreign minister from red china. one of the major spoke up

a month ago, there were 12,000 patients in america's hospitals. tonight, there are more than 61,000. and the growing concern for children who are too young to be vaccinated, as the debate over masking at school is growing more heated. pediatric hospitalizations are now 3 1/2 times higher than they were a month ago. tonight, more than 192 million people have had at least one dose of vaccine. that's 68% of people 12 and older. and a growing number of the newly vaccinated are in the states where the virus is soaring. abc's victor oquendo leads us off tonight in miami beach. >> reporter: tonight, federal health officials signaling they will likely recommend booster shots for immunocompromised americans, reportedly within weeks. >> it is extremely important for us to move to get those individuals their boosters. and we are now working on that, and we'll make that be implemented as quickly as possible. >> reporter: those first boosters would go to vulnerable people like cancer or transplant patients or those on medications that suppress the immune syste

he makes that call and they head to the hospital. they're going to go to the hospital. so they get on the radio and say we're going to george washington emergency room and, you know, let's get there fast. and parr even gets on the radio and says, let's hustle. let's hustle. >> go ahead, drew. >> roger, we want to go to the emergency room of george washington. >> that's a roger. >> go to george washington fast. >> roger. [ inaudible ] >> get an ambulance. i mean, get the stretcher out there. >> horsepower, shaddick. you copy, gw? >> correct. we've made the call. >> horsepower, horsepower. let's hustle. >> because he can't say on the radio, reagan is hurt. they don't use reagan's name. they don't want people, assassins, news media can be listening to their open radio communications. hence they use code names. they abandon crown, the white house, and go to the hospital. now at about this time, marion gordon who is kind of an unsung hero of this day. she's one of the few female agents in the secret service. she's -- she was -- she devised the motorcade that day and routes.

are in that hospital of the patients there for covid, and that's most of the hospital now, they areause they're unvaccinated. so you're selfish, you won't get the vaccine, you don't believe in the science, and then when you get the coronavirus, you rush to the hospital and you use the science, you take the resources which could be used for other things that you didn't have to be there for. so i just want people to keep that in mind as they are saying, i don't want to take this. i'm nervous about it. this vaccine has been worked on for quite a long time. it's not just something that came in warp speed. and don't be selfish. think about others. especially for people who live in the south and the bible belt who say that they're christians and they believe in the bible. the lord helps those who help themselves. that's what the governor said to me as he was doing his -- he was praying and fasting for the past couple days. and also do unto others as you would have them do unto you, which means you are here to protect your fellow man, not to be selfish. >> don, i think it's really importan

be in these hospitals.hing i thought was fascinating talking with the doctors caring for him how are they dealing with the an emotional layer of it and the day-to-day snafus that were coming up. it was hard to feel the emotional weight at the time because it had new layers of the logistical development whether it was the doctors finding new medical records that indicated he was actually partly death or taking him to interview at a group home that meant that his emotional needs were too great for them to handle or they had a doctor sent to his old apartment to try to find medications and they found out his dad was a hoarder and it was hard to get around to find anything because it was so filled with things. so every day there were these new logistical developments and it was hard to feel the emotional void of what he was experiencing until the end where he was released and was taken in and then for me and the doctors to look at the story of what this young man had just experienced which was kind of perseveri