Hospital beds drying up as cases rise in several states; California professor sues to avoid vaccine: Latest COVID-19 updates

Several states seeing surges in COVID-19 cases are dealing with such an influx of sick residents that hospital beds are drying up.

New Mexico's top health officials have had to establish a waiting list for intensive care unit beds for the first time ever and they're warning that the state is about a week away from having to ration medical care as coronavirus infections climb and nurses are in short supply.

New Mexico's Health and Human Services secretary, Dr. David Scrase, said there was a 20% increase in COVID patients in just the last day, and the state is on pace to surpass its worst-case projections for cases and hospitalizations. Data shows 90% of the cases since February have been among the unvaccinated. 

He said the result may be that “we’re going to have to choose who gets care and who doesn’t get care, and we don’t want to get to that point.”

FRANKFORT, Ky. – Kentucky and Texas have joined a growing list of states that have surpassed their record for hospitalized coronavirus patients.

At least eight states -- Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Hawaii, Mississippi, Oregon and Texas – have already surpassed their records for COVID hospitalizations.

The number of cases in Ohio is causing some hospitals to plan for possibly halting elective procedures that require an overnight stay because of rising COVID-19 hospitalizations.

"Due to the fluid nature of this fourth surge, we will continually monitor capacity and pause or resume elective surgeries with an overnight stay as needed," read a statement from OhioHealth, which operates 12 hospitals across the state. 

Three OhioHealth hospitals' intensive care units were above 90% capacity as of the week of Aug. 13, the most recent date for which capacity data was available from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. One was 99% full, the data shows. 

And in South Carolina, which by one estimate may be up to 3,500 nurses short of what it needs, hospital systems are buckling under stress as the mounting COVID cases limit care for patients with other medical needs.

"The need for resources is continuing to climb faster than our ability to provide it,'' said Dr. Wendell James, the chief clinical officer for Prisma Health Upstate. "It's extremely hard to meet the demand being placed on all of our systems."

Also in the news:

►The Texas Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked a mask mandate issued by San Antonio and Bexar County for their public schools — a blow to efforts by some state jurisdictions to defy Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on such measures. The court has not yet ruled on the legal issues surrounding mask mandates.

►The new president of the 397,000-member United Auto Workers, Ray Curry, said the organization is opposed to requiring members to be vaccinated against COVID-19, noting that the issue would be subject to bargaining.

►The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington projects almost another 100,000 COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. by Dec. 1, although that figure could be cut nearly in half with universal masking. 

►Argentine President Alberto Fernández could face a criminal investigation after a federal prosecutor accused him of violating his own pandemic restrictions by joining a dozen other people at his wife’s birthday party last year. Fernández has apologized.

►Half of American workers are in favor of workplace vaccine requirements, and only a quarter are opposed, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

📈Today's numbers: The U.S. has recorded more than 38.3 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 633,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Global totals: More than 214.4 million cases and 4.47 million deaths. More than 172 million Americans – 51.9% of the population – have been fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

📘What we're reading: Labor Day is approaching. Here's what you should know if you're planning a getaway amid COVID-19 and the delta surge. Read more here. 

Keep refreshing this page for the latest news. Want more? Sign up for USA TODAY's Coronavirus Watch newsletter to receive updates directly to your inbox and join our Facebook group.

California university professor who had COVID sues to block vaccine mandate

A professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the University of California-Irvine is suing the university system over its vaccine mandate, arguing that he has "natural immunity'' from having contracted the virus and does not need inoculation. 

Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, who had COVID-19 last year, is asking a U.S. District Court for an injunction that will allow him to work without getting vaccinated and also requesting that the policy be ruled unconstitutional, the Orange County Register reported. The UC system said in July that all students, faculty and staff would have to be vaccinated against COVID.

“Forcing those with natural immunity to be vaccinated introduces unnecessary risks without commensurate benefits,'' Kheriaty told the newspaper.

The CDC released a study earlier this month that shows people who have had COVID and do not get vaccinated are more than twice as likely to get reinfected than those who get inoculated after catching the virus.

“If you have had COVID-19 before, please still get vaccinated,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said. "Getting the vaccine is the best way to protect yourself and others around you, especially as the more contagious Delta variant spreads around the country.”

Texas parent strips mask argument down to its bare essence

With all the talk about mask mandates, perhaps more attention should be paid to clothing mandates. 

A Texas parent tried to lay out the bare facts about the importance of wearing masks in school by stripping down to his swimming trunks Monday at a meeting of the Dripping Springs Independent School District near Austin.

James Akers said he doesn't like government or others telling him what to do, and he proceeded to exhibit his rebellious side by taking off the jacket and tie he said are mandatory at work, followed by his shirt and T-shirt. Amid a mix of cheers and gasps, and as security personnel started to approach Akers, off came his pants. 

"It's simple protocol, people," Akers said. "We follow certain rules for a very good reason." His comments begin near the 26:20 mark of this video.

Akers was asked to put his pants back on and promptly complied, and even exchanged fist-bumps with a security officer before picking up the rest of his clothes and walking off to light applause.

Masks are recommended but not required in the school district, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has made a point of prohibiting vaccine and mask mandates.

“There are too many voices out there that I think are digging in for political reasons, and absolutely just not thinking about the common sense decisions,” Akers told KXAN in Austin.

– Marina Pitofsky

Illinois mandates vaccines, masks indoors

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Thursday announced all preschool through 12th grade teachers and staff, higher education personnel, higher education students and health care workers in a variety of settings will be required to get vaccinated or submit to regular testing, effective Sept. 5.

He also reinstituted a statewide indoor mask mandate, regardless of vaccination status, effective Monday.

From January through July, 95% of COVID-19 deaths in Illinois were among unvaccinated people, Pritzker said. "This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated," he said, repeating a message President Joe Biden has often articulated.

In the region of Illinois with the lowest vaccination rate, there was only one ICU bed available Tuesday, state health director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said. "Most hospitals in different areas of the state are reaching capacity as well," she said.

– Grace Hauck

Late mortgage payments amid COVID put Black homeownership in jeopardy, report finds

Theresa Battle had to close her New York day care center last March when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the economy. By May, she had to ask her lender to temporarily suspend her roughly $2,200 monthly mortgage payment, which she couldn’t afford to pay.

After resuming her payments in September, she is paying nearly $1,400 more a month to make up for her missed payments and to meet requirements to have her loan modified. "Even though I have the money, it’s giving me anxiety so bad," Battle says.

Just as Black Americans lost their jobs and health at a higher rate than whites during the COVID-19 pandemic, Black homeowners also struggled more to hold onto their homes.

From August 2020 to March, 17.6% of Black homeowners fell behind in their mortgage payments compared with 6.9% of white homeowners, according to a report by the Center For American Progress (CAP). The gap offers another glimpse of how the pandemic took a greater financial toll on Black Americans. Read more here.

– Charisse Jones

Study: Risk of heart inflammation after COVID far greater than after vaccine

A study from Israel found the risks associated with heart inflammation are far greater for those contract who COVID-19 than for those who get vaccinated.

Myocarditis has in rare cases been linked to COVID-19 vaccination, primarily in young men and male teens, but the study found COVID-19 was more likely to cause the condition and many other side effects.

“If the reason that someone so far has been hesitating to get the vaccine is fear of this very rare and usually not very serious adverse event called myocarditis, well, this study shows that that very same adverse event is actually associated with a higher risk if you’re not vaccinated and you get infected,” study co-author Ben Reis told the New York Times.

Are schools adding to spike in COVID cases among kids? Partly, experts say

After a year of virtual school, students and parents alike were excited for the return of in-person learning. But just as quickly as the new school year started, many children were sent back home after a slew of COVID-19 outbreaks forced them into quarantine. 

In Florida, school districts around the state are closing schools as cases rise, including in Duval County, home to Jacksonville. The New Orleans School District saw 299 active COVID-19 cases and more than 3,000 students and staff in quarantine, according to district data. A Mississippi public health official said about 20,000 students across the state are in quarantine.  

School outbreaks caused by high community transmission and lack of mitigation measures have not only disrupted academic plans, health experts say, but also may be contributing to a spike in COVID-19 cases among children across the country. They worry cases will continue to rise if schools don't implement masking and other basic prevention measures, and if adults in the community remain unvaccinated.

"As you look at the age-specific cases over the past couple of weeks, the reason why we’re seeing a pronounced difference between school-age children and everybody else is primarily because they're back in schools full time," said Jason Salemi, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida College of Public Health. 

– Adrianna Rodriguez

New York adds 12K COVID deaths  from nursing homes, hospitals 

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, on her first day in office, acknowledged nearly 12,000 more deaths in the state from COVID-19 than had been publicized by her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo.

New York now reports nearly 55,400 people have died of COVID-19 in New York based on death certificate data submitted to the CDC, up from about 43,400 that Cuomo had reported to the public as of Monday, his last day in office.

"We're now releasing more data than had been released before publicly, so people know the nursing home deaths and the hospital deaths are consistent with what's being displayed by the CDC," Hochul said Wednesday on MSNBC. "There's a lot of things that weren't happening and I'm going to make them happen. Transparency will be the hallmark of my administration."

Cuomo's critics had long charged that he was manipulating coronavirus statics to burnish his image as a pandemic leader. Under Cuomo, the state had minimized its toll of nursing home residents' deaths by excluding all patients who died after being transferred to hospitals.

Which students missed class during COVID-19? We asked, and schools don’t know

It's the top challenge for schools welcoming students back this fall: what to do about all the children who missed huge chunks of class time, whether in person or from home, during the pandemic. 

Yet 17 months after the coronavirus first swept the nation, few of America’s largest districts can provide a clear picture of which students fall into that category – raising questions about whether schools are ready to get students caught up.

Research suggests children who are chronically absent – meaning they miss at least 10% of a given school year – are at risk of eventually dropping out. 

USA TODAY reached out to a sampling of school districts, including the country’s 10 largest before the pandemic upended enrollment, requesting data on students who were chronically absent during the past three school years. Read more here.

– Alia Wong

Contributing: Daniel J. Gross and Marcus Navarro, Greenville (S.C.) News, The Associated Press.