they have a children s hospital just down the road here. this is the only children s hospital in the state of mississippi. 23 children were hospitalized here with covid-19 as of yesterday. kids makeup higher percentage of hospitalized covid population than ever before. one of those children is an 11-year-old, donovan evans. i spoke to his parents yesterday evening. he again is 11. that means he is not eligible to get vaccinated. his parents planned to get him vaccinated as soon as he turned 12. he wore a mask at school, they kept him home most of the summer because he has asthma. sent him to school a couple weeks ago. he wore a mask, but at his school like most in the state, masks were optional, others were not wearing them. his parents believe he contracted covid-19 at school or on the school bus. he was admitted at the hospital here on monday. listen to what his parents told
as unvaccinated patients continue to fill up intensive care departments n. arkansas the state reports the highest increase in hospitalizations since the beginning of pandemic. and in louisiana, which just reinstated an indoor mask requirement, one health official said that the state will likely hit today its highest number of hospitalized covid patients at any point of the pandemic. nadia romero is live in new orleans with this important side of the story. what r what are you learning there there. reporter: we learned that a disaster team arrived in louisiana this week. when you think about a disaster team, you think it is after a hurricane or a big storm. but no, they re here to help out after covid-19, specifically the delta variant has been ripping through louisiana and much of the south. and then the other part of that is the number of unvaccinated people. this part of the country lagging behind the rest of the nation when it comes to vaccination rates.
government, saying they need more funding to deal with staffing shortages, to hire more travel nurses, as well as more logistic resources. otherwise this is a health system that will break very soon. leyla santiago in miami, thank you so much. the pandemic resurgence is also looking grim in alabama where the number of hospitalized covid patients has spiked to 870. that s a number that has more than quadrupled since the fourth of july. republican governor kay ivey shared a blunt message for the unvaccinated. these folks are choosing a horrible lifestyle of self-inflicted pain. folks are supposed to have common sense. but it s time for them to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. it s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down. joining me live to discuss, dr. karen landers. she is the assistant state health officer at the alabama department of public health. dr. landers, dr. fauci told me
trump-supporting republicans. what groups in alabama are disproportionately holding out and refusing to get the vaccine? well, actually, if you look at our data in alabama and specifically on our vaccine dash boards, you will see that our african-american community has really been very forward-thinking and really taking the vaccine. and our african-american leaders including our medical community have stepped up throughout this entire pandemic to really discuss the inequity and to highlight the inequity. so i think our african-american community in alabama overall has done a very, very good job in getting vaccinated. where the problem appears to be for the most part in alabama is really still in the younger age group. and i say younger actually ages 12 to 49, that s really, really where our problem is, reaching people who perceive that they are younger, they re healthier, and so therefore they don t need vaccine who are continuing to
desantis of florida has been pushing the vaccine for a month, though he s also been attacking dr. fauci in what they call faucish. his critics want him to get vaccination much higher than 48% in florida and stop focusing on dr. fauci. i hear a lot of folks asking for more data. it s still being released weekly, not daily. and i got to tell you, jake, i spoke to one hospital up in jacksonville, the university of health in jacksonville. and the epidemiologists there told me that they saw 140% increase in cases in less than a week. we visited them last monday. they had three covid-19 patient units. today they have five. and they are begging for more help, more help from the state and more help from federal