intensive care. we now at the moment have two pediatric icu beds. these are not just for covid. car wrecks or anything else. if your child needs the icu and a ventilator in a 19-county area, we have two. now is the time we must make sacrifices. masks small, but it s a small sacrifice to save lives. the dallas school district has started defying texas governor greg abbott s ban on mask mandates. meanwhile in florida, where republican governor ron desantis has vowed to stop mask mandates in his schools, over 15,000 of his constituents are in the hospital tonight with covid. the number in the icu in just florida now north of 3,000
just about to tip over. the moral equation has to shift. stop protecting the unvaccinated. they re selfish, they re greedy, they re not doing the right thing by their neighbors. reporter: now, the dallas county judge clay jenkins just summed up their situation in pretty stark terms. he says in the dallas area there are just two pediatric icu beds available. he wants everybody to be wearing masks all the time indoors, and this is a direct quote. masks suck, but it is a small sacrifice to save lives. victor. indeed. nick watt, thank you so much. the mask debate is also growing more furious and contentious in florida where governor ron desantis has threatened to revoke the pay of superintendents who enforce mask mandates at schools. today protesters gathered outside a broward county school board meeting where officials heard from parents and teachers.
affected is because in most cases they live in low vaccination rate states and communities. reporter: like florida, where the governor doesn t want masks mandated in schools. ultimately, my view is it is a parents decision. reporter: and governor ron desantis is threatening to withhold salaries from school officials who mandate masks. if you are not interested in following the public health guidelines to protect the lives of people in their state, then get out of the way and let public officials, let local officials do their job to keep students safe. reporter: broward county school board this afternoon voted to keep their mandate anyway. people s lives are invaluable, even if it means that i m not going to get a paycheck. reporter: meanwhile in texas, the dallas county judge says there are just two pediatric icu beds available in the area he wants masks everywhere inside,
my county and the state. that s not just adults. there s no pediatric icu beds. if a kid gets really sick, there s nowhere to go. if you get in a car accident, there s no place to go. those states arkansas, louisiana, texas, florida, they re going to see huge spikes in cases, a lack of icu beds, and they re going to see spiking deaths because of the lack of resources. it really is a very complicated layout when you have so many cases coming up. it s not just about how lethal covid is. it s about how lethal it is in the setting of reduced resources with what we re going to be seeing. the strain on the health care system generally. south carolina s republican governor is accusing u.s. health experts of, quote, exaggeration, and engaging in frightful high beshly in regards to the tone being taken to explain how different the delta variant is. we should note that governor is encouraging people to get vaccinated.
pediatric icu beds are scarce things. what do we tell to the families who s children will not be able to find a bed available and can t have surgeries they need or who have to have their child sent to southern california instead of a bed in the area where they live in northern california because that bed that is very scarce isn t available when it s going not to a patient or living person, but to help the family maintain their denial rather than helping them go forward and coping with the loss. quickly here, i could talk about this all day, not singling out this hospital, but across this country, do you believe there s appropriate support for parents especially in these types of situations to understand and if the word is let go, your choice, to be able to do that? there s no doubt it s hard. there is bee reefment counseling