'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
The U.S. could soon see more than 200,000 new cases of COVID-19 every day as the Delta variant spreads at a rapid pace, particularly among unvaccinated people, the director of the National Institutes of Health predicted.
"I will be surprised if we don't cross 200,000 cases a day in the next couple of weeks, and that's heartbreaking considering we never thought we would be back in that space again," Dr. Francis Collins said on Fox News Sunday.
"That was January, February, that shouldn't be August. But here we are with the Delta variant, which is so contagious, and this heartbreaking situation where 90 million people are still unvaccinated, who are sitting ducks for this virus, and that's the mess we're in."
That mark is still a ways off. As of Saturday, the U.S. has averaged about 129,000 daily new cases over the last 7 days, a number that has risen every day since July 5, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The country last averaged over 200,000 cases per day in January, before the COVID-19 vaccines were widely available.
Then as now, the alarming uptick has stretched health resources thin as many hospitals struggle to meet the demand of those who need crucial medical care.
"The system is breaking," CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner told CNN's Jim Acosta on Saturday.
"It's not just the beds. Many hospitals can find beds in places like parking structures or cafeterias. But it's qualified people to staff those beds. And the United States is critically short on ICU nurses, so finding the qualified staff to take care of critically ill patients becomes increasingly hard," said Reiner, a professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University.
Because older people have much higher vaccination rates -- over 90% of people 65 and older have had at least one shot -- this surge has particularly hit younger populations.
The rate of new hospitalizations among people in their 30s increased by nearly 300% over the past month, according to an analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. New COVID-19 hospital admissions among people in their 30s are now the highest since the pandemic began, according to the data.
Health experts say the solution is to vaccinate as many people as possible, because the vaccines provide good protection against severe disease. As of Sunday, 50.6% of the total US population was fully vaccinated. That's 59.2% of those eligible to receive a vaccination, CDC data shows.
"We are going to have to continue to get people vaccinated so that right now, even in states in which you have a good relative proportion of people vaccinated, you have to get the overwhelming proportion of people vaccinating," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday.
More vaccine shots will also be available for some already-vaccinated people.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday authorized an additional vaccine dose to be administered to people with compromised immune systems, who may not have an adequate immune response to the vaccine.
Vaccine advisers to the CDC voted unanimously to recommend the additional dose for some immunocompromised people on Friday. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky quickly endorsed the vote, which means people can get these third doses right away.
Booster shots may also be made available for others soon, such as elderly people, those in nursing homes or even the general population. Some officials are concerned that the Delta variant may be able to evade some of the vaccine's protection.
"There is a concern that the vaccine may start to wane in its effectiveness over months, and Delta is a nasty one for us to try to deal with," Collins said. "The combination of those two means we may need boosters, maybe beginning first with health care providers, as well as people in nursing homes and then gradually moving forward."
Fauci said the vaccines still provide strong protection, but officials are studying the issue to determine if such boosters are needed.
"So if it turns out, as the data come in, we see we do need to give an additional dose to people in nursing homes, actually, or people who are elderly, we will be absolutely prepared to do that very quickly," Fauci said.
As mask mandates in schools become a contentious topic in districts across the South, experts want Americans to know the safest way students should mask up.
CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen said returning to schools safely is possible.
"Quality of masks really matters," she told CNN's Pamela Brown Saturday. "Don't send your child to school with a cloth face covering. Use as least a three-ply surgical mask and, ideally, an N95 or KN95 if your child is old enough and can tolerate it."
Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, echoed that sentiment.
"Mask with the most highly efficient and effective means you have. These are the N95 masks," he told CNN.
He added that while the US had a supply shortage of those masks during the pandemic's onset, there's now an abundance of them.
"Use them. And when you use them, please don't wear them under your nose ... That's nothing more than a chin diaper. And it doesn't provide you any protection," he said.
Osterholm said COVID-19 is largely transmitted by aerosols, which are tiny particles in the air. He explained that if you can smell the smoke of a cigarette from 20 feet way while masked, then you need a higher quality mask for optimal safety.
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.