Airlines dealing with major staffing shortages are bracing for the busy Fourth of July travel weekend.

Some airlines have already had to cancel or delay flights.

Earlier this week, Delta's CEO apologized to its customers in advance and offered free flight changes for travelers this weekend.

Some airlines will offer travel vouchers or gift cards for passengers willing to be bumped on oversold flights, but what happened on one flight from Michigan to Minnesota this week, is almost unheard of.

According to passengers on the flight, Delta offered $10,000 for eight people to give up their seats on the plane.

Multiple passengers on social media confirmed it, saying it all started at the gate with an opening bid of $5,000.

When there weren’t any takers by the time boarding began, delta bumped the offer up to $7,500.

Once passengers were on board, a flight attendant announced they were still looking for volunteers, and offering $10,000 cash each.

They say it still took about 20 minutes before enough people decided to get up and take the offer.

Delta has not confirmed or denied the offer.

Related video above: Are round-trip or one-way tickets a better deal?

Starbucks customers can now earn more than just "stars" for their purchases.

Effective Wednesday, the coffee chain is partnering with Delta Air Lines and awarding 1 mile for every $1 spent at Starbucks in an alliance between "two of America's most highly regarded loyalty programs," the companies said in a press release.

Customers must first link their Starbucks Rewards and Delta SkyMiles accounts on a special website in order to start receiving miles on purchases made at U.S. Starbucks locations. As another perk, on days that members are scheduled to fly Delta, they will earn double stars, or rewards points, on their Starbucks orders.

To entice customers to join the partnership, members who link their accounts between now and Dec. 31 will earn an additional 500 SkyMiles and, after joining and making one Starbucks purchase, they will accrue 150 stars, enough for a free coffee.

The brands have two of the country's most popular loyalty programs. Starbucks has more than 27 million U.S. members and Delta has around 100 million global members (the airline doesn't break out numbers for the U.S.).

Expanding Starbucks Rewards is a goal for the company because it gives the chain access to customers' data and ordering habits, which in turn helps the company target members with deals. Plus, members typically spend more money on each purchase compared to non-members. Partnerships like these help Starbucks "increase awareness and drive growth," as well as attract new members, the chain said in the release.

The coffee giant is also taking a page from Delta's playbook, as the airline already has a number of partnerships allowing members to accrue SkyMiles without flying, including for Lyft rides, Instacart purchases and Airbnb stays. The carrier said in the release that this new partnership helps the company "deliver more moments and interactions that matter, both in the air and on the ground."

Starbucks' newest perk to its loyalty program comes as rival Dunkin' recently made changes to parts of its own program, which has sparked some outrage among members.

Delta Airlines announced Friday that they were suspending its partnership "effective immediately" with Russian airline Aeroflot over the country's invasion of Ukraine.

"We have removed our code from Aeroflot-operated services beyond Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport and removed Aeroflot’s code from Delta-operated services from Los Angeles and New York-JFK. Accommodations will be made for customers affected by these changes." Delta said in a press release.

According to Politico, the agreement allowed passengers to book seats on each other’s flights.

Delta does not fly to Ukraine or Russia.

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, CNBC reported that the U.K. banned Aeroflot from flying into British airspace.

CNN reported that English Premier League soccer club Manchester United terminated its sponsorship deal with the airline.

The CDC published new information Friday about the performance of COVID-19 booster shots.

In a new study, researchers found that after receiving a third dose of the vaccine, protection wanes over time.

When the omicron variant was dominant, effectiveness decreased as soon as four months after the third dose.

However, protection from serious illness was still high after the third dose.

In the study, effectiveness was higher among people who had received the booster shot, than among people who only received two doses of the vaccine.

Researchers also noted that effectiveness after a booster was higher when delta was the dominant strain.

Health experts expect protection from the vaccines to wane.

Previous evidence had already suggested that vaccines offered less protection against the omicron variant in comparison to earlier versions of the virus.

The CDC still recommends people to remain up to date with COVID-19 vaccinations to protect themselves against the virus.

As the omicron variant of the COVID-19 pandemic spreads across the country, finding the right mask to protect yourself has gotten harder within previous months. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its mask guidance to fight the spread appropriately, advising against cloth masks and surgical masks alone to protect against the virus.

As of press time, the CDC is advising the general public to upgrade to N95 and KN95 masks to protect against the omicron variant. These respirators filter out 95% of particles that are 0.3 microns or larger in diameter, Dr. Michael Schivo, a pulmonologist and an associate professor of internal medicine at UC Davis Health, previously told Men's Health.

Previously reported by Men's Health, the CDC is warning against several N95 respirators falsely claiming to be approved by NIOSH flooding the market, and therefore won't effectively protect you from COVID-19, especially the omicron variant, spread. NIOSH is the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in the U.S., providing the standards for protective N95 face masks across several occupations that require them.

KN95 masks are made abroad in China, thus adhering to Chinese standards. According to the CDC, as many as 60% of KN95 masks available could be fakes.

So how do you know which masks are legit, and even more so where to get one?

ISO/IEC 17025 lab tested

This is a standard recommended by the CDC to ensure the mask meets the protective standards of its country of origin. Check if the manufacturer is listed here.

Visible brand logo and GB2626-2019

The brand of mask should be visible somewhere on the mask itself. Additionally, GB2626-2019 is the mandatory standard for respiratory protection masks.

"GB2626 gives reassurance that manufacturer made mask [with] highest standard per Chinese guidelines," writes Dr. Stella in a comment. "If GB ends in 2006 it’s still legit if not [past the expiration date]."

Shouldn't say "NIOSH/FDA-approved"

To confirm that the KN95 you’re buying is legitimate, make sure the manufacturer is listed on the FDA's Emergency Use Authorization list. The CDC also has a list of NIOSH-approved manufacturers to ensure your mask is certified for your protection. Simply saying so on the box or mask is not approval.

Check the expiration date

Masks absolutely have expiration dates. If the mask you purchased is past its expiration date, you may not be protected.

Make sure the packaging is properly sealed

A banged up or partially opened box is an obvious sign of damage or tampering. Don't use a mask with damaged packaging for your own safety.

No quality control issues

Check if all the masks are identical and there aren't any mix-ups. If not, they're likely safe. to us.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control shows, as of Jan. 1, only about 40% of pregnant women have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

A new study out of Scotland is shining a much larger light on the benefits and safety of getting vaccinated while pregnant.  

More pregnant mothers are weighing whether to get the vaccine, especially with the surging omicron variant.

"I didn't want to get it and potentially harm my baby but looking back, that doesn't really make any sense because I obviously wouldn't have wanted to get COVID with the baby," Heaven Taylor-Wynn said. 

Doctors are trying to convince their pregnant patients to get the vaccine because they are seeing rough outcomes in some unvaccinated pregnant women and their babies. 

"I felt like there was a herd of elephants on my chest, and I couldn't breathe," Ashley Duque said.

"I've seen women they got really bad preeclampsia and a funny variant of preeclampsia called help syndrome that makes them very, very, very sick and requires urgent delivery," said Dr. Brad Holbrook, maternal fetal medicine specialist at Community Medical Center.

"I've seen women with stillbirths. I've seen babies die after they were born," she added.

The study out of Scotland confirms everything doctors like Holbrook have been saying,

The Scotland team studied all women who were pregnant or became pregnant from December 2020 through October 2021. 

"They looked at the entire population of the whole country and because they have a whole, you know, an integrated system," Dr. Holbrook said. "They have 130,000 women in this study that essentially showed the same things, which is that, that women who get COVID are potentially in for some problems. So women who get COVID are more likely to have a pre-term delivery, a stillbirth complication with baby or with their pregnancy, and that women who are vaccinated and then get sick with COVID are very likely to have a much more mild course, so it really just confirmed everything that we've seen."

Among unvaccinated women, the study found they made up 77.4% of COVID infections. They accounted for 90.9% of cases that required hospitalization or critical care, and all 450 fetal and newborn deaths associated with the virus. The rate of deaths in babies after 28 weeks was much higher in women who got COVID-19 within a month of giving birth.  

"The risk of getting infected is pretty high, and the risks involved in being vaccinated are almost nonexistent," said Dr. Alisa Kachikis, assistant professor of maternal fetal medicine at University of Washington.

"I do feel like when I can sit down and talk with them face-to-face about it, look, you know, I'm not representing a drug company," Dr. Holbook said. "I'm not representing the government. I'm just representing the science and what I've read and understand about this and my own experience and based on that and what I've seen, I've seen a lot of complications from COVID."

The highly-transmissible omicron variant brings new concerns, especially in places just starting to experience the surge, like Montana.

"We're gonna have this big bunch of pregnant women come in really sick with COVID and not just pregnant women, unpregnant people as well coming into the hospital, and the hospital is gonna be totally full and understaffed," Dr. Holbrook said. "It's gonna be a very difficult couple of weeks, I think."

This story was originally reported on Newsy.com.

CHICAGO — The record-shattering COVID surge has proven new variants like omicron can quickly throw the public health response off balance. It’s why scientists around the world are digging deep into the molecular structure of COVID-19 to stay ahead of what could come next.

Scientists inside a level 2 bio-safety laboratory at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago are hunting for coronavirus variants.

“It's really critical that we understand which variants are present now, which ones are starting to emerge,” said Dr. Mary Hayden, the Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Rush’s Regional Innovative Public Health Laboratory (RIPHL).

Over the last year, genomics sequence testing labs like this have been popping up all around the U.S. and the world. Tens of thousands of COVID specimens are tested each day.

“Every time a patient is infected, you're getting so many new viral particles and each one of those is an opportunity for a mutation that could change the activity of the virus,” said Stefan Green, director of the Genomics and Microbiome Core Facility.

It’s why scientists are studying the virus’ genetic code.

“It's basically a long string of letters,” explained Hannah Barbian, a co-investigator and genomic virologist with RIPHL.

That chain of letters can reveal whether any changes or mutations have taken place. That can help determine whether the virus is becoming more dangerous or transmissible or potentially vaccine-resistant.

“That's why omicron was so concerning and also just the sheer number of mutations there were so many compared to what we had seen before,” said Barbian.

It was a genomic sequencing lab in South Africa that first spotted the omicron variant, identifying the more than 30 mutations on its spike protein.

“Making that information widely available to the world as quickly as they had, it gave the rest of us a little bit of an advantage to look out for this and to and to prepare,” said Hayden.

The CDC’s Nowcast modeling data shows just how quickly a new variant like omicron can emerge and spread.

On Nov. 24, the World Health Organization received reports of the new variant from South African scientists. The first case in the U.S. was confirmed a week later. By Jan. 1, it had eclipsed the delta variant in the U.S., making up 95 percent of new cases.

“There were a lot of predictions from very smart people who I respect greatly, who thought that delta was so efficient at transmission that we weren't going to see a big jump in mutation anymore in COVID that we'd see like minor alterations in delta,” said Hayden. “And clearly, that's not the case.”

In April, the Biden Administration pledged $1.7 billion to fight variants by scaling up genome sequencing work around the country.

The National SARS-CoV-2 Strain Surveillance Program, as it’s known, is essentially a genetic dragnet to catch the next potentially concerning variant.

“We need these global centers like ours because we don't know where the next novel strain will develop,” said Green.

There are about 68 state and local public health laboratories sequencing 15 to 20,0000 randomly selected coronavirus specimens each week – quadrupling the sampling that was being conducted just over a year ago.

“I think it's going to be really critical to sort of give the world a heads up that something new is coming in. And, you know, it's worth keeping a close eye on,” said Barbian.

Public health experts say investing in a global network of sequencing labs like this will not only help scientists stay ahead of new COVID variants but future pandemics as well.

A winter storm moving into the mid-Atlantic combined with the pandemic to continue frustrating air travelers whose return flights home from the holidays were canceled or delayed in the first few days of the new year.

More than 1,900 U.S. flights and more than 3,300 worldwide were grounded as of early Monday, according to tracking service FlightAware.

That follows Sunday's cancellations of more than 2,600 U.S. flights and more than 4,400 worldwide. And on Saturday there were more than 2,700 U.S. flights canceled and more than 4,700 worldwide.

A winter storm is expected to bring as much as 10 inches of snow for the District of Columbia, northern Virginia and central Maryland through Monday afternoon.

The cancellations, coupled with more than 5,000 flight delays on Monday, just add to the despair felt over the weekend by holidays travelers trying to get home.

"It was absolute mayhem," said Natasha Enos, who spent a sleepless Saturday night and Sunday morning at Denver International Airport during what was supposed to be a short layover on a cross-country trip from Washington to San Francisco.

Saturday's single-day U.S. toll of grounded flights was the highest since just before Christmas when airlines began blaming staffing shortages on increasing COVID-19 infections among crews.

A winter storm that hit the Midwest on Saturday made Chicago the worst place in the country for travelers throughout the weekend. About a quarter of all flights at O'Hare Airport were canceled Sunday.

Denver's airport also faced significant disruptions. Enos, who was flying on Frontier Airlines, didn't learn that her connecting flight home to California was canceled until she had already landed in Denver. Then it was a rush to find alternative flights and navigate through baggage claims packed with stranded and confused travelers, amid concerns about the spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant of COVID-19.

"It was a lot of people in a very small space and not everybody was masking," said the 28-year-old financial analyst. "There were a lot of exhausted kids and some families were so stressed out."

In Michigan, the authority that runs Detroit International Airport said crews were working around the clock to remove snow and maintain the airfield. Atlanta's airport authority advised travelers to arrive earlier than usual because of high passenger volume, potential weather issues and pandemic-fueled staffing shortages that could lengthen the time it takes to get through security gates.

And thousands of miles from the closest snowstorms, Hawaiian Airlines said it had to cancel several flights between islands and across the Pacific due to staffing shortages.

Southwest Airlines said it was working to help customers affected by about 400 flights canceled around the country Sunday, about 11% of its schedule. The Dallas-based airline anticipates even more operational challenges to come as the storm system pushes into the Eastern seaboard.

Delta Air Lines said Sunday it was issuing a travel waiver for planned flights this week out of mid-Atlantic airports in Baltimore and Washington in preparation for forecasted winter weather.

American Airlines said most of Sunday's canceled flights had been canceled ahead of time to avoid last-minute disruptions at the airport.

SkyWest, a regional carrier that operates flights under the names American Eagle, Delta Connection and United Express, grounded more than 500 flights Sunday, about 20% of its schedule, according to FlightAware.

Airlines have said they are taking steps to reduce cancellations caused by workers affected by the pandemic. United is offering to pay pilots triple or more of their usual wages for picking up open flights through most of January. Spirit Airlines reached a deal with the Association of Flight Attendants for double pay for cabin crews through Tuesday, a union spokesperson said.

Airlines hope that extra pay and reduced schedules get them through the holiday crush and into the heart of January, when travel demand usually drops off. The seasonal decline could be sharper than normal this year because most business travelers are still grounded.

___

AP Airlines Writer David Koenig contributed to this report.

Federal health officials on Thursday pressed nursing home workers to get their booster shots amid a spike in COVID-19 cases among staffers and a concerning lag in booster vaccination for residents and staff.

The omicron variant "is lightning fast, and we can't afford another COVID-19 surge in nursing homes," Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a livestreamed appeal to the industry. "You know that. I know that. Higher numbers of COVID cases would likely once again have a devastating impact on our loved ones ... and we know we just have to work doubly hard to keep them safe."

Nursing homes are a testing ground for President Joe Biden's assertion that the United States is much better prepared to handle a surging virus than it was last winter. Although residents are a tiny proportion of the population, they represent a disproportionate share of Americans who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier this year the advent of vaccines brought the virus under control in nursing homes and allowed them to reopen to visitors. But that return to normalcy could be in jeopardy as omicron pushes COVID-19 cases to new highs for the nation.

Cases among nursing home staffers jumped to 10,353 for the week ending Dec. 27, a rise of nearly 80% from the previous week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Staff deaths increased to 58, tripling from the previous week. Among residents, who are more heavily vaccinated, cases went up slightly and the data showed no increase in deaths.

With medical experts advising that a booster shot is critical to defend against omicron, Becerra said only 57% of nursing home residents and 25% of staff and have gotten boosters. That's clearly behind a booster rate of nearly 66% among people age 65 or older and about 45% for adults of all ages, according to statistics from the White House.

"We've got to change that," Becerra said.

The administration is urging some 1,400 federally funded community health centers across the land to partner with local nursing homes in a renewed vaccination campaign.

Nursing home workers were supposed to be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4 under an earlier order issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which required staff at health care facilities that receive government money to get their shots. That directive got ensnared in litigation and the Supreme Court has set a special session next week to hear arguments on it, along with the much broader Biden administration vaccine mandate for workers at larger companies of all kinds. Together the orders would affect about 100 million employees.

"Once again nursing homes are really the ground zero," said Harvard health policy professor David Grabowski, who has tracked the impact of the pandemic on residents and staff. "How well we do in combating this virus can often be discerned by just looking at the nursing homes."

Grabowski said the Biden administration is right to raise the alarm now. "We see this time and time again: When staff (infection) rates go up, resident rates go up," he explained. Staffers unwittingly bring in the virus from surrounding communities, a common trigger for nursing home outbreaks.

Vaccines enabled nursing homes to weather the delta variant surge earlier this year, and timely booster shots should go a long way toward blocking omicron. "The more vaccines and boosters we have, the more lives we are going to save over the course of the winter," Grabowski said.

But some states are already seeing trouble.

COVID-19 outbreaks in Mississippi nursing homes have almost doubled in the past week, and officials say that indicates the state is probably heading into another major surge of virus cases and hospitalizations.

There were 63 outbreaks in Mississippi nursing homes Monday, about twice the number reported last week, state epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers wrote in a midweek memo to Mississippi hospitals and health care providers.

Along with other data, that points to "very rapid growth of COVID-19 infection and transmission...we have now entered our 5th wave of COVID-19 in the state," Byers wrote.

One of the major nursing home industry groups is backing the administration's push on boosters.

The American Health Care Association said in a statement it's asking members to "double down on their efforts to get as many residents and staff fully vaccinated and boosted as soon as possible."

___

Associated Press writer Leah Willingham in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed to this report.

A Delta plane made an emergency landing in Oklahoma City Thursday night after a passenger allegedly assaulted a flight attendant and an air marshal.

Police told CNN that the man, who was allegedly drunk, attacked the flight attendant before assaulting the air marshal, who was helping restrain the man.

Following an emergency landing, the man was taken off the plane and later charged with public drunkenness and disorderly conduct, CNN reported.

The flight, which originated in Washington, D.C., eventually made it to its intended destination, Los Angeles.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says it has received more than 5,000 reports of unruly passengers this year. The most severe cases have been forwarded to the FBI for prosecution.

The FAA first began noticing a spike in cases at the start of the pandemic. A majority of incidents have been over the federal mask mandate.

Nurse Katie Sefton never thought COVID-19 could get this bad — and certainly not this late in the pandemic.

"I was really hoping that we'd (all) get vaccinated and things would be back to normal," said Sefton, an assistant manager at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Michigan.

But this week Michigan had more patients hospitalized for COVID-19 than ever before. COVID-19 hospitalizations jumped 88% in the past month, according to the Michigan Health & Hospital Association.

"We have more patients than we've ever had at any point, and we're seeing more people die at a rate we've never seen die before," said Jim Dover, president and CEO of Sparrow Health System.

"Since January, we've had about 289 deaths; 75% are unvaccinated people," Dover said. "And the very few (vaccinated people) who passed away all were more than 6 months out from their shot. So we've not had a single person who has had a booster shot die from COVID."

Among the new COVID-19 victims, Sefton said she's noticed a disturbing trend.

"We're seeing a lot of younger people. And I think that is a bit challenging," said Sefton, a 20-year nursing veteran.

She recalls helping the family of a young adult say goodbye to their loved one.

"It was an awful night," she said. "That was one of the days I went home and just cried."

'We haven't peaked yet'

It's not just Michigan that's facing an arduous winter with COVID-19. Nationwide, COVID-19 hospitalizations have increased 40% compared to a month ago, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services.

This is the first holiday season with the relentless spread of the delta variant — a strain far more contagious than those Americans faced last winter.

"We keep talking about how we haven't peaked yet," Sefton said.

Health experts say the best protection against delta is to get vaccinated and boosted. But as of Thursday, only about 64.3% of eligible Americans had been fully vaccinated, and less than a third of those eligible for boosters have gotten one.

Sparrow Hospital nurse Danielle Williams said the vast majority of her COVID-19 patients are not vaccinated — and had no idea they could get pummeled so hard by COVID-19.

"Before they walked in the door, they had a normal life. They were healthy people. They were out celebrating Thanksgiving," Williams said. "And now they're here, with a mask on their face, teary eyed, staring at me, asking me if they're going to live or not."

'The next few weeks look hard'

Dover said he's saddened but not surprised that his state is getting walloped with COVID-19.

"Michigan is not one of the highest vaccination states in the nation. So it continues to have variant after variant grow and expand across the state," he said.

"The next few weeks look hard. We're over 100% capacity right now," Dover said.

"Most hospitals and health systems in the state of Michigan have gone to code-red triage, which means they won't accept transfers. And as we go into the holidays, if the current growth rate that we're at today, we would expect to see 200 in-patient COVID patients by the end of the month — on a daily basis."

And that would mean "absolutely stretching us to the breaking point," Dover said.

"We've already discontinued in-patient elective surgeries," he said. "In order to create capacity, we took our post-anesthesia recovery care unit and converted it into another critical care unit."

'There's a lot of frustration'

Nurse Leah Rasch is exhausted. She's worked with COVID-19 patients since the beginning of the pandemic and was stunned to see so many people still unvaccinated enter the COVID unit.

"I did not think we'd be here. I truly thought that people would be vaccinated," the Sparrow Hospital nurse said.

"I don't remember the last time we did not have a full COVID floor."

The relentless onslaught of COVID-19 patients has impacted Rasch's own health.

"There's a lot of frustration," she said. "The other day, I had my first panic attack ... I drove to work and I couldn't get out of the car."

'We need everybody to get vaccinated'

Dover said many people have asked how they can support health care workers.

"If you really want to support your staff, and you really want to support health care heroes, get vaccinated," he said. "It's not political. We need everybody to get vaccinated."

He's also urging those who previously had COVID-19 to get vaccinated, as some people can get reinfected.

"My daughter's a good example. She had COVID-19 twice before she was eligible for a vaccine," Dover said.

"She still got a vaccine because we know that if you don't get the vaccine, just merely having contracted COVID is not enough to protect you from getting it again. And I know that from personal experience."

And those who are unvaccinated shouldn't underestimate the pandemic right now, Dover said.

"The problem is, it's not over yet. I don't know if people realize just how critical it still is," he said.

"But they do realize it when they come into the ER, and they have to wait three days for a bed. And at that point, they realize it."

Video above: Johns Hopkins experts cautiously optimistic amid downward COVID-19 trendsIt’s a milestone that by all accounts didn’t have to happen this soon.The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 eclipsed 700,000 late Friday — a number greater than the population of Boston. The last 100,000 deaths occurred during a time when vaccines — which overwhelmingly prevent deaths, hospitalizations and serious illness — were available to any American over the age of 12.The milestone is deeply frustrating to doctors, public health officials and the American public, who watched a pandemic that had been easing earlier in the summer take a dark turn. Tens of millions of Americans have refused to get vaccinated, allowing the highly contagious delta variant to tear through the country and send the death toll from 600,000 to 700,000 in 3 1/2 months.Florida suffered by far the most death of any state during that period, with the virus killing about 17,000 residents since the middle of June. Texas was second with 13,000 deaths. The two states account for 15% of the country's population, but more than 30% of the nation's deaths since the nation crossed the 600,000 threshold.Dr. David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who has analyzed publicly reported state data, said it's safe to say at least 70,000 of the last 100,000 deaths were in unvaccinated people. And of those vaccinated people who died with breakthrough infections, most caught the virus from an unvaccinated person, he said.“If we had been more effective in our vaccination, then I think it’s fair to say, we could have prevented 90% of those deaths,” since mid-June, Dowdy said.“It’s not just a number on a screen,” Dowdy said. “It’s tens of thousands of these tragic stories of people whose families have lost someone who means the world to them."Danny Baker is one of them.The 28-year-old seed hauler from Riley, Kansas, contracted COVID-19 over the summer, spent more than a month in the hospital and died Sept. 14. He left behind a wife and a 7-month-old baby girl.“This thing has taken a grown man, 28-year-old young man, 6′2″, 300-pound man, and took him down like it was nothing,” said his father, 56-year-old J.D. Baker, of Milford, Kansas. “And so if young people think that they’re still ... protected because of their youth and their strength, it’s not there anymore.”In the early days of the pandemic, Danny Baker, who was a championship trap shooter in high school and loved hunting and fishing, insisted he would be first in line for a vaccine, recalled his mother.But just as vaccinations opened up to his age group, the U.S. recommended a pause in use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to investigate reports of rare but potentially dangerous blood clots. The news frightened him, as did information swirling online that the vaccine could harm fertility, though medical experts say there’s no biological reason the shots would affect fertility.His wife also was breastfeeding, so they decided to wait. Health experts now say breastfeeding mothers should get the vaccine for their own protection and that it may even provide some protection for their babies through antibodies passed along in breastmilk.“There’s just a lot of miscommunication about the vaccine,” said his wife, 27-year-old Aubrea Baker, a labor and delivery nurse, adding that her husband's death inspired a Facebook page and at least 100 people to get vaccinated. “It’s not that we weren’t going to get it. We just hadn’t gotten it yet.”When deaths surpassed 600,000 in mid-June, vaccinations already were driving down caseloads, restrictions were being lifted and people looked forward to life returning to normal over the summer. Deaths per day in the U.S. had plummeted to an average of around 340, from a high of over 3,000 in mid-January. Soon afterward, health officials declared it a pandemic of the unvaccinated.But as the delta variant swept the country, caseloads and deaths soared — especially among the unvaccinated and younger people, with hospitals around the country reporting dramatic increases in admissions and deaths among people under 65. They also reported breakthrough infections and deaths, though at far lower rates, prompting efforts to provide booster shots to vulnerable Americans.Now, daily deaths are averaging about 1,900 a day. Cases have started to fall from their highs in September but there is fear that the situation could worsen in the winter months when colder weather drives people inside.Almost 65% of Americans have had at least one dose of vaccine, while about 56% are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.But millions are either refusing or still on the fence because of fear, misinformation and political beliefs. Health care workers report being threatened by patients and community members who don't believe COVID-19 is real.The first known deaths from the virus in the U.S. were in early February 2020. It took four months to reach the first 100,000 deaths. During the most lethal phase of the disaster, in the winter of 2020-21, it took just over a month to go from 300,000 to 400,000 deaths.The U.S. reached 500,000 deaths in mid-February, when the country was still in the midst of the winter surge and vaccines were only available to a limited number of people. The death toll stood about 570,000 in April when every adult American became eligible for shots.“I remember when we broke that 100,000-death mark, people just shook their heads and said ‘Oh, my god,’” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. “Then we said, ‘Are we going to get to 200,000?’ Then we kept looking at 100,000-death marks,” and finally surpassed the estimated 675,000 American deaths from the 1918-19 flu pandemic.“And we’re not done yet,” Benjamin said.The deaths during the delta surge have been unrelenting in hotspots in the South. Almost 79 people out of every 100,000 people in Florida have died of COVID since mid-June, the highest rate in the nation.Amanda Alexander, a COVID-19 ICU nurse at Georgia’s Augusta University Medical Center, said Thursday that she'd had a patient die on each of her previous three shifts.“I’ve watched a 20-year-old die. I’ve watched 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds,” with no pre-existing conditions that would have put them at greater risk, she said. “Ninety-nine percent of our patients are unvaccinated. And it’s just so frustrating because the facts just don’t lie and we’re seeing it every day.”___Associated Press Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson and data journalist Justin Myers contributed to this story.

For the first time since June, the rate of new COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. is expected to decrease over the next four weeks, according to an ensemble forecast from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And for the third week in a row, Wednesday's CDC forecast predicted that hospitalizations will decrease as well — a bit of hope as the more transmissible delta variant continues to spread.

Currently, an average of nearly 2,000 people die and about 114,000 people are infected with COVID-19 every day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner, estimated that the delta wave of the pandemic could run its course by Thanksgiving, and COVID-19 could eventually become more of a seasonal nuisance than a devastating pandemic. But Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that is dependent on getting a lot more people vaccinated.

Of the entire U.S. population, 55.5% are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the CDC. Health experts can't say for sure what proportion of the population would need to be vaccinated to control the spread, but Fauci estimates that it would have to be the "vast majority."

Officials and experts are employing multiple strategies to try to increase vaccination protection.

Schools, businesses and employers have implemented mandates for students and employees to be vaccinated against the virus. And the FDA has authorized booster doses to increase vaccine protection for vulnerable populations.

Health experts are also waiting for Pfizer to request an emergency use authorization for a vaccine to protect children ages 5 to 11. While some parents are eager to have their children vaccinated, others are still hesitant.

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said he understands the concern and urged parents to "wait until they see the data before they make a decision about getting the vaccine."

Many health experts are hopeful more people will decide to get vaccinated as some regions strain to keep up with cases.

Alaska's Yukon-Koshokwim Health Corporation announced Wednesday that it was preparing for the possibility of rationing services under Crisis Standards of Care due to a surge in COVID-19.

"We're doing the best for every single patient, regardless of what resources are available at any given time," chief of staff Dr. Ellen Hodges said in a written statement. "Unfortunately, however, as a result of the current surge in COVID-19 cases requiring hospitalization and limited resources statewide, we are now in a position of making these difficult decisions on a daily basis."

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said Wednesday that he believes the state is in the "eye of the storm," and urged residents to get vaccinated to help decrease the surge.

"We're gonna lose a bunch more people, West Virginia, no question about that," said Justice during a Wednesday COVID-19 briefing. "All I can possibly do, with a good conscience, is continue to urge you, in every way, to get vaccinated."

CDC urges pregnant people to get vaccinated

Some have been concerned over whether people who are pregnant or looking to become pregnant are safe to be vaccinated, but the CDC made an urgent recommendation Wednesday for them to be inoculated.

People who are pregnant, have recently given birth, are planning to become pregnant or are breastfeeding should be vaccinated, the CDC said.

"CDC strongly recommends COVID-19 vaccination either before or during pregnancy because the benefits of vaccination outweigh known or potential risks," the agency said in a health alert.

"As of September 27, 2021, more than 125,000 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases have been reported in pregnant people, including more than 22,000 hospitalized cases and 161 deaths."

The risk is not just to the mother. COVID-19 in pregnancy can cause preterm birth or babies born so sick they have to go straight to the neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU.

"Other adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as stillbirth, have been reported," the CDC said.

"Pregnancy can be both a special time and also a stressful time — and pregnancy during a pandemic is an added concern for families. I strongly encourage those who are pregnant or considering pregnancy to talk with their healthcare provider about the protective benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine to keep their babies and themselves safe," CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement.

Vaccine mandates going into effect

On the local and federal level, officials are implementing vaccination mandates to increase protection.

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden announced stringent new vaccine rules on federal workers, large employers and health care staff in a sweeping attempt to contain the latest surge of COVID-19.

He directed the Labor Department to require all businesses with 100 or more employees ensure their workers are either vaccinated or tested once a week. Companies could face thousands of dollars in fines per employee if they don't comply.

Those requirements are still weeks away from being implemented, but employers should expect them to come this year, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday.

Employees of New York's hospital system are mandated to be vaccinated against the virus, and some employees are already facing the consequences of not complying.

The St. Barnabas Hospital Health System had 58 employees who have failed to show proof of vaccination as of Wednesday, spokesman Steve Clark said.

The employees are suspended and have until Monday morning to show proof of vaccination. If they don't, they'll be terminated, said Clark.

"Patient care has not been compromised at all," Clark said. "Schedules have been created accordingly. People will work overtime, or part-timers or agency personnel will be brought in when necessary."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has once again overhauled its mask guidance this week, asking all Americans to go back to wearing face masks in indoor public spaces and in crowded outdoor areas, regardless of vaccination status.

The agency's new mask recommendations come as the delta variant of COVID-19 continues to spread, leading to an uptick in new coronavirus cases across the United States. And since vaccines are still being observed in trials for children under 12, CDC officials also updated guidelines asking all students in grades K-12 to mask up while in school this fall.

The delta variant is more contagious than other forms of COVID-19. People infected with this strain may carry up to 1,000 times more viral airborne particles in their airways than those infected with earlier versions, according to emerging data. While vaccines prevent most to all of the deadly symptoms associated with COVID-19 illnesses, CDC officials did also recently acknowledge that vaccinated people can indeed spread the disease to others around them.

"The best recommendation would be, regardless of vaccination status, to continue wearing a mask to protect your loved ones and yourself against COVID as an added layer of protection," said Dr. Vivek Cherian, an internal medicine physician affiliated with the University of Maryland Medical System.

But if you're still wearing the same face masks you rushed to purchase (or even sew yourself) back in the early months of the pandemic, it's important to know these masks are likely less protective than other options available now.

What's the best mask to protect against the delta variant?

Cloth masks made in the first half of 2020 weren't designed as stringently as they are now, and it wasn't until late 2020 and early 2021 that CDC officials began making more stringent mask recommendations to Americans (like in January, when officials asked Americans to consider double-masking). While cloth masks certainly are better than no mask at all when it comes to preventing the spread of COVID-19, the fit and construction of medical-grade surgical face masks are usually more comprehensive — and currently, they're readily available for consumers.

Good Housekeeping Institute Textiles Director Lexie Sachs said that surgical masks are usually made by PPE manufacturers who adhere to strict quality standards that have been in place since long before the pandemic began.

"We know they're typically safer in terms of filtration and fit," Sachs added, as opposed to cloth masks made by fashion retailers who don't usually deal with medical standards in construction. "They're often more breathable as well."

Most crucially, you can rest assured that the medical-grade surgical mask you're wearing is tested to meet standards set forth by ASTM International, an industry group in charge of establishing safety minimums for many products, including face masks.