As St. Vincent de Paul collects coats to hand out this winter, one donor stands above the rest.

For more than a decade, Poul Lemasters has been giving the gift of warmth during the holidays.

This year, he's taking some inspiration from his pandemic hobby to bring in more money and more coats.

From behind a bar, Lemasters is serving up cocktails for coats.

"I'm naïve in many ways and when we first did this and started you know they got more and more and I thought we're going to run out of people to give coats to and you don't because every year somebody needs a new coat," Lemasters said.

Twelve years ago he started a nonprofit collecting coats.

Though it's grown into quite the operation, donating 5,000 new coats to St. Vincent de Paul most recently, when it started it was just a family affair.

"This started off with teaching my kids the art of giving back. We did four coats one year. Four coats. We bought new coats. Took them to St. Vincent de Paul. I wanted my kids to see what that was like," Lemasters said.

And it stuck. He didn't expect the reaction one year later.

"The next year my kids kinda threw it back at me and said, 'Hey are we giving more coats this year?' So do you say no? Of course you say, 'Yeah, and we're going to give a little bit more.' So it's been a great feeling because not only have we grown it within our family, it's grown bigger than us," Lemasters said.

This year he's going old-fashioned with a 24-hour telethon.

You can watch on his Facebook or YouTube.

While he collects cash, he's serving up 50 cocktails from Saturday to Sunday night.

It's a fun twist on what he's found is a real necessity for so many.

"I know the demand. We get calls from schools and local organizations asking can you bring us 50 coats? 100 coats? And I'm humbled to be able to say yes we can," Lemasters said.

Click here to donate.

As winter approaches, schools are preparing for a number of illnesses in addition to COVID-19.

“Since we especially didn't see a flu season last season, we’re on the ready for a potentially severe influenza season. Particularly because of circulation of COVID,” said Dr. Sara Saporta-Keating, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children’s Hospital Colorado, Colorado Springs.

But schools are more prepared than before after balancing education with pandemic safety.

“Push this button and it will turn on -- like this -- and if it's green that means you’re good,” 7-year-old Lexi Ansardi said. She is a second grader at Centennial Elementary School. Every morning, she checks her temperature and with the help of her mom, Ann. She can keep track of her health on an app.

“I am concerned about flu, COVID of course, but this app, it actually gives you ideas about what might be happening with your student depending on the fever,” Ann Ansardi said. “It really gives the parents a way of knowing what's going on in the building in terms of health.”

Most families at this elementary school are using these thermometers consistently through something called the FLUency program -- a free program to reduce the spread of illness in schools through health technology company Kinsa.

“It is an initiative to stop the spread of illness in classrooms to help the entire community know more about what symptoms and illnesses are going around,” Nita Nehru, vice president of communications at Kinsa, said.

“On a population level, we’re able to understand where symptoms are starting and how fast they are spreading,” she explained. Nehru said the app provides anonymous, aggregated information on what symptoms and illnesses are going around in any given classroom, school, or community.

“It’s a way of reducing some of your clinic load for school nurses,” she said. “Schools, right now, are really acting as that first line of defense, and that’s just not sustainable.”

With the app, it’s easier for schools to see multiple cases of illness at the onset, leading to more accurate decisions about when to temporarily go to remote learning or distance kids more.

“Once you put the app in, you have a running tally of what your illness and your child has looked like…and you take that right to the doctor with you,” Ann Ansardi said.

Pediatric doctors are prepared for what they could see this season.

“What we have been doing to mitigate COVID can also be helpful for mitigating flu. So the first thing is good hand washing, another thing is making sure that if you're ill you don't go to work or school. And then getting vaccinated if you're able to against the flu particularly, as well as COVID,” Dr. Saporta-Keating said. She said she is also seeing higher rates of more common respiratory viruses.

“Usually we see those later in the season, so really it's important for schools again to be making sure they understand what’s going on,” she explained.

Centennial Elementary School principal Kim Noyes said the FLUency program has been a huge help in detecting potential outbreaks.

“The vast majority of our school and our families are using the digital thermometer and I think that has led to very low incidents of illness in our school,” she said.

All it takes is a little participation from students and families.

“If one person is sick, a whole bunch of other people can get sick. So if you're sick, this helps,” Lexi said.

As we move into the winter months, Noyes feels prepared. “We can't control the future but we can take every single preventative step possible,” she said.

CNN —

Last week, the number of COVID-19 cases in children in the U.S. reached levels not seen since the winter surge. And with the return to school, the delta variant on the rise and this winter approaching, health officials are concerned it could get worse.

After a decline in early summer, child cases have increased exponentially -- with more than a four-fold increase in the past month, according to the latest report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association.

From about 38,000 cases a week near the end of July, the week ending Aug. 19 saw more than 180,000 cases in children, the report said.

The rise has come as 48.4% of the population is yet to be fully vaccinated, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- and as the daily average of new reported cases has climbed to more than 151,000.

Health experts have been particularly concerned about cases among children as students return to school, many without mask mandates and without access to vaccines.

Pfizer/BioNTech's vaccine was fully approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday for Americans 16 and older, which National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins told CNN was a "ray of sunshine in the midst of all these dark COVID clouds."

Moderna announced on Wednesday it has completed its submission to the FDA for full approval of its COVID-19 vaccine for people 18 and older. Moderna said it has requested a priority review from the agency. Moderna's vaccine is currently available under emergency use authorization for people age 18 and older. The company began submitting data for approval to the FDA in June.

Still, children under 16 still aren't fully approved for a vaccine, and the emergency use authorizations in place only cover adolescents 12 and older.

Children ages 5 to 11 are the next group in line to become eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, and an updated emergency use authorization from the FDA would make at least 28 million additional children -- representing about 9% of the U.S. population -- eligible to receive the vaccine, according to a CNN analysis of federal data.

But the process of authorizing a vaccine for that age group may not be completed until the end of the calendar year, U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, told CNN's Brianna Keilar.

The timing is a problem, Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the FDA's vaccines advisory committee, told CNN, because the more transmissible delta variant is spreading and the cold dry weather of the winter months makes it easier for the virus to spread -- all while children are sitting together in classrooms.

"You are going to have a group of fully susceptible people all in one place," he told Jake Tapper. "That's not a good recipe."

And though it would be good to have vaccines for children before then, it is important for health officials to take their time in making sure the vaccines are tested heavily -- and deemed safe.

"We're moving as quickly as we can, it's just not easy to move that quickly when you talk about doing big vaccine trials," Offit said.

Schools take different approaches to rising cases

As cases rise among children, some school leaders are pressing for precautions while others are banning mask mandates.

Throughout Florida's 15 largest school districts, at least 11,851 students and 2,610 employees have tested positive for COVID-19, amounting to more than 14,461 confirmed cases since the school districts started keeping track of cases for the 2021-22 school year, according to a CNN analysis.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has issued an executive order banning schools from instituting mask mandates, but eight counties have defied the order as cases have grown.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster also issued a ban on mask mandates, prompting a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union, according to a complaint filed Tuesday.

"This is a disability rights issue," said Susan Mizner, ACLU disability rights program director.

"Students with health conditions or disabilities that make them vulnerable to COVID have a right to attend school without endangering their health or safety. Schools who have children with these conditions have legal obligations under federal disability rights laws," Mizner said in an ACLU statement.

McMaster's spokesman Brian Symmes declined to specifically comment on the lawsuit, but said, "The only truly inclusive option is to allow every parent to decide whether their child will wear a mask in school."

On the other hand, the Los Angeles Unified School District has implemented strong mitigation measures and appears to have kept infection rates under 1% during the first week of classes.

The school district, the second-largest in the country, enacted the measures throughout its more than 1,000 schools.

Teachers and employees are required to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 15. Masks are required for all students, staff and visitors. The district also has a "cohort" model in place, which aims to keep as many students in the same classroom and with the same group of students as often as possible.

A rigorous and costly testing initiative has also been put into place. Every student and employee must undergo free weekly testing regardless of vaccination status in order to be able to enter a school.

CDC forecast for next 4 weeks says hospitalizations could remain stable

An ensemble forecast published Wednesday by the CDC projects that new COVID-19 hospitalizations are likely to remain stable or have an uncertain trend over the next four weeks.

It's the first time since mid-July the forecast did not project an increasing level of hospitalizations.

Wednesday's forecast predicts there will be 7,800 to 27,000 new confirmed COVID-19 hospital admissions likely reported on Sept. 20. Since July 14, the forecasts had projected that hospitalizations would increase each week.

The forecast also predicts that new COVID-19 deaths will likely increase over the next four weeks, projecting a total of 651,000 to 680,000 deaths reported by Sept. 18. The previous forecast, published August 18, predicted up to 664,000 COVID-19 deaths by Sept. 11.

According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, there have been more than 630,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States.

As with previous weeks, the agency says that its COVID-19 cases forecast should be interpreted with caution since actual numbers have fallen outside the range of previous predictions.

The CDC's latest forecast predicts 600,000 to 1.9 million new cases likely to be reported in the week ending Sept. 18.

Vaccines less effective against delta, but still crucial

The spread of the delta variant has impacted vaccine effectiveness, but vaccination is still a strong protector against illness, hospitalization and deaths, reports have found.

According to a study published Tuesday by the CDC, once the delta variant accounted for the majority of circulating virus, vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 infection dropped from 91% to 66%.

"While we did see a reduction in the protection of the COVID-19 vaccine against the delta variant, it's still two-thirds reduction of risk," lead author Ashley Fowlkes, an epidemiologist for CDC COVID-19 Emergency Response, told CNN Tuesday.

But a new study out of Los Angeles County reaffirms that fully vaccinated people are far less likely than unvaccinated people to be hospitalized, admitted to an intensive care unit, require mechanical ventilation or die from COVID-19

"On July 25, infection and hospitalization rates among unvaccinated persons were 4.9 and 29.2 times, respectively, those in fully vaccinated persons," researchers from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health wrote in the study, which was published Tuesday by the CDC.

"It's still a very powerful vaccine," Fowlkes said, especially when it comes to more severe outcomes. "But we are also looking towards continuing to use masks for a little bit longer."

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. —

There will be six more weeks of winter Punxsutawney Phil predicted as he emerged from his burrow on a snowy Tuesday morning to perform his Groundhog Day duties.

One of the members of Phil's “inner circle” spoke before his prediction was revealed, noting that it's been a “unique year."

“People have been referencing Groundhog Day. It has felt like at times we're all living the same day over and over again,” one of the members said. “Groundhog Day also shows us that the monotony ends. The cycle will be broken.”

“Today actually is Groundhog Day, there's only one,” he added. “There is quite literally a new day coming over the horizon.”

The spectacle that is Groundhog Day at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, still went on, but because of the coronavirus pandemic, revelers weren’t able to see him and celebrate in person: This year, it’s all virtual.

A livestream, which had more than 15,000 viewers at one point, played footage from previous Groundhog Day's ahead of the big reveal.

Then of course, the prognosticator of prognosticators — assisted by his Inner Circle — emerged at dawn. The lore goes that if he sees his shadow as he did this year, there will be six more weeks of winter. If he doesn't, spring comes early.

The livestream from Gobbler's Knob, a tiny hill just outside Punxsutawney about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, is made possible by the Pennsylvania Tourism Office's Holi-stay PA. The event there — always Feb. 2 — dates back to 1887.

Phil this year, like many years in the past, gave his forecast during a major snowstorm that hit the entire Northeast.

The annual event has its origin in a German legend about a furry rodent. Records dating to the late 1800s show Phil has predicted longer winters more than 100 times. The 2020 forecast called for an early spring — however, Phil didn't say anything about a pandemic.

Punxsutawney Phil may be the most famous groundhog seer but he's certainly not the only one. There are two other high-profile “imposters,” as the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club calls them, in the region.

Staten Island Chuck will be asked for his prophesy Tuesday around 8 a.m. at the Staten Island Zoo in New York. That event will be streamed on Facebook since the zoo is closed.

Also without fanfare, Chuckles, Connecticut's official state groundhog, will make a prediction from home: the Lutz Children's Museum in Manchester. That will also be streamed on Facebook. Chuckles X died in September, and it remains to be seen whether an anointed Chuckles XI will emerge Tuesday.