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As the number of coronavirus patients in North Texas continues to climb, hospitals are reporting fewer and fewer empty beds — including no available ICU beds for children in the region. There were 75 staffed intensive-care beds for adults Thursday in the 19-county region, according to the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council. Twenty-three were in Dallas County, 21 in Tarrant County and 16 in Collin County. There are 343 COVID-19 patients on ventilators, the council said, and the majority of patients have not been vaccinated. (Steele, 8/12)

A doctor in Middle Tennessee began his message with a stark and simple warning. “No beds. There are no beds.”Dr. Geoff Lifferth, Chief Medical Officer at Sumner Regional Medical Center in Gallatin, Tennessee, detailed the overwhelming impact of the Delta variant on the state’s healthcare facilities in a Facebook post, which was shared on the official hospital account Thursday night. “In Middle Tennessee right now it is impossible to find an empty, staffed ICU, ER, or med/surg bed. As an ER doc and a healthcare administrator, this past week has been one of the most exhausting and disheartening of my career,” Lifferth wrote. (Spells, 8/12)

The federal government has sent a team of doctors, nurses and medical professionals to Children's Hospital New Orleans to help the facility care for the surge of children hospitalized with COVID. The state requested the help from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, according to a statement from the hospital. The recent influx of pediatric COVID patients in New Orleans is "unlike anything observed previously," the statement said. (Kollath Wells, 8/12)

The COVID-19 surge that is sending hospitalizations to all-time highs in parts of the South is also clobbering states like Hawaii and Oregon that were once seen as pandemic success stories. After months in which they kept cases and hospitalizations at manageable levels, they are watching progress slip away as record numbers of patients overwhelm bone-tired health care workers. (Kelleher and Selsky, 8/12)

A “tidal wave” of COVID-19 cases is putting severe stress on Alabama hospitals, medical officials said Thursday, adding the state will likely soon surpass the previous record for hospitalizations. “We need Alabamians to understand we are in a difficult position right now. We are seeing case numbers again as high as we have ever seen,” State Health Officer Scott Harris said in a weekly briefing with reporters. “That has put a severe stress on our hospital situation. We have only 5% of our ICU beds available statewide. many facilities, particularly in the southern part of the state do not have available ICU beds at this time.” (Chandler, 8/13)

Mississippi has broken its single-day records of COVID-19 hospitalizations, intensive-care use and new coronavirus cases. The state Health Department said Thursday that 1,490 people were hospitalized Wednesday and 388 were in intensive care because of COVID-19. It also said 4,412 new cases were confirmed. (Pettus, 8/12)

A Carnival Cruise Line ship that left from Galveston, Texas, has 27 covid-positive people on board, according to the Belize Tourism Board. It is the highest number of publicly reported cases on a ship sailing from the United States since cruises restarted this summer. According to the statement from Belize tourism officials, 26 of the infected people are crew and one is a guest. All are vaccinated and have either mild or no symptoms. The ship is continuing to sail and arrived in Cozumel on Thursday. (Sampson, 8/13)

An estimated 385,000 crowd at the annual Lollapalooza music festival this year did not play a substantial role in spreading COVID-19, Chicago's public health commissioner Allison Arwady said Thursday — two weeks after the first day of the event. "There have been no unexpected findings at this point and NO evidence at this point of 'super-spreader' event or substantial impact to Chicago's COVID-19 epidemiology," Arwady tweeted, adding that the city would have already seen a surge in cases if there would be one. "I do not think we will see anything that will suggest it was any sort of super spreader event," she said. (Powell, 8/13)

Facebook Inc. is delaying its return to office plans due to a resurgence in Covid-19 cases, telling U.S. employees Thursday that they don’t need to return to work in person until January 2022. “Given the recent health data showing rising Covid cases based on the delta variant, our teams in the US will not be required to go back to the office until January 2022,” Tracy Clayton, a Facebook spokesperson, in a statement. “We expect this to be the case for some countries outside of the U.S., as well. We continue to monitor the situation and work with experts to ensure our return to office plans prioritize everyone’s safety.” (Wagner and Leach, 8/12)

Early findings posted ahead of rigorous peer review suggested the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine declined to 42% effectiveness against infection amid sweeping spread of the delta variant, with the Moderna vaccine declining to 76%. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic and Cambridge-based biotech company nference posted the retrospective study in medrxiv this week, drawing from tens of thousands PCR tests conducted at the Mayo Clinic and affiliated hospitals across nearly half a dozen states. (Rivas, 8/12)

Children experiencing lingering symptoms weeks to months after initial COVID-19 infection, or so-called long COVID, most often face fatigue and headache, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said during a White House briefing. Walensky said the health agency is examining the condition among kids, and noted the rates appear to be lower than that among adults, at about 2%-3%, and efforts will continue as the delta variant sweeps the U.S. and exacerbates the country’s case count. (Rivas, 8/12)

Two years ago, a sneeze or a cough wouldn’t have been cause for concern, but now even the mildest of symptoms can leave us wondering, “Do I have Covid?” Early in the pandemic, we learned about the hallmark signs of infection, which can include loss of taste and smell, fever, cough, shortness of breath and fatigue. But what about now, more than a year later? Have symptoms changed given that the Delta variant is currently the most common form of the virus in the United States? (Caron, 8/12)