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Sens. Roger Wicker, Angus King and John Hickenlooper all have Covid-19 breakthrough infections, their respective offices announced Thursday. Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi, and King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats, both tested positive for the virus following mild symptoms, according to their statements, released earlier in the day. Later on Thursday, Hickenlooper, a Democrat from Colorado, announced that he, too, tested positive following mild symptoms. (Sheehey, 8/19)

Breakthrough infections continue to hit Capitol Hill, with Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Angus King of Maine and John Hickenlooper of Colorado the latest fully vaccinated members of Congress to announce positive coronavirus cases. The three senators all announced their positive tests on Thursday, stressing that they had just mild symptoms. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Ralph Norman, and Florida Rep. Vern Buchanan recently announced similar breakthrough infections. Buchanan lost a staffer to the illness last year. (Grisales and Carlsen, 8/19)

Deaths are rising in 42 states, the worst tally seen since December. In the week ending Wednesday, the U.S. reported 5,742 deaths, nearly double the total from two weeks earlier. The 10,991 Americans who died of COVID-19 in the first 18 days of August are already more than all the fatalities in June or July. The nearly 2.2 million U.S. cases in those first 18 days make this the fifth-worst month in the pandemic, blowing past the highest monthly totals of the 2020 spring and summer surges, with case counts rising in 44 states. (Ortiz and Fernando, 8/19)

Mississippi leads the nation in COVID-19 cases per capita, with 118 cases per 100,000 people, according to a New York Times database. The United States averages 42 per 100,000. The U.S. has had a 47% increase in positive cases in the past two weeks. In Mississippi, the number jumped by over 90%. With rapidly rising case counts in the state, hospitalizations have skyrocketed. For the past week, Mississippi health officials have relayed the message: the state's health care systems are on the brink of failure. (Haselhorst, 8/19)

Dr. Edward Clark, chief medical officer of the Beverly Knight Olson Children’s Hospital and head of pediatrics for the Medical Center at Atrium Health, says he is running out of hospital beds. “We’re kind of working at our limits,” Clark said Wednesday outside the Macon hospital. The pediatric intensive and medium care units are nearly full in the second largest hospital in Georgia. (Blankenship, 8/19)

Several Georgia hospital systems gathered Thursday morning at Mercedes-Benz Stadium to address the public on the state of COVID-19 in our communities. They addressed "an urgent and unified call to action to address the ongoing pandemic." ... Officials from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Emory Healthcare, Grady Health System, Northeast Georgia Health System, Piedmont Healthcare, and Wellstar Health System provided a current perspective from the front lines of their hospitals and health systems. That perspective was of worry and exhaustion, as emergency rooms and hospital beds operate at near-full capacity. (Braverman and Nussman, 8/19)

Kentucky hospitals are reaching a “critical point” in finding enough space and staff to treat an influx of COVID-19 patients, Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday. The governor pleaded with the unvaccinated to get inoculated and pushed back aggressively against vaccine and masking skeptics on social media. (Schreiner and Blackburn, 8/20)

Five residents of a state-supported elder-care facility in Ketchikan who tested positive for COVID-19 died in the last week, a state health department spokesperson said Thursday. Clinton Bennett, the spokesperson, in a written response to a question on whether the deaths were COVID-19-related, said the state-supported Pioneer Homes “do not determine the cause of death nor do they see the death certificates of residents.” He said the five residents of the Ketchikan Pioneer Home who recently died “had tested positive for COVID-19.” (Bohrer, 8/20)

KHN: After Pandemic Ravaged Nursing Homes, New State Laws Protect Residents

When the coronavirus hit Martha Leland’s Connecticut nursing home last year, she and dozens of other residents contracted the disease while the facility was on lockdown. Twenty-eight residents died, including her roommate. “The impact of not having friends and family come in and see us for a year was totally devastating,” she said. “And then, the staff all bound up with the masks and the shields on, that too was very difficult to accept.” She summed up the experience in one word: “scary.” (Jaffe, 8/20)

When COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations plummeted in late spring, many large, government-run testing sites from Los Angeles to New York switched to vaccinations or shut down. That was before the highly contagious delta variant became the dominant coronavirus strain, accelerating cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Now Americans are getting checked for COVID-19 at a pace of more than 1 million tests each day, according to Johns Hopkins University. But some experts say it's harder to find testing appointments than last winter, when large, drive-thru sites fueled more than 2 million daily tests. (Alltucker, 8/20)

Kentuckians who are not in need of emergency care should not visit hospitals for COVID-19 testing and should go to a pharmacy or contact their local health department for more resources instead, said Kentucky’s public health commissioner, Dr. Steven Stack. Kentucky’s emergency rooms have been reeling from record-high ICU admissions among virus patients, Stack said Thursday. Patients who arrive at hospitals seeking only a test may have to wait hours and could be billed even if they leave without being tested. (8/20)