Jim, thank you for that. I am Michael Smirconish,

Infercris Cuomo. Welcome to the prime time COVID command center.

We have finally crossed the halfway mark, but still a long way to go.

You can't stop now. Half the US population now fully vaccinated nearly seven months after the

vaccine rollout began. That's 165 million completely immunized, 193 million with at least one shot.

New vaccinations are up 11% from last week, all very encouraging signs, but we're not moving fast

enough to outpace the delta surge and the other variants, perhaps more deadly that could be on the

horizon. New COVID cases in America grew 48% over the past week because this virus still has more

than 90 million hosts, the unvaccinated. The Biden administration now considering the extreme

option of leveraging the federal government's powers to help turn this pandemic around. Early

states talks about withholding funding from some institutions like nursing homes to boost staff

vaccinations. That's how dire the fight is. They're literally throwing away doses in states like

Alabama, according to a health official there, because they've expired with not enough people

going to get them. We can't afford to waste what's saving lives. Some of the unvaccinated who've

already been infected with COVID cling to the notion that they have natural immunity,

but the CDC today is strongly urging the recovered now to get vaxed and they're backing it with

data that proves the vaccines more than have their chance of reinfection than natural immunity does.

This is about protecting one another, protecting children who are now in one of the most at-risk

categories because many are too young to be vaxed. An 11-month-old COVID patient in Texas just

airlifted to another hospital 150 miles away because there was no bed space for her. None of the

major pediatric hospitals in the Houston area have beds available to a local spokeswoman, heartbreaking

stuff. Florida leads the nation in hospitalized children. It reported more cases overall

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