Anderson, thank you.

I am Michael Smerkontisch, Infra-Kris Cuomo, and welcome to the Primetime COVID Command

Center.

Not since the beginning of this pandemic have there been this many hospitalized with COVID

in America.

Not since February of 2020, about 80,000 are hospitalized, and we have vaccines now.

That's what makes it especially tragic to see our hospitals on the brink once again.

Five states have fewer than 10% of ICU beds available now, Alabama, Texas, Georgia.

Florida, and Mississippi.

Florida and Texas alone account for nearly 40% of new hospitalizations, more COVID cases

than 30 other states combined.

They also have defiant governors who appear to be siding with some notion of freedom rather

than the combination of masks and vaccinations.

We're about to talk to a county judge in Dallas, challenging Texas governor Abbott's order

banning mask mandates, and listen to this dire warning he just gave to parents.

But in Dallas, we have zero ICU beds left for children.

That means if your child's in a car wreck, if your child has a heart, a congenital heart

defect or something needs an ICU bed or more likely if they have COVID need an ICU bed,

we don't have one.

Your child will wait for another child to die.

The Texas Department of Health pushing back saying the shortage of pediatric ICU beds

in Dallas County is related to a shortage in medical personnel, saying they can't use

...