“Two weeks ago, only two or three children a day would come into Dr. Nick Hysmith’s hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, with Covid-19, usually ones who were admitted for other reasons, like broken bones. This week, he is seeing as many as 28 children under 18 a day, some of them landing in the intensive care unit. Around the country, child hospitalizations for Covid-19 have increased to levels not seen since January, when U.S. cases and deaths were at their highest levels, according to the latest government data. Doctors in the hospitals hardest hit by the recent surge say the situation is worse than it was in January. As of Wednesday, U.S. hospitals were tending to an average of more than 1,200 children a day, twice the number from the end of July and four times from the start of July, according to an NBC News analysis of data released this week by the Department of Health and Human Services. The data show the U.S. facing another peak in child hospitalizations as the delta variant of the coronavirus hits communities hesitant to get vaccinated. And while unvaccinated adults are filling ICUs in parts of the South, minors in those areas are filling up the pediatric wings at an alarming pace” NBC News reports.

Making matters worse, Republican governors are doing everything they can to fight vaccine and mask mandates in their states. Anti-vax and anti-mask protests are growing violent in some parts of the country, and many local police departments that are heavily infiltrated by MAGA officers who are refusing to do their jobs and step in to stop the violence. Even when right wing extremists are arrested for crimes such as murder, they are often let out on bail and allowed to roam around the country, ignoring the terms of their pretrial release without penalty.