With holiday travel now a little more than a week away, COVID cases are rising fast from coast to coast. Health officials in California and New York say people should start wearing masks indoors again. Meanwhile, vaccinations have slowed to a crawl and one key COVID antibody medication does not work on the latest variant. Hospitals around the country are filling fast, partly from COVID but also from rising flu and RSV cases. 

Home births rose significantly during the pandemic. COVID cases filled hospitals in 2020 and 2021 so women decided to give birth at home rather than risk infection. Still, despite the increase, fewer than 2% of all births are at home. 

Millions of Americans, in fact nearly everyone in the Lower 48 states, will experience extreme weather of some sort this week. The forecast calls for floods, heavy rain, blizzards and tornadoes as a powerful weather system moves eastward. Tornadoes could form from eastern Texas to Arkansas, Louisiana and much of Mississippi. The Northern Plains could see a foot of snow this week. Get a load of this weather map from Fox Weather.