WASHINGTON: With the United States recording its highest daily Covid case load in six months, a top public health official warned Sunday that the country is "failing."

"We should not really have ever got to the place we are," Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said on ABC's "This Week."

"In that regard, yes, we are failing."

A surge in the highly transmissible Delta variant has brought a slew of bad news: total daily new cases have surged to 118,000, their highest since February; deaths are up 89 percent over the past two weeks, even while slightly declining around the world; and children's hospitals in US states like Florida are being "overwhelmed" as young people are increasingly affected.

Fears about the Delta variant have sparked a surge in vaccination rates. Yet millions, especially in conservative areas, remain skeptical despite ample scientific data confirming the vaccines' safety.

"We would not be in the place we are right now with this Delta surge if we had been more effective in getting everybody" vaccinated, Collins said.

"Now we're paying a terrible price."

Another top health official, Anthony Fauci, meantime pointed to possible final approval of key vaccines from the federal Food and Drug Administration this month - something some skeptics have said they need to hear.

"I hope that it's within the month of August," Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease told NBC's "Meet the Press."

But children under 12 are not yet eligible for the vaccines, and Collins said the number of children hospitalized with Covid is now at an all-time high of 1,450.

Amid renewed debate over mask-wearing, Collins said that if children returning to in-person schooling are not required to wear masks, "this virus will spread more widely. "It will probably result in outbreaks in schools, and kids will have to go back to remote learning, which is the one thing we want to prevent."

The US Centers for Disease Control said in a Twitter message Sunday that even asymptomatic children can spread Covid-19, adding, "Children 2 years or older should wear masks in public indoor settings, including schools."

US Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Sunday urged schools, many of which are holding free Covid vaccination clinics, "to follow the guidance from CDC, and let our education leaders lead." He was appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation."

In Florida, one of the states hardest-hit by the latest surge, Governor Ron DeSantis sparked a political furor when he issued an order barring the state's school districts from mandating mask-wearing. But with hospitals in the state struggling under a heavy patient load, a handful of school districts said they would defy the order.