(NEW YORK) — Carrie Schweitzer has been a waitress since she was 12.
Now 50, she said back then employers didn’t check, so she lied and told them she was 17.
“I was 13 years old the very first time I had my backside pinched to get an extra tip,” Schweitzer told ABC News.
She’s been in the service industry most of her life, and most of her life the federal minimum wage for tipped workers has been $2.13 an hour. Where Schweitzer works now, in Philadelphia, she gets $2.83 an hour, still far below the $7.25 an hour mandated for other jobs. If she doesn’t earn the base minimum wage through tips, restaurants are legally mandated to pay the rest — although some do not.
In fact, the Labor Department did a two-year investigation of 9,000 restaurants nationwide and found that 84% of restaurants committed some type of violation. But one in nine restaurants violated the law by specifically committing a tipping infraction.
“If I was able to get a full-time wage, I would not have to jump through hoops and do embarrassing things for a tip,” Schweitzer said. “I wouldn’t have to put up with a man calling me ‘baby doll’ or ‘baby girl.'”
“But I’m a waitress,” she added, “so I’m there to be harassed.”
Like over four million Americans, Schweitzer earns most of her income from tips. But despite working more than 40 hours a week, her salary is low enough to qualify for food stamps and state-provided health insurance.
“Working full time and having to accept welfare makes me feel like I’m an unappreciated person,” she said. “There is no excuse for a woman — her entire lifetime — having to put up with verbal abuse and having to put up with sexual abuse just to get a tip to make a living.”
It’s a big reason why she’s pushing for a $15 minimum wage and ending the currently accepted subminimum wage offered to tipped workers.
The Fight for $15, a movement dedicated to raising the federal minimum wage, was a key talking point during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
But in the months since Democrats have gained control of Washington, their attempts to raise the minimum wage have sputtered. Attempts to include a minimum-wage hike in the COVID relief package failed. The Biden administration did what it could, raising the minimum wage for federal workers to $15 an hour.
“The minimum wage itself is woefully inadequate,” Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., told ABC News. “There’s no county in the United States where a full-time minimum wage worker can afford a modest two-bedroom apartment.”
Scott, who introduced the Raise the Wage bill in the House, also emphasized that it would eliminate the subminimum wage.
“So the idea,” he said, “is to have everybody make at least the minimum wage as their base salary — and if they make tips over and above that, that’s fine.”
While some Republicans believe the minimum wage should gradually increase over time, others have said they fear that raising it could lead to job loss, higher prices or force small businesses to close.
But in 30 states and the District of Columbia, lawmakers have stepped in and passed a minimum wage above the $7.25 federal mandate.
When it comes to restaurants, though, margins are already slim and overhead costs are high.
At Virtue, an upscale Southern restaurant in Chicago, Erick Williams said that most of his waitstaff can make at least $50,000 a year.
Recently, the city of Chicago raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour and its subminimum wage to $9 an hour, the latter a win for restauranteurs like Williams.
“No business can sustain higher costs and lower profitability and remain in business,” he told ABC News.
But he also acknowledged that the current policy won’t solve the issues facing so many Americans like Schweitzer and more needs to be done.
“I imagine we would identify restaurants that are not bad actors, that are not earning their wages on the backs of their servers and allowing women to be subjected to abuse at tables,” he said. “I think those are the ones that need to be regulated differently.”
As the Fight for $15 continues, Scott told ABC News that debate on the House floor isn’t over and that Republicans still haven’t offered any concrete alternatives.
“They didn’t offer any,” said Scott, adding that they perhaps could “support something less, and then maybe we can negotiate something in the middle. But we haven’t — they haven’t — passed anything yet.”
Meanwhile, Schweitzer will continue working full time and receiving government assistance just to make ends meet.
“When I hear a lawmaker say that he does not want to raise the minimum wage,” Schweitzer said, “he is telling me he does not care about 50% of America. That’s it. He does not care about us.”
Rapper D Smoke has seen a massive amount of success since winning Netflix’s competition series Rhythm + Flow in 2019. After wowing judges — Cardi B, Chance the Rapper and T.I. — he released his Black Habitsdebut, which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album last year.
As he prepares his sophomore album, D Smoke says he doesn’t feel pressure to release another Grammy-nominated project.
“The only pressure is the pressure to dig deep and go back into yourself and create something that’s honest…dope and…new,” he tells ABC Audio. “So that’s the only pressure, but that pressure is immense enough, because [my team and I] plan on and take pride in being different.”
The Inglewood, California, artist says his forthcoming album somewhat reflects his recent single “I’m Alive,” featuring rising singer Asia Fuqua. The song is featured in Infinite, a new film from director Antoine Fuqua, who is Asia’s father.
“‘I’m Alive’ is in some ways…similar to what we’re putting out. I wouldn’t say sonically, but in the sense that it’s one of those concepts that challenged me to dig deep and talk about something that’s conceptual,” D Smoke explains. “The movie is very conceptual, abstract, and beautiful in that way. So I always try to approach my life and the stories I want to tell in the music as somewhat of a movie.”
(OCEAN CITY, Maryland) — A Fourth of July fireworks celebration in Ocean City, Maryland, was canceled after some rockets ignited prematurely and shocked a crowd of beachgoers.
Firefighters responded to a call to the beach in the morning to discover fireworks going off. Beachgoers were seen fleeing and looking on with confusion.
No beachgoers were injured. An employee of the fireworks company received minor injuries but refused transportation to the hospital, investigators said.
City leaders announced later Sunday afternoon that all holiday fireworks displays would be canceled out of an abundance of caution.
The cause of the premature discharge is under investigation, with authorities closing off parts of the boardwalk to pedestrians.
(SURFSIDE, Fla.) — Search and rescue crews looking for 121 people at the partially collapsed South Florida condominium remained in a holding pattern Sunday afternoon as demolition crews prepared to bring down the rest of the structurally compromised building.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told reporters Sunday morning that she didn’t have a definitive timetable as to when the demolition would begin as crews ae still were doing preliminary work on the site. Search crews suspended efforts Saturday and won’t resume until after the demolition.
“As both the governor and I made clear, our top priority is that the building come down as soon as possible, no matter what time that occurs, and as safely as possible,” Levine Cava said.
The partial collapse occurred around 1:15 a.m. on June 24 at the Champlain Towers South condominium in the small, beachside town of Surfside, about 6 miles north of Miami Beach.
Approximately 55 of the oceanfront complex’s 136 units were destroyed, according to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Assistant Chief Raide Jadallah. Since then, hundreds of first responders have been carefully combing through debris in hopes of finding survivors.
As of Sunday, the death toll has risen to 24 people.
A letter from the board of directors of Champlain Towers East, obtained by ABC News, told residents on Sunday that they didn’t know when the other building would come down but “the most common estimate is sometime early evening today.”
The board advised residents to evacuate as soon as possible to avoid traffic.
Levine Cava said other residents nearby wouldn’t need to evacuate but were urged to stay indoors, close their windows and turn off their air conditioners to keep out dust from the demolition.
She said the demolition will be in the form of an “energetic felling,” which “uses small, strategically placed detonations and relies on the force of gravity to bring the building down in place, right on this footprint.”
Search and rescue teams will continue with their operations, “very shortly after the demolition,” Levine Cava added.
The mayor also noted that the all of the crews are working to get as much work done before Tropical Storm Elsa arrives.
Preparations are now being made for Elsa, which weakened from a hurricane in the morning and is expected to come near southern Florida on Monday, into Tuesday. A cover has been placed on the part of the debris field that is closest to the building, Cava said.
On Saturday, Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for several counties in anticipation of Elsa. Heat, humidity, heavy rain, strong winds and lightning storms also have made the conditions difficult for rescuers, periodically forcing them to pause their round-the-clock efforts in recent days.
On Friday, two more bodies were found in the wreckage as crews search the area of the collapse, officials said. Two more bodies were recovered overnight, officials announced Saturday.
Two bodies were discovered Thursday evening, including that of a 7-year-old daughter of a Miami firefighter, according to Levine Cava. The firefighter was not part of the crew that discovered the girl’s body.
“It goes without saying that every night since this last Wednesday has been immensely difficult,” Levine Cava said during a press briefing in Surfside on Friday morning. “But last night was uniquely different. It was truly different and more difficult for our first responders.”
Meanwhile, 191 people who were living or staying in the condominium at the time of the disaster have been accounted for and are safe, according to Levine Cava, who has stressed that the figures are “very fluid” and “continue to change.”
The number of those accounted for has gone up as detectives continue to audit the list of people reported missing, a development that Levine Cava called “very good news.”
However, no survivors have been discovered in the rubble of the building since the morning it partially collapsed, and the hope that more people would be found alive appeared to be fading Friday.
Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said rescue workers are “emotional” after the discovery of a first responder’s own daughter, which “takes a toll.” But he said that won’t stop them from continuing to search for those who are still missing.
“I just was hoping that we would have some survivors,” Cominsky said at a press briefing on Friday morning.
Speaking on the signing the emergency order to demolish the remainder of the building earlier this week, Levine Cava said the move will “help us move quickly.”
The structure was cleared by crews last week, and all search and rescue resources have since been shifted to focusing on the pile of rubble. But the two sites are side-by-side and the remaining building has posed challenges for the rescuers trying to locate any survivors or human remains in the wreckage.
“Given our ongoing safety concerns about the integrity of the building, we’re continuing to restrict access to the collapse zone,” Levine Cava said during a press briefing in Surfside on Thursday evening.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden traveled to Surfside on Thursday to meet with officials, first responders, search and rescue teams, as well as families of the victims. Recalling the 1972 car accident that killed his first wife and 1-year-old daughter as well as badly injuring his two sons, the president told reporters: “It’s bad enough to lose somebody but the hard part, the really hard part, is to not know whether they’ll survive or not.”
The cause of the partial collapse to a building that has withstood decades of hurricanes remains unknown and is under investigation.
Built in the 1980s, the Champlain Towers South was up for its 40-year recertification and had been undergoing roof work — with more renovations planned — when it partially collapsed, according to officials.
A structural field survey report from October 2018, which was among hundreds of pages of public documents released by the town of Surfside late Sunday, said the waterproofing below the condominium’s pool deck and entrance drive was failing and causing “major structural damage to the concrete structural slab below these areas.”
A slew of lawsuits against the Champlain Towers South Condo Association have already been filed on behalf of survivors and victims, alleging the partial collapse could have been avoided and that the association knew or should have known about the structural damage. A spokesperson for the association told ABC News they cannot comment on pending litigation but that their “focus remains on caring for our friends and neighbors during this difficult time.”
The association’s board released a statement Friday saying its surviving members “have concluded that, in the best interest of all concerned parties, an independent Receiver should be appointed to oversee the legal and claims process.”
“We know that answers will take time as part of a comprehensive investigation,” the statement continued, “and we will continue to work with city, state, local, and federal officials in their rescue efforts, and to understand the causes of this tragedy.”
In the wake of the Surfside building collapse, the city of North Miami Beach ordered that another condominium close immediately amid safety concerns connected to the 40-year recertification process, officials said.
The Crestview Towers Condominium is “structurally and electrically unsafe,” based on the review of a recertification report submitted Friday, city officials said in a statement.
“The city of North Miami Beach has taken the steps that we recommended to review to make sure that the recertification process was being done in a timely basis. And as I understand it, as a result of that audit, they found a building that had not been recertified, and when the information came in, they took some steps,” Levine Cava said Friday evening.
Some 300 residents have to evacuate, according to ABC Miami affiliate WPLG, while a full structural assessment is conducted.
The 156-unit condo was built in 1972.
ABC News’ Will Gretsky, Meredith Deliso, Marlene Lenthang and Morgan Windsor contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The lead White House COVID-19 response coordinator acknowledged Sunday that younger Americans feel less vulnerable to COVID-19, making them less likely to get vaccinated.
“Younger particularly those in their 20s, have felt less vulnerable to the disease and, therefore, less eager to get shots. They were made eligible later so they have not been eligible as long and we continue to see hundreds of thousands of young people vaccinated each week,” Jeff Zients told ABC “This Week” Co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
“If you are vaccinated, you’re protected. And if you’re not vaccinated, you’re not protected. And that’s particularly important for everyone, including young people, in light of delta variant,” Zients added.
However, in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, among those not vaccinated, 74% said they probably or definitely won’t get a shot, which is up from 55% in April.
The high percentage of unvaccinated people who do not want to get a shot is raising concerns that vaccine rates could remain stagnant as the highly transmissible delta variant of COVID-19 spreads across the country. It’s estimated that the delta variant was found in approximately 26% of new coronavirus cases in the U.S.
“Our polls even show that 74% of those people will probably not or definitely won’t get a shot. So what does it mean for getting rid of the virus nationwide? Will it continue to be with us indefinitely?” Raddatz asked.
“We are seeing increases in cases in those areas in the country where there’s lower vaccination rates. So, it’s really important that people get vaccinated,” Zients responded. “The good news is confidence in the vaccine — those saying they’re willing to get vaccinated — has increased across time as more and more people know people who’ve been vaccinated and can see the benefits of being vaccinated.”
This type of encouragement might be working for some, including 20-year-old Ally Kirk of West Virginia, who told Martha Raddatz earlier this week she changed her mind and decided to get vaccinated.
“A lot of my friends started getting it. My parents were vaccinated. I felt a lot more comfortable with it. I did some research on my own. And I felt that it was time for me to get it. I was ready. I’m ready to move past COVID and get on with life back to normal,” Kirk told Raddatz.
“We do have a lot to celebrate,” Zients said Sunday. “We are much further along than I think anyone anticipated in this fight against the pandemic,” adding that 90% of adults 65 or older have received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine.
But Raddatz pressed Zients for a more direct answer on the impact the unvaccinated will have on the nation’s fight to end the pandemic.
“But what does it mean for the nation if we have all these unvaccinated people who say they’re just not going to get it?” Raddatz asked.
“Well, we are — we are vaccinating millions of Americans each week. And we’re going to continue to do that. We’re going to continue to drive up the vaccination rate and we’re optimistic that more and more people will get vaccinated,” Zients responded.
As the Biden administration has officially fallen short of its goal to fully immunize 160 million Americans and to ensure 70% of adults get at least one shot by the Fourth of July, Raddatz also asked Zients about the mixed messaging of President Joe Biden preparing to host more than 1,000 first responders at the White House for Independence Day.
“I assume they’re taking precautions. But is having large crowds gather really the right message right now?” Raddatz asked.
“The event at the White House is being done in the right way. It’s an outdoor event with testing and screening. Vaccinated people are not wearing masks. Unvaccinated people masked,” Zients responded. “That said, we are doubling down on our efforts. Across the summer months, we will vaccinate millions more people because you need to get vaccinated to be protected against the Delta variant, and against this disease overall.”
(WASHINGTON) — A man has been arrested after allegedly crashing his car just outside the Washington Monument, missing several people who were walking around the landmark Saturday night, police said.
No pedestrians were injured during the incident, which took place around 7:23 p.m., the United States Park Police said in a statement.
Officers responded to the scene and found the SUV, which was covered in signs and had an American flag hanging from its passenger-side door, crashed into the security barrier at 14th Street and Constitution Avenue.
The unidentified driver suffered minor injuries and was arrested at the scene, the police said. The suspect was charged with attempted assault with a dangerous weapon (automobile) and is awaiting a court appearance as of Sunday morning.
No motive has been revealed, and the investigation is ongoing, police said.
The incident took place about 24 hours before crowds were expected to gather at the National Mall for Fourth of July celebrations.
(NEW YORK) — The Tokyo Olympics will expand its lineup of competitions with three sports that have long been championed for recognition on the global stage: skateboarding, surfing and indoor climbing.
For decades, these sports were largely represented in the U.S. by white and male superstars — including skater Tony Hawk, surfer Kelly Slater and climber Alex Honnold — but the games have the potential to change that narrative going forward for millions of minority and female fans around the world.
Lou Harris, a longtime surfer from Queens, New York who runs the local chapter of the Black Surfing Association, a surfing school that caters to young minorities, told ABC News that the display of talent from diverse athletes around the world is sure to inspire a new generation.
“They’re going to see everyone cheering them on,” Harris told ABC News. “They’re going to see Black surfers and Asian surfers and women surfers and think, ‘Hey you know, maybe I can do that.'”
The U.S. will be among the 17 nations competing in surfing, 19 nations competing in climbing events and 26 nations competing in skateboarding events for both men’s and women’s divisions. The U.S. surfing and climbing teams are each made up of two men and two women while the U.S. skateboarding team, which is separated into park and street divisions, are made up six men and women.
The skateboarding team has three members who are minorities while the other two sports are made up of all white athletes. The American teams did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mariah Duran, who’s leading the U.S. women’s Olympic street skate team, and Kyra Condie, who is on the U.S. Olympic climbing team, told ABC News they were proud to be poised to make history in Tokyo.
“As long as the sport continues to grow, that’s the ultimate goal,” Duran told ABC News about skateboarding.
Duran, Condie and Harris all reflected on their journeys in their respective sports and how the changes in the community have led to this moment.
“In general it is getting better but we still have a long way to go,” Condie told ABC News.
Catching the bug
Each of the athletes interviewed by ABC News said they got started in their sport almost the minute they saw it in person.
Harris moved to Rockaway Beach in Queens, in 2006 and said his jaw dropped when he encountered the surfers there.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God. There are surfers here? In New York?'” Harris, 49, recollected.
He said his girlfriend at the time saw his excitement and encouraged him to join in. Harris went to a local surf shop, got his first board and taught himself how to ride the waves.
“The day I caught my first wave I was like, wow, I did that myself,” he said.
Condie, 25, also got into climbing through a chance encounter around the same time. The St. Paul, Minnesota native was at a rock climbing gym for a childhood birthday party when a gym coach took notice of how adept she was.
The then 10-year-old accepted the coach’s offer to join the team.
“I pretty much immediately saw there were competition possibilities in climbing and that really suited me,” Condie said.
Climbing, for her, was more exhilarating than other sports, because she sees every competition as its own unique experience.
“I’m figuring something out and doing some fun moves that feel really interesting and jumping around and swinging out,” she said.
Duran, 24, said skateboarding similarly called to her.
The Albuquerque, New Mexico native said she followed her brother into any sport or game that he took part in, but it was skateboarding that really excited her.
There was no structured training, like when she would have to spend hours practicing for baseball. Instead, it was all up to her. Every perfect ollie, every stumble and every grind made her a stronger skater, she said.
“The individual satisfaction you get from pushing yourself and getting up after slamming, that’s just the part that I love about skating,” Duran said.
Progress, but still long roads ahead
Each of the three new Olympic sports have grown their women and minority communities by varying degrees.
A survey released in February 2020 by the University of Southern California found that 46% of skaters were non-white and a quarter were women. The study, which was funded by the Tony Hawk Foundation, revealed that skaters of color felt a degree of “safety from judgment” within the skateboarding community.
“Our research shows that through skateboarding, skaters develop the ability to communicate and build relationships with people from diverse backgrounds,” Neftalie Williams, a co-author of the report, said in a news release.
Women and minority pioneers from the 80s and 90s like Elissa Steamer, Eric Koton and Kareem Campbell paved the way for this year’s Olympic skateboarding teams. Among the six male skaters on Team USA are Nyjah Huston and Heimana Reynolds, who are both of Asian, Pacific Islander descent, and Zion Wright, who is Black.
Duran said she feels honored being part of the sport’s evolution and sharing the field with the five other women skaters. She said she never felt awkward taking part in events even when there were so few women competing at smaller, local events early in her career.
“I was always that person. I was the only girl on the baseball team or the only girl who wanted to play football on the field,” she said.
The climbing world, on the other hand, has had to deal with some growing pains. The sport has more barriers to entry since climbing gyms are scarce in parts of the country, according to Condie.
She added that climbing isn’t an NCAA sport, so athletes have fewer opportunities for scholarships while competing.
A 2016 survey by Flash Foxy, an online community for women climbers, suggested that women have the additional barrier to scale, misogyny. The survey found that women climbers were two and a half times more likely to experience microaggressions in the gym than men climbers.
Condie said she experienced this when she was a teen climber when she was turned down by her local gym to be part of its setting team, which places the grips on the climbing wall, in favor of its male members.
“Looking back, that probably wouldn’t have happened if I was a guy,” Condie said. In the end, she said, instances like that pushed her to train harder.
While Black and Latino surfers may be common in places like the Caribbean and Latin America, diversity has been more of a struggle in America. In fact, the U.S. Olympic surf team is all white.
Harris said when he started out surfing, he got bewildered stares from beachgoers who had never seen a Black man with a board. Even though he’s now a popular member of the Rockaway Beach scene, he says he still faces some struggles from people not used to the changing demographics.
He recalled one instance where a white woman from Manhattan contacted him for lessons. When she arrived, Harris introduced himself, but got an unexpected reaction.
“She looked at me and was like, ‘You’re not Louis,'” Harris recalled.
After other surfers told her that Harris was the instructor, she ran back and apologized. Harris said he forgave her.
“Now we’re good friends,” Harris said.
Giving Back
One of the ways the athletes said they are working to change these barriers is by promoting their sports to younger minorities and women.
Harris was teaching surfing for years but in 2016 he says he decided to offer free lessons to children in the neighborhood, creating the Rockaway branch of the Black Surfing Association after reading a story about a deadly fire that was started by a minor who told investigators he was bored.
Harris said that he’s heard from dozens of Black, Latino and other minority families over the years who expressed interest in getting their kids into surfing after years of hesitation.
“They’re like, ‘My son or my daughter wants to surf, but we don’t know how to do it,'” Harris said. “They don’t want to be embarrassed in front of all of the white kids.”
Harris said he’s helped to ease those apprehensions by promoting his program and his diverse group of surfers with presentations on the beach, pep talks at local schools, and most importantly on social media.
Duran said she’s seen more women hit the half pipes and skate parks and add to their unique personalities and styles to the sport.
Many are inspired by seeing the videos of women competing in professional competitions, amateur acts and other tricks online, according to Duran.
“I’ve kind of described it as a tree,” Duran said of the skateboarding community. “The root and the culture are always going to be the same, but you can branch as far as you want out of it. There is no right or wrong way.”
Condie has also been using her social media platforms to promote climbing among underrepresented athletes, and show that not every day is a walk in the park.
Condie said for every Instagram story showing a successful, quick climb there’s one where she stumbles or takes longer than her usual best.
Condie said she’s most proud of the feedback that she gets online, anytime she promotes women and minority climbers who typically don’t get the spotlight.
She said she’s most looking forward to having her sport boosted by the Olympics.
Making a mark in Tokyo
When the International Olympic Committee announced in 2016 that climbing would be an Olympic sport at Tokyo, Condie said she did not hesitate to try out for the team.
After years three years of practice, competitions and qualifying, she said she’s anxious to make history with other top climbers, such as Nathaniel Coleman, Colin Duffy and Brooke Raboutou.
“I think everybody is like-minded and great role models for the sport, and that’s something I’m proud of,” she said.
Duran said she still can’t believe that skateboarding and the Olympics will be said in the same sentence, and that she qualified for the team. She added that she would be honored if one or two more girls picked up a board just from seeing the women’s team.
“I quit all of my other sports that could potentially be in the Olympics to skate,” Duran said. “It was more of a confirmation that I was meant to be here.”
While the U.S. Olympic surfing team doesn’t have any minorities, Harris predicted the sport’s worldwide coverage will excite and inspire fans from all over the world.
Harris likened it to when he saw “The Karate Kid” as a teenager and immediately began practicing martial arts. He recommended that surfing schools and other organizations should start planning for that rise in demand.
“I’m telling you everyone is going to get a commemorative surfing board when this is done,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — As the country marks its 245th Independence Day, the Biden administration has officially missed its target of getting 70% of all adults at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. And as state governments examine what went wrong with their vaccine rollout programs, a culprit is clear: the younger population is significantly less likely to be vaccinated.
“At the end of the day, the young people — we’re having a hard time getting them across the finish line and getting them vaccinated,” West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice told ABC “This Week” Co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
“They’re young people all across this country that are not getting vaccinated,” Justice added. “It’s a challenge. That’s all there is to it.”
Nationally, 67% of all adults have received one dose, but only 56.1% of adults in West Virginia have received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine — a surprise from a state that was lauded months ago as being one of the leaders in the U.S. on vaccine distribution.
When that statistic is broken down by age group, the vaccination rate plummets in younger generations. While more than 78% of the U.S. population over the age of 65 is vaccinated in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 39.5% of 18- to 24-year-olds are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
“Let’s go back to who’s not getting vaccinated,” Raddatz said. “The statistics will show it’s poverty, race and you just look at the map — it’s a lot of red states.”
“Well, I mean, there’s some truth to that and everything,” Justice responded. “Because, you know, the red states probably have a lot of people that, you know, are very, very conservative in their thinking. And they think, ‘Well, I don’t have to do that.’ But they’re not thinking right.”
“Do you really think those people who aren’t vaccinated — who as you said may be more conservative, may not want anybody in their business — are really ever going to get vaccinated?” Raddatz asked. “What could actually put them over the edge to want it at this point?”
“Well, Martha, I hate to say this, is what would put them over the edge, is an awful lot of people die,” Justice responded. “The only way that’s going to happen is a catastrophe that none of us want.”
“And so, we’re just going to keep trying,” he added.
As nationwide vaccinations fall short of Pres. Biden’s July Fourth deadline to get 70% of adults at least one shot, @MarthaRaddatz was on the ground in West Virginia speaking with young adults still hesitant to get the vaccine. https://t.co/XaQ0O17OQspic.twitter.com/0Aq2N5gMWl
In the capital of West Virginia, the local Kanawha-Charleston Health Department is only vaccinating eight to 10 people a day, according to Dr. Sherri Young, a health officer and the executive director of the health department. On their best day earlier this year, they had administered 5,344 shots.
“Do you think that last little trickle out there — which is pretty sizable — will ever do it?” Raddatz asked Young.
“Probably not,” Young replied.
According to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, 74% of people who are unvaccinated probably won’t get a shot, which is up from 55% in April.
While reporting in West Virginia, ABC News came across dozens of individuals under the age of 35 who were still unvaccinated.
William Paterson, 22, of Morgantown, West Virginia, told Raddatz he would “probably not” get the vaccine because he felt he wasn’t at risk.
“Do you worry that you might give it to someone else?” Raddatz asked Paterson.
“A lot of the people in my family that are at health risks are already vaccinated, so I’m not really that worried about it right now,” he replied.
The state of West Virginia has continued to try incentivizing people to get vaccinated, offering multiple lotteries: a million dollar cash prize, custom-outfitted trucks, full four-year scholarships to any public institution in the state, lifetime hunting and fishing licenses, custom hunting rifles and shotguns, and getaways to West Virginia State Parks.
When asked if the vaccine lottery swayed his decision to get vaccinated, Paterson said “it doesn’t change anything really.”
Justice told ABC News that people are gambling with their lives.
“When it really boils right down to it, they’re in a lottery to themselves,” Justice said. “We have a lottery, you know, that basically says, ‘if you’re vaccinated, we’re going to give you stuff.'” “Well you’ve got another lottery going on,” Justice later added. “And it’s the death lottery.”
“I was saying earlier, that it’s the old, ‘you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make ’em drink,’ right?” Raddatz said to the governor. “You’ve provided the vaccine, and yet…”
“Maybe what you got to do is lead them to water — and then if they won’t drink — you’ve got to just, some way, stand up and push their head down to some way — at least a few will drink,” Justice responded. “And that’s what we got to do.”
Some young adults are gradually visiting their local pharmacies though. Ally Kirk, 20, got vaccinated the day ABC News spoke with her.
“Well, a lot of my friends started getting it,” Kirk told Raddatz, while explaining what changed her mind about getting vaccinated. “My parents were vaccinated. I felt a lot more comfortable with it. I did some research on my own, and I felt that it was time for me to get it. I was ready. I’m ready to move past COVID and get on with life back to normal.”
ABC “This Week” Co-anchor Martha Raddatz and ABC News’ Nate Luna contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Drug and alcohol-related jail deaths have skyrocketed in recent years, according to a recent report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and experts say that spike goes hand-in-hand with the continued criminalization of substance abuse in the United States and lack of treatment.
Deaths spiked between 2000 and 2018, increasing by roughly 381% — the largest increase of any cause by a margin, according to the BJS report. The report did not elaborate on the specific causes of death.
The time period also coincided with increased opioid use and large numbers of drug arrests, mainly for possession.
Substance abuse is classified as a mental illness, by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a federal agency, but has long been treated as a criminal offense by the justice system, rather than a public health issue, NIDA’s Dr. Redonna Chandler told ABC News.
“The fact that we have criminalized some of these things and used punishment as a form of dealing with it goes along with the stigmatized idea that substance use disorders and addiction are a moral choice,” Chandler said. “What we actually know from many years of science is that substance use disorders are involved in a fundamental change within the brain, and within neural circuitry.”
Some experts, like Dr. Kevin Fiscella, a professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center, predict that the number of drug and alcohol-related deaths could be higher because these fatalities may have been recorded as being related to other underlying conditions.
Chandler and Fiscella say that improving systems of treatment and rehabilitation can prevent these deaths, reduce recidivism and end the stigma against people who experience substance abuse.
The first step to addressing the problem, Chandler said, is addressing the over-policing and under-treatment of substance abuse.
The criminalization of substance abuse in the U.S.
Willy Sorila, a 28-year-old formerly incarcerated man and an operations manager at the Aspen Ridge Recovery Center in Colorado, said he could have died while in jail for drug distribution due to a forced withdrawal from benzodiazepine, a psychoactive drug.
Sorila, who is still in recovery, recalls having seizures while experiencing withdrawal and receiving no formal treatment for his substance abuse while incarcerated. After leaving jail after a week, he said he later fell into opioid abuse.
“That first time around was very scary,” Sorila said of the withdrawal. “If we’re truly wanting to release people from jail or prison back into society and give them a fair chance at fighting, I think that’s where the treatment really needs to start.”
Sorila said he was given a sports drink and ibuprofen to treat his pain.
Sorila now works to help others on their path to recovery — but he said he’s one of the lucky ones who was able to get out of the cycle of incarceration and addiction.
Of all the people who are incarcerated, the Drug Policy Alliance reports 1 in 5 people are jailed for a drug offense.
And roughly 63% of sentenced people in jail met the criteria for drug dependence or abuse, according to data collected by the National Inmate Surveys in the late 2000s, released in 2017.
In this survey, about 61% of people sentenced and incarcerated for violent offenses met the criteria for drug dependence or abuse. That number rose to 72% for property damage offenses and 74% for drug offenses.
“Many poor folks who don’t have insurance can’t get access or very easy access to substance abuse treatment, mental health treatment, and they end up cycling into the jails,” Fiscella said. “The jails, based on training, based on the culture and based on the resources, their budgets are really struggling to treat people with drug and alcohol [abuse].”
More than 1 million of the approximately 1.5 million drug law violation arrests in 2019, according to the Drug Policy Alliance, were caused by heroin, cocaine, synthetic drugs, and non-narcotic drugs. The remaining 545,000 were marijuana arrests. There were more than 10 million arrests made in 2019.
Since the justice system has disproportionately impacted marginalized, low-income communities, activists have long fought to end the criminalization of hard drugs, and in 2020, they achieved that goal in Oregon.
Oregon is the first and only state to decriminalize the possession of hard drugs, including heroin, methamphetamine, LSD, oxycodone and more. Now, possession of these drugs could lead to a fine or addiction counseling.
Supporters of the law said that it would help focus on addressing the source of abuse issues, instead of forcing mostly impoverished and marginalized people into incarceration.
“Criminalizing the addict makes it harder for them to have the opportunity of seeking out treatment,” Sorila said.
It is unclear how this decriminalization in Oregon has impacted incarceration rates thus far. Though more states are considering the decriminalization of hard drugs to focus on rehabilitation, the push by advocates for proper treatment continues in jails across the country.
What addiction looks like behind bars
Forced withdrawal, as Sorila experienced, particularly from alcohol and benzodiazepines, can be deadly, according to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the National Library of Medicine. Benzodiazepine withdrawal often requires medications to help patients safely discontinue its use and reduce life-threatening withdrawal complications.
Symptoms of withdrawal can include headaches, nausea, tremors, hallucinations, heart palpitations, seizures, and more, the organizations say.
When paired with an underlying health condition, Fiscella said, forced withdrawal, overdosing and drug or alcohol use can be fatal without proper or immediate access to care.
It is not clear how many people have died while in withdrawal, but there have been reports in several states.
In the Journal of Correctional Health Care article “Drug- and Alcohol-Associated Deaths in U.S. Jails,” Fiscella and his fellow researchers from across the country found that drug- and alcohol-related deaths may be a bigger problem than realized in the data due to how deaths are tracked by the facilities.
The study looked at more than 1,400 drug- and alcohol-related deaths nationwide in jails from 2000-2013 and found that 103 were associated with withdrawal.
“Many of these deaths are preventable, but we need new ways of addressing the problem,” Fiscella said.
Most correctional facilities in the U.S, according to research from NIDA and the National Institute of Health, have discontinued their methadone treatment for opioid addiction — leading to more forced withdrawals.
Treatment and rehabilitation for substance abusers
To prevent these deaths, Chandler and her peers at NIDA say a medically supervised withdrawal and access to other health needs while incarcerated could help address these issues.
“Educate them about their high risk and vulnerability when they return to the community and provide them with Naloxone,” a medication that used to treat opioid overdose, Chandler said.
The National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC) recommends pharmacotherapy and evidence-based behavioral treatment to ensure that incarcerated people who enter the system with addiction, leave with the resources they need to rehabilitate.
The commission reports that rehabilitation can reduce relapses and recidivism, meaning it is less likely that someone who leaves jail or prison will be jailed or imprisoned again soon after.
The U.S. Department of Justice did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment on standards of correctional care regarding substance abuse disorders.
NIDA recommends that treatment must begin during incarceration and be maintained after release through community treatment programs to end the cycle of drug addiction, substance abuse and incarceration.
The more addiction is policed and stigmatized, experts say, the more likely the rise in deaths are to continue.
“The war on drugs has criminalized behaviors that are associated with drug use … and these highly vulnerable people are often sort of cycling in and out of this system,” Chandler said. “Good public health is good public safety — they’re not competing.”
(OAKLAND, Calif.) — The Oakland Zoo has begun a vaccination program to inoculate their highest risk animals from COVID-19 with an experimental vaccine that has been authorized by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The Oakland Zoo received their first shipment of the experimental vaccine developed by veterinary pharmaceutical company Zoetis and began to give doses to their tigers, black bears, grizzly bears, mountain lions and ferrets, who were the first animals to receive the vaccine, according to a statement from the Oakland Zoo. They next plan to give doses to their primates, including chimpanzees, as well as fruit bats and pigs.
“Up until now, we have been using public barriers at certain habitats to ensure social distancing, along with enhanced PPE worn by staff to protect our susceptible species from COVID-19. We’re happy and relieved to now be able to better protect our animals with this vaccine, and are very thankful to Zoetis for not only creating it, but for donating it to us and dozens of other AZA-accredited zoos across the U.S.,” said Dr. Alex Herman,VP of Veterinary Services at Oakland Zoo.
Zoetis plans to donate more than 11,000 doses of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine to help protect the health and well-being of more than 100 mammalian species living in nearly 70 zoos, more than a dozen conservatories, sanctuaries, academic institutions and government organizations across 27 states.
“We are proud that our innovative research and development work and vaccine donations can help veterinary professionals within the zoo community continue to provide a high standard of care to the primates, big cats, and many other species they care for and reduce the risk of COVID-19,” said Dr. Mike McFarland, Chief Medical Officer at Zoetis.
The experimental vaccine has been authorized for use on a case by case basis by the USDA as well as appropriate state veterinarians and comes after the San Diego Zoo requested help in January following an outbreak of COVID-19 among the zoo’s great apes.
“When the first dog was infected with COVID-19 in Hong Kong last year, we immediately began to work on a vaccine that could be used in domestic animals, and in eight months we completed our initial safety studies, which we presented at the World One Health Congress last year. While thankfully a COVID-19 vaccine is not needed in pets or livestock at this time, we are proud that our work can help zoo animals at risk of COVID-19,” said Mahesh Kumar, Senior Vice President, Global Biologics at Zoetis. “More than ever before, the COVID-19 pandemic put a spotlight on the important connection between animal health and human health, and we continue to monitor for emerging infectious diseases that can impact animals as well as people.”
Although the virus is the same as in human vaccines, vaccines for animals vary based on the carrier that is used, according to the Oakland Zoo.
“The unique combination of antigen and carrier ensures safety and efficacy for the species in which a vaccine is used,” said the zoo in the statement.
According to the World Health Organization, at least 75% of emerging infectious diseases have an animal origin, including COVID-19.
