(NEW YORK) — Doctors and other health care providers are being warned to look out for symptoms of a virus that can cause seizures and severe illness in infants.
Nearly two dozen infants were admitted to a Tennessee hospital this spring due to parechovirus, a virus that is especially dangerous for babies under 3 months old, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
While the majority of the infants, ages 5 months and under, recovered without complications, two may have long-term complications, including hearing loss and severe developmental delay, from the virus, the CDC said.
The agency’s report follows an alert it issued last month to health care providers warning about the presence of parechovirus.
Here are five things for parents to know about the virus and the CDC’s warning.
1. Parechovirus is especially dangerous for babies under 3 months old.
The virus, known as PeV, can cause severe illness in babies under 3 months old, and is most dangerous to newborns.
According to the CDC, the virus can cause sepsis-like illness, seizures and infection around the brain and spinal cord called meningitis — or meningoencephalitis — in infants, and can lead to long-term neurological complications in rare cases.
2. The type of parechovirus currently spreading is the most severe.
Most types of human parechoviruses are common childhood pathogens and less serious in kids older than 6 months, spreading through sneezing, coughing and saliva and feces.
The type that has been detected in newborns and young infants, PeV-A3, is the type “most often associated with severe disease,” according to the CDC. The specific strain of parechovirus was not identified in the report from the cases in Tennessee.
3. Symptoms include seizures.
The CDC has instructed health care providers to watch for symptoms of fever, sepsis-like syndrome, seizures and meningitis without a known cause in young infants.
PeV can be detected through lab tests from stool swabs and respiratory specimens, as well as cerebrospinal, blister or blood specimens, depending on the symptoms. Because this isn’t a virus that is routinely tested for, health care providers are being told to keep this virus in mind in case this extra testing is needed.
4. The rise in cases could be due to more testing.
The CDC acknowledged in its alert that the higher number of cases reported over the past few months could be a result of better testing.
“Because there is presently no systematic surveillance for PeVs in the United States, it is not clear how the number of PeV cases reported in 2022 compares to previous seasons,” the CDC said. “PeV laboratory testing has become more widely available in recent years, and it is possible that increased testing has led to a higher number of PeV diagnoses compared with previous years.”
The study authors also note, “This peak in infections might reflect relaxation of COVID-19 isolation measures consistent with increased prevalence of other respiratory viruses.”
5. There is no treatment for PeV.
The CDC said that while there is no specific treatment for PeV, getting a diagnosis matters.
“Diagnosing PeV in infants might change management strategies and provide important health information for families,” the CDC said.
(NEW YORK) — At least four children in the U.S. have now tested positive for monkeypox, officials have confirmed.
Amidst a growing emergence of cases across the country, state officials in Indiana confirmed late last week that two children had tested positive for monkeypox. At this time, no additional information has been made available due to patient privacy concerns, the Indiana Department of Health wrote in a statement.
“Like many other states, Indiana has seen an increase in monkeypox cases over the past month,” State Health Commissioner Dr. Kris Box said in a statement.
Federal officials had previously confirmed, last month, that two other children in the U.S had tested positive for monkeypox.
One case was confirmed in a toddler, who is a resident of California, and the other was reported in an infant, a non-U.S. resident, who was tested while traveling through Washington, D.C. The two cases are unrelated, located in different jurisdictions, and were likely the result of household transmission.
Although no information is available about the current status of the virus-positive children in Indiana, both of the other children, who have been diagnosed with monkeypox, were said to have been in good health.
However, there are concerns among health officials about how monkeypox could impact young children.
Over the weekend, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned in a health alert that there is some preliminary evidence to suggest children younger than 8 years-old could develop more severe illness, if infected with monkeypox.
At this time, the majority of monkey cases confirmed domestically and globally in the current outbreak have been detected in gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men. However, health officials have repeatedly stressed that the virus does not discriminate, and anyone exposed to monkeypox can contract the virus.
People are most commonly infected by close person-to-person contact, including intimate contact, though it is possible for the disease to also spread through respiratory secretions or by “touching objects, fabrics (clothing, bedding, or towels), and surfaces that have been used by someone with monkeypox,” according to the CDC.
The news of additional pediatric monkeypox cases come amidst growing pressure from officials across the country for the U.S. to declare a public health emergence for the outbreak.
On Monday, Illinois became the second state in the country to declare monkeypox a public health emergency, and thus, designating Illinois a “disaster area” for the virus, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced in a press release.
“[Monkeypox virus] is a rare, but potentially serious disease that requires the full mobilization of all available public health resources to prevent the spread,” Pritzker wrote in a statement. “That’s why I am declaring a state of emergency to ensure smooth coordination between state agencies and all levels of government, thereby increasing our ability to prevent and treat the disease quickly.”
The governor’s declaration will allow the Illinois Department of Public Health to expand access to resources, such as vaccines and testing, in the state’s efforts to combat the virus.
“We have seen this virus disproportionately impact the LGBTQ+ community in its initial spread. Here in Illinois we will ensure our LGBTQ+ community has the resources they need to stay safe while ensuring members are not stigmatized as they access critical health care,” Pritzker added.
Last week, New York became the first state to declare monkeypox a “disaster emergency,” with officials calling New York City the “epicenter of the outbreak.”
Across the country, in San Francisco officials have also implemented a local emergency declaration for monkeypox.
Globally, more than 22,000 cases reported globally, including nearly 5,200 cases reported in the U.S., according to the CDC.
Monkeypox cases have now been reported in nearly every state in the country, with Montana, Vermont, and Wyoming now the only states that have yet to confirm cases.
(NEW YORK) — Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Indiana, has spoken publicly about the negative repercussions she’s faced for providing abortion care to a 10-year-old girl after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, giving states the power to regulate abortion.
“It’s very fulfilling to serve people who need urgent medical help and to answer calls by saying, ‘Yes, of course we’ll take care of her,'” Bernard wrote in a recent Washington Post op-ed. “But for the past few weeks, life has been hard — for me and for my family.”
She continued, “I’ve been called a liar. I’ve had my medical and ethical integrity questioned on national television by people who have never met me. I’ve been threatened. And I haven’t been able to talk and explain what I stand for.”
Women’s health doctors across the country say they feel similarly threatened.
“She is literally the same as myself and so many of my colleagues,” Dr. Sujatha Prabhakaran, an abortion care physician in Southwest Florida, told ABC News. “We all could have been in her place. We all would have taken care of that patient and then faced those attacks.”
In Florida, where Prabhakaran is based, nearly all abortions are now banned after 15 weeks, with exceptions allowed to save the mother’s life and if the fetus has a deadly abnormality. Violators can face prison time, as well as, for doctors, the loss of their medical license.
Earlier this year, Florida also instituted a mandatory 24-hour waiting period between an initial doctor’s visit and the abortion procedure.
Prabhakaran described the strain those requirements have put on physicians and patients. She said one patient, who was just past 15 weeks pregnant, had what she described as a “fetal anomaly that was definitely not compatible with the quality of life that this mother wanted for her child” and had to travel to New York state for abortion care.
“A few weeks ago, she could have had her care in Florida,” Prabhakara said. “I’m highly trained and skilled and to not be able to use those skills for somebody who is right in front of me, it tears at your core as a physician.”
Prabhakaran, a board-certified OBGYN, said as a doctor who provides reproductive health care in a state with abortion restrictions, she feels the pressure of each decision, weighing what’s best for patients with what will allow her and her colleagues to keep providing care.
“More than anything, what we’re thinking about all the time is if we make a decision that causes prosecution of one of our physicians, then it means that lots of other patients can’t access care,” she said. “So we’re really, really careful in weighing those decisions about how we ensure we’re complying with the law and then also trying to not overanalyze the law and restrict care more than it needs to be.”
In nearby Tampa, Dr. Rachel Rapkin, a board-certified OBGYN, said she feels patients in Florida are getting “substandard care” because of the new abortion restrictions.
“After seeing what’s happened to doctors like Caitlin Bernard in Indiana who are being so intensely scrutinized … doctors are really scared to provide what should be standard of care to our patients,” Rapkin told ABC News. “And patients are getting substandard care now.”
Rapkin cited as an example the care of a pregnant patient whose water had broken after 15 weeks, prior to fetal viability.
“The standard of care for that is to offer termination because they have a really high risk of getting sick, becoming septic and dying,” said Rapkin, adding that with the new 15-week abortion restriction in place, some doctors out of caution are telling patients, “They just have to go home and wait until they’re sick and then come back.”
As a women’s health doctor operating in a post-Roe world, Rapkin said she feels like her “hands are tied.”
“I went to a lot of years of school and then extra training to be able to provide abortion care to all of my patients … and all of these bans in some way or another threaten our patients’ livelihood,” she said.
In Ohio, where the 10-year-old patient whom Bernard cared for is from, Dr. Ashley Brant, a board-certified OBGYN at Cleveland Clinic, said she and her colleagues are coping with seeing the state’s abortion law impact instances of miscarriages and pre-term deliveries.
Abortion is banned in Ohio as soon as a fetal heartbeat is detected, according to Brant.
“Sometimes when a miscarriage is happening the pregnant person has started to bleed heavily, has started to cramp and the cervix has started to open and the pregnancy hasn’t passed yet and there might still be a detectable fetal heartbeat,” Brant told ABC News. “In those cases, in Ohio, if we intervene, we’re being forced to call those abortions, so you can imagine how distressing it is for a patient who is miscarrying, who is losing a wanted pregnancy, to have to be told…, ‘If we’re going to intervene you need to sign this paperwork saying it’s an abortion and we’re going to report it to the state as an abortion.'”
Further in the second trimester, according to Brant, if a fetal anomaly is diagnosed that is not compatible with life, doctors in Ohio are no longer able to give their patients the option to end the pregnancy.
“It’s morally distressing to not be able to provide the full scope of evidence-based care here and to have to say to our patients, ‘I’m sorry. You’re going to have to go out of state even though I have the skills and I’m willing to provide this care, my hands are tied by the law,'” Brant said. “We just had a moral distress reflective debrief exercise for our women’s health care providers because of how distressing the ban has been for us.”
Dr. Jill Gibson, also a board-certified OBGYN and medical director of Planned Parenthood of Arizona, said this is the “hardest time” of her career as she and other doctors are forced to make decisions that she says go against their medical training.
“It’s just been the toughest part of my career thus far because doctors have been put in this really completely impossible situation of having to choose between their ethical oath and obligation to take care of their patients with all of the tools that they have and all of the training and skills that they know, and the potential consequences of being criminally prosecuted for exercising those skills and offering that care,” Gibson told ABC News.
Planned Parenthood of Arizona paused all abortions, surgical and medical, on June 24, the day of the Supreme Court’s decision, according to Gibson. She described the on-the-ground impact of Arizona’s abortion restrictions as “more far-reaching” than she imagined.
“Doctors I think are, out of fear, making patient care decisions that they would not have made one month ago,” she said, describing one instance in which she said a patient had to go through labor with a non-viable fetus so the provider would not be considered assisting the patient in an abortion.
“That patient had to endure labor for much longer than was necessary,” Gibson said. “We have doctors that are really worried that their actions will be interpreted as providing or assisting in care that could be considered abortion.”
Gibson described feeling her medical career has been “derailed,” adding of doctors like herself, “I feel that we are we are being sidelined and the people who have not had any medical training are making decisions for us.”
As of the end of July, at least 13 states have ceased nearly all abortion services.
In Texas, one of those 13 states, Dr. Stephanie Mischell, a family physician who provides abortion care, said she not only cannot provide care to her patients, but also sees them having to travel farther and father for care.
“For a lot of Texans, the place that they used to go was Oklahoma and now you can’t go to Oklahoma, so they go to Louisiana and now you can’t go to Louisiana,” Mischell told ABC News, citing two states where trigger bans took effect after the Supreme Court’s ruling. “It’s becoming increasingly hard for patients to access this care, and it’s really hard to watch patients struggle.”
Mischell said she is still figuring out what to do next herself, whether to move states to be able to provide abortion care or to continue to serve patients in Texas in other ways.
She said her work in the weeks since abortion was banned in Texas has focused on answering patients’ questions on things like where they can travel to access abortion and whether or not they still have access to contraception.
“Right now I’m really focused on the patients and trying to get them the care that they need,” she said. “We provide some other kinds of services, so sometimes people come in for other things, for pregnancy tests or for a miscarriage or something else, but a lot of our focus now is just getting accurate information out into the community.”
(NEW YORK) — Before you head to the beach or pool this summer, check the label on your sunscreen bottle.
Edgewell Personal Care Company issued a voluntary recall Friday for three batches of Banana Boat sunscreen after trace levels of benzene were found in the product during an internal review, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The recalled product, Banana Boat Hair & Scalp Spray SPF 30, is packaged in 6-ounce aerosol spray cans, which were distributed nationwide at various retail locations in the U.S. and were sold online.
The affected batches of sunscreen can be identified by the following information, located on the bottom of each can:
Lot Code: 20016AF; Expiration Date: December 2022
Lot Code: 20084BF; Expiration Date: February 2023
Lot Code: 21139AF; Expiration Date: April 2024
Benzene is classified as a human carcinogen, which, through exposure, could potentially result in cancer, according to the FDA.
“While benzene is not an ingredient in any Banana Boat products, the review showed that unexpected levels of benzene came from the propellant that sprays the product out of the can,” the company announcement stated.
Consumers in possession of the recalled sunscreen should stop using the product and discard it immediately.
Edgewell Personal Care Company has notified retailers to remove the remaining aerosol cans from their shelves. Banana Boat is offering reimbursement to consumers who purchased the recalled item.
Any adverse reactions that may be experienced with use of the sunscreen can be reported to the FDA either online or through regular mail.
(NEW YORK) — Health officials have warned since the beginning of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout that areas with lower inoculation rates are at greater risk of higher cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
In fact, studies have shown areas with low vaccination rates had as many as 2.4 more new COVID-19 infections per 100,000 people compared to areas with high vaccination rates.
But states — and counties — with little vaccine uptake are not just facing the cost of more severe complications from the virus.
There’s also the cost to the healthcare system with staff needing to call out if they get infected and not able to serve other patients due to a surge of COVID-19-related admissions.
Families living in low vaccinated areas may also suffer a cost. This could mean adults have to miss work, and potentially lose wages, because they or their children test positive for COVID. Children who also have to miss school can fall behind on their lessons.
“I think most people want to make an informed decision [about vaccination] and they have a hard time identifying the information that describes the real situation,” Dr. Jennifer Dillaha, the Arkansas Department of Health’s director for immunizations, told ABC News. “I know it’s possible for people to downplay the seriousness of the illness that they or their family members or their community could experience.”
The strain on the healthcare system
In the U.S., 67.2% of the population is fully vaccinated as of Friday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the rates between states vary starkly.
Some states have broken the 80% mark. Others have barely hit 55%, data shows.
As of Friday, in Arkansas, only 55.3% of residents are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data. Dillaha said low rates put a strain on hospitals, especially during surges.
“We did see that with both the delta and the omicron surges that we had in our state, the hospitals had to take steps to increase staffing so they could take care of more people who needed hospitalization,” she said. “And it made it difficult for people who needed hospitalization, for other reasons that were not related to COVID, to get a hospital bed.”
A similar situation existed in Alabama, where only 51.9% of the population is fully vaccinated, as of Friday.
“What we saw in our hospitals is an inability to deliver routine care,” Dr. Wes Stubblefield, district medical officer for the Alabama Department of Public Health, told ABC News. “During the height of some of these pandemic peaks, we saw hospitals that were closing elective orthopedic, outpatient surgeries, elective screening procedures, other things like that, that just couldn’t be done because of the sheer volume of patients that were there.”
Health officials say patients missing preventive care visits, general medical appointments, elective surgeries, or other care could increase the risk of an illness worsening or of death from conditions that were otherwise preventable or treatable.
The CDC estimates since the pandemic began there have been 1.1 million excess deaths, or deaths that exceed the numbers of people expected to die over the same period.
Additionally, hospital costs increased because administrators had to pay their staff higher wages, according to the health departments.
Because of staffing shortages — particularly of nurses — whether because there were not enough nurses to treat the number of COVID-19 hospitalized patients or because nurses fell ill themselves and there were not enough to cover shifts, many hospitals relied on traveling nurses.
Dillaha said that because states were competing for traveling nurses, Arkansas hospitals were offering higher wages to incentivize them to work there. She said this created a disparity between the wages of traveling nurses and the full-time staff nurses that had to be addressed.
“The hospitals had to address that by increasing the amount they paid for people who did not travel in order to encourage them to stay on the job,” she said.
Stubblefield said Alabama hospitals that had trouble paying staff competitive wages after paying high wages for nursing staff saw many people resign from their jobs.
“Having to pay very high rates for temporary nursing staff, we’ve seen turnover in the hospitals,” he said.
The cost to families
Doctors also stressed that families living in areas with low vaccination rates can suffer a cost — financially and emotionally.
Adults who contract the virus are forced to miss work, which can result in lost wages for those who are paid hourly and are not salaried.
“Where I live, we have a fair number of jobs where they really don’t have a lot of capacity to miss work,” Stubblefield said. “These jobs are very hard to come by. They pay relatively well for that kind of a job, but then they don’t get a lot of time off and getting sick can be very difficult for them.”
If they identify as one of the one in five Americans who develop long COVID, which is when symptoms last more than four weeks after recovering, that can also result in lost wages from missing time off work.
“If you have persistent symptoms over a long period of time, which makes it difficult or impossible for them to go back to work or go back to school, that is a hardship for families as well,” Dillaha said.
Parents may also be forced to miss work if they have a child who gets sick and can’t attend school or daycare, or if their classroom or school closes due to an outbreak and they must switch to remote learning.
To drive up vaccination rates — and prevent as many days lost of school and work as possible — Stubblefield said it’s important to try to have individual conversations with those who are vaccine hesitant, something he did as a pediatrician for 14 years before joining the health department less than a year ago.
“There’s a lot to be said about not trying to get into a long debate,” he said. “The main thing is we would talk about our own personal experience, how we would do this for our own families, and we wouldn’t do anything, or suggest or recommend anything, that we wouldn’t recommend for ourselves or our own families.”
He continued, “Hopefully they would have a relationship with us so that we could have a conversation, a civil conversation, and we could come to an agreement and whether that agreement is to reconsider [vaccination] at the next visit or then to make that decision [to vaccinate] and move forward.”
(NEW YORK) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul issued an executive order Friday in response to the growing monekypox outbreak in the state and declared it to be a “disaster emergency.”
“After reviewing the latest data on the monkeypox outbreak in New York State, I am declaring a State Disaster Emergency to strengthen our aggressive ongoing efforts to confront this outbreak,” Gov. Hochul said. “More than one in four monkeypox cases in this country are in New York State, and we need to utilize every tool in our arsenal as we respond. It’s especially important to recognize the ways in which this outbreak is currently having a disproportionate impact on certain at-risk groups. That’s why my team and I are working around the clock to secure more vaccines, expand testing capacity and responsibly educate the public on how to stay safe during this outbreak.”
According to data by the Centers Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, New York has the highest reported cases of monkeypox.
There have been 1383 reported cases of monkeypox in New York, according to state data and almost 5,000 in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the executive order will allow the state to respond more quickly to the monkeypox outbreak and enable health care workers to help get more New Yorkers vaccinated.
Hochul’s declaration came a day after monkeypox was considered an “imminent threat” to the public health by New York state’s health commissioner, Dr. Mary Bassett.
Commissioner Barrett said in a statement that the designation meant that “local health departments engaged in response and prevention activities will be able to access additional State reimbursement, after other Federal and State funding sources are maximized.”
Monkeypox is primarily spread from person to person contact through close and physical contact. A fever, muscle ache, chills, headache and fatigue are some of the symptoms. Sores and painful rashes also develop on a person’s body.
Most cases in the U.S. have been reported among the gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men community and related to male-to-male sexual contact. Though health officials have repeatedly stressed that the virus can affect anyone who has close contact with people who have monkeypox. Those with weakened immune systems, pregnant people and children under the age of 8 may be at heightened risk for severe outcomes, according to the CDC.
“Every American should pay attention on monkeypox,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters Thursday. “Monkeypox is not COVID, but it is contagious. It is painful and can be dangerous.”
The World Health Organization declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern last week.
ABC News’ Matt J. Foster and Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Amid the latest COVID-19 resurgence sweeping the nation, some top health officials are asking Americans to wear face masks again in an effort to curb the spread of the virus.
Officials such as White House COVID-19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky have repeatedly encouraged jurisdictions to use the CDC’s community level COVID-19 map, which seeks to identify the risk level of COVID-19 in communities across the country, to help them decide if they should reimplement mitigation measures.
“Local jurisdictions — cities, counties, states — should make decisions about mask mandates because communities are different and their patterns of transmission are different,” Jha told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz last week. “The CDC recommendation is that when you’re in a high zone … wearing masks indoors is really important and it really will make a difference.”
According to the CDC, a high community level suggests there is a “high potential for healthcare system strain” and a “high level of severe disease.”
More than 60% of Americans are now living in a county considered a “high” community level for COVID-19, where masking in indoor settings is therefore recommended by the CDC for all people, no matter their vaccination status.
But calls from the Biden administration’s COVID-19 team have been largely met with silence from local officials, with most cities and jurisdictions choosing to forgo federal guidance.
Although some cities, like Boston and New York City, have released strong recommendations, urging residents to mask again while indoors, no formal mandates have been announced.
In recent weeks, one major U.S. county — Los Angeles — was vocal about a possible return of masking requirements following a steady increase in COVID-19 infections.
However, on Thursday, county health officials announced that with case and hospital admission rates beginning to drop, the return of masking had been scratched.
“Any indication that the committee would soon be moving to the medium community level would be a good reason to not move forward with universal indoor masking, which is what we are doing today,” Barbara Ferrer, the director of Public Health for Los Angeles County, said at a press conference this week. “We will be pausing and not moving forward at this time … the clock is stopped at the moment.”
Some local officials lauded the decision, including L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger.
“Unenforceable mandates don’t work,” Barger wrote in a statement following the health department’s announcement. “I’m hopeful that we will now be able to move on from this heightened focus on masking mandates to what really matters — focusing on promoting the efficacy of vaccines and boosters, improving access to COVID-19 treatments, and continuing to educate our county’s residents on the benefits of masking.”
Ferrer stressed that residents are still strongly encouraged to wear masks in many indoor settings and should the numbers begin to rise again, the county will revisit a possible mandate.
“[BA.5] remains highly infectious, so I would strongly advise that everyone keep their masks on when there’s risk for that spread,” Ferrer said. “We should be very careful.”
Despite public messaging that “COVID-19 is still with us,” no major states or cities have reintroduced formal mandates. Many Americans have returned to their normal lives without a second thought of pandemic restrictions — a reality that has troubled some health experts.
“I’m concerned about what the lack of restrictions looks like right now. The caseload, which is vastly undercounted, is already creeping up from an unacceptably high plateau of daily cases that has remained in place since the end of the original omicron wave,” Maureen Miller, professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, told ABC News.
Experts noted that although the U.S. is certainly in a different place now versus the start of the pandemic, periodic use of mitigation measures could still be a way to control the spread of the virus.
“Interventions shouldn’t be all or nothing. They need to be applied in real-time ahead of any surge to help limit transmission in the community and ultimately reduce severe consequences of the virus and limit hospital capacity,” explained John Brownstein, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.
Policymakers and public health officials should “apply nuance” and “allow for the introduction of targeted intervention” as they consider possible ways to confront the “very likely” fall and winter surge, Brownstein said.
“Surveillance data, when interpreted correctly, should ultimately be the barometer for decisions on bringing back restrictions. Without proactive public health response, we will ultimately just repeat the mistakes of the past,” he added.
In recent weeks, virus-related hospitalizations and deaths have also started to tick up again, though not with the same intensity as previous surges.
“Clearly the lack of current interventions are contributing to a BA.5 surge,” Brownstein said. “While we are not seeing the level of severe disease of the past, it is still driving increases in severe disease.”
The reality that hundreds of Americans are still dying of COVID-19 every day is not something the public should take lightly, stressed Miller.
“COVID-19 infection is not just like a cold. No cold I know kills 400 people a day,” she said. “With the lack of COVID-19 information from health departments around the country and the blaring message that COVID-19 is over, it will be impossible to convince a fatigued and uninformed public of the need for additional mitigation measures.”
Although there are now many more treatments and tools available to treat Americans should they contract COVID, Miller noted that the simplest and effective tools that were available at the onset of the pandemic remain at the public’s disposal: masking and social distancing.
“We experienced the success of this approach in the past. I am doubtful that we will do so in the future,” she said.
The decision not to enforce mitigation measures will only prolong the pandemic, Miller said.
“Our actions are ensuring that the pandemic phase of COVID-19 will last much longer than it has to,” Miller added.
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration is preparing to roll out 171 million newly formulated vaccines this September as part of a $5B effort aimed at trying to blunt the impact of the highly contagious omicron variant.
The effort follows an internal debate among President Joe Biden’s top officials on whether to allow younger Americans to get a fourth shot now or wait until a more effective vaccine is released this fall.
The current vaccine was designed to work against the original strain of COVID. And while it continues to dramatically reduce the risk of hospitalizations and death, its effectiveness has slowly waned as the virus mutated.
As a result, Americans over 50 have already been told to get second booster doses, while younger Americans have been directed to get one additional booster.
Moderna and Pfizer say they now have new formulas of the COVID vaccine that will hopefully hold up better against the omicron variant.
Federal regulators would still need to sign off on the new vaccines. But industry and government officials say they are hopeful Food and Drug Administration will authorize the shots and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will recommend them.
According to two administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, industry officials assured the government that it could deliver the newly formulated shots by September.
At that point, the officials said, the decision was made to hold off on a nationwide rollout of additional boosters for people under age 50.
Overall, the government now has the option to buy 600 million new vaccines that are targeted toward the omicron variant, with plans to deliver 171 million this fall.
Moderna and the government announced Friday a $1.74 billion contract for the manufacture and delivery of 66 million doses and the option to buy another 234 million doses later on.
The government had already agreed to pay $3.2 billion to Pfizer for 105 million doses this fall with the option to buy another 195 million doses later on.
The Biden administration says it’s moved $10 billion around in its current budget to cover the cost of these vaccines and other treatments.
But officials warn that there is a trade-off being made to buy these vaccines so Americans can get them cost-free even without insurance.
According to a statement provided by the Department of Health and Human Services, money has been moved away from testing and ensuring stockpiles of protective gear are ready to go ahead of another pandemic or surge in cases.
(NEW YORK) — A Minnesota woman is sharing her health battle on TikTok, she says, in order to raise awareness and encourage women to advocate for themselves and their health.
Raquel Rodriguez, 25, said doctors first found a cyst on her ovary in 2016 while doing testing to determine why she was experiencing kidney infections so severe she had to be hospitalized.
“They just kind of said, ‘Oh, you have a cyst. We’re not worried about it,'” Rodriguez told Good Morning America, referring to her doctors at the time. “They didn’t tell me the size and they didn’t really tell me much about it at all, so I just kind of moved on and was like, OK, they’re not worried about it.”
Ovarian cysts, fluid-filled sacs that forms on or in the ovaries, can happen monthly in the ovulation process. Most of the cysts are what gynecologists call “functional cysts” that resolve on their own and are typically benign, according to the U.S. Office on Women’s Health.
Rodriguez said over the course of the next several years, she continued to experience intermittent kidney and bladder issues, as well as pain during intercourse.
Though the pain during intercourse was often severe, Rodriguez said she struggled to seek help.
“Me being a teen, I was kind of embarrassed, like, I don’t know if this is normal,” Rodriguez said, adding that after a negative experience with a male emergency room doctor, whom she said she felt undermined her pain, she never sought help for the pain again.
Even though Rodriguez said she continued to experience symptoms such as continued pain and frequent urination, it was only this past year that she said she began to notice more physical changes, including extreme bloating.
“I kind of took it into my own hands to do as much research as possible,” she said. “I really started to dig and look at Reddit threads and talk to other women that had the same thing, and then I really started to advocate for myself.”
Rodriguez said she wanted to be “as educated as possible” about what was going on with her body because the previous times she sought medical care for her symptoms, she “wasn’t taken seriously.”
Through her research, Rodriguez said she assumed it was her cyst that was growing and went to a midwife, noting, “I thought they would listen to me better than anyone else had.”
The midwife she saw ordered an emergency ultrasound with a doctor that same day, according to Rodriguez. On the ultrasound, a cyst was found that extended from Rodriguez’s pubic bone to her sternum.
“She said, ‘I’ve never, ever in my life seen something this big before,'” Rodriguez said of the reaction of the doctor who performed the ultrasound. “I remember after walking out of the appointment, I called my mom immediately and told her, and I called my sister and told her, and everyone was really excited because we’d dealt with this for so long. I was really, really relieved.”
In June, on her 25th birthday, Rodriguez underwent a two-hour surgery to remove the cyst, which weighed 10 pounds and carried more than four liters of fluid.
“The first thing I noticed after surgery was not having to pee right away. I could drink a glass of water and not have to go pee immediately,” she said. “That night after the surgery, I looked down at my stomach and it looked like it was sunken in, which was super weird.”
Rodriguez’s surgeon, Dr. Adrienne Mallen, a gynecologic oncology specialist, said the cyst was large enough that it looked like Rodriguez was carrying a full-term pregnancy.
“The abdominal cavity, I tell people it’s like thinking of the inside of a beach ball. It’s easy to hide growths,” Mallen said. “The body is pretty adaptive, so it can be very easy to not notice something in that area, and sometimes it’s not noticed until it comes out of what we refer to as the pelvis, especially in women’s bodies.”
Mallen said that because there is no common way to check women’s ovaries, ovarian cysts can often go undetected.
“The best test we have to determine if there’s growth is a pelvic examination with your doctor,” Mallen said, adding that ultrasounds are then used to help determine if a cyst is benign. “We don’t have a standard test that you can get to check your ovaries, it’s only if you’re having a problem.”
Though ovarian cysts affect millions of women each year, only around 5% to 10% of women, like Rodriguez, have cases severe enough to require surgery to remove an ovarian cyst, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“I tell people to just focus on body awareness so they can feel empowered because they know their body well,” Mallen said, adding of her own patient, “Raquel was a great advocate for herself and made sure she found a team that was listening to her.”
Ovarian cysts — which can be caused by hormonal changes, endometriosis, pregnancy and severe pelvic infections — often cause no symptoms at all.
If an ovarian cyst does cause symptoms, they may include bloating, pressure or pain near where the cyst is located. Symptoms of a ruptured ovarian cyst may include dizziness, nausea, vomiting, bleeding and intense pelvic or abdominal pain on the side of the body where the cyst is located, according to the Office on Women’s Health.
Over the past year, as Rodriguez got answers herself, she began to share her health journey on TikTok to help raise awareness about ovarian cysts and women’s health.
“I wished I had been a bigger advocate for myself because I felt had I been a bigger advocate, I would have gotten the help I needed back when this first started,” she said. “And I really wanted people to understand that women do go through a lot, and there are a lot of things that people go through that we don’t talk about.”
Rodriguez said that as she has shared her journey, she has been surprised both by the number of people who do not know about ovarian cysts, and the number of people who have messaged her thanking her for speaking out.
She said that as she continues to recover and improve, she has also been surprised to find herself with a platform to help empower women when it comes to their health.
“Women are dismissed so often and it is not really talked about,” Rodriguez said. “I realized just how strong I was getting through this surgery, advocating for myself, and then being able to share my journey with other people. It has really made me feel empowered.
(ALABANY, N.Y.) — New York state’s health commissioner declared monkeypox an “imminent threat to public health” on Thursday amid a rapid increase in cases.
The declaration means that “local health departments engaged in response and prevention activities will be able to access additional State reimbursement, after other Federal and State funding sources are maximized,” Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett said in a statement.
The United States has one of the highest levels of monkeypox in the world, with over 4,600 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. New York has the highest number of cases out of any state reporting those figures, CDC data shows.
There are 1,341 confirmed monkeypox cases in New York as of Thursday, according to state data.
San Francisco declared monkeypox a public health emergency on Thursday, effective Aug. 1, which will also help expedite resources to better respond to the “rapidly rising cases,” city officials said. The city has reported 261 cases of monkeypox.
“We need to be prepared and this declaration will allow us to serve the city better,” San Francisco Department of Public Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax said in a statement. “Our COVID-19 response has taught us that it is imperative that we mobilize city resources. The declaration helps us ensure we have all the tools available to augment our outreach, testing and treatment, especially to the LGBTQ+ [community] who remain at highest risk for monkeypox.”
The Biden administration continues to weigh whether monkeypox should be declared a public health emergency, federal health officials said on Thursday.
“We continue to monitor the response throughout the country on monkeypox,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters Thursday.
“We will weigh any decision on declaring a public health emergency based on the response we’re seeing throughout the country. The bottom line is: We need to stay ahead of this and be able to end this outbreak,” he continued.
Last week, the World Health Organization declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. Globally, more than 20,000 cases have been reported in over 75 countries, including in dozens that have not historically reported monkeypox cases.
U.S. health officials have warned for weeks that the number of monkeypox cases would likely increase nationwide, as the government ramps up testing capacity and surveillance.
“We know monkeypox symptoms usually start within three weeks of exposure to the virus, so we anticipate we may see an increase in cases throughout the month of July and into August,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a press briefing earlier this month.
Monkeypox is primarily spread through close, physical contact between people. Symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue and muscle aches. Patients can develop a rash and lesions that often begin on the face before spreading to the rest of the body.
Most cases in the U.S. have been reported among the gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men community and related to male-to-male sexual contact. Though health officials have repeatedly stressed that the virus can affect anyone who has close contact with people who have monkeypox. Those with weakened immune systems, pregnant people and children under the age of 8 may be at heightened risk for severe outcomes, according to the CDC.
“Every American should pay attention on monkeypox,” Becerra said. “Monkeypox is not COVID, but it is contagious. It is painful and can be dangerous.”
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
