Eric McCandless/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Little Women: LA creator and star Terra Jolé is opening up about her personal health battle hoping to help others, she says.
Jolé announced her breast cancer diagnosis to fans and her social media followers in an emotional Instagram video post last week.
“I have breast cancer,” the 41-year-old TV personality wrote in the caption. “Hardest call I’ve ever made was this video telling my mom for the first time.”
While she initially felt the cancer on her right side, evidence of cancer was later found in both breasts, Jolé told Good Morning America.
“I had two choices,” Jolé continued. “1. Hide and not share on social media. 2. Take you along the fight with me. Since our lives have been public for the last 10 years, it’s only fair we make this journey together.”
In Jolé’s video post, the Dancing With the Stars alum revealed to her mother that she decided to undergo a double mastectomy, a type of surgery where both breasts are removed, along with cancerous tissue, according to the American Cancer Society. While mastectomies are one of the multiple treatment options for individuals with breast cancer, they are typically reserved for women with high-risk cancers or those who have genetic mutations placing them at increased risk of recurrence.
GMA caught up with Jolé eight days after her surgery, one that she said she opted for to prevent a recurrence of cancer.
“I didn’t want that for my children, I didn’t want to go through this multiple times,” Jolé said. “So I want to take off both now and not think ‘what if’ in the future.”
Jolé has been in the spotlight for years, bringing awareness to skeletal dysplasia, the condition behind her 4′ 2″ stature.
“Showing you’re not alone through an experience like this whether you’re a little whether you’re average, this can happen to anyone,” Jolé told GMA.
“If I had someone like a friend or someone that experienced this in a positive light, then this would have made the beginning process much easier for me.”
As she takes on her breast cancer journey, Jolé said she is leaning on her family for support.
Jolé’s husband, Joe Gnoffo, told GMA he’s in awe of her strength. “I can’t believe how she’s handling this,” he said.
“Never once have I heard like, ‘Why me?’ She’s just not like that.”
Jolé’s main message for others is to pay attention to their own bodies and to get care if needed.
“If you feel something, say something. It can be a matter of life or death for you,” Jolé said.
She also encouraged others not to wait too long to seek advice from a doctor. “Ask your OB if it’s something to take a closer look at!” Jolé wrote in another Instagram post Wednesday.
“If they don’t give you a breast exam in their office, find another OB. My OB (whom I love dearly but…) had a 3 month appointment out, so, I found another OB. I couldn’t wait 3 months to know if I was feeling something normal or not normal.”
(NEW YORK) — When Laura Martin tested positive for COVID-19 last month during an extended stay in California, she was prescribed Paxlovid, the highly touted antiviral drug created by Pfizer.
Just one day after her diagnosis, she started her five-day course of pills, which have been shown to dramatically reduce the risk of hospitalization and death.
Martin, a 63-year-old Boston native who now resides in Canada, said she was thrilled when her symptoms began to subside.
“By the end of [the treatment], on Day 5, I was negative and feeling completely normal like without any symptoms, so I thought, ‘Wow, this is really great. What a great drug,’” Martin told ABC News.
Martin resumed her normal activities, but a week later, she began to feel ill again. When her symptoms worsened, she tested again.
“It came roaring back, and this round two has been much more severe than round one was,” Martin said. “This is like four days of much more significant symptoms than round one.”
Martin’s case is part of a seemingly rare, but increasingly reported phenomenon of COVID-19 symptom recurrence after being treated with Paxlovid. While it is largely unknown what is causing the reported viral resurgence, scientists say they are investigating.
Pfizer says that it is taking the reported incidences of recurrence “very seriously,” but that the rates mirror those who received a placebo in clinical trials. Experts urge that the benefits of the drug, in preventing hospitalization and death, outweigh the potential risk of a second positive test or symptom reemergence.
In additional analysis of the Paxlovid clinical trial data, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported that most patients “did not have symptoms at the time of a positive PCR test after testing negative, and, most importantly, there was no increased occurrence of hospitalization or death or development of drug resistance.”
Company executives also reported, this week, that the use of Paxlovid continues to expand rapidly, particularly as infection rates across the country rise again. In the U.S., use of the treatment has increased by nearly ten-fold in recent weeks.
The number of locations in the U.S. with Paxlovid supply has grown to more than 33,000 sites now available, a four-fold increase since late-February. In addition, the company reported that there are now more than 2,200 Test to Treat locations now open.
‘Game-changer’
Long heralded as a “game-changer” in the fight against COVID-19, the push to make Paxlovid available to Americans has ramped up in recent weeks, with the White House looking to increase supply of the treatment.
The drug, which was granted emergency use authorization by the FDA in December 2021 for people with mild to moderate COVID-19 at high risk of disease progression, is also strongly recommended by the World Health Organization. It has been shown to be highly effective, estimated to provide an 89% reduction in virus-related hospitalizations and deaths.
However, in recent weeks, a number of patients, who have taken the treatment, have taken to social media to disclose what they say is a perplexing phenomenon of COVID-19 symptoms reemerging after they finished the prescribed five-day treatment course.
Some individuals claimed on Twitter that after their initial symptoms dissipated, leading to a negative test, they are once again testing positive.
“We’re seeing people get better on Paxlovid,” Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center, told ABC News. “But then, when they stop at the end of five days, we’re hearing stories of symptoms coming back and even, tests becoming either more positive, i.e. a darker line, or tests that had gone negative turning positive.”
Studies have found that a dark line can “indicates a strong positive with a high level of virus and is usually seen when people are at or near peak virus load.”
Reports of these “rebound symptoms” are largely anecdotal so far but with an increasing number of questions about the puzzling viral recurrence, scientists across the country are trying to assess what may be happening in new research.
Pfizer taking reports of viral rebounds ‘very seriously’
In February, a 71-year-old man in Massachusetts who had been vaccinated and boosted recovered after being treated for COVID-19 with Paxlovid, Dr. Michael Charness, chief of staff at the VA Boston Healthcare System, who has been researching the phenomenon and recently put out a preprint study last week, told ABC News.
However, around nine days after his initial positive test, Charness said his patient developed cold symptoms and tested positive again for the virus.
Molecular testing soon revealed that the patient’s viral load had increased to an even higher point than when the diagnosis was first made, according to an analysis by Charness and his team.
“We were interested in whether this was a new infection or whether this was maybe an adaptation or mutation that somehow changed the variant,” Charness said, adding that gene sequencing demonstrated that this second positive test demonstrated a recurrence of the original infection in an individual who had no symptoms for a week.
“We just were very struck by that,” said Charness. “I heard from people all over the country and some from other parts of the world, who had had the same experience.”
Representatives from the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, told ABC News that teams of scientists are investigating the surprising relapse reports, and they will provide further recommendations, if appropriate.
“The phenomenon of recrudescence reiterates the importance of following CDC’s isolation guidance – anyone who develops symptoms of illness during or after isolation should remain isolated, masked, and seek out testing and clinical care,” a representative from the CDC told ABC News in a statement. “Anyone who is concerned about having been exposed or who for any other reason wants to determine their infection status should test for COVID-19.”
The FDA stressed that the reports “do not change the conclusions from the Paxlovid clinical trial which demonstrated a marked reduction in hospitalization and death.”
The viral recurrence had been observed and reported in Pfizer’s application to the FDA, last year, in which the company said several trial participants had appeared to “have a rebound” of COVID-19 around day 10 or day 14.
Pfizer executives said Tuesday that they are taking the reports “very seriously,” but they do not believe that it is related to the drug, given that the same rate of rebound was observed in people who took the placebo. Further, no connection was noted between the viral load increase and subsequent severe illness.
“We’ve taken a preliminary look at our high-risk data, and so we’ve seen for example, that we have about an incidence about 2% of that viral load rebound, but we also see the same, or close to the same, percent in the placebo arm. So it’s something that’s not particularly associated with Paxlovid itself, but may have something to do with the virus itself,” Dr. William Pao, Pfizer’s executive vice president and chief development officer, said during an investors call on Tuesday. “It’s preliminary data so far, we again take it very seriously. But it’s very current, and a very low incidence, and we continue to learn as we go.”
A representative from Pfizer told ABC News that although it is too early to determine the cause, initial indications suggest an increased viral load is both uncommon and not uniquely associated with the Paxlovid treatment.
“We remain very confident in its clinical effectiveness at preventing severe outcomes from COVID-19 in high-risk patients,” the representative said.
Reports uncommon but happening ‘frequently enough’
Although official reports of these relapses still appear to be rare, such occurrences are happening “frequently enough” in those treated with Paxlovid that Charness said that it should be studied further.
“I think the first step in studying something is to know that it exists,” he explained, adding that it is particularly important for clinicians to be informed about potential rebounds, and for the public to know, so that people do not become unduly alarmed.
Thus far, researchers know very little about the reason for the recurring symptoms.
Of critical importance in the investigations is whether an individual, in the midst of such a rebound, remains infectious, Charness said.
“We are sufficiently concerned about whether people can transmit, when they’re on day 12 and 13 and 15, that we are essentially recommending that when people have a recurrence, a rebound, that they restart their isolation, and isolate until their antigen test is negative,” Charness said. “We’re seeing people whose antigen test stays positive for a week after they rebound, which means that they’re well outside the CDC’s 10-day guidance.”
Should you experience a viral rebound, the FDA is now recommending that health care providers and patients refer to CDC guidance, wear a mask and isolate if they have any COVID-19 symptoms — regardless of whether or not they have been treated with an antiviral.
Charness and his team are also encouraging their patients to start their isolation period over again and stay away until their antigen test is negative.
“It’s important to exercise caution until you clear the virus the second time,” Charness said, further urging people to notify their provider.
In terms of further treatments, Charness noted it is still largely unclear what patients should do. While there are no limitations, within the authorized label, around additional usage of the drug for a subsequent COVID-19 infection, according to Pfizer, the FDA said “there is no evidence of benefit at this time for a longer course of treatment … or repeating a treatment course of Paxlovid in patients with recurrent COVID-19 symptoms following completion of a treatment course.”
Despite the reports of rebounding, health experts stress that Paxlovid is still largely achieving its original goal, to keep people out of the hospital, and severe disease at-bay.
“The bottom line is if it prevents hospitalization, if it keeps you from progressing to severe disease, hospitalization and death, the fact that you might have a recurrence of some of the symptoms and even the recurrence of a positive test is sort of secondary,” said Doron. “The main thing is Paxlovid is to prevent progression to severe disease [and] hospitalization, and it does. So, it’s still doing its job.”
(NEW YORK) — When Laura Martin tested positive for COVID-19 last month during an extended stay in California, she was prescribed Paxlovid, the highly touted antiviral drug created by Pfizer.
Just one day after her diagnosis, she started her five-day course of pills, which have been shown to dramatically reduce the risk of hospitalization and death.
Martin, a 63-year-old Boston native who now resides in Canada, said she was thrilled when her symptoms began to subside.
“By the end of [the treatment], on Day 5, I was negative and feeling completely normal like without any symptoms, so I thought, ‘Wow, this is really great. What a great drug,’” Martin told ABC News.
Martin resumed her normal activities, but a week later, she began to feel ill again. When her symptoms worsened, she tested again.
“It came roaring back, and this round two has been much more severe than round one was,” Martin said. “This is like four days of much more significant symptoms than round one.”
Martin’s case is part of a seemingly rare, but increasingly reported phenomenon of COVID-19 symptom recurrence after being treated with Paxlovid. While it is largely unknown what is causing the reported viral resurgence, scientists say they are investigating.
Pfizer says that it is taking the reported incidences of recurrence “very seriously,” but that the rates mirror those who received a placebo in clinical trials. Experts urge that the benefits of the drug, in preventing hospitalization and death, outweigh the potential risk of a second positive test or symptom reemergence.
In additional analysis of the Paxlovid clinical trial data, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported that most patients “did not have symptoms at the time of a positive PCR test after testing negative, and, most importantly, there was no increased occurrence of hospitalization or death or development of drug resistance.”
Company executives also reported, this week, that the use of Paxlovid continues to expand rapidly, particularly as infection rates across the country rise again. In the U.S., use of the treatment has increased by nearly ten-fold in recent weeks.
The number of locations in the U.S. with Paxlovid supply has grown to more than 33,000 sites now available, a four-fold increase since late-February. In addition, the company reported that there are now more than 2,200 Test to Treat locations now open.
‘Game-changer’
Long heralded as a “game-changer” in the fight against COVID-19, the push to make Paxlovid available to Americans has ramped up in recent weeks, with the White House looking to increase supply of the treatment.
The drug, which was granted emergency use authorization by the FDA in December 2021 for people with mild to moderate COVID-19 at high risk of disease progression, is also strongly recommended by the World Health Organization. It has been shown to be highly effective, estimated to provide an 89% reduction in virus-related hospitalizations and deaths.
However, in recent weeks, a number of patients, who have taken the treatment, have taken to social media to disclose what they say is a perplexing phenomenon of COVID-19 symptoms reemerging after they finished the prescribed five-day treatment course.
Some individuals claimed on Twitter that after their initial symptoms dissipated, leading to a negative test, they are once again testing positive.
“We’re seeing people get better on Paxlovid,” Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center, told ABC News. “But then, when they stop at the end of five days, we’re hearing stories of symptoms coming back and even, tests becoming either more positive, i.e. a darker line, or tests that had gone negative turning positive.”
Studies have found that a dark line can “indicates a strong positive with a high level of virus and is usually seen when people are at or near peak virus load.”
Reports of these “rebound symptoms” are largely anecdotal so far but with an increasing number of questions about the puzzling viral recurrence, scientists across the country are trying to assess what may be happening in new research.
Pfizer taking reports of viral rebounds ‘very seriously’
In February, a 71-year-old man in Massachusetts who had been vaccinated and boosted recovered after being treated for COVID-19 with Paxlovid, Dr. Michael Charness, chief of staff at the VA Boston Healthcare System, who has been researching the phenomenon and recently put out a preprint study last week, told ABC News.
However, around nine days after his initial positive test, Charness said his patient developed cold symptoms and tested positive again for the virus.
Molecular testing soon revealed that the patient’s viral load had increased to an even higher point than when the diagnosis was first made, according to an analysis by Charness and his team.
“We were interested in whether this was a new infection or whether this was maybe an adaptation or mutation that somehow changed the variant,” Charness said, adding that gene sequencing demonstrated that this second positive test demonstrated a recurrence of the original infection in an individual who had no symptoms for a week.
“We just were very struck by that,” said Charness. “I heard from people all over the country and some from other parts of the world, who had had the same experience.”
Representatives from the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, told ABC News that teams of scientists are investigating the surprising relapse reports, and they will provide further recommendations, if appropriate.
“The phenomenon of recrudescence reiterates the importance of following CDC’s isolation guidance – anyone who develops symptoms of illness during or after isolation should remain isolated, masked, and seek out testing and clinical care,” a representative from the CDC told ABC News in a statement. “Anyone who is concerned about having been exposed or who for any other reason wants to determine their infection status should test for COVID-19.”
The FDA stressed that the reports “do not change the conclusions from the Paxlovid clinical trial which demonstrated a marked reduction in hospitalization and death.”
The viral recurrence had been observed and reported in Pfizer’s application to the FDA, last year, in which the company said several trial participants had appeared to “have a rebound” of COVID-19 around day 10 or day 14.
Pfizer executives said Tuesday that they are taking the reports “very seriously,” but they do not believe that it is related to the drug, given that the same rate of rebound was observed in people who took the placebo. Further, no connection was noted between the viral load increase and subsequent severe illness.
“We’ve taken a preliminary look at our high-risk data, and so we’ve seen for example, that we have about an incidence about 2% of that viral load rebound, but we also see the same, or close to the same, percent in the placebo arm. So it’s something that’s not particularly associated with Paxlovid itself, but may have something to do with the virus itself,” Dr. William Pao, Pfizer’s executive vice president and chief development officer, said during an investors call on Tuesday. “It’s preliminary data so far, we again take it very seriously. But it’s very current, and a very low incidence, and we continue to learn as we go.”
A representative from Pfizer told ABC News that although it is too early to determine the cause, initial indications suggest an increased viral load is both uncommon and not uniquely associated with the Paxlovid treatment.
“We remain very confident in its clinical effectiveness at preventing severe outcomes from COVID-19 in high-risk patients,” the representative said.
Reports uncommon but happening ‘frequently enough’
Although official reports of these relapses still appear to be rare, such occurrences are happening “frequently enough” in those treated with Paxlovid that Charness said that it should be studied further.
“I think the first step in studying something is to know that it exists,” he explained, adding that it is particularly important for clinicians to be informed about potential rebounds, and for the public to know, so that people do not become unduly alarmed.
Thus far, researchers know very little about the reason for the recurring symptoms.
Of critical importance in the investigations is whether an individual, in the midst of such a rebound, remains infectious, Charness said.
“We are sufficiently concerned about whether people can transmit, when they’re on day 12 and 13 and 15, that we are essentially recommending that when people have a recurrence, a rebound, that they restart their isolation, and isolate until their antigen test is negative,” Charness said. “We’re seeing people whose antigen test stays positive for a week after they rebound, which means that they’re well outside the CDC’s 10-day guidance.”
Should you experience a viral rebound, the FDA is now recommending that health care providers and patients refer to CDC guidance, wear a mask and isolate if they have any COVID-19 symptoms — regardless of whether or not they have been treated with an antiviral.
Charness and his team are also encouraging their patients to start their isolation period over again and stay away until their antigen test is negative.
“It’s important to exercise caution until you clear the virus the second time,” Charness said, further urging people to notify their provider.
In terms of further treatments, Charness noted it is still largely unclear what patients should do. While there are no limitations, within the authorized label, around additional usage of the drug for a subsequent COVID-19 infection, according to Pfizer, the FDA said “there is no evidence of benefit at this time for a longer course of treatment … or repeating a treatment course of Paxlovid in patients with recurrent COVID-19 symptoms following completion of a treatment course.”
Despite the reports of rebounding, health experts stress that Paxlovid is still largely achieving its original goal, to keep people out of the hospital, and severe disease at-bay.
“The bottom line is if it prevents hospitalization, if it keeps you from progressing to severe disease, hospitalization and death, the fact that you might have a recurrence of some of the symptoms and even the recurrence of a positive test is sort of secondary,” said Doron. “The main thing is Paxlovid is to prevent progression to severe disease [and] hospitalization, and it does. So, it’s still doing its job.”
(NEW YORK) — Amid a nationwide wave of what they call legislation targeting LGBTQ rights and representation, advocates are concerned about the impact on the mental health of LGBTQ youth.
“LGBTQ youth suicide is a major public health crisis,” said Amit Paley, chief operating officer of The Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention among LGBTQ youth.
This population already struggles disproportionately with mental illness and suicide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports LGBTQ students are about four times more likely to have attempted suicide than their heterosexual peers, according to a study released in late March that tracked data from 2009 to 2019.
That same study showed LGBTQ youth self-reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness at more than twice the rate of their heterosexual peers.
Matthew Goldenberg, a psychologist at the Seattle Children’s Hospital Gender Clinic, explained that additional everyday “environmental factors” create a higher prevalence of suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts among LGBTQ youth.
He cited family conflicts, heightened stress, lack of community support, bullying and whether or not a child has an affirming environment as potential risk factors.
“I think the really important point to make is that LGBTQ young people are not born inherently more likely to attempt or consider suicide,” Paley said. “LGBTQ young people end up attempting or considering suicide because of the stigma and discrimination and isolation that they face in society.”
Paley explained The Trevor Project has been monitoring an upward trend in reported suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts among this population over the last few years.
“And that coincides with a really difficult time for so many LGBTQ young people, as they are being attacked in legislative contexts,” Paley said.
More than 300 bills targeting LGBTQ people have been introduced so far this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
“When you hear people in positions of power saying people can’t talk about your identity in schools, that you can’t use the restroom, that you can’t access medical care. That’s very scary,” Paley said. “Those policies are harmful and dangerous, but even more than that, the words around them really impact the mental health of LGBTQ youth.”
Along with the impacts of hostile legislation, LGBTQ young people are feeling the mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has heightened attention on mental health concerns across the nation over the last two years.
“The pandemic has been incredibly difficult for LGBTQ youth, who may not be able to live as their authentic selves when they’ve been home so much during the last few years, and that’s really exacerbated the mental health crisis among that population,” said Hannah Wesolowski, chief advocacy officer for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
On Tuesday, co-chair of the congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus, Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kansas, introduced the Pride in Mental Health Act. The bill would create a new program at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to “assess and improve LGBTQ+ youth mental health,” according to a press release from the caucus.
The legislation would also amend the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act to provide specific protections for LGBTQ youth with the aim of improving data collection related to abuse and neglect among that population.
“Mental health is a growing concern for families and communities across the country, and frankly, we are failing many of our most vulnerable children on this issue,” Davids said in a press release. “When we talk about improving mental health, we’re really talking about saving these kids’ lives.”
Resources to support LGBTQ young people experiencing mental health crises are available. The Trevor Project offers a crisis line via phone, text and online chat for LGBTQ young people. Trans Lifeline operates a peer support and crisis line for transgender people.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline offers crisis support services as well. In July, that hotline will transition to a new three-digit number, 988, that advocates envision as the mental health equivalent of 911.
The Trevor Project was among the advocates for the establishment of the new number for the Lifeline. Paley says the organization is working with the Department of Health and Human Services SAMHSA to create an integration in the Lifeline service to connect LGBTQ young people who call in to counselors specifically trained to support and understand their needs.
“I think the biggest thing about providing these crisis resources is they need to be culturally competent,” Wesolowski said. “Somebody who identifies as LGBTQ talking to somebody who can understand their experience is really important to de-escalating that.”
There is no current timeline for when that integration with the Lifeline will be up and running. Efforts to get the new number launched are still underway and complicated by underfunding.
“We think the intention of 988 is so incredibly important,” Paley said. “We need to make sure that the federal government puts the resources to execute it properly. And so that’s what we’re in discussions about to make sure that we can provide more access for LGBTQ youth.”
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, help is available. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 [TALK] for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can also reach the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or the Crisis Text Line by texting “START” to 741741.
(NEW YORK) — For the first time in months, daily hospital admission levels and new COVID-19 related deaths in the United States are both projected to increase over the next four weeks, according to updated forecast models used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The projected increases come after weeks of steady upticks in infections across the country, subsequent to the removal of masking requirements and mitigation measures in many states and cities.
The forecast now predicts that approximately 5,000 deaths will occur over the next two weeks, with Ohio, New York, and New Jersey projected to see the largest totals of daily deaths in the weeks to come.
“We are still in the middle of a pandemic, to be sure—there’s no confusion about that,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told Foreign Policy last week.
The forecast models show that 42 states and territories in hospital admissions across the country, including New York, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Florida, are projected to see increases in the next two weeks.
Nationally, a growing number of COVID-19 positive patients have already been admitted to hospitals, requiring care, federal data shows.
Since late last month, daily hospital admission totals have been slowly increasing, particularly in the Northeast, according to CDC data. And in the last week, admissions have jumped by 20%, with emergency department visits also up by 18%.
On average, more than 2,200 virus-positive Americans are entering the hospital each day — a total that has increased by 20% in the last week, the CDC reports. This also marks the highest number of patients requiring care since mid-March.
Overall, there are about 18,300 patients with confirmed cases of COVID-19 in hospitals across the country, up by 18% in the last two weeks, the Department of Health and Human Services reports.
Although totals remain significantly lower than during other parts of the pandemic, admission levels are now on the rise in every region of the country.
Nationally, new infection rates have reached their highest point in nearly two months. More than 60,000 new cases are being officially reported each day, up by 27% in the last week, according to the CDC.
In the Northeast and New York-New Jersey region, infection rates have risen by 64.8% and 54.8% respectively, over the last two weeks.
Since last summer, dozens of states have moved to shutter public testing sites, with more at-home COVID-19 tests now available. Most Americans are not reporting their results to officials, and thus, experts say infection totals are likely significantly undercounted.
Health experts say a confluence of factors is likely driving the nation’s latest viral resurgence, including the easing of masking requirements and other COVID-19 restrictions as well as highly contagious omicron subvariants, which have been estimated to be between 30% and 80% more transmissible than the original omicron strain.
The BA.2 subvariant, BA.2.12.1, first discovered domestically last month, in New York state, continues to steadily increase in the U.S., newly released federal data shows. The subvariant now accounts for 36.5% of new COVID-19 cases nationwide, while in the New York — New Jersey area, it accounts for the majority — nearly 62% — of new cases.
With vaccine immunity waning and the presence of variants of concern growing, health officials continue to urge the public to get vaccinated and boosted to prevent the risk of severe disease and hospitalization.
“We hope that we don’t see a major uptick [in cases] as we get into the fall, but that remains to be seen. We’re going to have to wait and see, which is the reason why we’re still encouraging people to get vaccinated,” Fauci said last week. “If you’ve not been vaccinated or if you have been vaccinated and are eligible for a booster, make sure to get it now.”
(WASHINGTON) — It was a cold, sunny morning in late January when Sen. Ben Ray Lujan awoke on his farm in New Mexico. His girlfriend was leaving early for a visit with friends, and he had set the alarm for 5:45 a.m.
Lujan got up, made coffee, and helped out with packing the car. After seeing his girlfriend off, he headed back to bed for a bit more shut-eye.
“I got up at 6:15 a.m. So, half hour went by, I felt completely normal. Nothing was wrong,” the 49-year-old New Mexico Democrat recounted to ABC News in an exclusive interview for Good Morning America.
The freshman senator would soon learn that he had suffered a stroke in the cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls balance. Extreme dizziness hitting him to such a degree that he would find himself crawling on his hands and knees. This ambitious former longtime House member once on a track potentially to the speakership, would have his life turned upside-down by a potentially deadly medical event, a moment that has sparked new meaning and new focus for the rising political star.
“I just, when I wake up and when I sit in the bed, the world’s spinning, but not spinning such that I don’t have my legs. I could still get up, but it was spinning so I was moving around a little bit right? The only thing I can compare it to is when you’re on a merry-go-round or something. You get off and you’re trying to catch those legs,” Lujan explained to ABC News Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott. “Went to the restroom, came back, closed my eyes for another 35 to 45 minutes and woke up because something felt funny. When I sat up that time, the room was like on its side, it felt like. It was topsy-turvy, and I was feeling the weakness.”
The harrowing account — the senator’s first — comes as the U.S. marks National Stroke Awareness month in May. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every 40 seconds someone in the U.S. has a stroke, and every three and a half minutes someone dies from it. While the senator is relatively young and in good health, an avid mountain biker, the CDC states that strokes can occur at any age, though the chance of having one increases as we grow older. And though death rates have been declining for most races and ethnicities over the years, Hispanics — like Lujan — have seen an increase in death rates since 2013.
Still, Lujan’s medical team does not know why he had the stroke.
As the senator’s world was spinning that Thursday morning and he was quickly losing strength, Lujan placed a crucial call to his chief of staff, Carlos Sanchez, who told his boss to contact his doctor immediately, a move that was likely life-saving. Lujan’s doctor, in turn, told him to get to an emergency room immediately, a critical decision.
“I called my sister, told her what was going on and by the time she got there — which wasn’t long thereafter — I went from being able to move around the house, wobbly and hitting walls, to crawling,” Lujan recounted as he moved to the edge of his seat, his hands at times clenched as the memories flooded back.
When the senator opened the door for his sister, Jackie, that morning, the fear in her eyes said it all.
“She had a lot of panic in her eyes, which I still remember the way she looked at me, and I said we got to go, but I need your help,” as the senator was unable to walk.
“She’s a little, she’s shorter than I am, but she was able to prop me on her shoulder and then as we went out the door, I told her, ‘I can’t walk,’ and she grabbed a broom, I think, or a stick that was on my front porch, and she said to use this on your other hand. ‘We’ll get you there.'”
On the way to the hospital, the senator’s sister spotted some firefighters outside their building. She pulled into the station and asked one of them to come and look at her ailing brother. Not liking what they saw, Lujan was quickly loaded into a nearby ambulance and rushed to the emergency room at Christus St. Vincent Regional Hospital in Santa Fe where the doctors would have him quickly transferred to the state’s only comprehensive stroke center at the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque for further evaluation.
All of the swift action decisive in his ultimate recovery.
Dr. Diana Greene-Chandos, Lujan’s neurologist, would later explain in a video tweeted out by the senator that the team discovered the cause of the stroke, a tear in Lujan’s vertebral artery, adding, “We did determine that medication would not be enough, and Senator Luhan underwent decompressive surgery to relieve the pressure in his brain.”
That diagnosis of a stroke for the 49-year-old New Mexican was a total shock.
“I never thought it was a stroke. Even as I was going to the hospital, I just thought I wasn’t feeling well. And a stroke hitting me, that wasn’t on my mind at all,” Lujan said.
To date, Lujan said, doctors are still not sure what ultimately caused the tear in his arteries.
“I had gone for a long mountain bike ride a few days before we had a freak snowstorm so I was shoveling snow for myself and mom for a couple hours. Two days before you know just normal weightlifting with kettlebells. I was working doing interviews and constituent meetings the day before. So they could not pinpoint something that this is what caused it. This is what triggered it,” Lujan remembered.
Over that late January weekend, surgeons removed a silver dollar size portion of the senator’s skull to allow the brain to swell and then heal.
“I don’t remember much coming out of the recovery, because they put me under to do this, but as I came out, you know, I was fortunate. My sister, Jackie, who took me to the hospital and she’s been with me a lot and then my partner, Dawn, she’s been with me as well. She came in a few days later. But it was that comfort, as well. And it was frightening, right?” said Lujan, feeling gingerly for the still-visible scar at the nape of his neck.
While a stroke can often be associated with a loss of motion or facial muscles, Lujan stressed to ABC News that he never lost motor movement or his voice throughout his entire ordeal. “I was a little weak on the left. I was wobbly. I didn’t have that balance,” the senator noted, which made physical therapy a challenge.
His most difficult day, he recalled, was that day he emerged from the life-saving surgery.
“I think that’s where it really set into me, like, this is serious. You know, granted, you’re there in a hospital room in an ICU. You’re connected to IVs. You got folks checking on you. But coming out of that surgery, I had staples on the back over here,” Lujan said, again touching his scar through his buzzed hair now growing out in the weeks after surgery. “Wasn’t allowed to touch it, right? Because you don’t want to mess with anything. And that’s when it set in, like, no, this is serious. Like, you got to fight on your hands. And it was tough.”
But Lujan gave his therapists a set of goals from the outset.
“I said I want to walk, I want to dance, and I want to ride my mountain bike again, and they said ‘well, we’re gonna help you hit all those goals,'” the senator said.
Therapists had Lujan performing balancing techniques, doing squats, riding the stationary bike, and even jogging, something that was painful, at first.
“Jogging was tough, because every time I would jolt, it would hurt back here where they did the work on me. But now that’s all gone,” said Lujan, who is still completing his therapy and has yet to get on his mountain bike. “They have me doing, you know, shoulder shrugs and pull ups, and they’re working on all that upper body strength. And it’s just, it’s special, but the best part of it is the people you’re working with.”
One nurse, in particular, pushed Lujan through the difficult moments in therapy. When Lujan did not feel like pushing, the nurse — named Tyler — told him, ‘You can be your own worst enemy and just stay here and not get better, or you can be positive. And you can take every day in that positive light and be positive with everything going on and get better,’ and it just stuck with me,” Lujan remembered, the emotion palpable in his voice.
The senator said the positive thinking made a true difference, but Lujan, a devout Catholic, also drew on his faith, telling ABC News he prayed daily, something that also helped with the intense feelings of loneliness that can permeate a sterile intensive care unit.
“It’s tough. People go through tough times during this, and there were people around me that passed away while they were trying to get care when the therapists were walking me around. I was often the only person walking around. Others were there behind closed doors. Some I don’t know if they had visitors and my family and my faith.”
It is that feeling of wanting to help others that aides say has Lujan and his team now looking for legislative and advocacy options. Lujan also said he plans to speak out to educate others about the risks of stroke and the importance of early detection.
The American Stroke Association uses the acronym, FAST, which stands for Face drooping; Arm weakness; Speech difficulty; and Time to call 9-1-1, emergency services, if these symptoms are observed.
As dramatic as the medical events were that played out far from Washington in January, the public and political world was none the wiser. It would take five days before Lujan’s condition was made public. The freshman senator’s chief of staff released a brief statement breaking the news, sending a seismic political jolt through the nation’s capital and an evenly-split Senate where Democratic leaders often say they are merely ‘a heartbeat away from the minority.’
Addressing the delay for the first time, Lujan told ABC News exclusively, “We put a press release out, I think it was the fifth day after I had the signs of that stroke on the 27th, and the reason for that was the docs told me you need a few days for us to give you an accurate portrayal of what your future may be like or what’s the outcome here. We don’t know where you’re going to do surgery yet, either. So, on the fifth day, they gave me and Carlos and my comms team an assessment. So we put a statement out to make sure everyone knew what was going on.”
But Lujan said the pressure from Washington, and the political machinations over how a Democratic absence might shift the balance of power in the Senate, never affected him and his recovery, this despite an historic Supreme Court nomination that would soon be announced for which Lujan’s vote might have proved decisive.
“Everyone knew that the Supreme Court nomination was on its way, and so one of the motivations for me even was you need to get better because you can’t miss that vote. And you need to get there, that’s your obligation,” said Lujan.
Lujan, a rising political star, manages to be both a fierce political strategist while also a humble man from humble roots, a member, along with Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., of the self-described “Head Start Caucus” — a reference to having been poor and in need of government assistance as children.
The senator is so beloved by his colleagues on both sides of the aisle, that they flooded his inbox with messages of support, something that the senator says was invaluable to his recovery.
One Senate colleague, in particular, Cory Booker of New Jersey, stood out, taking it upon himself to send daily, uplifting selfie videos to Lujan, sometimes corralling his Senate colleagues to join in, a generosity that brought the freshman senator to tears.
“I looked forward to them, and the first time I saw them, I was bawling,” Lujan recalled.
“Senator Booker has an incredible way about him and for someone of his stature to stop what they’re doing,” Lujan said, choking back tears. “Sorry. For someone of Cory’s stature to stop what they’re doing and tell you a story. And he was even getting, you know, Democratic and Republican lawmakers on the way to votes to say hello and whatnot…I think that’s an example of the kind of humanity and generosity that you see from other people. And this way with people that are busy, and they took time to truly check in on me and see how I was doing, and it was genuine.”
In one video, shared exclusively with ABC News by Booker’s office, prayers and words of encouragement were offered by Lujan’s “Head Start caucus” colleague, Raphael Warnock, who is also a pastor at the storied Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, featured in another, sending well wishes and prayers, with a smiling Booker adding of his Mormon colleague, “And I can say he’s got powerful prayers.”
“Hey, Ben Ray. Get better soon,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said in a third video, flashing a thumbs up as Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., photo bombed the moment.
It’s a generosity and selflessness that Sen. Lujan said he’s anxious to share with others, a profound lesson from his stroke, among many that he said would stay with him.
“How many people do we see on the street that need help or elsewhere in the world? And we people are so busy. We just walked by them and you ignore them? Even if you can’t help them, smile. Say, ‘Good morning. Good afternoon.’ Right?” Lujan asked rhetorically, passion rising in his voice. “Because that humanity might save their lives. They know that they’re being seen. They know they’re worth something. And it’s just one of those reminders to me of how much more patient we can be as a society, how much more caring we can be. And something that we can give away for free, which is the smile or gesture to change everything.”
He has also been especially touched by people who have had strokes but never made them public, willing to share their experience to help him, or others who have offered advice along the way on what to expect.
“Take time to get better, right? Sleep matters. Listen to your therapists. Do what they tell you to do. Take your medicine. A lot of people have told me that one,” recalled Lujan. “But since that stroke, and since I’ve come back, I’m able to be even more present than I’ve been. I’m able to appreciate where I am or the people that I’m meeting more.”
Perhaps difficult for an ambitious politician, Lujan said he’s trying to be more patient, though having nearly recovered fully from the stroke, he is anxious “to push, because you have so much to deliver and a short time to get it done. But you treat more people with that respect and dignity, and I hope people thought that I did that already, but I’m more aware of it, and you just be good, right? Trying to make a difference. Be positive.”
He has clearly learned a lot from the life-changing experience, but as he has shared his experience with others, including with other stroke victims, one thing has also solidified in his mind — that on that cold January day, something bigger than Lujan saved him.
“A lot of them told me that they waited too long, that they tried to get better for a couple of days. And for whatever reason, even though I think that’s my natural inclination, I didn’t do that this time. Someone was looking out for me, something motivated me. And, you know, a lot of people saved my life and, you know, God is watching over me. God is good.”
The senator returned to his job in Washington full time just five weeks after his stroke, his colleagues greeting him with a standing ovation as he walked into a Senate Commerce Committee hearing. He joked with reporters afterward about his new “buzz cut” hairdo, later voting on the Senate floor for the first time in more than a month, his colleagues warmly embracing him.
The senator, who has kept a low profile since the, is not quite back to 100%, but he says he is close and has passed major milestones, including an annual, 9-mile pilgrimage in his home state he recently conquered just before Easter.
“For me, that was a big milestone, because I have a lot to be grateful for, a lot to pray for. And while I didn’t walk as far as I normally do, I did it from my home. So just under 9 miles, but nonetheless a lot of folks said we didn’t know if you can do it, and that’s just one of those times that are important to me, that I was able to still meet it, and it just begins to describe the recovery,” Lujan said.
And while Lujan is not yet back on his mountain bike, something he says he plans to do soon, he told ABC News that he is feeling stronger every day.
“I won’t say I’m 100 percent yet, because I haven’t gotten on my mountain bike once I do that, and I think that I’m there I can tell you that I’m stronger. I feel stronger every day that goes by. I feel better. You know, you can see that I’ve not lost my speech, although some of my friends maybe had hoped that that might be the case. But I’m able to engage in debate and thought and conversation and do that work. And I feel physically stronger as well. So I’ve been blessed that I’m getting better and that I’m almost there. So keep praying for me.”
(NEW YORK) — With young under 5 now the only group not yet eligible for vaccination against COVID-19, many parents have been vocal about their frustration pertaining to the delayed authorization process and rollout.
However, a new KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor survey has found that less than a fifth of parents with children under the age 5 — 18% — reported that they are eager to get their child vaccinated right away.
More than a third of parents — 38% — said that they plan to wait in order to see how the vaccine works for others, while 27% of parents reported that they will “definitely not” get their child vaccinated, and another 11% stating that they will only do so if required.
More than half of parents said they feel that they do not have enough information about the vaccines’ safety and efficacy for children under 5 years of age.
Pfizer reported on Tuesday that it now expects to analyze and submit its data for its three-dose pediatric vaccine by late May or early June, and the company anticipates that both the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will consider the submission soon after.
“We have been working with urgency to generate data,” Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer’s chief scientific officer and president, Worldwide Research Development and Medical, said during an investors conference on Monday, adding that the company recognizes that “parents of younger children and health care providers have been waiting for an effective vaccine.”
Last week, Moderna announced it had submitted its request for the FDA to authorize its vaccine for children ages 6 months to 6 years.
“I think for these little children, they really represent an unmet medical need,” Paul Burton, chief medical officer for Moderna, told ABC News last week. “I would be hopeful that the review will go on quickly and rigorously — but if it’s approvable, this will be made available to these little children as quickly as possible.”
Burton said there will certainly be a “continued challenge ahead” as officials work to address hesitancy among parents.
The initial reluctance from parents of young children mirrors a similar trend to that seen with parents of older children and adolescents. Just under 26 million children ages 5 to 17 — or a little less than half of those eligible — remain completely unvaccinated, according to federal data. Overall, 43.2% of eligible children have been fully vaccinated, and when broken down further by age, just 28.8% of children ages 5 to 11 have been fully vaccinated.
Just under one-third of parents of 5- to 17-year-olds reported that they will “definitely not” get their child vaccinated, KFF found.
However, the poll found that the FDA’s delays in analyzing pediatric vaccine data have not been a deterrent for parents. Sixty-four percent of parents reported the delay has not affected their confidence in the safety of the vaccines for this age group, while 22% of parents said it has made them “more confident” in the vaccine’s safety for young children. Only 13% of parents reported the delay has made them “less confident.”
The continued push to convince parents to vaccinate their children comes amid a rise in pediatric COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations.
For the third consecutive week, COVID-19 infection rates among children in the U.S. have seen a notable increase, according to a new report released on Monday from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.
Last week, 53,000 additional child COVID-19 cases were reported, an increase of about 61% from two weeks ago. Nevertheless, overall numbers remain significantly lower than during other parts of the pandemic. However, many Americans, who are taking at-home tests, are not submitting their results, and thus, experts said daily case totals are likely significantly higher than the numbers that are officially reported.
Hospital admissions are also up by about 21% in the last two weeks, with around 120 virus-positive children admitted to the hospital each day.
Vaccine hesitancy has not been limited just to parents, as the push back against the vaccine has plagued the rollout since its early days. Nationally, 54.6 million eligible Americans remain unvaccinated.
In recent months, the drive for people to get their booster shot has also markedly slowed, as those most eager to get the shot have already been vaccinated.
Among vaccinated adults, who have not yet received a booster dose, 27% reported that they will only get the extra shot “if required,” while 23% said that they “definitely not” get a booster. Nearly a third — 30% — reported that they plan to get an additional dose “as soon as they can,” while 18% said they want to “wait to see” before getting a booster dose.
KFF found there is also a large gap by partisanship, with Democrats more than twice as likely as Republicans to report being vaccinated and boosted.
For those who have yet to receive a booster, 56% of respondents said they believe that they already have enough protection from either their initial vaccine doses or from a previous COVID-19 infection. Others reported that they simply do not want to get it, while 39% of people said they believe boosters are ineffective because some vaccinated people are still getting infected.
(NEW YORK) — Amid a political debate about offering gender affirming medical care to transgender children, a new study suggests that among children who have already socially transitioned very few are likely to “retransition” to their gender at birth.
The study, published Wednesday in the journal Pediatrics, followed 317 socially transitioned children who had already been living as their authentic gender for more than a year, finding that almost 95% continued to identify as transgender five years later.
“What we are seeing is that a relatively small number of youth retransitioned,” Dr. Kristina Olson, a professor of psychology at Princeton University and first author on the paper, told ABC News.
Social transition describes the process of transgender people adopting the name, pronouns and gender expression, such as clothing and haircuts, that match their gender identity, and not the gender assumed by their sex at birth. In this study, retransition or “detransition” is when a person identifies as cisgender or nonbinary after identifying as transgender. Of note, many nonbinary people consider themselves to be transgender.
Prior research has suggested a much higher rate of retransition among young children, but many of these prior studies have focused on the period immediately after a child expresses a desire to socially transition. Because the new study followed children who were already 18 months into their social transition, specialists said it offers important context to prior research, suggesting children who persistently express their transgender identity for more than a year are unlikely to retransition.
In the study, children were surveyed from more than 40 states and two Canadian provinces between 2013 and 2017, when they were 3 to 12 years old. About 2.5% of children retransitioned to identify as cisgender at the end of the study, and 3.5% were living as nonbinary, using they/them pronouns. Children who transitioned before age 6 were more likely to retransition, the study said.
Under current medical guidance, children who transition do not undergo significant, irreversible treatments such as surgery. Young children don’t require any medical treatments to socially transition, while older children may safely be offered puberty blockers to halt changes associated with puberty.
Doctors who care for transgender youth said the study matches what they see in their clinical practice.
“I can count on one hand the number of kids in our 200 plus population who have retransitioned,” Dr. Kristin Dayton, a pediatric endocrinologist who works with youth undergoing gender transitions in Florida, told ABC News. She said this study reflects what she sees in her own clinic.
“This article sounds much more like my experience,” Dr. Hussein Abul-Latif, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of Alabama told ABC News.
He said he has always been surprised by anecdotal reports that transgender youth frequently retransition because it’s not what he’s seen on a large scale in his medical practice.
One limitation of the study, researchers said, is that it likely reflects the experience of children with supportive families and therapy.
“In order for a kid to socially transition, you have to have some degree of parental support,” said Olson, who directs the TransYouth Project, the first large-scale, national, longitudinal study of socially-transitioned transgender children to date.
Studies show that transgender youth are far more likely to experience depression, anxiety and suicidal thought than their peers. But those who are supported in their transition are less likely to experience depression and suicidality.
“That’s probably why we are seeing our cohort has average rates of depression and only slight elevation in anxiety on average,” Olson said.
The new study comes amid legislative efforts in several U.S. states to limit medical care for transgender children. In Florida, recent health department guidance advising against supportive medical care for transgender children cited older research indicating 80% of youth are likely to retransition, but the data has been called into question for things like the inability to follow up with study participants regarding their true outcomes.
According to Dayton, who practices in Florida, the recent guidance was not based on a complete review of medical literature, including ample studies suggesting that allowing children to transition decreases suicide risk.
“We encourage social transition because there is ample data to show it markedly improves mental health and reduces suicidality in transgender kids,” Dayton said
In Alabama, where Abdul-Latif practices, new legislation means it could soon become illegal for doctors to offer gender-affirming medical care to transgender children.
“People forget that these are just kids,” Olson said. “We can so easily get lost in the rhetoric and forget that behind that rhetoric are kids just trying to live their life.”
Abdul-Latif said he worries most about the mental health of the youth he treats. He recently saw one transgender boy in clinic who had started testosterone a few months ago despite his father expressing some initial reservations.
“The father made a point of sharing that he had been hesitant at first but having seen his son and how much happier he is — more open and interactive — he is so happy he decided to do this. I think about those smiling faces, and I think, what will happen to them?” Abdul-Latif said.
(NEW YORK) — An unprecedented leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion on abortion is putting a new spotlight on what could happen if the court overturns Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that made abortion a federally protected right in the United States.
The document, obtained by Politico, shows the Supreme Court’s conservative majority of justices are ready to overturn nearly 50 years of established abortion rights precedent via the Mississippi, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, a case the court heard last year and is expected to rule publicly on by the end of June.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” writes Justice Samuel Alito, the opinion’s apparent author, in a copy of the draft posted online Tuesday night.
Chief Justice John Roberts called the leaked draft a “singular and egregious breach” of trust in a statement issued Wednesday.
Here are five things to know about the leaked draft, the Mississippi case and what is expected to happen to abortion access in the U.S. if Roe is overturned.
1. The Mississippi case centers on a 15-week abortion ban.
In the case, the state of Mississippi is arguing to uphold a law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, while Jackson Women’s Health, Mississippi’s lone abortion clinic, argues the Supreme Court’s protection of a woman’s right to choose the procedure is clear, well-established and should be respected.
Since the Roe v. Wade ruling and the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey ruling that affirmed the decision, the court has never allowed states to prohibit the termination of pregnancies prior to fetal viability outside the womb, roughly 24 weeks, according to medical experts.
Mississippi, through its state health officer, Dr. Thomas E. Dobbs, an infectious disease physician, argues Roe and Casey were wrongly decided and that each state should be allowed to set its policy.
2. How the draft ruling became public remains a mystery.
The leak of the draft ruling on a high-stakes issue like abortion is being described as an extraordinary breach of protocol and tradition for the Supreme Court, whose nine justices and their clerks are known for being extremely discreet.
The document, which Politico said it obtained from a “person familiar with the court’s proceedings,” is marked “first draft” and dated Feb. 10, 2022 — two months after oral arguments were heard in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
“The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion,” the draft states. “Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.”
Following the publication of the draft, Chief Justice Roberts announced he has directed the Marshal of the Court — its chief operations and security officer — to investigate the leak.
“To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed. The work of the Court will not be affected in any way,” Roberts said in a statement. “We at the Court are blessed to have a workforce — permanent employees and law clerks alike — intensely loyal to the institution and dedicated to the rule of law.”
“Court employees have an exemplary and important tradition of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial process and upholding the trust of the Court. This was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here,” he said. “I have directed the Marshal of the Court to launch an investigation into the source of the leak.”
3. The draft ruling is not a final Supreme Court decision.
The drafting of Supreme Court opinions is a fluid and dynamic process, sources familiar with the internal operations have told ABC News.
The leaked document is part of that fluid process and is not the court’s final ruling.
Though the document is from February, an unnamed source familiar with the deliberations told Politico that Justices Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett all initially supported a ruling siding with Mississippi and “that line-up remains unchanged as of this week.”
A Wall Street Journal editorial this month suggested that Chief Justice John Roberts, known for his passion for established precedent and the court’s reputation, may try to convince one of his conservative colleagues to join him in a narrower opinion that would not completely overturn Roe v. Wade.
4. Overturning Roe v. Wade would give power to the states.
If the Supreme Court rules to overturn Roe v. Wade, the power to decide abortion access would rest with the elected leaders of each state.
As of today, more than half of the nation’s 50 states are prepared to ban abortion if Roe is overturned, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization.
Twenty-one states already have laws on the books that would immediately ban abortion if Roe were overturned. Five additional states are likely to ban abortion should Roe be overturned, the Guttmacher report said.
Because the states that plan to ban abortion are focused in specific geographic regions, including the South, the expected effect is that women will have to travel much longer distances, at a greater cost and inconvenience, to seek abortion care, according to Elizabeth Nash, interim associate director of state issues at the Guttmacher Institute.
On the other side, states that support abortion rights, like California, Connecticut and New York, are also ones to watch if Roe is overturned because they could fortify laws that enhance and protect abortion access in their states, experts say.
5. Abortion remains legal in all 50 states as of now.
Abortion rights advocates are messaging to people that abortion is currently legal in all 50 states.
Though many states over the past several decades have passed laws that limit abortion access — as seen most recently in Oklahoma, Florida and Texas — Roe v. Wade, which made access to abortion a constitutional right, currently remains the law of the land.
(NEW YORK) — In the sun-baked 66 miles between Tucson and Nogales at the Arizona-Mexico border, there’s only one place that’s able to provide the intensive, hands-on care so many patients need after they leave the hospital: Santa Rita Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.
But since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, providing that kind of care has been an uphill battle, Amy Malkin, the facility’s operations chief, told ABC News. Since March 2020, Santa Rita has faced a staffing exodus as scores of employees have gotten sick, burned out, or left to care for their kids or other family members.
Now, as inflation has put the squeeze on staffers’ commuting costs, that exodus has only intensified, Malkin told ABC News.
To fill the vacancies, the facility has had to rely on staffing agencies that charge several times more per worker than what they’d been previously paying — all while insurers’ reimbursement rates have remained all but fixed.
Accordingly, Santa Rita is “losing money every month,” Malkin told ABC News — forcing the facility into a vicious cycle of cost-cutting that prevents it from hiring the staff it sorely needs.
“We don’t make profits anymore,” Malkin told ABC News. “It’s just not sustainable.”
The result: For months, Santa Rita has been forced to turn patients away — leaving them to travel miles away to find the care they need.
Santa Rita is among hundreds of long-term care facilities nationwide — from large chains to mom-and-pop operations — that are fighting for their survival. Many are being forced to close their doors, while others are having to turn patients away in order to survive.
According to the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL), which represents more than 14,000 long-term care facilities, more than 75% of operators had to limit admissions in 2021. And more than 300 nursing homes have closed since the pandemic began.
Officials say hundreds more facilities are expected to close this year — and if the federal government’s COVID-19 emergency funding expires in July, advocates say, the situation will only get worse.
AHCA/NCAL calls the current staffing shortages “historic.” The long-term care industry overall was already expected to face shortages of millions of workers before the pandemic, according to PHI National, a nonprofit research organization. And according to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), over 400,000 workers — nearly 10% of the workforce — left the long-term care industry between March 2020 and January 2022.
“It won’t be long until the system is overrun,” April Verrett, president of SEIU 2015, which represents over 400,000 workers in California, told ABC News. “We’re running out of time.”
The human face of shortages
For Fernanda Carley, the staffing shortages aren’t just an abstract number.
Carley, who is Nogales-born and raised, is a certified nursing assistant at Arroyo Gardens, the sister facility to Santa Rita. She long aspired to be a caregiver; at 16, Carley was already taking classes on medical terminology.
But the pandemic tested that calling — and recent months have only pushed Carley further toward the brink. As spring turns to summer, her electricity bill is way up, and gas is costing her upwards of $150 per week. To pay her bills, she’s had to pick up side hustles washing cars.
All the while, she has watched countless colleagues leave for less strenuous, safer and higher-paying jobs at retailers like Amazon, Walmart and Target.
“I’ve been doing a lot of life contemplating,” she told ABC News.
In the coming months, she plans to leave her job and return to nursing school.
If and when that happens, “my hope is other great caregivers get hired,” Carley said.
But, she said, “at this point, I don’t see the end of the pandemic or the inflation — and I don’t think either helps the situation. I don’t know when people would be willing to work in this industry anymore.”
The high cost of shortages
Like Santa Rita, many long-term care providers are combatting the workforce shortage by relying on staffing agencies to fill their vacancies.
“Provider organizations are left with few options to ensure they have the staff needed,” said Colleen Knudsen, a spokesperson for LeadingAge, an association of nonprofit aging services providers.
But that approach comes with its own consequences. Labor is the main line-item for long-term facilities, accounting for about 70% of expenses, Christina Crawford, spokesperson for AHCA/NCAL, said in a statement. And agencies are charging two to three times more than pre-pandemic staff rates, according to AHCA/NCAL.
For many facilities, those costs are wholly unaffordable.
Aria Healthcare, which operates three facilities in Wisconsin, simply will not hire agency providers. According to their calculations, in order to fully staff a unit with agency providers, they’d need to keep more beds completely full with patients all day, every day, than is possible based on the number of admissions they get.
“The math just doesn’t work out,” Aneillo Lindsay, Aria’s chief innovation officer, told ABC News.
Similar patterns are playing out across the country.
In Florida, long-term care facilities’ use of employment agencies is up by nearly 300%, according to the Florida Health Care Association. Facilities have seen an increase of $275 million annually in staffing costs resulting from paying overtime, contract labor, and other costs associated with hiring additional in-house staff, Kristen Knapp, spokesperson for FHCA, told ABC News.
And yet, the median pay for certified nursing assistants in 2020 was $14.82 an hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Robert Oronia, a certified nursing assistant in Los Angeles, says that’s not enough. And while Oronia says some of his colleagues have seen raises after shifting to agency work, those raises often come at the cost of benefits.
Marginally higher wages, in the absence of benefits, are still “un-liveable,” Oronia told ABC News.
“It’s just one vicious, vicious cycle that’s going on now,” he said. “People are just getting tired of it — they don’t want to do this work.”
Forced closures
All this financial strain has taken a toll on facilities across the country. Some, like Aria in Wisconsin, have stayed open at a reduced capacity. During the pandemic, Aria was forced to leave over 100 beds across its facilities empty, Lindsay told ABC News.
Others have been forced to close entirely.
According to a recent AHA/NCAL report, the more than 300 nursing homes that have closed during the pandemic have displaced nearly 13,000 patients.
An additional 400 facilities are projected to close in 2022.
“Ultimately, these staffing and economic challenges are resulting in limited access to care for our nation’s seniors,” Crawford, with AHCA/NCAL, told ABC News.
The situation will likely get worse when Medicare reimbursement rates drop upon expiration of the public health emergency declaration by the Department of Health and Human Services. The emergency declaration is scheduled for expiration on July 15.
The resulting 5% funding loss would put another one-third of long-term care facilities at risk of closing, according to a recent audit by CliftonLarsonAllen, a financial advisory firm. That could leave up to 417,000 patients and families scrambling to find the care they need.
“The financial pressures are just too much,” Malkin, in Arizona, said. “Places are going to close … places are definitely going to close.”
But so far, Santa Rita and Arroyo Gardens are braving the storm, Malkin told ABC News.
