(SAN DIEGO) — A 2-year-old girl who spent the first two years of her life in the hospital is back home with her parents and younger brother in California.
It was a joyous homecoming for Addy Smith, who left the hospital on April 5 after 848 days of treatment at two different San Diego hospitals.
Addy was born via cesarean section on Dec. 10, 2019, at 27 weeks and four days at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns in San Diego, where she first received treatment. She was small for her age and according to her parents, was diagnosed with intrauterine growth restriction while still in the womb. IUGR, also known as fetal growth restriction or FGR, is a condition where a baby doesn’t grow at a normal rate in the womb and can lead to a lower weight at birth, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Addy’s parents, Aliesha and Chris Smith, had struggled for seven years with infertility, and at one point were told they weren’t able to have children. They tried several intrauterine insemination procedures that were unsuccessful but then got pregnant one month before they were supposed to begin the in vitro fertilization process.
“We had tried so long. It was never ever on the table, never an option to not see things through with her and not give her a chance,” Chris Smith, 36, recalled to ABC News’ Good Morning America. “The OB (obstetrician) had told us, she just painted a picture of what it would be like for the next, at least couple years, and the rest of her life and we were really like, ‘OK, let’s go. Let’s saddle up and this is what was meant to be.'”
At Sharp Mary Birch, Addy seemed to be making progress, despite her underdeveloped lungs, moving from a ventilator to a continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, machine to help her breathe. But three months after her birth, Addy took a turn for the worse, when she stopped breathing.
“The doctors did not think she was going to make it and we were getting ready to say our goodbyes,” Aliesha Smith, 35, recalled to GMA.
Doctors had to work on Addy for over an hour to resuscitate her, but the team at Sharp Mary Birch told Aliesha and Chris that in order to give Addy a fighting chance, she’d have to be transferred to Rady Children’s Hospital.
Addy was quickly admitted to Rady’s neonatal intensive care unit in March 2020, the same month when COVID-19 was declared a national emergency. Aliesha and Chris Smith also moved into a friend’s recreational vehicle so they could split up time with Addy after the hospital changed their protocols due to COVID-19 and only allowed one parent to stay at Addy’s bedside at a time.
“She was so critical, so critical, that we had a friend that let us use their RV. And so we parked on the street and that’s where one of us would be when one of us would be up by her room,” Aliesha explained, adding that Addy coded two more times on her first two days at Rady.
Dr. Sandeep Khanna, a pediatric intensivist and the medical director of the pediatric intensive care unit at Rady Children’s Hospital, treated Addy, who had chronic lung disease and had trouble breathing on her own, for over a year in the PICU.
“She was a challenge,” Khanna told GMA. “She was having periods when the air exchange was very difficult on her and we had to give her heavy amounts of sedation to relax her, and sometimes even the heavy, heavy amounts of sedation did not work.”
“The only thing which helped us through was that we had to give her a paralyzing medication after heavy sedation,” Khanna continued. “It was tricky because sometimes those episodes would resolve [after] maybe 30 minutes or an hour. But sometimes she would have periods of those episodes maybe 10 times a day and she would continue to have it for like seven to 10 days. And it was hard to wean her from heavy sedation and muscle relaxation medications. And that’s why she was stuck in the hospital.”
For months, Addy was on some form of paralytic drug, but the Smiths never gave up on Addy, even when her care team, like Khanna, didn’t have any clear answers or solutions.
“I was sitting with [Chris] in the room and I said, ‘Look, the way things are going, Chris, I don’t know when she will go home. I think this might take years. It might take decades, even,'” Khanna recalled. “We are not saying we’re quitting but I’m just telling you that you should be prepared for that. And he said, ‘Well, she’s driving the bus. Keep doing it.’ So we did it.”
“We were always on the same page,” Aliesha added. “We always knew what the end goal was, which was to get her home. And we always made an agreement, Addy is going to tell us when she’s not ready. And if we started questioning that and we would pray about it and say like, ‘God, please give me a sign, tell me if it’s time to stop or if it’s time to keep going.'”
Khanna said there were many factors in Addy’s case but letting her grow in the PICU under the care of her nurses and medical team seemed to help with her breathing episodes, as her lungs continued to develop. Physical therapy also helped with her muscle rigidity and her lungs seemed to improve as her muscles strengthened. By February and March 2022, Addy didn’t have any bronchoconstriction, or muscle spasms in the lungs, when she couldn’t breathe.
The last two years have been extremely difficult for the Smiths but one of their bright spots was finding out they were expecting again. The couple welcomed their second child, a healthy baby boy named Aiden, last year.
Aiden was able to join his parents and accompany his older sister home two weeks ago and they’re getting to know each other already.
“She starts cracking up when he’s laughing or when he’s screaming. She cracks up and it’s funny to see them interact,” Aliesha said. “We’ve taken them on walks together out in the neighborhood, which has been so fun to do.”
Even though Addy still needs to use a ventilator at home for now, Aliesha and Chris are full of hope for their oldest child and want to pass along their hope to others.
“It’s been miracle after miracle with her,” Chris said. “We’re both so excited to see where she goes and what she can do. And I know she’s always going to continue to blow us away and surprise us.”
“I’m hoping we can give another family hope. We felt very alone during this whole thing and if her story can give another family that may be going through something so similar … if we can give them that little peace, I know it would have meant everything to us, as well,” he added.
(NEW YORK) — As experts warn about the spread of COVID-19 misinformation in online parent groups, one mom is speaking out about how she inadvertently became an anti-vaccine influencer.
Heather Simpson of Dallas, Texas, said she turned to wellness groups and became an online influencer almost overnight when she posted anti-vaccine beliefs on Facebook after watching an anti-vaccine documentary.
“I was convinced that if I vaccinated my child, she would die that night,” Simpson told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “That kind of led me into the entire wellness community as a whole.”
“At the time, I was a stay at home mom. I was lonely. I didn’t have family or friends close by,” Simpson continued. “It was so nice to be welcomed into this community. They were listening to your health concerns. They were supportive.”
According to a recent study by The George Washington University, parents like Simpson were especially vulnerable to online misinformation campaigns early on during the COVID-19 pandemic. They were exposed to thousands of alternative health and anti-vaccination communities on networking sites like Facebook.
Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that children ages 5 and older receive vaccinations to protect against COVID-19. CDC data shows that more than nine million children between the ages of 5 and 11 in the U.S. have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and nearly eight million have received two doses as of April 13.
When Simpson started sharing her own anti-vaccine beliefs online, her posts took off and people shared them hundreds of times.
“People saw me as a health authority,” Simpson said. “I could post anything and they’re going to share it and take it as fact.”
Renee DiResta, a research manager at Stanford University’s Internet Observatory who studies disinformation, the deliberate spreading of false information, and social networks online, says it’s not hard to end up in so-called wellness groups and they can feel welcoming and supportive.
“You have to know which medical websites to trust. If you’re using whatever search engine, you don’t necessarily know if you’re getting reputable information there,” DiResta told GMA.
“You feel like you’re hearing from your friends. You’re getting social feedback. Oftentimes, people who are the most passionate about sharing information are not necessarily sharing the right information,” DiResta added.
The federal government has warned consumers about disinformation, including taking action against fraudulent products that claim to treat COVID-19. In March, the Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission and the Food and Drug Administration, sued a marketer of an herbal tea, called Earth Tea, for false advertising.
The company told GMA it never promoted Earth Tea as a clinically proven COVID-19 prevention method, treatment or cure, and has stopped advertising and selling products in the U.S.
Simpson said ultimately, it was her concern for her 4-year-old daughter’s well-being that led her to change her stance and come to support vaccinations.
“I realized, ‘What if she got the measles? What if she did die from the measles and I could have stopped that?'” she recalled.
Now, Simpson has co-founded a vaccine advocacy site, called “Back to the Vax,” as well as a podcast and support group.
“I feel like there is a responsibility to listen to the anti-vaxxers and the wellness community and try to bridge the gap,” she said.
For credible online sources for medical advice, start with the websites for the CDC and National Institutes of Health (NIH), and ask your health care provider if you’re curious or have any questions about wellness products.
(NEW YORK) — More than 8,000 nurses and health care workers in Northern California are planning a one-day strike Monday over staffing and other COVID-19-related concerns.
The employees of Sutter Health, a health delivery system headquartered in Sacramento, are planning to strike at 15 facilities — including locations in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Vallejo — between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. and from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
According to a press release from the California Nurses’ Association (CNA), a labor union, the workers are protesting concerns related to staffing shortages as well as health and safety protections they say are putting both patients and staff in danger.
The CNA said the nurses voted to strike in March and alerted Sutter Health of the plans to picket 10 days in advance.
“We have tried repeatedly to address the chronic and widespread problem of short staffing that causes delays in care and potentially puts patients at risk, but hospital administrators continue to ignore us,” Amy Erb, a critical care nurse who works for Sutter’s California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, said in a statement.
The statement continued, “We have a moral and legal obligation to advocate for our patients. We advocate for them at the bedside, at the bargaining table, and if we have to, on the strike line.”
Additionally, the workers alleged Sutter Health did not provide its workers with enough personal protective equipment at the beginning of the pandemic and has refused to invest in stockpiles, ignoring California’s PPE stockpile law.
Staff also said the health network has not been conducting contact tracing after positive cases are reported among staff.
In addition to getting Sutter to address their concerns, the workers are attempting to negotiate higher salaries. Sutter Health told KCRA 3 in a statement it does offer competitive wages and pandemic protections.
“They resist having nurses directly involved in planning and implementation of policies that affect all of us during a pandemic,” Renee Water, a neurotrauma ICU nurse at Sutter, said in a statement. “A fair contract is needed to retain experienced nurses, have sufficient staffing and training, and ensure we have the resources we need to provide safe and effective care for our patients”
The union said nurses and other health care workers have been negotiating with Sutter for a new contract since June 2021 with little advancement.
Sutter did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment. However, in a statement Sunday, the health network said it was hopeful the strike would be called off, referring to it as “disruptive” and “costly.”
“We notified CNA today that if the uncertainty of a strike remains this afternoon, we will staff our hospitals on Monday with the contracted replacement workers,” a spokesperson for Sutter Health said, according to local affiliate ABC 10. “We hope the union will call off this strike so our nurses can work their normal shifts on Monday and do what they do best — care for our patients.”
Sutter also said in its statement negotiations with CNA have resumed with the help of a federal mediator.
(NEW YORK) — Actor Brian Austin Green is opening up about his experience with ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease that affects the inner lining of the digestive tract.
In a recent Instagram post, Green said he had been dealing with the disease for about “six, six-and-a-half weeks,” and that the illness had left him “bedridden for a while.”
Ulcerative colitis, or UC, most commonly affects young adults 15 to 30 years old, but also tends to crop up among adults starting around age 50. Green is 48 years old.
“Unfortunately, we don’t know the exact cause of ulcerative colitis,” said Dr. Lea Ann Chen, director of inflammatory bowel disease translational research at Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine at Rutgers University. It is potentially “caused by abnormalities of the immune system,” Chen said.
Roughly 600,000 to 900,000 people in the U.S. have ulcerative colitis, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Here are six things to know about this common disease.
1. Symptoms might not be obvious at first
“The most common symptoms include diarrhea, sometimes bloody diarrhea and abdominal pain. The symptoms can overlap with a number of other conditions.” Chen said.
Some associated symptoms may be bowel urgency, bowel incontinence, weight loss, fever and weakness, according to the NIH. There may be periods that someone with UC will not have symptoms and they will return.
2. Straightforward diagnosis, lifelong treatment
To diagnose ulcerative colitis, colonoscopies and biopsies are most common.
“There are features of inflammation both in the colonoscopy and microscopically, that help us to distinguish ulcerative colitis from other conditions,” Chen said.
Many treatment options exist, and it requires lifelong care.
“It depends on the severity and how symptomatic patients are,” Chen said of choosing a treatment plan. Pills, like mesalamine or sulfasalazine, and injections and infusions called biologics can be administered.
If you stop your medication, even when you feel great and have no symptoms, it can cause serious health problems. Flare-ups may occur and require hospitalizations or even surgery.
3. There is no prevention
“Unfortunately, there is not anything specific you can do to protect yourself,” Chen said. A healthy diet of fresh fruit and vegetables is a start, however, “it’s not clear that this would protect you from developing ulcerative colitis,” Chen said.
The most independent risk factor is a family history of the disease. If you have a first-degree relative with the disease, you have a four times higher risk.
4. Increased risk of colorectal cancer
“Some people get joint pains or inflammation in their eyes. Occasionally, some get primary sclerosing cholangitis, which is inflammation in the biliary system. Less than half of people will get these conditions,” Chen said.
It can also lead to abscesses, toxic megacolon, further bleeding for your gastrointestinal tract and other infections.
“Unfortunately, ulcerative colitis and the inflammation that it causes in the colon over time can increase a person’s colon cancer risk,” Chen said.
The risk of getting colon cancer is roughly 2% after 10 years of diagnosis, according to StatPearls research.
5. Regular follow-ups are important
“Patients, after they’ve been diagnosed [with UC] for a number of years will be put on a schedule [with their doctor] for more frequent colonoscopies. Within the first eight years the colonoscopies are to help look at the location of the disease and to check response to therapy. After eight years, the gastroenterologist may recommend annual colonoscopies to every other year. Depending on the severity and the duration, that somebody has had UC,” Chen said.
Regular follow-ups with your gastroenterologist are important.
“One thing patients can do to lower that risk [of colon cancer] is to get good control of their disease,” Chen said.
You should also discuss any concerns you have with your doctor.
Raffaele Macri, M.D., is an emergency medicine and family medicine resident physician at Jefferson Health Northeast in Philadelphia and member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — The Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorization for a COVID-19 test that uses breath samples — the first of its kind to get the agency’s green light. The device, called the InspectIR Covid-19 Breathalyzer, is “about the size of a piece of carry-on luggage,” and can accurately detect coronavirus on the breath within just a few minutes, the company and FDA said.
While other COVID-19 testing methods have used nasal swab or saliva samples to detect viral particles, this test uses a technique called gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to separate and identify chemical mixtures and rapidly screen for five compounds associated with a COVID-19 infection in a person’s exhaled breath.
A positive result with this device is still considered “presumptive,” however, and should still be confirmed with a PCR test, the so-called “gold standard” in COVID-19 screening, the FDA said. The agency warned negative results “should be considered in the context of a patient’s recent exposures, history and the presence of clinical signs and symptoms consistent with COVID-19, as they do not rule out SARS-CoV-2 infection and should not be used as the sole basis for treatment or patient management decisions.”
While it comes with caveats, the company views its product as a potential game-changer in the large-scale COVID-19 screening arena.
“We spent a lot of time and a lot of effort on the science and the technology,” company co-founder Luke Kaiser said. “We are very focused on having a great product and a true product that can go anywhere, and test accurately.”
While this test offers rapid results — promised in under three minutes — this is not the same kind of rapid test available for purchase at local pharmacies. It is not aimed at being an “at-home” screening method — rather, it is meant for what InspectIR Systems COO John Redmond described to ABC News as a “volume play.”
InspectIR Systems aims to produce roughly 100 test devices per week, with 10 made so far, Kaiser told ABC News. In the next month, they expect to have roughly 250 test devices ready to go and say they will be making “as many as the line can hold.”
The company anticipates leasing test devices to companies and within industries ideal for en masse screening, as would be appropriate within the health care industry, such as nursing homes, prisons and the travel and hospitality industry, such as cruise lines, and perhaps schools. Redmond said the company expects leasing agreements to cost between $25,000 and $30,000 per month, which is why this would be most appropriate for that “volume play” setting.
Though that dollar figure sounds large, the idea is to get the cost per test down to an average of $10 to $12 each, Redmond said, which is in line with and perhaps even cheaper than commercially available at-home rapid tests. Baked into that leasing price would be a supply of individually wrapped paper straws, an air filter for the test kit and other necessary components.
With a single-use sanitary paper straw people blow their breath sample, about the amount it takes “to inflate a small balloon,” into the system, the company said, which looks for the chemistry and compounds associated with COVID-19.
The test must be done with supervision from a health care professional at doctor’s offices, hospitals, mobile testing sites or other venues with qualified staff on hand.
Each device can each be used to evaluate approximately 160 samples per day. At this level of production, testing capacity using the InspectIR COVID-19 Breathalyzer is expected to increase by approximately 64,000 samples per month.
“Today’s authorization is yet another example of the rapid innovation occurring with diagnostic tests for COVID-19,” Dr. Jeff Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in a statement. “The FDA continues to support the development of novel COVID-19 tests with the goal of advancing technologies that can help address the current pandemic and better position the U.S. for the next public health emergency.”
ABC News’ Eric M. Strauss contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — For years, Maria Sylvia ignored a straight, brown streak that had appeared on her right thumbnail.
The 25-year-old shared what it looked like in a TikTok video last month and wrote, “me: having this for 10 years, thinking it was a cool streak on my nail.”
In the next frame, she continued, “it’s cancer.”
Sylvia told Good Morning America totally asymptomatic, meaning that you feel no pain,” dermatologist Dr. Whitney Bowe told GMA. “You don’t want a lesion to become painful, start to bleed, or start to create any kind of deformity of the nail. That usually means that we’re catching it too late.”
In a follow-up video, Sylvia said she had seen doctors in the past and one had suggested her nail discoloration could be a mole.
Sylvia encouraged others who may be concerned to go see a doctor. “You really have to be your advocate here and say, ‘No, no, I’d really like to get a biopsy just to be sure,'” she told GMA.
Following her diagnosis, Sylvia said in another TikTok video that she found out the melanoma had not appeared to spread. She has since underwent surgery and a skin graft.
Since opening up on TikTok, Sylvia has heard from others who said her warning video has been eye-opening and helpful.
“I saw this TikTok a couple weeks ago and really thought nothing of it until I saw my mom’s toe and was really concerned. She got an appointment, and long story short, you saved my mom’s life. Thank you,” posted one TikTok user.
Bowe also encourages anyone who wears nail polish to remove it at least once a month and inspect the nails for any abnormalities like pigmentation or discoloration.
(NEW YORK) — After the omicron wave of COVID-19 receded earlier this winter, states and cities across the country moved quickly to ease mitigation measures, leaving many officials hopeful that the virus would soon be in the rear-view mirror, ahead of the looming midterm elections in November.
Much of the public rejoiced when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced it would update its guidance for face coverings, giving the vast majority of Americans the green light to ditch masks indoors, if they lived in an area of low or medium risk.
However, for some high-risk populations, like the 7 million Americans living with weakened immune systems from cancer treatment, transplants or immune deficiencies, a return to pre-pandemic normalcy is still not on the horizon. The CDC’s new guidance came with a caveat for the immunocompromised; the agency is still recommending that those at increased risk keep face coverings on.
With concert halls at full capacity again, largely maskless classrooms and social distancing stickers no longer visible in shopping outlets, many members of the immunocompromised and disabled communities are now appealing directly to the CDC and other federal health agencies in an effort to voice their frustrations.
“The fact that we have to just say over and over again, that our lives are worth saving — it’s really soul crushing,” Maria Town, president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities, told ABC News.
Moderately or severely immunocompromised people, or individuals who have a weakened immune system, are at increased risk of severe COVID-19 illness and death, according to the CDC.
As concerns over a new COVID-19 resurgence grow, advocates like Town have been pushing back on the administration’s decision to roll back recommended restrictions and are urging officials to reconsider implementing restrictions such as masking.
“There’s a constant questioning of what can we be doing differently, what can we be doing more of and after two years of having to defend our humanity, it becomes even harder to answer those questions,” Town said.
‘Seen this pattern before’
Last month, the American Association of People with Disabilities, alongside a group of more than 100 disability organizations, penned a letter to CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, urging her to revise the agency’s latest COVID-19 guidance on masking, in an effort to protect high-risk populations in the U.S.
Under the CDC’s new risk levels, most Americans living in areas with low or medium community spread levels were no longer recommended to wear masks indoors. However, the agency suggests that under the medium risk level, high-risk Americans should consider consulting with their physicians over whether or not to wear a mask.
“We have seen this pattern before. When protections that are key to lowering transmission, such as universal masking, are removed too soon after a peak and before low transmission is demonstrably sustained, new variants emerge, causing cases to spike and putting the lives of all Americans – particularly disabled, chronically ill, immunocompromised, people of color, and older people – at greater risk once again,” the organizations wrote.
A month after the original letter from the disability organizations was sent, two representatives from the CDC, John Auerbach, director of intergovernmental and strategic affairs, and Dr. Karen Remley, director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, responded to the coalition, on behalf of Walensky.
“Dr. Walensky and CDC commit to moving forward together with people in the disability community with regular engagements between senior leadership and disability groups,” the representatives said in a letter, dated Apr. 7, that was shared with ABC News.
“We know this pandemic has been particularly challenging for those who are at increased risk’ of severe illness due to advanced age, certain disabilities, immune state, chronic medical conditions, or for other reasons… and it is important that we recognize this is not a small group among us — tens of millions of people are at an increased risk of getting severely ill if infected with the virus that causes COVID-19.”
Even if CDC community transmission levels remain low, Auerbach and Remley noted that people can choose to wear masks based on “personal preference” or “level of risk.”
Further, they said that public health officials, including schools, should take into account all community members when considering whether to “strengthen or add layered prevention strategies, not only for effective disease control, but also to protect those persons at greatest risk for severe illness or death.”
The letters come amid a multitude of meetings between a coalition of disability advocacy organizations, and several representatives from the CDC, Health and Human Services as well as the White House.
Although members of the coalition said they are glad to be in more regular communication with the agencies, there is growing frustration among advocates, who believe that the CDC, in particular, is not fully doing its part to protect immunocompromised and vulnerable Americans.
The CDC, as a federal agency, does not have the authority to issue federal mandates for masking requirements or other mitigation measures outside a federal context, such as in an airport or public transportation setting. Although states and localities are responsible for setting their own public health guidelines, many follow the CDC’s lead in what requirements should be set to keep the public safe and COVID-19 under control.
“We have seen some kind of movement as a result, but not nearly to the extent that we would have liked,” Town explained.
Meetings with the CDC have been “infuriating”, “emotional” and “devastating” to watch, a coalition member who has participated in meetings, and did not wish to be identified, told ABC News.
The CDC told ABC News in a statement that the agency is actively working with a number of disability organizations, officials on the federal, state, local, level and community-based organizations to help “people with disabilities access information, vaccination, and prevention resources” in an effort to protect against the deadly impacts of the virus.
“CDC has made it a priority to engage in dialogue with disability advocates to hear their concerns and identify areas where we can enhance protection for people with disabilities who are at higher risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes,” a representative said. “We are committed to continuing the dialogue and addressing the systematic inequities that effect the health and wellbeing of millions of Americans that have been exacerbated during the pandemic.”
‘Fighting for crumbs’
When President Joe Biden took office last year, Matthew Cortland, a disability rights advocate, was hopeful that although the pandemic was certainly not over, there might truly be a light at the end of the tunnel with COVID-19.
“I was hopeful that they would be much more willing to pursue and implement policies that really demonstrated a commitment to valuing the lives of chronically ill, disabled, and immunocompromised people. Unfortunately, that wasn’t really the case,” Cortland said.
When asked by ABC News to identify some of the work the Biden administration has done to protect the lives of disabled and immunocompromised Americans since the President took office, the White House pointed to its COVID-19 preparedness plan, which they stress addresses the “needs of individuals with disabilities and older adults”, prioritizes “protections for individuals who are immunocompromised,” and accelerates “efforts to detect, prevent, and treat long COVID.”
Cortland lives with Crohn’s disease, a form of inflammatory bowel disease, and takes immunosuppressant drugs. He said has been dismayed by the CDC’s recent change in masking guidance.
He and other advocates have been pushing the CDC and other agencies to consider addressing disability bias in health care, ensure that people with disabilities — and other communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 — are not only at the center of CDC COVID-19 guidance, but also have increased access to high-quality masks, testing, vaccines, therapeutics, information and collect and report disability data for COVID-19.
“It feels like we are fighting for crumbs,” Cortland said. “The thing is the threat is so grave, and so pervasive and extends over the entire country that we have to fight for these crumbs, because these problems are going to keep some number of people alive.”
Thanks to key treatments and vaccines, a representative from the CDC told ABC News that the risk of becoming severely ill is now much lower for many people in the U.S. However, the agency noted that there are still people who are at high risk of falling ill from COVID-19.
“For many people in the U.S., the risk for severe illness, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19 is now much lower. Vaccination and testing levels are high, treatments are more advanced and available, and the population has increased immunity through vaccination or previous infection,” the CDC representative said. “But some people are still at higher risk for serious effects of COVID-19 — this includes people who are immunocompromised, have underlying health conditions, have disabilities, or are older. People at higher risk, and the whole community, can be safe only when we all protect each other.”
Some experts say that when COVID-19 ultimately does transition from pandemic to endemic, people will need to start treating it like other diseases.
“We should be having a conversation about when the right time is for masks to come off — and I think members of the immunocompromised community should have a voice in that conversation,” Dr. David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “But I think we should be considering what is an appropriate threshold, not keeping mask mandates in effect forever.”
Although masks are still mandated in certain spaces such as on public transportation, some health experts have also voiced their concern over the rapid removal of COVID-19 restrictions, stressing that Americans must remember to take into account the health and wellbeing of others around them, even if they are tired of mask use and social distancing.
“I absolutely understand the urge and people wanting to get back to that 2019 style of living, but one big concern that a lot of colleagues and I have talked about was that we did it too quickly,” Dr. Alok Patel, a physician at Stanford Children’s Health and ABC News contributor. “When we use the phrase the ‘new normal,’ we need to remind ourselves that that means something different for different people out there. So, we’re reopening without a clear plan in place for those who are still high risk, including those who are immunocompromised.”
Deadly realities
For some Americans, the consequences of these decisions surrounding policies hit very close to home.
Leslie Cummings of Naperville, Illinois, has been vocalizing concerns after the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules in Illinois, voted 9-0 to suspend the emergency mask rules in schools.
Her 8-year-old daughter, Claudette, who is immunocompromised, was looking forward to returning to school following her vaccination series, but following the onset of omicron and her district’s decision to end mask requirements, those plans have been put on hold.
Despite the decision from the bipartisan committee, at the time, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker continued to urge all schools and parents to keep wearing masks in an effort to “keep everyone in their schools and communities safe.”
“If she gets COVID-19… it could kill her,” Cummings told ABC News. “She is very susceptible to anything having to do with her heart, lungs or liver.”
Claudette has hypoplastic left heart syndrome, resulting in multiple open-heart surgeries and procedures and the prescription of numerous medications.
“Even though she’s vaccinated, at least 45% of the kids in our school district are not vaccinated. Unvaccinated kids are more likely to get COVID and more likely to spread it, and that’s another big concern,” Cummings explained. “If there were more vaccinated kids, more kids wearing masks, it would be different, but we’re just not there.”
Despite continuously speaking out about her concerns over the potential impact of the virus on her daughter’s health, Cummings has been struck by what she perceives as lack of caring from the public.
“I’ve had a real awakening about this country in the last two years, about how selfish some people are. It’s been very sad for me, and it also makes me very angry that people just don’t seem to care,” Cummings said. “They don’t care that you know, that there’s all these people out here that are their aunts, their brothers, their sisters, their cousins, their neighbors, their community members, the elderly, and they just don’t seem to care.”
1 in 4 American adults is living with disabilities
Earlier this year, an analysis from the Center for American Progress found that there were an estimated additional 1.2 million people living with disabilities (1 in 4 Americans total), many of whom face inadequate healthcare resources, as well as higher rates of unemployment, and over-representation in low-wage positions.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics currently defines a person with a disability as someone who has one of a list of disabilities, including blindness, deafness, or someone who has difficulty conducting daily tasks because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition.
One of the concerns was making sure that employers “accommodate newly disabled workers to comply with civil rights laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act.” In the first month, the definition of “at-risk” was expanded, allowing for greater accommodations for the vulnerable members of the population.
“The definition of who counts as high risk was extremely narrow, and that has big implications for disabled people,” Town explained. “If you are someone who is at high risk of getting COVID-19, but your disability is not named in the CDC is definition, and you’re requesting an accommodation to continue working from home, or to receive services via telehealth, your employer is likely to look at that definition and determine whether or not you’re eligible.”
To further mitigate the risk of COVID-19 infection among vulnerable populations, Cortland would like to see people wearing highly protective masks, such as KN-95s or N-95s, and for the country to invest in better ventilation and filtration systems for schools and workplaces, so that immunocompromised individuals will feel safer participating.
Advocates have also asked for greater guidance on when different members of the disabled and high-risk community should get vaccinated and boosted, as well as funding for at-home vaccination programs.
The CDC pointed ABC News to some of the recent “disability work” it has done, including funding to embed disability specialists in 28 state, territorial, and local health department across the U.S., a CDC COVID-19 Toolkit for People with Disabilities, which includes guidance and tools to help high-risk people make informed decisions about protecting their health, and an online central repository of COVID-19 resources for health departments and organizations.
“While progress has been made to protect people with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic, more work is needed,” a representative for the agency said.
The CDC said it is working to help reduce health disparities related to COVID-19 among people with disabilities, with initiatives including providing accessible materials and culturally relevant messages for people with disabilities, and addressing and expanding COVID-19 vaccine access and confidence among people with disabilities.
Even with some positive changes, advocates say there is still work to do. Moving forward, it will be critical to address the intersectional needs of all disabled, immunocompromised, chronically ill, and high-risk Americans to fairly and equitably enter into a new phase of the pandemic.
“I don’t have a choice but to keep fighting for these problems,” Cortland said. “Keeping some number of people alive who would otherwise die is better than not, but is it enough? Absolutely not.”
(NEW YORK) — By this fall, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its partner BioNTech could potentially have a COVID-19 booster that specifically addresses the omicron variant as well as its subvariants and other known strains of the virus, CEO Albert Bourla said during a panel Wednesday.
“It is a possibility that we have it by then; it’s not certainty,” Bourla said. “We are collecting data right now, and as far as I know, Moderna, as well as us, we are working on omicron or different enhanced vaccines,”
It would be simple to create a vaccine specifically targeting omicron, he explained, but it is scientifically and technically more difficult to create a vaccine that addresses all known variants.
“I hope clearly by autumn … that we could have a vaccine, if we have one that works,” Bourla said.
Once enough data is aggregated, Bourla said the company will submit data to the Food and Drug Administration.
Earlier this year, Dr. Anthony Fauci called Pfizer’s decision to start human trials on an omicron-targeted COVID-19 vaccine a “prudent move.”
“It makes sense to think in terms of at least having ready an omicron-specific boost,” Fauci told MSNBC in January.
Last month, Moderna also announced it had started phase 2 trials of its omicron-specific booster vaccine, which will ultimately include 375 adults in the U.S.
In February, Moderna President Stephen Hoge said he believes the combination approach – which they call a “bivalent” vaccine — could offer more durable protection while preserving activity against “ancestral” variants.
“We do believe, as we’ve said, that it is time to update the vaccine against the mutations that are currently circulating and to improve the durability against those new variants of concern,” Hoge said during an investors call in February.
The push to develop omicron specific boosters come as the omicron subvariant BA.2 sweeps the globe and as new subvariants continue to pop up.
BA.2 is now estimated to account for the vast majority — 85.9% — of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. as of April 9 and more than 90% of new cases across the Northeast.
On Wednesday, New York identified the emergence of two sublineages of BA.2, named BA.2.12 and BA.2.12.1, that appear to have a 23% to 27% growth advantage over BA.2.
New York has had a recent surge of infections in the central part of the state, which officials said is likely fueled by these two new subvariants. Although they are thought to be highly contagious, so far, there is no evidence to suggest they cause more severe illness.
“We are alerting the public to two omicron subvariants, newly emerged and rapidly spreading in upstate New York, so New Yorkers can act swiftly,” state Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett said in a statement Wednesday. “While these subvariants are new, the tools to combat them are not. These tools will work if we each use them: get fully vaccinated and boosted, test following exposure, symptoms or travel, consider wearing a mask in public indoor spaces, and consult with your health care provider about treatment if you test positive.”
For the month of March, BA.2.12 and BA.2.12.1 rose to collectively comprise more than 70% prevalence in central New York and more than 20% prevalence in the neighboring Finger Lakes region, state data shows, and data for April indicates that levels in central New York are now above 90%. The state reported that its findings are the first confirmed instances of significant community spread due to the new subvariants in the U.S.
Across the state of New York, reported infection and hospitalization rates have been steadily on the rise for weeks.
Reported infection rates have increased by 73% in the last week, and new hospital admissions have increased by nearly 25% in the last week.
(KISSIMMEE, Fla.) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday signed into law a bill that bans nearly all abortions after 15 weeks, the same gestational limit currently being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The new law, which passed the state Senate in March, will go into effect July 1.
Under the law, there are no exceptions for abortion in the case of rape or incest, but it does allow for exceptions if the fetus has a fatal abnormality or in cases when the mother is at risk of death or “substantial or irreversible physical impairment.”
Those exceptions would require written certification from two physicians.
Physicians who perform abortions must submit monthly reports to the state health department with details about each procedure, including the reasons for performing them and the number of infants born alive after attempted abortions.
“We’re here today to protect life. We’re here today to defend those who can’t defend themselves,” DeSantis said Thursday in Kissimmee before signing the bill.
Abortion rights advocates argue that banning abortion after 15 weeks will further harm patients who need care the most, including people of color, people of limited economic means and people who lack health insurance.
“Nobody should be forced to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles for essential health care — but in signing this bill, Gov. DeSantis will be forcing Floridians seeking abortion to do just that,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement. “Floridians want to be able to make decisions about their health and their families, without interference from politicians. They want the protections guaranteed by their state’s constitution. This ban runs counter to all of these goals. Planned Parenthood pledges to stand with patients and fight this until people can get the care they deserve.”
Dr. Sujatha Prabhakaran, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, told ABC News in March that doctors like herself are “scared and sad” about the legislation’s potential impact.
“The biggest impact of the bill is going to be hurting our patients’ access to the care that they need,” said Prabhakaran, also a practicing OB-GYN in Sarasota, Florida. “We know that when there are these restrictions, it doesn’t mean that the need for the care goes away, it just means that it makes it even harder for patients to access the care.”
The new law in Florida comes at the same time that legislators in Oklahoma and Kentucky have also taken action to limit abortion access.
Under a bill signed into law Tuesday by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, any medical provider who performs an abortion will face a fine of $100,000 and up to 10 years in prison. The only exceptions for performing an abortion would be if the mother’s life is in danger.
On Wednesday, the Kentucky state legislature overrode Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of a bill banning abortion after 15 weeks, along with several other abortion restrictions. Under the bill, any physician that performs an abortion after 15 weeks would lose their license for at least six months.
The state-level actions come as the Supreme Court is reviewing a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks.
In the case, Mississippi, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, 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.
If the Supreme Court rules in Mississippi’s favor and upholds the law — as is expected because of the court’s current conservative makeup — the focus will turn to states, more than half of which are prepared to ban abortion if Roe is overturned, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization.
Prabhakaran said in March that she and other doctors in Florida were already seeing patients from states as far away as Texas, which last year enacted a law that bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
As of 2017, abortions in Florida represent just over 8% of all abortions in the U.S., according to the Guttmacher Institute.
According to Prabhakaran, a 15-week ban in Florida has the potential to force pregnant people to travel as far as North Carolina and Washington, D.C., for care.
“While abortion is very safe, the the higher the gestational age, the more risk there is potentially to patients who have a complication,” she said, adding that the lack of access also means some patients will continue with high-risk pregnancies while others will seek other care. “What I worry is going to start to happen again is that patients will be taking care from unqualified providers, and that that will put them at risk.”
ABC News’ Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
Peter Brackney / www.kaintuckeean.com/Getty Images
(FRANKFORT, Ky.) — The Kentucky state legislature has overridden Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of a bill banning abortion after 15 weeks, along with several other abortion restrictions.
Under the bill, any physician that performs an abortion after 15 weeks would lose their license for at least six months.
The bill allows for exceptions if there is a medical emergency in which continuing the pregnancy would result in “serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function” or “death of the pregnant woman.” There are no exceptions for rape or incest.
Last week, Beshear, a Democrat, vetoed the Republican-backed measure after he raised concerns about whether the bill is constitutional and criticized the lack of exceptions for rape or incest.
But on Wednesday, the state House received well over the 51 votes needed to override the veto, and the state Senate far surpassed the 20 votes needed as well. It went into law immediately due to its emergency clause.
Also in the bill, which is known as HB3, is a restriction that drugs used for a medication abortion — a nonsurgical procedure typically used up to 10 weeks in pregnancy — must be provided by a physician who is licensed to practice medicine and in good standing with Kentucky.
The physician must also have hospital admitting privileges in “geographical proximity” to where the abortions are being performed.
An in-person examination needs to be had at least 24 hours prior to the medication abortion, during which women are informed about any risks. The drugs cannot be sent through the mail.
Abortion advocates say this will prevent many women, particularly those who are low-income, from accessing abortion if they must go to a clinic to receive it.
Additionally, minors who seek abortions will need the consent of a judge if the parents are not available, and any fetal remains will need to be buried or cremated by a licensed funeral provider.
Opponents argue the bill has so many restrictions that it makes it virtually impossible for any abortion clinic to comply and say its passage will mean Kentuckians effectively lose access to abortion care.
The bill also requires that the names of physicians who provide medication abortions be published and a state-run “complaint portal” to be set up so people can anonymously report abortion providers who are allegedly violating the program.
In a previous interview with ABC News, Meg Stern, director of the abortion support fund for Kentucky Health Justice Network, an advocacy group, said this could lead to complaints filed by people who have personal vendettas against abortion providers.
The ban is modeled after Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, which is being reviewed by the Supreme Court, with a decision expected in June on whether or not it is constitutional.
If the court determines the Mississippi bill is constitutional, this could mean Roe v. Wade is either overturned or fundamentally weakened.
