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(NEW YORK) — Big Apple athletes and performers who haven’t received their COVID-19 vaccine shots now won’t be barred from taking the court or stage. But some New Yorkers who are still required to show proof of vaccination are calling foul on what they see as a double standard.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Thursday that he was dropping the mandate that all city-based athletes and performers show proof of vaccination to take part in their game or event. Adams said his decision was based on the city’s low COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations and the city’s goal to restart its economy.
“We have to be on the field in order to win,” Adams said during a news conference at Citi Field, where unvaccinated Mets players will no longer have to worry about not playing when the baseball season begins next month.
Until Thursday’s announcement, unvaccinated athletes could not play home games, because venues required everyone to be vaccinated for entry. Visiting players and entertainers, however, were exempt.
This affected the Brooklyn Nets after its star point guard, Kyrie Irving, repeatedly refused to get vaccinated.
Irving was listed inactive during the first three months of the season but was called up in January for road games. He scored 43 points in his last game Wednesday against the Memphis Grizzlies.
Adams said the old rules put teams and performers at a disadvantage.
“This is about putting New York City performers on a level playing field,” Adams said.
Broadway performers represented by Actors Equity previously agreed to mandatory vaccinations.
“Broadway theatres anticipate no change in our protocols based on this announcement. We continue to evaluate our COVID safety protocols for audiences, cast and crew, in concert with our unions and medical experts,” Charlotte St. Martin, the president of The Broadway League, said.
The mayor added that the decision will help the venues and employees who work in the arenas and entertainment venues and local businesses.
But not everyone was thrilled with the mayor’s decision, particularly some unions representing city workers who are required to show proof of vaccination to work.
“There can’t be one system for the elite and another for the essential workers of our city. We stand ready to work out the details with the mayor, as we have been throughout this process,” Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association, said.
City Council Speaker Adrienne E. Adams also expressed concerns about the “ambiguous messages” sent to New Yorkers about vaccine requirements.
“This exemption sends the wrong message that higher-paid workers and celebrities are being valued as more important than our devoted civil servants, which I reject. This is a step away from following sensible public health-driven policies that prioritize equity,” she said in a statement.
Earlier in the month, the mayor dropped the requirement for indoor businesses and venues, including movie theaters, to have their customers show proof of vaccination and wear a mask. He also dropped the mask mandate for schools and is set to drop the mask mandate for children 2- to 4-years old.
As of Thursday, 77.5% of all New Yorkers were fully vaccinated, and 36.3% of residents had received their booster dose, according to the city’s Health Department.
The mayor and health department have repeatedly stressed that the COVID-19 vaccines are the most effective way of preventing hospitalizations and death caused by the virus and encouraged more New Yorkers to get their shots.
(NEW YORK) — Even as most eligible Americans have yet to receive their first COVID-19 vaccine boosters, Pfizer and Moderna have now asked the Food and Drug Administration to authorize yet another booster dose — especially for elderly Americans, a group that tends to have weaker immune protection.
Pfizer asked the FDA to authorize fourth doses for people older than 65, while Moderna asked for authorization for everyone 18 and older (though company executives said the greatest need would be among older adults).
With the FDA advisory committee not slated to meet until April 6, and no vote scheduled, it could take the FDA weeks to decide whether or not to authorize Pfizer and Moderna’s fourth dose applications.
Meanwhile, many vaccine experts are not convinced fourth doses are needed so soon. Some are even skeptical fourth doses will be needed at all. And that is on top of the difficulty in getting millions to get their first and second shots, let alone their third and fourth.
“There are very few, if any, people who, in my opinion require a fourth dose,” said Dr. Anna Durbin, professor of international health and director of the center for immunization research at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“In general, it’s too early to recommend a fourth dose, except for those who are immune compromised,” said Dr. Paul Goepfert, professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and an expert in vaccine design.
Roughly 3% of the U.S. population is immune compromised, and already eligible for fourth doses. But this group only includes people with very specific medical conditions, like cancer or organ transplant recipients — not the estimated 54 million adults over 65.
Not enough evidence yet for fourth shots: Experts
So far, many experts say there isn’t enough evidence to justify fourth doses, even for older adults, though more evidence could emerge in the future. Studies from Israel, a nation that has already implemented fourth doses, indicate that boosting again modestly enhances protection from infection.
In the study, 18% and 20% of healthcare workers who got a fourth shot of Pfizer or Moderna, respectively, developed an omicron infection. Among those with three shots — about 25% developed an omicron infection.
Although the existing COVID-19 vaccines are overwhelmingly safe, they do come with temporary side effects and the rare risk of temporary heart inflammation called myocarditis among young men.
“Unless there’s clear evidence something is of value, don’t give it,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
With Moderna and Pfizer now submitting fourth-dose booster data to the FDA on an ongoing basis, the FDA has convened meetings of its outside vaccine advisors to discuss the future of COVID-19 booster shots, how often they might be needed and whether variant-specific versions could be more beneficial.
With the FDA advisory committee not slated to meet until April 6, and no vote scheduled, it could take the FDA weeks to decide whether or not to authorize Pfizer and Moderna’s fourth dose applications.
Emphasis on boosters misplaced
For Offit, a vocal member of the FDA’s advisory committee, the national emphasis on booster shots has been somewhat misplaced. The primary goal of vaccines should be to protect against serious illness, he says, which overall, primary vaccines are still doing.
When the vaccines were first launched in December 2020, emphasis was placed on their ability to protect against COVID-19 infection. But now, with the passage of time and emergence of new variants, many vaccine experts argue this was always an impossibly high standard to maintain, and moving forward, the emphasis should be on their ability to protect against severe disease.
Now, more than a year later, data shows that boosters may shore up the body’s defenses against mild infections — but only temporarily.
“These vaccines continue to demonstrate high protection against hospitalization and severe disease,” Durbin agreed. “Prevention of infection, in my opinion, is not the metric that we should use.”
“We’re going to have to learn to live with mild disease at some point,” said Offit. Frequent boosting “is not a reasonable thing to do, and it’s not something most people will do anyway.”
Tailored vaccine may be better
A better approach, said Durbin, would be to roll out a tweaked vaccine that is a better match against the new omicron variant. Vaccine makers agree, with Pfizer and Moderna both studying new versions of their vaccines they hope will work better and offer more durable protection against current and future variants.
“We can’t have vaccines every five, six months,” said Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, speaking on CNBC.
But until they have new-and-improved boosters ready to go, Pfizer and Moderna executives argue fourth doses will be needed by at least some older Americans soon.
In the United States, vaccination rates have stalled. Roughly a quarter of eligible adults have yet to receive their first vaccine doses, while about half of vaccinated adults have yet to receive their first boosters.
Dr. Anthony Fauci told ABC affiliate KGTV that older Americans might need a fourth dose “sooner or later,” but not yet.
The effectiveness of three shots is “holding pretty strong at around 78% efficacy against hospitalization,” Fauci said, “but if it goes any significantly lower than that, you certainly would consider the possibility of a fourth dose boost particularly among elderly and those with underlying diseases.”
At a White House briefing Wednesday, Fauci said fourth shots for older adults might be considered soon, but for the general population won’t be considered until “the beginning of fall, end of summer.”
While many vaccine experts have predicted that COVID-19 vaccination will become an annual shot, like the flu vaccine, others are still hopeful that three shots could be the magic number for many Americans.
“I do think three doses will be enough for some individuals,” said Goepfert, “but it depends on the new variants that will come next.”
(NEW YORK) — Jennifer Dornan-Fish is marking two years grappling with the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on her body.
She said her road to recovery from the virus has been mired in a “bewildering array” of agonizing and debilitating new symptoms — which gradually emerged after she had already fended off her initial infection.
A couple weeks after testing positive in March 2020, it seemed like Dornan-Fish had made it mostly out of the woods. However, the healthy 46-year-old said she struggled with COVID fatigue and labored breath but avoided hospitalization.
She said she was “convincing myself I was on the mend” and was anxious “to jump back into” her busy life finishing her next book and homeschooling her son. But then, “everything started going haywire.”
Dornan-Fish told ABC News her doctors have diagnosed her with Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC) — the official term for long COVID symptoms. She has been tested for autoimmune issues like lupus, multiple sclerosis, Ankylosing spondylitis, along with blood cancers, to rule other, non-COVID causes out.
“It wasn’t like I just crashed all at once,” Dornan-Fish, now 48, said. “One little thing went wrong. Then another. And it just got worse and worse until – I have honestly very little memory of the first few months. I was so out of it.”
She began getting painful, itchy rashes on her thigh and shoulder, and her gums.
Then came “coat hanger pain” in her shoulders and neck. Then the brain fog. The front of her throat felt tight, as though an invisible hand was clamping down on her breath.
“I call it the ‘COVID choke,'” she said.
“I could barely talk,” she said. “The brain fog has really, to be honest, been the most disturbing symptom of them all. I make my living writing, thinking, so to not be able to do that was terrifying.”
Getting out of bed for more than a few minutes would take everything she had.
“My husband had to feed me, he would bring me meals. I could barely sit up. I couldn’t wash myself. I couldn’t take care of my child,” she said. “I was just surviving.”
In that first year of the pandemic, scant medical treatment existed for the mysterious virus which had overrun intensive care units around the world — let alone a tried-and-true way to fight COVID’s prolonged effects.
Dornan-Fish saw a “round-robin” of specialists — a “trial and error” process, which she said has been exhausting.
“I tried a million different things,” she said.
She started getting new allergies: she was hospitalized for a reaction to baby aspirin, which she had been taking to avoid the blood clots she had heard were associated with COVID. She had a reaction to her family’s longtime kitchen cleaner.
“I almost went into anaphylaxis from a scented trash bag,” she said.
About nine months out from her initial COVID infection, Jennifer started having tremors.
“My doctor called them ‘seizure-like,'” she said. “We don’t know what they were.”
Over time, her allergies seemed to start improving. Her brain fog got a little better. But the tremors got “much worse,” and took new forms.
“I’m not actually shaking on the outside, but it feels like a vibrating cell phone in my chest. Or, like there’s an earthquake inside me,” she said.
“For a little while — and it has gotten better — but a bird would cheep outside the window, and I would jump,” she said. “Not to be glib, but I’ve lived in the jungles of Belize and have killed poisonous deadly snakes with machetes. Like, I do not jump at cheeping birds.”
Her son, now 13 years old, has seen how post-COVID has ravaged her health.
“He sometimes says, ‘mom, when you’re better, I can’t wait ’til we play this game again,'” she said. “‘When you’re better–‘ it breaks my heart.”
What was once understood as a respiratory virus has emerged, for many, as an all-out attack on the system. Researchers are pushing to find better treatments to help long-haulers — and better answers to understand why they’re impacted for so long, with more than a billion federal dollars devoted to studying COVID’s prolonged health consequences.
Some theories from experts include a person having a particularly high viral load when they first get sick; or lingering COVID viral particles sticking around in the body even after a person has “cleared” their initial infection; or another virus that was previously latent getting reactivated, like Epstein-Barr.
After even a mild initial infection, many COVID survivors across a diverse age group still report exhaustion, cognitive problems and other symptoms. Studies so far estimate as much as 10% to 30% of people who get COVID may later develop long-hauler symptoms.
It has not been a comfortable adjustment for Dornan-Fish. Before COVID, she recalled being able to hike and run for more than 10 miles at a time.
“Before COVID, I took a daily multivitamin,” she said. “Now I take four medications, eight supplements, every day. Two years later, I still have tremors, rashes, crushing fatigue, nerve pain and a swelling throat.”
Of the treatments she has tried, it’s “hard to tell whether it’s my body naturally healing? Or are these things that I’m trying working?” she said.
Meanwhile, physicians have focused on managing symptoms. While firmer treatment protocols are under review, at this time, there are no conclusive data or recommendations regarding the use of supplements in the treatment of long-COVID.
At first Dornan-Fish said she took a beta blocker, a medication sometimes used for postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), which helps to reduce heart rate. That seemed to help, she said, but had to stop when it dropped her blood pressure too low.
D-ribose, a carbohydrate naturally produced by the body and supplement aimed at boosting energy, was the first thing she said helped her move around more regularly. She’s been taking high-dose B vitamins, CoQ10, and NADH, which she said have helped boost her energy. She’s been taking Dexedrine for the brain fog — a stimulant approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat ADHD and narcolepsy, which works by increasing the release of neurotransmitters involved in memory, attention and mood.
She has also taken Ketotifen — an eyedrop antihistamine. She said she has also taken DHA; D and K vitamins; and Floradix for anemia.
She said meditation and breathwork have also helped calm her autonomic nervous system. Gradually, Dornan-Fish has felt some of her strength return.
“I’m ready for a game changer,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be a silver bullet, but I would definitely like something that makes a more significant difference in my ability to function.”
(NEW YORK) — One mother is dedicated to reaffirming that her daughter is beyond beautiful.
Nicole Hall’s daughter, Winry, was born with an extremely rare birthmark called congenital melanocytic nevi, or CMN. As such, the 13-month-old has a trait that makes her distinct from other children.
“When they first handed her to me, I thought it was a bruise,” Hall told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “It was then quickly apparent to my husband and I that it was not a bruise. And like the name, I thought it looked a lot like a mole.”
According to the report by the National Organization for Rare Diseases by Dr. Harper Price of Phoenix Children’s Hospital and Dr. Heather Etchevers of Marseille Medical Genetics, CMN can be light brown to black patches, can present in various ways, and may cover nearly any size area or any part of the body.
Instead of being sad about her daughter’s circumstances, Hall said she utilized the power of social media to promote awareness about CMN and to encourage others that being “different” is your superpower.
“For a lot of people, this is the first time seeing a birthmark like hers and that’s part of why I enjoy sharing,” Hall said. “This is a good conversation for parents with their children to see kids have differences, or for those parents who do have a kid that looks like Winry or has any kind of a birthmark to see their child represented.”
According to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Winry’s diagnosis could put her at a higher risk of developing melanoma. But Hall said she worries less about the risk of cancer than about the frequency of bullying she may experience as she gets older.
Still, Hall said she stays on top of things by taking extra measures to protect her skin.
“Her health and happiness are our top priority. We have to monitor her with sunscreen. I’m careful with hats and that sort of thing,” Hall said. “I know our regular dermatology appointment is probably going to be our best friend growing up.”
Her mom said Winry’s character is what truly sets her apart.
“She just radiates joy. She’s almost always laughing or shrieking. She is just the happiest baby I have ever seen,” Hall said. “She’s a big talker already. We haven’t got a whole lot of words out, but she tells you like it is and she’s already getting a little bit of sassiness, so I think we’re gonna have a lot on our hands.”
The massive following she has cultivated on TikTok has allowed Hall to virtually meet people from across the globe with a similar background to her daughter.
“We’ve got to talk to several people from Brazil with birthmarks,” Hall said. “One of them has one that is almost identical to Winry and it’s been so fun to talk to her because she’s almost exactly my age.”
(NEW YORK) — Two years into the coronavirus pandemic, children under age 6 may be one step closer to being eligible to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Moderna said Wednesday it plans to seek emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its COVID-19 vaccine in young children “in the coming weeks.”
Pfizer’s vaccine is authorized in children 5 and older, but children 4 and younger don’t have access to vaccination.
Moderna released new clinical trial data showing its vaccine generated a strong immune response in children ages 6 months to 6 years old, with no significant risks.
Moderna’s vaccine in children is a two-dose, 25-microgram shot, about a quarter of the dose used for adults, given 28 days apart.
Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is currently only available for people ages 18 and older.
Here are nine questions answered about the COVID-19 vaccines and kids as families seek to make the best decisions.
1. What is the science behind the COVID-19 vaccine?
Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use mRNA technology, which does not enter the nucleus of the cells and doesn’t alter human DNA. Instead, it sends a genetic “instruction manual” that prompts cells to create proteins that look like the outside of the virus — a way for the body to learn and develop defenses against future infection.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses an inactivated adenovirus vector, Ad26, that cannot replicate. The Ad26 vector carries a piece of DNA with instructions to make the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that triggers an immune response.
This same type of vaccine has been authorized for Ebola and has been studied extensively for other illnesses and for how it affects women who are pregnant or breastfeeding.
Neither of these vaccine platforms can cause COVID-19.
2. What is the status of vaccine eligibility for kids?
Children ages 5 and older are now eligible to receive Pfizer’s two-dose vaccine.
Children ages 12 and older are also eligible to receive a Pfizer vaccine booster shot.
Pfizer is expected to have more information on the efficacy of a three-dose regimen for kids under age 5 in March or April. The company announced in February that it would postpone its application to the FDA for a vaccine for kids under 5 and instead continue with its study on the three-dose vaccine and seek authorization when that data is available.
The two other vaccines currently available in the U.S., Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, are currently available only for people 18 years and older.
Moderna said on March 23rd it plans to seek emergency use authorization from the FDA for its vaccine in children under age 6 “in the coming weeks.”
3. Why do kids need to be vaccinated against COVID-19?
While there have not been as many deaths from COVID-19 among children as adults, particularly adults in high-risk categories, kids can still get the virus and they can also transmit the virus to adults.
A total of 11.4 million children have tested positive for the virus since the onset of the pandemic. Child COVID-19 cases have “spiked dramatically” during the omicron variant surge, with more than 3.5 million child cases reported in January.
According to the CDC, unvaccinated 12- to 17-year-olds had an 11 times higher risk of hospitalization than fully vaccinated adolescents.
“We know that COVID does not spare kids,” ABC News medical contributor Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital, said in December. “Maybe it’s less severe than their adult counterparts but we also know that the virus has had real significant impacts on morbidity and mortality in kids.”
“We also know that kids play an important role as vectors of spread,” he said. “And especially in light of increases we’re seeing right now, with increases of cases in kids in record numbers, infections among kids further perpetuate community transmission and further create risks for those who would be the most vulnerable of the virus.”
4. Do kids experience the same vaccine side effects as adults?
Adolescents experienced a similar range of side effects to Pfizer’s vaccine as seen in older teens and young adults — generally seen as cold-like symptoms in the two to three days after the second dose — and had an “excellent safety profile,” Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in August.
None of the children in Pfizer’s clinical trials of kids ages 5-11 experienced a rare heart inflammation side effect known as myocarditis, which has been associated with the mRNA vaccines in very rare cases, mostly among young men.
5. Is there data showing COVID-19 vaccines are safe for kids?
The CDC released three studies in December showing COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective for children.
One study, which evaluated the safety reports of more than 42,000 children ages 5 to 11 who received a Pfizer shot, found the side effects from the Pfizer vaccine were mostly mild and temporary. It also found that myocarditis, a heart inflammation side effect that has been associated with the mRNA vaccines in very rare cases, does not appear to be a risk.
A second study, which looked at data from 243 children ages 12 to 17 in Arizona, found the Pfizer vaccine was 92% effective at preventing infection. The study, conducted between July and December when delta was the dominant variant in the U.S., also found that adolescents who developed COVID-19 reported a lower percentage of time masked in school and time masked in the community.
The third study, also conducted when delta was dominant, found that among children ages 5 to 17 hospitalized due to COVID-19, less than 1% were fully vaccinated against the virus.
6. How effective are the vaccines in children?
Pfizer announced in late March that its clinical trials showed the vaccine was safe and 100% effective in children ages 12-15, similar to the 95% efficacy among adult clinical trial participants.
Marks confirmed on May 10 that after a trial with more than 2,000 children, Pfizer found no cases of infection among the children who had been given the vaccine and 16 cases of infection among the children who received a placebo.
No cases of COVID occurred in the 1,005 adolescents that received the vaccine, while there were 16 cases of COVID among the 978 kids who received the placebo, “thus indicating the vaccine was 100% effective in preventing COVID-19 In this trial,” said Marks.
7. Do kids get the same dose of the vaccines as adults?
In Pfizer’s clinical trial, children between 6 months and 5-years-old received two doses of 3-microgram shots, a tenth of the dose given to adults, three weeks apart.
Kids ages 5 to 11 are given a 10-micrograms dose of the Pfizer vaccine, one-third of the adolescent and adult dose. Like with adults and adolescents, the pediatric vaccine is delivered in two doses, three weeks apart.
For 12-to-15-year-olds, the FDA has authorized the same dosing as adults with the Pfizer two-dose vaccine.
The FDA and CDC have recommended the Pfizer booster shots now available for kids ages 12 and older be administered five months after the primary vaccine series.
8. Could COVID-19 vaccines impact puberty and menstruation?
There is currently no clinical evidence to suggest any of the COVID-19 vaccines can have long-term effects on puberty or fertility.
9. Where can kids get vaccinated against COVID-19?
Vaccines are accessible at pediatricians’ offices, children’s hospitals, pharmacies like CVS, Walgreens and Rite-Aid and school and community-based clinics.
ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik, Anne Flaherty, Eric Strauss, Cheyenne Haslett and Jade A. Cobern, MD, a member of the ABC News Medical Unit, contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Moderna said it plans to seek emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its COVID-19 vaccine in children under age 6.
The company released clinical trial data Wednesday showing neutralizing antibody levels were similar to those seen in adults.
The vaccine in children is a two-dose, 25-microgram shot, about a quarter of the dose used for adults.
(NEW YORK) — Egg freezing — a process that involves collection, freezing and storage of a woman’s eggs with the intention to use at a later time for pregnancy — is more widely available than it was even five or 10 years ago, but it is still a complicated decision for many women.
There is the cost — often thousands of dollars — as well as the fact that a woman’s biological clock keeps ticking even amid egg freezing.
There is also the unknown for so many women around egg freezing, from what exactly it entails to how often it works to any potential side effects to what it means to keep eggs in storage for possibly years.
When Courtney Hunt, 34, of New York, decided to freeze her eggs nearly two years ago, she chose to document the process and share it on her YouTube channel.
“I wanted to document this whole process because I think it’s important to really open the conversation,” Hunt told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “By documenting it, I could help educate people, inform people, and kind of just give women in general an opportunity to see another woman kind of going through [the process].”
She continued, “I think we do often feel alone in a lot of these experiences because we don’t talk about about a lot of these [topics] in conversations, miscarriages or IVF or egg freezing.”
GMA reached out to medical experts to talk more about the egg freezing process and what women should know. Here are five questions answered by the experts:
1. Why are more and more women turning to egg freezing?
After over 30 years of advancements since the first human birth from a frozen egg was reported in 1986, egg freezing is now widely available to women who may choose to delay child-bearing.
Traditionally, women resorted to egg freezing due to medical conditions such as a cancer diagnosis requiring chemotherapy, which can damage reproductive cells, or genetic abnormalities that shorten reproductive years. In 2012, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine lifted the “experimental” label from egg freezing, allowing it to be utilized more widely.
The number of women who utilize egg freezing is expected to continue to grow as the technology becomes more accessible and better understood, experts say.
Over 22,000 egg freezing cycles were performed in the United States in 2019, up from around 18,000 in 2018 and 14,500 in 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“There is just more information out there now for women,” Dr. Elizabeth Sarah Ginsburg, medical director of assisted reproductive technologies at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told ABC News. “Women are now more aware of the age-related decline in fertility that women experience.”
While there are many medical reasons for egg freezing, today many women are also turning to egg freezing to focus on their careers or postpone having children until they are partnered.
“Most of the women that I see are freezing their eggs because they don’t have a partner,” Ginsburg said, also adding, “I’ve had women who are married freeze eggs to start their own companies or because they’re up for a promotion and they know their eggs are aging but can’t take time out to have a baby.”
In Hunt’s case, she said she took advantage of the opportunity to freeze her eggs when she learned the process was paid for by her then-employer. She said she did it as assurance that when she is ready to have kids, the option is there.
“It was never a battle in my mind of all the what-ifs and what if this doesn’t happen with a partner or what if this does,” said Hunt. “I was just doing this, selfishly, for myself to make sure that I do have an opportunity if and when I want kids, however that comes about for myself.”
2. What is the process of egg freezing?
The egg freezing process involves four main steps — ovarian stimulation, a trigger shot, egg retrieval and egg freezing.
The total time commitment for an egg freezing cycle is about two to three weeks and involves continuous monitoring with ultrasounds to time each of the steps.
Ovarian stimulation involves self-administering daily injections for about two weeks to grow multiple eggs in the ovaries to eventually collect and freeze. For many, this step may be the most physically and emotionally draining.
“Making sure you’re doing things right in such a delicate and, frankly, expensive process is something that even worried me when I knew what I was doing,” said Dr. Samantha Estevez, a clinical fellow in the division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai who went through the egg freezing process herself.
Most commonly, women experience mild fullness, bloating and cramping during their cycle.
“The ovaries get pretty big. A normal ovary, not stimulated, is about the size of a walnut. In women who stimulate a lot and get say 20 eggs, ovaries will be the size of an orange,” Ginsburg said.
Once the eggs reach their target size, a different injection, referred to as the “trigger shot,” is administered to make the eggs undergo their final maturation for retrieval.
The egg retrieval procedure is then typically scheduled 36 hours after this injection. This is a procedure done under sedation with vaginal ultrasound guidance to collect the matured eggs.
After the eggs are collected, they are then frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored until the person decides to come back for them.
For those who return for their eggs with the hopes of becoming pregnant, the frozen eggs are thawed and fertilized in the laboratory using donor or partner sperm to make embryos and undergo genetic testing if desired, then transferred into the uterus for pregnancy.
3. What is the cost of egg freezing?
The cost of egg freezing can be highly variable. For anyone considering egg freezing, experts recommend understanding the breakdown of the costs and the factors that can influence these costs to estimate final costs for an individual.
“There is usually a global fee that includes all the monitoring, the anesthesia, egg retrieval and freezing for that cycle of the two-week period from that first ultrasound to the egg removal and freezing of the eggs,” Ginsburg said, adding that the net cost for an individual may be higher or lower depending on insurance, employer, region and the fertility center. “Patients really need to call around to find out.”
At CCRM, a fertility clinic network with 11 locations across the U.S. and Canada, the average cost of a single egg freezing cycle is $9,232, according to Dr. Jaime Knopman, a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist at CCRM New York.
Other expenses, including medications and anesthesia, total over $6,000 on average at CCRM, according to Knopman, who added that the cost depends on each individual person.
“Older women or those with lower ovarian reserve would pay more in total, but not because the process is more expensive,” said Knopman. “The cost is higher because medication dosage is higher, and therefore the cost of medications is higher.”
People who are older may also need to do more than one cycle of egg freezing, which comes at an additional cost, Knopman explained.
After the egg retrieval, storage comes at an additional cost depending on how long a person would like to freeze their eggs. Storage can cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to over $1,000 per year.
At CCRM, for example, the average annual cost of storage is $775.
If a person ultimately decides to use the eggs they have frozen, there is also additional cost involved.
“People going into egg freezing also need to recognize that this is just the first step, not the final step when it comes to fertility preservation if they end up using the eggs,” Estevez said. “The transfer cycle is less involved than egg freezing cycle but almost financially equivalent.”
Knopman said she tells patients at CCRM to expect to pay around $10,000 for a frozen embryo transfer, a total that includes medications and the process itself.
Some larger companies such as Facebook, Google and The Walt Disney Company offer egg freezing benefits to their employees, and some health systems have also started to pay for it for their employees, which can make egg freezing more affordable.
As of 2021, 15 states have laws that require insurance companies to cover infertility treatment and two states have laws that require insurance companies to offer coverage for infertility treatment, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).
4. What is the right age to consider egg freezing?
Although most women who undergo egg freezing in the U.S. are in their late 30s, the younger you are, the better, data shows.
According to a study published in 2020 in the journal Human Reproduction, success rates for live births were double for women who stored their eggs at age 35 and younger.
“There is no question that pregnancy rates are higher if women are younger,” said Ginsburg, adding that, “A higher percentage of eggs in the ovaries are chromosomally abnormal the older women get, so the less likely a particular egg is to result in a pregnancy.”
Once a woman reaches the age of 30, her fertility starts to decline, according to Dr. Nita Landry, a Los Angeles-based board-certified OBGYN.
“Once she reaches her mid-30s, especially around 37, that decline becomes faster,” Landry said. “Once a woman is 45 years of age, the probability of her conceiving without any fertility intervention is going to be low.”
The risks associated with pregnancy also increase as a woman ages.
Studies show that women who become pregnant at an advanced age inherently have an increased risk for pregnancy complications such as gestational diabetes, hypertension, pre-term birth and low birth weight.
Therefore, women who get pregnant in their late 30s or 40s may not have successful pregnancies regardless of how old their eggs were when they were frozen.
5. What are alternatives to egg freezing?
There are options other than egg freezing for those who are not partnered but are ready to become parents now. Women can get pregnant using their own eggs with donor sperm rather than freeze and store their eggs.
“Some women think about freezing eggs and when they realize they really want a baby and decide that a partner is not critical to their life being fulfilled, donor insemination is the other way to go,” Ginsburg said. “That tends to happen more in women in their late 30s.”
Some also choose to freeze embryos rather than eggs because of higher success rates for live births.
“Often when someone is married, they will freeze part eggs and part embryos because of the fact that if a man gives his sperm and embryos are frozen, he has a say in whether they can be used or not later,” Ginsburg said. “So I think egg freezing is favored from a reproductive autonomy standpoint.”
Women now have many options in reproductive technologies. Although costs remain a barrier for many, these technologies may become more affordable as they continue to grow in popularity.
“I think insurance companies are doing better and better about paying for egg freezing that is medically indicated,” Ginsburg said. “I think it’s also going to increasingly be a benefit of employment especially in firms that are trying to increase the number of women in their ranks.”
(NEW YORK) — COVID-19 survivors are at increased risk of being newly diagnosed with diabetes up to one year after recovering, a new study suggests.
Researchers from VA Saint Louis Health Care System found people who recovered from COVID were 40% more likely to develop a new case of diabetes compared to a control group.
This translates to 1 in 100 people at increased risk of developing diabetes after a COVID-19 infection. As of Monday, 79.5 million people have been infected with COVID-19 in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meaning there could 795,000 new diabetes diagnosis as a result.
“That’s hard for me to swallow,” Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at VA Saint Louis Health Care System, and lead author of the study, told ABC News. “COVID-19 isn’t only about the acute effects. This is going to leave a lot of people with long-term health consequences that they’ll have to deal with for a lifetime and that’s jarring. It’s unsettling to accept.”
For the study, published Monday in the journal Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, the team looked at patient data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs between March 1, 2020 and Sept. 30, 2021.
They compared more than 181,000 patients who had tested positive for COVID-19 to more than 4.1 million patients who were not infected over the same period. The data was also compared to another 4.28 million patients who were treated at the VA in 2018 and 2019.
Al-Aly said the team initially thought the increased risk would only be seen among people who have risk factors for diabetes such as obesity, but the findings showed the risk was evident across all groups.
“It was evident in Black people and white people; it was evident in young folks and in older folks; it was evident in males and females; and, most importantly, it was also evident even in people who had no risk factors for diabetes at all,” he said.
He added that there are a few theories of how COVID increases the risk for diabetes, although none have been proven or refuted.
One theory is that COVID-19 drives inflammation that may impair insulin secretion and sensitivity. Another is that COVID-19 causes disturbances in microbiome composition and function, that may lead to diabetes.
The findings add to a growing body of evidence that COVID-19 infection can lead to long-term health consequences.
Al-Aly said when most people think of long-lasting health effects following COVID, they think of shortness of breath, difficulty concentrating and sleep disorders.
But more and more studies have shown COVID survivors can suffer from heart problems, kidney problems and, in this case, diabetes.
“Over the past year or so, we started noticing in some patients that those [long-term] manifestations are not just fatigue and brain fog, but people are coming down with new onset diabetes,” he said.
Of the patients who did develop diabetes more than 99% developed type 2 diabetes, which is the most common form of diabetes and occurs when cells become resistant to insulin — the hormone that regulates blood sugar,
Because of insulin resistance, the pancreas must make more insulin to try to get cells to respond and this leads to high blood sugar levels.
This is different from type 1 diabetes, which is usually diagnosed in children and teens, and occurs when the pancreas doesn’t make insulin or makes very little insulin.
The new study is not the first that has linked COVID-19 infection to diabetes.
In a study published last week, researchers from the Leibniz Center for Diabetes Research at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany, found a 28% increased risk of type 2 diabetes for those who had previously had COVID-19.
Al-Aly said the best way to lower the risk of diabetes is for people to prevent themselves from getting COVID-19 in the first place via vaccination.
But for people who have already caught the virus, they should watch for warning signs of diabetes such as excessive thirst and frequent urination.
“Those are signs of diabetes, and we need you to get checked because catching this early and identifying diabetes early and treating it, or nipping it in the bud, is always better than leaving it unattended for years and suffering even worse or more serious health consequences,” Al-Aly said.
(NEW YORK) — In the wake of a flurry of warnings from officials over a potential COVID-19 resurgence in the United States, there are growing concerns among health experts that dwindling access to public data, the shuttering of COVID-19 testing sites and with an increasing number of people using at-home tests instead, it could leave the nation vulnerable to unforeseen upticks.
“Comprehensive case data is critical to an effective response. As we have seen throughout the pandemic, lack of data leads to poor decision making and ultimately costs lives,” Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, said.
Since last summer, dozens of states and the federal agencies have opted to scale back on regular data reporting. Few states still offer COVID-19 data reports seven days a week, with most now moving to weekly or alternate-day schedules.
“Federal public health has no statutory authority to direct what and how public health data are reported. As such, CDC relies on a patchwork of approaches to collect data voluntarily provided from state and local jurisdictions,” a spokesperson from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement to ABC News on Monday. “This pandemic demonstrated the inadequacies of the fractured patchwork system. Immediate and complete data are needed to make the best recommendations to keep people safe and to inform policy making.”
Earlier this year, the Department of Health and Human Services also ended the requirement for hospitals to report several key COVID-19 metrics, including a daily total of the number of COVID-19 deaths, the number of emergency department overflow and ventilated patients, and information on critical staffing shortages.
The decision comes weeks after the CDC unveiled a new plan for determining COVID-19 risk in communities and updated its recommendations for face coverings, allowing nearly all of the country to go mask-free under the new guidelines.
Some health experts have criticized the guidance, suggesting it gives Americans a false sense of security, as it relies less on transmission-related data, and more on hospital bed availability.
In recent weeks, wastewater surveillance has become a critical metric. At this time, indicators suggest COVID-19 infection rates may be higher than initially thought; an uptick in the number of wastewater sites monitored by the CDC have seen an increase in the presence of the COVID-19 virus in their wastewater.
Although wastewater can be a helpful tool used as a preliminary indicator of COVID-19 trends in the U.S., experts said using it alone will not be sufficient in predicting data trends.
“While we have other surveillance tools like wastewater viral levels and hospitalization counts, testing data provides an understanding of the full extent of community transmission and ultimately risk to our health systems,” Brownstein said.
From coast-to-coast, dozens of states have moved to shutter public testing sites, as at-home COVID-19 tests have become more available in pharmacies, and offered to Americans through the federal testing program.
However, most Americans are not reporting their results to officials, and thus, experts said infection totals are likely undercounted.
Reported testing levels are now at their lowest point in eight months, with reported test numbers dropping by nearly 75% since the beginning of the year.
“Testing has always been a cornerstone of our pandemic response. Without this surveillance data, we are flying blind and are almost certainly going to repeat mistakes of the past,” Brownstein said. “When we close testing sites, we not only put individuals, their contacts and their communities at risk, we undermine critical public health infrastructure.”
Of additional concern is the potential for the CDC, which has compiled key COVID-19 metrics throughout the pandemic, to lose access to data, following the loss of federal funding.
“We are the compiler of the data, but we do not have the authority to collect it. And so we rely on states being willing to share it with us and the data use authorization, data use agreements, in order to do so,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told CBS News earlier this month.
When the public health declaration lapses, the agency will no longer have access to many key data metrics.
“Data related to COVID-19 test results and hospitalizations are currently available because of the public health emergency declaration. When that declaration lapses, so does CDC’s access to this important information,” the CDC representative explained.
The CDC has embarked upon an aggressive data modernization effort, the agency told ABC News. With adequate funding, these efforts will allow the sharing of data and information across the public health ecosystem.
“System-wide modernization and change to benefit all of public health requires CDC to have the authority to coordinate and guide how data are reported and shared for evidence based decision-making,” the CDC representative said. “The nation can no longer continue with the current, fractured approach of collecting public health data to be better prepared for future pandemics.”
(NEW YORK) — A new study has added to the body of research showing the risks pregnant people face due to COVID-19, especially among those who are not vaccinated.
The study, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, found pregnant people with COVID-19 had more than double the risk of negative outcomes compared to pregnant people without the virus.
The negative outcomes for pregnant people with COVID-19 ranged from preterm birth and blood clots to respiratory distress syndrome and sepsis, according to researchers with Kaiser Permanente, a healthcare system, who analyzed the data of over 43,000 pregnant people during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic.
“These findings add to the growing evidence that having COVID-19 during pregnancy raises risks of serious complications,” the study’s lead author, Dr. Assiamira Ferrara, a senior research scientist and associate director of the women’s and children’s health section in the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, said in a statement. “Coupled with the evidence that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe during pregnancy, these findings should aid patients in understanding the risks of perinatal complications and the need for vaccination.”
Earlier this year, another study found that unvaccinated pregnant people with COVID-19 and their newborn babies have a higher risk of complications from the disease, like hospitalizations and newborn deaths, compared to those who are vaccinated against the virus.
The study, led by researchers in Scotland, found that unvaccinated pregnant people who contracted COVID not only had a risk of more severe illness themselves, but also were more likely to experience pregnancy loss or preterm birth compared to other women, leading the researchers to conclude, “Addressing low vaccine uptake in pregnant women is imperative to protect the health of women and babies.”
In the United States, as of mid-March, just over 60% of all pregnant people ages 18-49 years-old in the U.S. have been fully vaccinated, prior to or during pregnancy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Since the start of the pandemic, in early 2020, there have been more than 188,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in pregnant people in the U.S., including nearly 300 deaths, according to the CDC.
Here is what pregnant and breastfeeding people may want to know about the COVID-19 vaccines to help them make informed decisions.
1. When can pregnant people get a COVID-19 vaccine?
Everyone 5 years of age and older, including pregnant people, is now eligible to get a COVID-19 vaccination, according to the CDC.
Pregnant people can get the COVID-19 vaccine at any point in their pregnancy and while breastfeeding, and the vaccine does not need to be spaced from other vaccines, like the flu shot or Tdap booster.
2. What is the science behind the COVID-19 vaccine?
Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use mRNA technology, which does not enter the nucleus of the cells and doesn’t alter the human DNA. Instead, it sends a genetic instruction manual that prompts cells to create proteins that look like part of the virus as a way for the body to learn and develop defenses against future infection.
They are the first mRNA vaccines, and have been shown to be safe during pregnancy. They do not contain a live virus.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses an inactivated adenovirus vector, Ad26, that cannot replicate. The Ad26 vector carries a piece of DNA with instructions to make the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that triggers an immune response.
This same type of vaccine has been authorized for Ebola, and has been studied extensively for other illnesses — and for how it affects women who are pregnant or breastfeeding.
The CDC has concluded that pregnant people can receive the Johnson & Johnson one-shot vaccine after reviewing more than 200 pages of data provided by the company and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Vaccine experts interviewed by ABC News said although pregnant women are advised against getting live-attenuated virus vaccines, such as the one for measles, mumps and rubella, because they can pose a theoretical risk of infection to the fetus, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine doesn’t contain live virus and should be safe.
3. Are there studies on pregnant women and the COVID-19 vaccine?
Yes, studies continue to show the COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective for pregnant people.
A study released Jan. 4 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found no increased risk of preterm or low-weight birth among babies born to pregnant people who got a COVID-19 vaccine shot, compared to babies born to unvaccinated pregnant people.
The study’s researchers, at Yale University, looked at the health data of more than 40,000 pregnant people and did not identify any safety issues with getting vaccinated while pregnant, no matter which trimester a woman was vaccinated, or how many vaccine doses she got during her pregnancy. Researchers noted most of the women included in the analysis were vaccinated in the second or third trimester, and the study didn’t include booster doses.
In a health warning issued in September urging pregnant people to get vaccinated, the CDC said data shows there is also no increased risk for miscarriage linked to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.
“Miscarriage rates after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine were similar to the expected rate of miscarriage,” the CDC said at the time. “Additionally, previous findings from three safety monitoring systems did not find any safety concerns for pregnant people who were vaccinated late in pregnancy or for their babies.”
In addition, two studies released last summer found Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines appear to be safe and effective for pregnant people, and were also found to likely offer protection as well to infants born to a vaccinated person.
One study, published May 11 in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, is believed to be the first to examine the impact of the COVID-19 vaccines on the placenta, according to the university. Researchers found the vaccine had no impact on pregnancy and no impact on fertility, menstruation and puberty.
A second study, led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, looked at more than 100 women who chose to get either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines and found that the women’s antibodies against COVID-19 after being fully vaccinated were also present in infant cord blood and breast milk.
An earlier study, a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology in March found the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are safe and effective in pregnant and lactating people and those people are able to pass protective antibodies to their newborns.
4. What are health groups saying about the COVID-19 vaccine?
In August, the CDC strengthened its recommendation for COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy, citing new evidence of safety with the vaccines.
The nation’s two leading health organizations focused on the care of pregnant people — American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) — also issued new guidelines calling on all pregnant people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
In their joint recommendation issued in July, ACOG and SMFM said pregnant people should “feel confident” in getting vaccinated against COVID-19.
“ACOG is recommending vaccination of pregnant individuals because we have evidence of the safe and effective use of the vaccine during pregnancy from many tens of thousands of reporting individuals, because we know that COVID-19 infection puts pregnant people at increased risk of severe complications, and because it is clear from the current vaccination rates that people need to feel confident in the safety and protective value of the COVID-19 vaccines,” ACOG president Dr. J. Martin Tucker said in a statement. “Pregnant individuals should feel confident that choosing COVID-19 vaccination not only protects them but also protects their families and communities.”
“COVID-19 vaccination is the best method to reduce maternal and fetal complications of COVID-19 infection among pregnant people,” Dr. William Grobman, president of SMFM, said in a statement announcing the new recommendation, also noting the vaccines are safe before, during and after pregnancy.
The World Health Organization (WHO) also says pregnant people can be vaccinated against COVID-19.
“Limited data are currently available to assess the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy. However, based on what we know about the kinds of vaccines being used, there is no specific reason for concern,” WHO says on its website. “None of the COVID-19 vaccines authorized to date use live viruses, which are more likely to pose risks during pregnancy.”
5. What will clinical trials be like for pregnant people?
Pfizer’s phase 2/3 trial will enroll approximately 4,000 women within weeks 24-34 of their pregnancy, the company announced in a press release.
Half will get the vaccine, and half will get a placebo.
The study will include healthy, pregnant woman age 18 and older in the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mozambique, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Spain.
Participants in the vaccine group will receive two doses at 21 days apart — and each woman will be followed for at least 7-10 months in order to continuously assess for safety in both participants and their infants.
Infants will also be assessed, up until 6 months of age, for transfer of protective antibodies from their vaccinated mother.
Women enrolled in the trial will be made aware of their vaccine status shortly after giving birth to allow those women who originally received placebo to be vaccinated while staying in the study.
6. Why weren’t pregnant people included in early clinical trials?
Not recruiting parents-to-be in clinical trials and medical research is nothing new, according to Dr. Ruth Faden, the founder of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and a bioethicist who studies the ethics of pregnancy and vaccines.
“For a very long time, pregnant women were not included in biomedical research evaluation efforts or clinical trials, both for concerns about fetal development and what would be the implications of giving a pregnant women an experimental drug or vaccine and also for legal liability worries from manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies,” Faden told “GMA” last month. “There’s a huge gap between what we know about the safety and effectiveness of a new drug or a new vaccine for the rest of the population and what we know about it specific to pregnancy.”
In the case of the COVID-19 vaccines, health experts have only one of the three sources of evidence that are used to evaluate safety and efficacy during pregnancy: the data on non-pregnant people who were enrolled in the clinical trials, according to Faden.
From that, Faden said, health experts can try to glean what side effects may happen to people who are pregnant, but it is not an exact science.
However, it’s considered typical — and many argue ethically appropriate — to study an unknown substance first in healthy adults and then progressively in broader and broader populations. Pregnant people and children are often tested later down the line because of concerns about potential long-term harm.
Some of the volunteers in prior COVID-19 vaccine trials that didn’t include pregnant women directly may still become pregnant during the trial. This will also give researchers some insights about the vaccine’s safety among this group.
7. Is COVID-19 more dangerous for pregnant people?
According to the CDC, COVID-19 causes a two-fold risk of admission into intensive care and a 70% increased risk of death for pregnant people.
Health experts say that with or without the vaccine, pregnant people need to continue to remain on high alert when it comes to COVID-19 by following safety protocols, including face mask wearing, social distancing and hand washing.
ABC News’ Sony Salzman, Arielle Mitropoulos, Siobhan Deshauer, Eric Strauss and Sophia Gauthier, MD, a pediatric resident physician at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia as well as a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit, contributed to this report.
