Health

(WASHINGTON) — Less than a month after Victoria Waldo recovered from COVID, she woke up feeling drunk.

Dizzy and slurring her speech, she went to the emergency room only to be sent home after routine blood work turned up negative.

The newly engaged 26-year-old, who worked long days in finance at a start-up and taught skiing on the weekends, would spend the next several months in a haze on her couch in her Washington, D.C., apartment.

Unable to focus, she lost her job. At one point, she stumbled upon a pair of slippers she liked and asked her fiancé who they belonged to. They were hers, he said, a Christmas gift from his sister.

Another time, she forgot what her wedding planner looked like and introduced herself to the woman as if the two had never met.

“I had no idea what was going on. Nobody diagnosed me with anything. Everyone said I was fine based on my labs. Someone asked me if I was on my period,” she said.

Now, at an age when many young professionals consider financing a home, traveling or starting a family, Waldo is weighing her options. Her employer didn’t offer disability insurance with her job — a benefit she didn’t think she’d need as a healthy twenty-something. So she’s waiting to see if her condition improves with time — and burning through her cash savings in the meantime.

“I think in a parallel universe where none of this happened, we would be doing that now,” she said of house hunting. But “instead, I’m kind of like, ‘Oh, I want to see if we can get away with this cheap rent again.”

‘A mass disabling event’

More than two years after COVID began, millions of survivors say they still don’t feel right. Brain fog, difficulty breathing, and intense fatigue are among the symptoms they say are still lingering in their bodies — upending their ability to work and derailing their financial independence.

The government estimates as many as 7 million to 23 million people are impacted by long COVID, and a Census Bureau survey suggests that among people who have been infected, one in five still experience lingering symptoms.

Vaccination is expected to significantly reduce a person’s chance of developing long COVID. That immunity though wanes with time and doctors say some people — like Waldo who was fully vaccinated but days away from a booster shot when she caught the virus — can still be young and healthy when they get sick.

Advocates have called this phenomenon a kind of “mass disabling event” that both insurers and the federal government have yet to reckon with. Data on disability claims with private insurers tied to long COVID aren’t publicly available. And while disability claims with the federal government’s Social Security program currently remain flat for now, at least one economist says that might not last for long.

“This is a $3.5 trillion problem,” said David Cutler, a professor of economics at Harvard University, whose calculations factor in lost earnings, medical care and lower quality of life.

“And there are very few 3.5 trillion problems that we know as little as we know about this,” he said.

‘This is not in their heads’

Doctors and scientists have long suspected that viral infections might be to blame for other chronic or debilitating diseases and conditions with mysterious origins, including multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and chronic fatigue syndrome.

Then came COVID, triggering a wave of 93 million viral infections in the U.S. in just two years. Hospitals quickly began to see patients like Waldo show up at emergency rooms and doctors’ offices with symptoms they couldn’t explain.

Dr. Alba Azola, who helps run the post-acute COVID team at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, said she might consult with a half a dozen other specialists or more to rule out other causes before diagnosing someone with long COVID. After that, she said, her team will have to go back-and-forth several times with insurers and employers to help their patients secure job accommodations.

“This is not in their heads,” Azola said of her patients. “This is not something that is just to get out work or a disability scam. These patients just want to be themselves again.”

One of Azola’s patients, Jazmin Holcombe, is among the luckier ones when it comes to her work life. After four months in the hospital with COVID, the 29-year-old was able to return to her job working from her home office in marketing. She hadn’t been vaccinated when she contracted the virus last year because, she said, she had been nervous about a new vaccine and she mostly stayed at home.

But she’s still far from her old self. Now, rather than planning trips or going to concerts like she used to, Jazmin spends much of her time doing physical therapy at the hospital, carrying with her an oxygen tank wherever she goes. She said her doctors hope to have a better idea by the end of the year what her prognosis will be.

“No one knows yet,” she said.

‘No man’s land’

That uncertainty in the lives of young long haulers and its impact on the economy has caught the attention of senior government officials and scientists.

The National Institutes of Health has launched a $1.5 billion study to identify the causes and find treatments for long COVID. And, the Biden administration has added long COVID as a condition that qualifies as a disability under the American Disability Act — a move that requires employers to grant work accommodations.

Also, the Labor Department has teamed up with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Surgeon General’s office to crowdsource ideas from the public on “workplace challenges” tied to long COVID.

Taryn Williams, assistant secretary of labor for disability employment policy, said she hopes to have an analysis of that effort in coming months. In the meantime, she said, people can go to www.covid.gov/longcovid to see what benefits they might be eligible for. They also can get free counseling through the Job Accommodation Network at askjan.org, she said.

“We do not know yet the full extent of the impact of long COVID on the economy or the workforce. But we do know that public health and safety are critical to a healthy economy, which is why we are so focused on this,” Williams said.

For now though, employer accommodations can still be scarce, especially without legal help.

Mark DeBofsky, a disability attorney and law professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago John Marshall Law School, said people should know that many lawyers — including himself — won’t bill their clients until they win a case. He said he advises his clients to save any medical documentation they have and collect statements from family members about how they might have changed.

Keeping detailed journals of their symptoms can be a good idea too, he said.

“I think it’s still a mixed bag,” DeBofsky said about insurance companies and employers responding to long COVID patients.

“Every disability claim is very complex, and I don’t begrudge the insurance companies for really doing their due diligence,” he added.

But even people who keep detailed records can get rejected, like Frantz Dickerson, a 55-year-old sales executive who worked during the pandemic for a company that sold and fixed elevators. Dickerson’s job was to drive into Philadelphia where he would stand on rooftops or climb into the elevator shafts of high-rise buildings and hospitals to ensure safety and order fixes.

After being diagnosed with long COVID — a mental state he describes as feeling as though his brain went from a 10-lane highway down to two lanes — his doctors suggested he take time off to rebuild his cognitive and physical abilities.

But according to his employer’s disability insurer, Dickerson could still work in sales. That’s because the insurer defined a sales job as mostly sitting at a desk, even if that wasn’t an accurate description of what he did. His former employer did not respond to requests for comment, and his insurer said it won’t discuss individual cases due to privacy concerns.

“I was kind of in this no man’s land,” Dickerson said of his rejection. “Insurance says that I’m not disabled, but my work says, ‘no, you can’t come back until your doctor fully releases you.’ And my doctors were not fully releasing me because they understood long COVID.”

Dr. Benjamin Abramoff, who treated Dickerson as head of PennMedicine’s post-COVID care clinic and confirmed the details in his case, said he oftentimes will spend hours filling out paperwork for patients. Abramoff said he knows of other doctors and clinics that have pulled back from the specialty because they don’t have the staff or resources to do it.

Abramoff said he wants more data on effective treatments and is watching ongoing studies closely. But he also would like to see insurers agree to use the same standardized forms.

“It is a big administrative burden,” he said. Insurers “send in the forms and the forms get rejected for technicalities (such as) a box that wasn’t filled out quite right. And then it has to come back to be filled out again or edited.”

Dickerson eventually switched sales jobs to one that’s fully remote. After several months of therapy, he says he’s doing better now that he’s learned how to pace himself and take breaks if he needs it, including playing his guitar — something he was encouraged to do by his doctor.

As for Waldo, she eventually landed an official diagnosis of long COVID: “Post COVID-19 Condition ICD10 code U09.9” — a medical code that didn’t exist until about a year ago.

But she’s close to draining her once-impressive cash savings of $70,000 to pay for medical treatments and living expenses – money she had hoped to use to buy a house someday and maybe travel.

In the meantime, she’s still planning to get married next year. But everything else, including starting a family, is on hold for now.

“I just don’t know what my body can handle,” she said.

ABC News producers Vika Aronson, Kelly Terez, Iru Ekpunobi and Cate Barbera contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Monkeypox cases appear to be on the decline in the epicenter of the country’s outbreak.

Data from the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene shows that as of Aug. 30, the latest date for which data is available, the Big Apple recorded a seven-day rolling average of 9 infections.

That’s an 82% decline from the seven-day rolling average of 50 recorded two weeks ago.

Since the outbreak began in mid-May, no state — or city — has recorded more monkeypox cases than New York, so a drop in infections could be a prediction of what is to come for the rest of the country.

“The good news is monkeypox is declining,” Dr. Roy Gulick, chief of the division of infectious diseases at Cornell University’s Weill Medical College, told ABC News. “Globally it’s declining and across the United States but being really led by the major cities and we’ve seen it right here in New York.”

Even as the U.S. approaches 20,000 total infections, nationwide trends appear to show a drop, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As of Aug. 31, the seven-day rolling average of cases in the U.S. sits at 281, the lowest number recorded since July 25, according to an ABC News analysis of CDC data.

The outbreak has primarily been concentrated in men who have sex with men, a group that includes people who identify as gay, bisexual, transgender and nonbinary, although health officials have said anyone — regardless of sexual orientation — is at risk if they have direct contact with an infected patient

Health experts say men who fall into this category have been likely doing a good job following doctors’ advice in proper precautionary measures.

A joint survey from the CDC, Emory University and Johns Hopkins University found that about one-half of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men reduced their number of sexual partners, their number of one-time anonymous partners and reduced their use of dating apps.

“Health departments as well as community advocates and organizations have really gotten the word out about monkeypox,” Gulick said. “Not only that it was something people needed to pay attention to, but also what to look for, what to do if you had lesions, when you should go see your doctor, and then how to avoid passing it to other people. Or if you didn’t have it, how to avoid getting it in the first place.”

People at risk changed their behavior in response to the threat, he added.

On Thursday, the NYC DOHMH announced it will begin making second doses of the monkeypox vaccine available for those who received their first dose at least 10 weeks earlier.

Walk-ins for first doses will also be accepted a city-run sites, a sign that scarcity of the vaccines is abating.

“Here in New York City, more than 70,000 monkeypox vaccines have been given and recently there was a recommendation to split the dose — make one dose into five doses — and that strategy is also being rolled out, so more vaccines are available,” Gulick said. “We did hear about waiting lists and long waits and trouble getting appointments initially for vaccines, but that really is not the case anymore.”

However, Gulick added the outbreak isn’t over and urged people in high-risk categories to keep taking precautions.

“Although the numbers are encouraging because they’re going down, there is still a risk,” he said. “So, people who are at risk should absolutely seek out the vaccine, talk to their providers about whether they should get it or not and then people should be aware of contacts or changing their behavior to reduce the number of contacts that they have to avoid getting monkeypox.”

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(NEW YORK) — A Florida teen has been battling an infection suspected to be caused by a rare, brain-eating amoeba for over 50 days, as his family prays for him to wake up, they said.

Caleb Ziegelbauer, 13, was suffering from a severe headache, high fever and hallucinations when his family brought him to Golisano Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida in Fort Myers on July 9, according to Lee Health, the hospital’s parent company.

After quickly ruling out bacterial meningitis, doctors began treating the teen for primary amebic meningoencephalitis, a disease with similar symptoms that’s caused by Naegleria fowleri, an amoeba that destroys brain tissue. Caleb swam in brackish water days before experiencing his symptoms, further causing doctors to suspect he was infected by the amoeba, the hospital said.

Samples sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ultimately tested negative for Naegleria fowleri, though Caleb’s doctors continued treating the teen for primary amebic meningoencephalitis due to his symptoms and history, the hospital said.

Caleb was on a ventilator and has suffered seizures while in the pediatric intensive care unit, though his condition has been stable in recent weeks, his family said. After more than 50 days at the children’s hospital, Caleb was transferred this week to a rehabilitation hospital in Chicago for the next phase of his treatment.

His mother, Jesse Ziegelbauer, said they sought out Shirley Ryan AbilityLab because Caleb needs a disorders of consciousness program.

“He is made of pure grit and determination, and it is exactly that which we are banking on to wake him up,” Jesse Ziegelbauer said during a press briefing Wednesday before they left on an air ambulance. “I can’t wait for him to share his story. It is his and only his to share.”

His mother described Caleb, the eldest of four siblings, as an “amazing big brother” who loves baseball and science and wants to be an epidemiologist when he grows up.

“Caleb is brave. Caleb is strong. Caleb is a fighter. Caleb is young. Caleb is healthy. Caleb has a brain capable of healing,” she said.

As he continues to fight, his family say they remain hopeful.

“Every finger twitch we see makes us excited for what’s to come,” Jesse Ziegelbauer said.

Infections with Naegleria fowleri are rare but often fatal. Out of 154 known cases of primary amebic meningoencephalitis reported in the U.S. from 1962 to 2021, only four people have survived, according to the CDC.

This summer, a Missouri resident with a confirmed Naegleria fowleri case died, while a child in Nebraska died from a suspected case, health officials in their respective states said.

Infections mainly occur during the summer months in recreational water, according to the CDC. People can become infected by Naegleria fowleri when water containing the amoeba enters the body through their nose.

Symptoms of primary amebic meningoencephalitis include severe headache, fever, nausea, vomiting, stiff neck and seizures.

People can try to reduce their risk of becoming infected by Naegleria fowleri by limiting the amount of water that goes up their nose while in bodies of warm freshwater and by avoiding recreation in warm freshwater during periods of high water temperature.

Caleb started complaining of a headache days after playing in the water at a local beach in Port Charlotte on July 1, his family said. Though his tests were inconclusive for the disease caused by Naegleria fowleri, his doctors at Golisano Children’s Hospital believe that to be the cause of his illness, the hospital said. It is also common for Naegleria fowleri not to be initially detected in patients with primary amebic meningoencephalitis, according to the CDC.

“Due to Caleb’s symptoms, his reported recent exposure to brackish water, and his clinical course, infectious disease physicians at Golisano Children’s Hospital believe he could still have PAM caused by Naegleria fowleri and thus recommended to continue treating him for this infection,” Golisano Children’s Hospital said in a statement to reporters in late July.

Caleb’s family has been speaking out since they first learned of his likely diagnosis in hopes of alerting people on how to protect themselves.

Tampa-based Jet ICU was among those who heard about Caleb and offered to fly him and his family to Chicago at no cost.

“We heard about the story. We had to step in,” Jet ICU flight paramedic Jared Wayt told reporters Wednesday. “He’s already beat the odds. So hopefully we can help further his care and his recovery.”

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(NEW YORK) — Two parents who have turned tragedy into a teachable moment are educating others on the dangers of heatstroke.

Martin McNair and Tonya Wilson lost their 19-year-old son, Jordan McNair, in 2018 after the University of Maryland football player suffered a heatstroke following a strenuous football workout. Now, the foundation named for their son is helping others avoid the same fate.

Heatstroke occurs when the body overheats, with internal temperature rising to 104 degrees and is most likely to happen during the summer months, according to the Mayo Clinic. Older adults, people who are overweight as well as people who experience overexertion from exercise are most likely to suffer heatstroke.

“Jordan was very healthy, as far as for his weight and height, he was healthy…we were totally oblivious to what a heat-related injury was. We didn’t know what was going on,” Jordan McNair’s father, Martin McNair, told ABC News.

After Jordan’s death, his parents launched the Jordan McNair Foundation to raise awareness about heatstroke and teach parents what to look for.

“I think for us also, especially for me, my grief went into the work that we’ve done and we’re still amazed that, you know, the accomplishments and the impact that we’ve made up until this point,” McNair told ABC News.

The foundation was established in June 2018, days after Jordan died, and, since then, has started working with student athletes of all ages. The foundation’s work recently expanded to the collegiate level, partnering with Morgan University in Maryland.

“We talk to schools, literally all over the nation, but our main focus is parent education, and that’s really the main thing. Advocacy and the seeds of advocacy need to be planted at a very, very early age, so our goal is to educate parents all over the nation, along with student athletes and the more educated a parent is, the more educated the student athlete is and the more educated coaches are, because parents are asking the right questions at this point,” McNair said.

Questions they wish they knew to ask in 2018.

“I wouldn’t wish this type of pain on nobody, and even though it’s been four years, it’s still felt like yesterday,” McNair said.

“I didn’t prepare him for what I didn’t know. Even though I try not to beat myself up about it, but I constantly did because it was like, ‘I could have prepared him more.’ I taught him how to be a leader, you know? How to defend himself. How to do this, how to do that; not to use drugs or substances and things like that. But at the end of the day, I never really taught him to, If you feel uncomfortable doing something, don’t do it,” McNair told ABC News.

While McNair died in 2018, heatstroke is still an issue for athletes at all levels and even tragically claimed the life of former Dallas Cowboys running back Marion Barber III in June. In July, police in the Dallas suburb of Frisco, where Barber lived, said in a statement that Barber died of heatstroke and that his death was ruled an accident.

Heat illness often advances quickly in both football players and runners, according to the Gatorade Sports Science Institute. Since 1995, on average three athletes a year have died of heatstroke.

With record-high temperatures across the country, everyone — even non-athletes — is at an increased risk. However, with the record-high temperatures and outdoor practices for fall sports, heatstroke has an increased risk in athletes but is often confused with heath exhaustion, McNair said.

“When you’re looking at heatstroke, the big difference is in the central nervous dysfunction. So what does that mean in layman’s terms? Basically, when people start showing altered mental status, they could be ranting hysterically, which is not their normal selves. That’s a sign of heatstroke. And all of the signs look different. But again, it’s not the normal behavior of the student athlete or the person having a heatstroke. That’s what the sign, that’s what those are telltale signs like, hey, this person, this person is usually a quiet person and now they are going on a rant,” McNair said.

Irrational behavior is one of the symptoms of heatstroke, according to the Mayo Clinic. Other symptoms could include high fever, dry, hot skin, shallow breathing, seizures and weak pulse.

According to the Mayo Clinic, it’s best to wear loose fitting clothing, drink lots of liquids to stay hydrated and to do strenuous activity during cooler parts of the day to prevent heatstroke.

McNair and Wilson hope to prevent other parents from suffering the same fate as them, and plan to have their foundation expand across the country.

“He was a gentleman. Everybody loved Jordan. And all he had to do was smile and every, any place he went he would just light up a room…He was the jokester. He just played a bunch of jokes and so on. Outside of the home, he was different, but inside the home he was a lovable guy, and some days we’d just be in the house, and be eating more than talking but just a gentle giant. That’s exactly what he was, a gentle giant, and he’s missed tremendously,” Tonya Wilson, Jordan’s mother, told ABC News.

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(NEW YORK) — Jenna Goldman said she was out on a run with her now-husband two years ago when she started feeling like she was getting a migraine.

“In my right eye, there was some vision stuff happening, like a typical ocular migraine,” Goldman, 28, told Good Morning America, referring to a type of migraine headache that temporarily causes vision loss in one eye, according to the American Optometric Association.

Goldman, of New York, said she had suffered from ocular migraines since the age of 21, so when symptoms struck during her run, she went home and began to treat it as she usually did, with deep breaths, a wet cloth on her face and over-the-counter pain medication.

This time though, Goldman said she continued to feel worse and soon felt numbness in her body and had difficulty speaking.

Goldman’s husband took her to a local hospital, where she said doctors first treated her for a migraine but ultimately diagnosed her as suffering a stroke.

“The doctor said, ‘Jenna, you’re going to need to get your parents or your fiancé to hop on the phone because you’re not going to be able to comprehend what I’m going to tell you,’ and she said that I had a stroke,” Goldman recalled. “I didn’t even know what that meant, but just knew that it was really bad.”

While the highest rates for stroke are among older populations, stroke rates for young adults have increased by more than 40% over the past several decades, according to the American Heart Association. Each year, as many as 15% of strokes in the United States happen to people between the ages of 18 and 45.

Goldman said that in addition to her shock that she, as a healthy 20-something, would be impacted by a stroke, she was also surprised to learn from doctors that the hormonal birth control she had taken since the age of 17 may have added to her stroke risk.

Experiencing migraines with aura, of which ocular migraines are included, slightly increases a woman’s risk of stroke, according to the American Migraine Foundation. Taking hormonal birth control can also slightly increase a woman’s risk of stroke.

And while in some cases taking hormonal birth control may be helpful in treating the subset of migraines that occurs around one’s period, the so-called “menstrual migraines,” hormonal birth control is generally avoided with women with migraines with aura for fear of compounding stroke risk.

Goldman said that when she began taking the birth control pill, also known as oral contraceptives, in high school, she had no idea she would need to ask her doctor about the potential risks of the medication when she started developing migraines later on.

“Being on birth control from 17 to 26, I wasn’t aware of how it affected my body,” said Goldman. “I feel like I wasn’t properly educated about birth control when I started it.”

Birth control pills are made of either both estrogen and progestin — the two hormones made naturally in a woman’s ovaries — or just progestin, according to the National Library of Medicine.

Dr. Nita Landry, a board-certified OBGYN, told GMA that estrogen-containing birth control pills can also be associated with a small increased risk of stroke, which, if taken by someone who suffers from migraines with aura, would add an additional stroke risk.

“You don’t want to necessarily combine those two stroke risks,” said Landry. “If someone does have a history of migraines with aura, or someone has a history of ocular migraines, I would suggest that they use a form of birth control that does not contain estrogen just because of the potential increased risk of stroke.”

Landry, author of the forthcoming book, Dr. Nita’s Crash Course for Women: Better Sex, Better Health, Better You, said that women do not need to be fearful of using hormonal birth control, but they do need to be aware of what they’re putting into their bodies.

“You deserve to have all of the information. It’s your body,” she said. “I’m really big on informed consent, and you can’t give informed consent if you don’t understand the risks and benefits.”

Landry pointed out that hormonal birth control has many benefits, including managing period pain and lowering the risk of ovarian cancer in some cases.

“We need to talk about risks, but we also have to consider all of the benefits,” she said. “We have to put put the risks in perspective and understand that there are some situations when taking birth control pills will be riskier than it’s worth, but there are a lot of cases when the potential benefits far outweigh those risks.”

Non-estrogen containing contraceptives including intrauterine devices, the Depo-Provera injection and progestin-only birth control pills can also be options for women, according to Landry.

She said she encourages women to check in with their doctors frequently to make sure they are using the birth control method that is right for them and their changing needs.

“The birth control that works best for you at the age of 16 may not be the best for you when you’re 37, for example,” she said, noting that, for instance, women who are 35 years of age or older and smoke should also not use estrogen-containing birth control pills.

In addition, women should discuss with their doctor why they are using birth control, whether it be for acne control or period pain or to help lower high blood pressure, according to Landry, who said, “All of those things will determine which contraceptive methods are the safest for you to use.”

Landry said the two specific questions she encourages women to ask their doctor are, “Based on my personal history and my family history, is this still the best contraceptive option for me, or is there something that has transpired since my last visit that may make this a less ideal option?,’ and, ‘What are the risks and benefits of this particular option?”

Goldman, who has undergone extensive physical therapy in her ongoing recovery from her stroke, said she is sharing her story to encourage women to do exactly as Landry said.

“I hope that younger women will ask questions like, ‘How will this affect my body if I start taking it regularly? What are the impacts? What are the implications? Why am I going on birth control? Are there other ways to avoid getting pregnant?,'” she said. “Those are the most basic, simple questions that you can ask.”

Goldman added that she has learned through her own health journey of the need to educate and empower when it comes to your own health.

“Everyone’s body is so different but you really have to know what you’re putting in it, and you really have to protect it,” she said. “It’s your body, you have to nurture it.”

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(NEW YORK) — Fewer Black and Hispanic Americans have gotten a first or second COVID-19 vaccine booster compared to people of other races and ethnicities, new federal data finds.

The CDC report also found that booster coverage was highest among white and Asian Americans.

Fewer Black and Hispanic Americans have gotten a first or second COVID-19 vaccine booster compared to people of other races and ethnicities, new federal data finds.

The report, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thursday, looked at the share of eligible Americans aged 5 and older who’ve received a primary booster and those aged 50 and older who’ve received a second booster.

As of Aug. 5, 2022, about half of the eligible U.S. population has received a first booster and one-third has gotten a second booster.

Among eligible Black Americans, 42.9% have received a first booster dose and 28.1% have received a second booster. Hispanic Americans had even lower percentages at 37.3% of those eligible with a first booster and 24.4% with a second booster.

By comparison, white and Asian Americans had much higher percentages. Data showed 54.7% of eligible white people had a first booster and 36.6% of those eligible had a second booster.

Meanwhile, 58.5% of eligible Asian Americans had a first booster and 36.1% were given a second booster.

Also found in the CDC report to have lower booster coverage were younger Americans, regardless of race or ethnicity.

However, when looking at the racial and ethnic breakdown of boosters among children between ages 5 and 11, 9.8% of eligible Black children and 10.4% of Hispanic children had received a booster.

About twice as many eligible white and Asian children were boosted, at 17.7% and 20.6%, respectively.

“This is once again an indication that this pandemic has exposed incredible disparities, first in access to testing, treatment and vaccines,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “Now, certain populations are not getting access to important, life-saving boosters.”

Brownstein said one reason for the low percentages, especially with the second booster, may be because of the innovative methods used to vaccinate people earlier in the pandemic that have since disappeared.

“There was a huge drive to get people that primary series and meeting people where they were with pop-up sites and drive-through vaccination, and much of that infrastructure has gone away,” he said. “We’re now relying on more traditional measures, like pharmacies and primary care.”

Research has shown people of color are more likely to live in pharmacy deserts with less geographic access to primary care physicians.

“They may mean some populations get left behind and unfortunately, that often means minorities,” Brownstein added.

The authors wrote understanding what is contributing to lower booster coverage and addressing interventions “is crucial to ensuring equitable access to COVID-19 vaccination.”

Brownstein said increasing uptake is even more vital as autumn approaches with colder weather and more people heading indoors increasing the risk of COVID-19 infection.

“There is urgency to try to figure this out ahead of a surge,” he said. “We expect emergence of a new variant and as we see limited masking and full mobility, that increases the risk.”

“Some minority populations will feel the impact the greatest. We have a new opportunity with a new booster to avoid getting to a point with unnecessary hospitalizations and deaths among Black and Hispanic Americans,” Brownstein continued.

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(NEW YORK) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky signed off on newly-updated COVID-19 booster shots Thursday night, giving the final clearance shots to be administered soon after.

The new booster shots have been updated to target two different COVID strains in one shot — the current omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, which make up 99% of new cases in the U.S., and the original strain of COVID-19.

This is the first time current COVID-19 vaccines have had a major upgrade. In the future, experts expect the vaccines could be updated periodically to match current strains — akin to the way the flu shot is slightly different each year.

Walensky urged eligible Americans to get the shot.

“The updated COVID-19 boosters are formulated to better protect against the most recently circulating COVID-19 variant. They can help restore protection that has waned since previous vaccination and were designed to provide broader protection against newer variants,” she said in a statement.

Public health officials directed the vaccine companies to create a bivalent vaccine — a vaccine that targets two different strains — in the hopes that the compilation will provide broader protection against COVID this fall and winter, as infections could rise with flu season, the cold weather and more time indoors.

The Pfizer bivalent booster will be available to everyone over 12, while the Moderna bivalent booster will be available to everyone over 18.

Earllier Thursday, the panel of CDC advisors publicly reviewed the data before taking the vote. Thirteen members approved the measure while one voted no and there was some debate ahead of the vote over the lack of available data.

In order to roll the vaccines out by next month and offer people protection this fall and winter, the companies submitted data to U.S. Food and Drug Administration without full clinical trial data.

Some members of the CDC panel were concerned about the precedent that it set to recommend a vaccine without data from human trials.

“Ultimately, I really don’t want to establish a precedent of recommending a vaccine that we don’t have clinical data for,” Dr. Pablo Sanche said.

Other members said they were comfortable with the risk-benefit analysis.

“I just would like to remind the committee that every year we use influenza vaccines that are based on new strains, without clinical studies being done. This is what we do every year,” Dr. Melinda Wharton said.

Appointments could ramp up in earnest after the holiday weekend.

The U.S. government has purchased about 171 million shots, between contracts with Pfizer and Moderna.

Both bivalent vaccines are authorized for use two months after people have received either their primary vaccine series or their last booster shot.

The Moderna vial will have a dark blue cap and a label with a gray border, while the Pfizer vial will have a gray cap and a label with gray border.

The CDC’s vote came a day after the FDA issued its emergency use authorization for the updated booster shots.

“It is matched to what is currently circulating. And the hope here is that by increasing the amount of antibodies we have to that particular variant, we will restore the kind of protection that we had when we first saw these vaccines launched in the late part of 2020, early part of 2021 where we had very good protection against symptomatic disease,” Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, told reporters in a press conference on Wednesday morning.

“We don’t know for a fact yet whether we will get to that same level — but that is the goal here. And that is what we believe the evidence that we’ve seen helps point to,” Marks said.

Marks also emphasized that it’s not only about boosting antibodies to beef up immediate protection, but about working toward annual shots rather than boosters every few months.

He said he’s hopeful that rolling bivalent boosters out now will tamp down an incoming winter wave and “hopefully bring us the protection we need through October, November, December to prevent yet another way that shuts down things like holiday plans.”

Marks was hesitant to give an exact timeline on when the shots would be authorized for people under 12, but said he expected more data in a few months.

“I can’t promise an exact timing, but we expect to start seeing … that drop down into the younger age ranges within the next one to two months,” Marks said.

“And so as we get submissions from the companies, we will act on them with all due diligence, because we’re aware that there are, particularly in the slightly older age ranges of children, some children that are coming due for boosters,” he said.

Currently, everyone over the age of five is eligible for a booster shot five months after their primary vaccine series. People who are over the age of 50 or immunocompromised can get a second booster dose four months after their first booster.

Should the CDC director sign off, people who are under 50 and have gotten their first booster could now get a second. But anyone who hasn’t gotten a booster shot at all could also get the bivalent booster as their first booster — something officials urged.

“Regrettably, only about half of eligible Americans have received their first booster dose,” Dr. Bob Califf, FDA commissioner, told reporters in the same press conference.

“CDC data indicate that those who are up to date on their vaccines have a 13-fold lower risk of dying from COVID compared to those with no vaccination, and a three-fold lower dose of dying than those who only had one booster compared to two. So this is a remarkable opportunity to improve our life expectancy and reduce the toll of mortality in our population,” Califf said.

Unlike the original vaccines and boosters, these new shots will not go through a lengthy clinical trial process where thousands of Americans are dosed with the vaccines to test their safety and long-term effectiveness. However, federal health officials stress that these new shots will still be just as safe as the original vaccines because the underlying vaccine platform, mRNA, is the same, and has been through many varying clinical trials.

Part of that review was an evaluation of a clinical study of a different updated booster shot that vaccine companies had made during an earlier omicron wave. The clinical trial of that booster shot, which targeted the BA.1 variant and the original strain of COVID, was considered relevant enough to the bivalent vaccines targeting the BA.4/BA.5 variant and the original strain of omicron.

Officials also said that the decision not to use time-consuming clinical trials for each new shot is a strategic move, in an effort to keep vaccines up to date with the rapidly evolving variants — a process that will likely mimic how the flu vaccine is altered each year.

“If we waited for all the proof to come in, the wave will have already passed us by and the damage will have been done,” Califf said.

“It’s fair for people to raise questions. But this really is the best consensus that we have among the experts that this is the best way to go,” he added.

Marks also repeatedly defended the data FDA used to make this authorization — clinical trial data on a bivalent vaccine that targeted a different omicron subvariant and the original COVID-19 strain, making it very similar to this booster shot that targets the BA.4 and 5 subvariant along with the original COVID-19 strain — as well as real world data of millions of people who have gotten the mRNA vaccines and boosters globally.

“I think we’re pretty confident that what we have is very similar to the situation that we’ve done in the past with influenza strain changes where we don’t do clinical studies for them in the United States,” Marks said.

“We know from the way the vaccine works, and from the data that we have, that we can predict how well our vaccine will be working,” he added.

ABC News’ Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Olympian Lolo Jones is speaking out about taking control of her fertility journey, a story she wishes someone had told her when she was younger.

The 40-year-old told ABC News’ Juju Chang in an exclusive interview that she hopes to be a mother one day.

“Being a good mom is very difficult, especially in today’s society. And so, it has me nervous. Like, do I have the capabilities, the skill set to care for someone?” Jones said. “But I’d like a chance.”

Jones is no stranger to challenges, having competed on the Olympic stage in not one but two sports — bobsledding at the Winter Games and hurdles at the Summer Games.

When it came to her personal life and her path to parenthood, Jones decided not to wait any longer after years of searching for a partner and started researching how to freeze her eggs.

“You keep having hope that you’re gonna meet someone and then every year that goes by, you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m not, like, meeting my husband,’ like, you start to get more anxious,” Jones said. “And then here’s the crazy thing about all this. I have been crashing a bobsled at 90 miles an hour. … I’ve had hamstring injuries, spine surgery, and nothing was more terrifying than starting to even look up the process of egg freezing.”

Jones has since peeled back the curtain and is giving fans and followers on social media an up-close look at the egg-freezing process, which can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000.

“People undertake this treatment if they’re trying to get the ticking time clock out of their head, trying to take the stress off of their dating decisions and be able to really feel like they might have an insurance policy in the freezer,” Dr. Ellen Goldstein, a fertility specialist and medical director of Beverly Hills Fertility, told ABC’s Good Morning America.

For the egg-retrieval process, Jones had to give herself multiple hormone injections for 11 days in a row before undergoing surgery to extract the eggs.

Jones’ doctors have helped her retrieve 27 eggs, 17 of which were determined to be mature and viable for fertilization in the future.

“With numbers like that, she has much higher statistical power of having a success with that group of eggs,” Goldstein, who wasn’t involved in Jones’ treatment, said.

But even with the 17 eggs, the road ahead isn’t a promised one.

“This is the thing about egg freezing that people should know: It is not a guarantee to have a kid,” Jones said.

The eggs can be frozen and stored without a loss in quality, granting Jones more time to date. The Olympic athlete has been open about keeping her virginity until marriage and said she wants to become a parent with a partner.

“Trust me, I’ve been on some amazing dates, it just … has not worked out,” Jones said. “But if the right person is for me, they will be willing to stick through it all. I want a guy who’s gonna love me through it all.”

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(NEW YORK) — The start of a new school year is a time for new learning, new schedules and new teachers and friends.

Unfortunately, it can also be a time for new illnesses as kids return to spending time inside classrooms.

This school year is also the third consecutive year to take place during the coronavirus pandemic, which is still present even as kids return to school in-person.

ABC News’ Good Morning America spoke with school nurses at schools across the country for their tips to ensuring kids have a great and healthy school year.

Read their tips below:

1. Make sure your child is up-to-date on vaccinations.

“Please, please vaccinate your children for COVID and all other vaccine-preventable childhood illnesses,” said Robin Cogan, a school nurse in Camden, New Jersey. “We have taken a bit of a backslide on vaccinations for our children, we can reverse that negative trend this school year.”

COVID-19 vaccines are now available for all children ages 6 months and older.

Holly Giovi, a school nurse in Suffolk County, New York, said parents should also make sure their children are up to date on doctor appointments and annual screenings with specialists like the dentist and optometrist.

“COVID is still here and so are many other childhood illnesses, such as the new news we are hearing about polio numbers rising in upstate New York,” she said. “So please keep up with all your doctor appointments and immunizations.”

2. Keep your child home if they don’t feel well.

“Fevers over 100.4 is one indication of not feeling well. Congestion with an excessively runny nose is another example,” said Cogan. “Keep your children home until they are fever-free, or free from other common ailments, like vomiting or diarrhea for 24 hours without fever-reducing medication.”

Sandi Braymer, a school nurse in Salem, New York, said it’s important to keep kids to a bedtime on school nights, with limited technology, and to keep them home from school if they are not feeling up to attending.

“Keep your child home if they are sick or not feeling themselves, especially if they haven’t had enough sleep,” she said.

3. Get to know your child’s school nurse.

Gail M. Smith, director of health services for the Pickens County School System in Jasper, Georgia, said parents should introduce themselves to the school nurse and make sure they have all information needed about their child.

“It’s important to keep the lines of communication open between parents, students, schools and healthcare providers,” she said, adding, “Make sure that you have the proper documentation and information in the school clinic about your child and your child’s healthcare needs.”

Giovi said parents should not only provide their contact information to the school nurse, but should also make sure their phone’s voicemail system is set up so that they can be reached, in addition to setting up a backup plan in case there is a conflict when they’re needed.

“Create a relationship with your school nurse even if your child does not have a chronic medical condition, allergies, or any need for accommodations during the school day,” she said. “School nurses do not just take care of students but the entire community, so we want to really know everyone.”

And if your child’s school does not have a school nurse, Cogan said parents should feel empowered to ask for one.

“Advocate for a full-time school nurse in your child’s building all day, every day,” she said, noting that as many as 25% of schools in the United States do not have a nurse on staff.

4. Work at home to set up your child for success.

Braymer said that in addition to making sure kids get enough sleep, it’s almost important to fuel them for the day by making sure they eat a solid breakfast, even if it means grabbing something on the go.

Giovi added that parents can be great examples for their kids and set the tone for their time at school by preparing them properly.

“Get into a great routine including outdoor play, brushing teeth, showering, bedtime routines, reading, getting proper restful sleep, minimizing electronic play usage on devices with a plug, wake-up routines, eating a healthy breakfast, and packing healthy snacks for school,” she said.

5. Keep school nurses aware of changes in your child.

“Keep your school nurse informed of any changes that could impact your child’s mental and/or physical health,” said Cogan. “We are a safe space to help with care coordination and are a wealth of resources should you need confidential assistance.”

She continued, “The school nurse and the parents are on the same team. We want to keep our students safe, healthy, and able to learn. We are your partners in school health and safety.”

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(NEW YORK) — New and updated COVID-19 booster shots were given an emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration Wednesday morning, paving the way for shots in arms as soon as next week.

The booster shots were updated to target two different COVID strains in one shot — the current omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, which make up 99% of new cases in the U.S., and the original strain of COVID-19.

This is the first time current COVID-19 vaccines have had a major upgrade. In the future, experts expect the vaccines could be updated periodically to match current strains — akin to the way the flu shot is slightly different each year.

Public health officials directed the vaccine companies to create a bivalent vaccine — a vaccine that targets two different strains — in the hopes that the compilation will provide broader protection against COVID this fall and winter, as infections could rise with flu season, the cold weather and more time indoors.

Before the shots are able to be administered to the public, an independent panel of experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet on Thursday to review the data on the booster shots.

If the panel votes in favor of recommending the shots, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky could give the final sign-off within days and shots could be administered after the holiday weekend.

The U.S. government has purchased about 171 million shots, between contracts with Pfizer and Moderna.

Pfizer’s updated vaccine is authorized for people 12 and older, while Moderna’s shot is for people 18 and older. A review of the new boosters for children under 12 is expected soon.

“The COVID-19 vaccines, including boosters, continue to save countless lives and prevent the most serious outcomes (hospitalization and death) of COVID-19,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said in a press release on Wednesday morning.

“As we head into fall and begin to spend more time indoors, we strongly encourage anyone who is eligible to consider receiving a booster dose with a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants,” he said.

Unlike the original vaccines and boosters, these new shots will not go through a lengthy clinical trial process where thousands of Americans are dosed with the vaccines to test their safety and long-term effectiveness. However, federal health officials stress that these new shots will still be just as safe as the original vaccines because the underlying vaccine platform, mRNA, is the same, and has been through many varying clinical trials.

“We have worked closely with the vaccine manufacturers to ensure the development of these updated boosters was done safely and efficiently. The FDA has extensive experience with strain changes for annual influenza vaccines. We are confident in the evidence supporting these authorizations,” Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement.

“The public can be assured that a great deal of care has been taken by the FDA to ensure that these bivalent COVID-19 vaccines meet our rigorous safety, effectiveness and manufacturing quality standards for emergency use authorization,” Marks added.

Part of that review was an evaluation of a clinical study of a different updated booster shot that vaccine companies had made during an earlier omicron wave. The clinical trial of that booster shot, which targeted the BA.1 variant and the original strain of COVID, was considered relevant enough to the bivalent vaccines targeting the BA.4 and BA.5 lineages that the FDA found it to be enough to authorize.

Health experts say that the decision not to use time-consuming clinical trials for each new shot is also a strategic move, in an effort to keep vaccines up to date with the rapidly evolving variants — a process that will likely mimic how the flu vaccine is altered each year.

It’s unclear what the demand for new booster shots will be. Across the country, more than half of those eligible to be boosted have yet to do so, according to data from the CDC.

Although the immunity provided by COVID-19 vaccines continues to wane with time, data published by the CDC shows that COVID-19 booster doses are still offering protection against severe forms of disease and death, particularly among older Americans.

Among people ages 50 years and older, the unvaccinated had a risk of dying from COVID-19 that was 14 times higher than their fully vaccinated and double-boosted peers.

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