Health

(NEW YORK) — In the 30 days since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the abortion landscape in the United States has dramatically changed.

The 5-4 decision was related to a Mississippi law that banned abortions after 15 weeks. Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the majority to uphold the Mississippi law but joined the liberal justices in voting to not overturn Roe.

Because of the ruling, states can essentially establish their own laws. This means depending on where Americans live, people either have unfettered access, limited access or no access at all to abortion.

Many states had so-called trigger laws that immediately banned abortion once Roe was struck down. Others had laws written prior to the court’s decision that they were able to enact after abortion rights were overturned.

A handful of other states have gone the other way and signed executive orders and directives strengthening access to abortion and protecting those who seek or perform the procedure.

Patient care has changed, too. Abortion providers in states where access is still available are seeing more out-of-state patients than ever before, while OBGYNs told ABC News more women are requesting sterilization over concerns their current methods of birth control will fail and they won’t be able to get an abortion.

More states with abortion bans

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, at least 13 states have ended nearly all abortion services.

Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas have completely banned abortion with few restrictions, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Georgia, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee have enforced six-week bans, and Florida has enforced 15-week bans.

This has led to the U.S. being made up of a patchwork of abortion laws.

At least three other states — Kentucky, Louisiana and Utah — have also passed abortion bans, but they have been blocked in court and are awaiting hearings.

Meanwhile, Michigan and West Virginia had pre-Roe bans on the books that were never repealed and went unenforced for years. Judges have issued preliminary injunctions in court against both bans, while Michigan’s governor has vowed to protect rights.

Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in the legal history of reproduction, told ABC News that “this is just the beginning” and she believes more states will pass laws banning abortion in the coming months and years.

She said lawmakers wrote several of these abortion laws under the assumption they would not be legally allowed to actually go into effect. Now that Roe is overturned, some states want to make them even more stringent.

For example, in Indiana, the Republican-led Senate has proposed eliminating its current 22-week ban and replacing it with a total ban on abortion with limited exceptions. Additionally, in Missouri, where a total ban already exists, lawmakers want to go a step further and make it illegal to “aid or abet” out-of-state abortions.

“So, since Roe has been overturned, there’s been literally like a cottage industry of abortion opponents producing new model laws and proposals for how to actually enforce an abortion ban, or eliminate exceptions to abortion bans, or enhance punishments for abortion,” Ziegler said.

Some states strengthen abortion protection

While some states have been restricting the right to an abortion since Roe’s reversal, others have been strengthening it.

The governors of Colorado, Maine and North Carolina signed executive orders certifying the right to obtain or perform an abortion.

“A woman’s right to choose is just that — a woman’s, not a politician’s,” Maine Gov. Janet Mills said in a statement at the time of signing.

In Delaware, Gov. John Carney signed legislation allowing licensed physician assistants, certified nurse practitioners and certified nurse-midwives with training to “terminate pregnancy before viability.”

Governors in all four of the above states as well as Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Washington signed executive orders protecting people who seek or provide abortions from criminal or civil investigations or charges.

In North Carolina and Delaware, neither patients nor providers will be penalized for inquiring about abortions as well as providing or receiving abortion care.

The governors of Colorado, Maine, New Mexico and Rhode Island said they will not cooperate with investigations in other states of people who received or performed abortions in their own states.

Additionally, Govs. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts and Tim Walz of Minnesota said they will not cooperate with extradition attempts for those who obtained or provided abortions in their respective states.

Baker’s order also protects providers from losing their licenses due to out-of-state charges relating to abortion.

In Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a directive forbidding the Washington State Patrol from cooperating with investigations related to abortion in states with restricted access.

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to take steps to safeguard abortion access including protecting patient privacy, promoting the safety of providers and clinics and strengthening the mandate set by Obamacare that birth control continue to be covered by insurance. Biden has said his power to protect abortion is limited but fellow Democrats and abortions rights advocates have been pressuring the White House to codify abortion rights.

Doctors are seeing more out-of-state patients

Abortion providers in states where the procedure is legal say the makeup of their patients has somewhat changed.

Pro-Choice Washington, a non-profit organization focused on advocacy for reproductive freedom in Washington state, expects a 400% increase in patients seeking care from out of state following Roe’s reversal. One New Mexico clinic said 75% of their patients come from Texas, which has a total abortion ban.

Dr. Lisa Harris, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan, said she has seen more out-of-state patients for abortions than ever before in her almost 30-year career.

Before Roe was overturned, Harris said, typically about three-quarters of her patients seeking abortions were in-state and one-quarter were out-of-state.

“The last day I saw patients, it was 80% out of state and 20% in state,” Harris told ABC News. “It was just like a flip-flop.”

“Most of the patients I took care of last week seeking abortion care came from three different states where they had appointments scheduled on the day the decision was released or shortly after and were unable to get abortion care,” she added.

She continued, “And it took a couple of weeks for them to find and set up care somewhere else, which happened to be Michigan.”

Michigan is one of several states that had an abortion law predating Roe that was never repealed. In Michigan’s case, the 1931 law makes providing an abortion a felony, including in cases of rape and incest. The only exception is if the mother’s life is in danger.

A judge issued a temporary injunction in May blocking the ban as a lawsuit Planned Parenthood filed against the state plays out. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also filed a lawsuit in April to stop the ban and ask the state’s Supreme Court to recognize abortion as a constitutional right.

Last month, Whitmer filed a motion asking for the court to immediately consider her lawsuit. It’s unclear when a hearing will be held.

The lawsuit has been criticized by groups that oppose abortion rights. Barbara Listing, president of Right to Life of Michigan, referred to the lawsuit as “frivolous” and called on the court to dismiss it.

Harris also said this is the first time she has ever had to tell patients who schedule appointments that she can’t guarantee they will be seen if the injunction is lifted.

“When we meet a patient, we’ve had to say, ‘We will schedule you, but there is a chance that when next week rolls around, abortion will no longer be legal in Michigan and we won’t be able to care for you,’ which causes a great deal of stress, as you can imagine, and people try to make contingency plans,” she said.

Harris is also worried about what qualifies as a life-saving abortion under the save the mother’s life exception if the Michigan ban is upheld.

“In Michigan, our ban permits abortions to preserve the life of the patient, but it’s unclear what the means and does that mean they have to be imminently dying?” she said. “What if the risk was later if they continue in their pregnancy? Does it need to be a 100% chance that they would die? What if it’s 50%?”

She said she thinks it will start to be clear about what qualifies as a life-saving abortion “as doctors begin to be prosecuted.”

Some women are turning to sterilization

Dr. Charisse Loder, a clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Michigan Medicine who specializes in sterilization, told ABC News she has seen an increase in the number of patients coming in requesting sterilization procedures since Roe was overturned.

Before the Supreme Court decision, Loder said she saw one to two patients a week to discuss sterilization. In the weeks since, she has seen anywhere from four to six patients a week.

“Many of them scheduled their appointments after the decision and are actually telling me without prompting that they were prompted to make their appointments based on the news,” she said.

Loder said many of her patients were on other types of birth control, including condoms, pills and IUDs, but wanted to switch to a method with a lower failure rate following the reversal of Roe.

“I’ve had patients say things like, ‘I just can’t take any chances now,’ or, ‘I don’t know what the future holds,'” she said.

She added some patients were also fearful that access to birth control would be lost after reading a concurring opinion written solely by Justice Clarence Thomas in which he called for the reconsideration of Griswold v. Connecticut, which established the right of married couples to use contraception.

On Thursday, the House passed a bill that would protect access to birth control nationwide. The bill passed 228-195 with eight Republicans joining the Democrats.

“So, patients [asking for sterilization] have said, “I don’t know if in the future I’ll need my partner’s permission to use birth control,'” Loder said. “One patient told me, ‘I can’t trust the government to protect me.'”

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(NEW YORK) — Well before the Supreme Court ruled in June to overturn Roe v. Wade, 9% of abortions in the U.S. were obtained by people who had to travel out of state, according to data released Thursday by the Guttmacher Institute, a policy organization that supports abortion rights.

That number — nearly 1 in 10 abortions in the U.S. — is up from 6% in 2011, an increase that occurred at the same time as more states passed abortion restrictions, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Now, with the power to decide abortion access returned to the states by the Supreme Court, abortion rights advocates say the number of women forced to travel for abortion care is already growing.

Amanda Carlson, director of The Cobalt Abortion Fund, which provides financial assistance to people traveling for abortion care, said in the days following the Supreme Court’s decision, the fund helped more than 50 people travel to Colorado for abortion care.

In all of 2021, the fund helped 34 people travel, according to Carlson.

“It has skyrocketed our spending,” Carlson told ABC News of the Supreme Court’s decision, adding that the Colorado-based fund spent $20,000 on support for people seeking abortion care in the first 10 days after the ruling. “We’re seeing numbers that we’ve never seen before.”

The right to abortion is protected in Colorado. In April, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill that codified the right to abortion and declared that a “fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent or derivative rights under the laws of the state.”

Earlier this month, Polis signed an executive order that added more protections for abortion providers and individuals who travel to Colorado for abortion care.

The states surrounding Colorado — including Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Utah and Arizona — have mostly strengthened their restrictions on abortion access, in some cases implementing near-total bans, in the weeks since the Supreme Court’s June 24 decision.

In Oklahoma alone, one abortion clinic, Trust Women Clinic in Oklahoma City, was seeing around 300 patients per month before Roe v. Wade was overturned, according to clinic director Kailey Voellinger.

In the neighboring state of Kansas, voters will cast their ballots on Aug. 2 to determine the fate of a state constitutional amendment which, if passed, would reverse the right to an abortion in the state. The Kansas Supreme Court previously ruled in 2019 that the state constitution protected a person’s right to an abortion.

If the amendment is approved, further restrictions on abortion access are expected, according to FiveThirtyEight.

Carlson said that, over the last month, The Cobalt Abortion Fund had helped women from as far as Florida and as close as Texas get abortion care in Colorado. The fund, she said, is spending between $1,000 and $2,000 on average in travel assistance per person.

“People are struggling economically and they’re facing not only the cost of abortion care but also very expensive plane tickets, very expensive gas,” she said. “They need flights purchased for them. They need transportation to and from the airport. They may need a hotel while they’re here.”

With so many out-of-state people seeking abortion care in Colorado, wait times for appointments are now as long as one month at some clinics, according to Carlson.

Adrienne Mansanares, CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, told ABC News that her organization purposely placed one of its centers along a Colorado highway knowing that people would travel to the state, given its abortion protections.

“People who were in my position before me 20 years ago were preparing for their worst nightmare, which is this,” said Mansaneres, referring to Roe v. Wade being overturned. “We built a beautiful health center that’s right along the highway [by] Denver International Airport with this idea in mind. If people ever had to fly, patients can come in and out so we can see them in our health center.”

Planned Parenthood’s two other clinics in Colorado are also purposefully located, according to Mansaneres, with one in the northern part of the state accessible to patients from Wyoming, and one in the south more accessible to patients from Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

“When people don’t want to be forced to have a child, they will go through the means necessary that they have access to,” said Mansares. “So if they have money to hop on a plane, if they have connections and family in another state, they have the information that they need, they’re going to go find it, so we have seen the migration of people coming from these states.”

In New Mexico, a state where abortion access is also protected, demand for abortion care has spiked since the Supreme Court’s decision, according to Joan Lamunyon Sanford, executive director of the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, a faith-based advocacy group and abortion fund.

“We’re seeing people contact us from all over the country, not just states that are bordering New Mexico, and we’re seeing people in all stages of pregnancy contact us,” Lamunyon Sanford told ABC News. “People are confused about whether it’s safe for them to travel from other states to New Mexico, and at the same time they’re determined to get the care that they need.”

“We’re doing the best we can to meet all of those needs,” she said, adding that the fund is working to hire more people to meet the demand.

Abortion clinics in New Mexico that were overwhelmed prior to Roe’s reversal — due to an influx of patients from Texas, which for the past year had a near total ban on abortions after six weeks — are now experiencing wait times of several weeks, according to Lamunyon Sanford.

“We know that just from Senate Bill 8 in Texas, that our numbers increased between three and four times,” she said. “And our numbers have increased beyond that in the last four weeks.”

In response to abortion restrictions in Texas post-Roe, Whole Woman’s Health, an Austin-based network of abortion clinics, has announced it is closing its four Texas clinics and reopening in New Mexico, where they hope to open a location near the border with Texas as early as August.

“We are hoping that by setting up in New Mexico, we can help the people in Texas who have been displaced,” said Amy Hagstrom Miller, president and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health and Whole Woman’s Health Alliance, which also operates abortion clinics in Minnesota, Virginia, Indiana and Maryland. “We know thousands of people have already been forced out of Texas for abortion since last September, and they were able to go to Louisiana and Arkansas and Oklahoma … and now those states have also banned abortion.”

Hagstrom Miller said that 30% of patients at Whole Woman’s Health’s clinic in Minnesota are from Texas, with abortion now banned both there and in neighboring states.

“That’s a far travel and so we are hoping that opening in New Mexico will help sort of mitigate some of the harms that are going to come across Texas,” she said. “But keeping our sites open in Texas is not sustainable.”

Whole Woman’s Health’s four Texas-based clinics stopped providing abortions the day Roe was overturned, even as patients sat inside the facilities awaiting care, according to Hagstrom Miller. Most of the Texas clinics remain open but are in what Hagstrom Miller called a “wind down phase” of packing up and answering phone calls from people still in need of care.

“The volume of telephone calls coming in is large,” said Hagstrom Miller. “Oftentimes people don’t know about all these restrictions or abortion bans until they find themselves facing an unplanned pregnancy, and they call us and our staff are put into a position of telling them all about what has happened over the last couple of weeks.”

“So we’re still answering the phone trying to support people as much as possible,” she continued, adding that clinic workers are helping callers access care in other states and providing funding for travel when possible. “It’s heartbreaking for us and it’s traumatic for people who are trained to provide a service, and trained to provide that service compassionately, to all of a sudden out of the blue have to look someone in the eye and say, ‘I can no longer provide the abortion that you need.'”

If Whole Woman’s Health is able to open a clinic on the New Mexico-Texas border, it will be an approximately seven-hour drive from the organization’s clinic in Austin and upwards of nine hours from its clinic in McAllen, according to Hagstrom Miller.

In New Mexico though, abortion providers say they at least see a place to land. The state’s leader, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, has vowed that “abortion will continue to be legal, safe, and accessible” as long as she is in charge.

In addition to Whole Woman’s Health, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, is also relocating to New Mexico.

The clinic, which was at the center of the Supreme Court case that led to Roe’s reversal, plans to reopen in Las Cruces, New Mexico, after Mississippi’s so-called trigger law went into effect earlier this month, banning nearly all abortions.

“This is today in this country,” Diane Derzis, owner of the clinic, told ABC News this month. “Mississippi is the past, and the future is moving on to where women have an option.”

ABC News’ Alexandra Svokos and Kyla Guilfoil contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — The World Health Organization declared the outbreak of monkeypox to be a public health emergency of international concern.

“The global monkeypox outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a briefing in Geneva Saturday.

At the virtual press conference, Ghebreyesus also said that the outbreak has spread around the world “rapidly” and that officials understand “too little” about the disease.

Ghebreyesus also outlined a set of recommendations for countries that have not yet reported a case of monkeypox or have not reported a case for 21 days; those with recently imported cases of monkeypox that are experiencing human-to-human transmission; those with transmission of monkeypox between animals and humans; and those with manufacturing capacities for diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics.

This is the seventh event declared a PHEIC by the global health agency since 2007.

The other six include the H1N1 influenza pandemic of 2009; the Ebola outbreak in West Africa from 2013 to 2015; the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 2018 to 2020; the Zika outbreak in 2016; the ongoing spread of poliovirus that started in 2014; and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to the National Library of Medicine.

More than 14,000 monkeypox cases have now been detected across the globe in more than 70 countries and territories, according to the WHO. Thus far, five deaths have been reported, all of which have occurred in Africa.

In the United States, more than 2,300 cases are confirmed or suspected in states and the District of Columbia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In New York, a total of 679 cases of monkeypox have now been confirmed, with the vast majority of them — 94% — detected in New York City, state officials said on Wednesday.

“I would like you to all understand that we anticipate an increase in cases in the coming weeks,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a press briefing last week, noting that with increased testing, an improved reporting system for states, and the continued spread of disease, more cases will be identified. “We know monkeypox symptoms usually start within three weeks of exposure to the virus, so we anticipate we may see an increase in cases throughout the month of July and into August.”

Prior to the outbreak, most cases occurred in countries where the virus is endemic — typically central and western Africa.

Monkeypox is generally a mild illness with the most common symptoms being fever, headache, fatigue and muscle aches. Patients can develop a rash and lesions that often begin on the face before spreading to the rest of the body.

People are typically infected by animals through a bite or a scratch or through preparation and consumption of contaminated bush meat.

However, in the current outbreak, most of the spread has come from coming into contact with infected people’s lesions or bodily fluids, making it less transmissible than other viruses such as COVID-19.

Many cases have been reported among men who identify as gay, bisexual or men who have sex with men, but there is currently no evidence monkeypox is a sexually transmitted infection — and experts have emphasized anyone can be infected.

In an effort to combat the spread of the disease, health officials are working to ramp up distribution of monkeypox vaccines.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it has ordered another 2.5 million doses of the JYNNEOS monkeypox vaccine, amidst increased demand for the shots. The department’s latest order is in addition to its July 1 order of 2.5 million doses, which will begin arriving over the next year. The federal government expects to have an available supply of 7 million doses by mid-2023.

“I want to acknowledge that at this time the demand for vaccines from jurisdictions is higher than our current available supply, and we know that this is frustrating,” Walensky said last week.

Teams are “actively working” to strategically increase supply to get the vaccines to “those who need it most,” Walenksy noted.

White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha, also acknowledged this week that the need for additional monkeypox vaccine doses is paramount.

“We got to keep going and we got to keep doing more,” Jha added. “In the days and weeks ahead, you’re gonna just see more and more.”

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(ATLANTA) — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has confirmed the first cases of monkeypox in children, federal officials said Friday.

The two cases are unrelated and were likely the result of household transmission, federal officials confirmed to ABC News.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky first disclosed the cases in an interview with Washington Post Live.

The pediatric cases were traced to individuals in the men who have sex with men community, Walensky said, noting that the children “are doing well.”

One of the cases is in a toddler who is a resident of California and the other is an infant who is a non-U.S. resident, officials said.

The infant was “transiting through” Washington, D.C. when the test was done, Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the CDC’s Division of the High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, told reporters on a press call Friday.

Both children have monkeypox symptoms, but officials said that they are currently in good health and are receiving TPOXX, a Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment for smallpox that has been made available for children under special expanded access protocols.

The agency became aware of the cases this week, McQuiston said. The CDC is not identifying the country the infant is from at this time, but health officials there are aware of the case, she said.

“We’ve been working with the jurisdictions to understand more about these cases,” McQuiston said. “The investigations are still in the early phase and ongoing so we don’t have a lot of details on them.”

As of Friday, more than 2,800 cases of monkeypox have been reported in the U.S. across 44 states, as well as Puerto Rico, according to CDC data.

Nearly all cases — 99% — have been reported among individuals who identify as gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men, McQuiston said Friday.

“The primary drivers for this infection in the U.S. remain in the gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men communities right now,” McQuiston said. “But we need to continue watching this and we stand ready to keep surveillance up and respond.”

The median age for cases was 36, with cases ranging from the infant to over 70, McQuiston said.

Walensky said there have been challenges in obtaining real-time data on monkeypox data, including demographics on race, ethnicity and age of cases and vaccinations.

“We very much want to get as much information as informed decisions out to the American public as possible,” she said in her Washington Post Live interview.

Monkeypox can spread through direct contact with an infectious rash, scab or bodily fluids or via respiratory secretions during prolonged face-to-face contact or intimate physical contact, according to the CDC.

It generally is a mild illness with the most common symptoms being fever, headache, fatigue and muscle aches.

Children under 8 years of age are among those considered at “especially increased risk for severe outcomes” from the disease, the CDC said.

ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — When the New York State Department of Health announced a patient in Rockland County — north of New York City — had contracted polio, they revealed it was a case of vaccine-derived polio.

Vaccine-derived poliovirus is different than poliovirus that originated in the wild which spreads naturally among a community.

The NYSDOH said in a release that testing, performed by the department’s public health laboratory and confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, showed the patient was infected with polio Sabin type 2 virus, indicating he or she was infected by someone who received the oral polio vaccine, which is no longer used in the United States.

Here’s what to know about vaccine-derived polio and how it differs from wild polio.

Polio, short for poliomyelitis, is highly contagious and spreads via person-to-person contact even when the original contagious patient doesn’t show symptoms.

According to the CDC, about one in four people exhibit flu-like symptoms such as fever, fatigue and a headache, which clear up within a week. But in rare cases, polio can lead to paralysis and death.

People can be protected against polio from two types of vaccines: an inactivated poliovirus vaccine given by injection and an oral polio vaccine containing a weakened version of the virus and given by mouth.

The oral polio vaccine played a massive role in the eradication of polio because it is cheaper and easier to administer than the injected vaccine, making it suitable for distribution, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

“It’s a live attenuated virus,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “It’s a weakened virus that provides really good immunity in the gut, where the virus replicates, and it sheds in stool, which can spread through sewage and help protect the community.”

However, a potential, adverse effect of the oral vaccine is vaccine-derived poliovirus.

In rare cases, the virus spreading through sewage can affect those who are unvaccinated. This is different from wild polio, which infects people by circulating naturally in the environment.

Due to this risk, the oral vaccine was discontinued in the U.S. in 2000. New York health officials said the virus in the Rockland County patient likely originated in a country outside the U.S., where the oral vaccine is still given.

The NYSDOH said Friday that only 61% of Rockland County residents have been vaccinated against polio by age 2 compared to a 79% rate statewide, excluding New York City.

“There’s likely transmission going on in the community and in an under-vaccinated community like the one in New York, it creates a susceptibility,” Brownstein said. “But in those who are vaccinated, there’s really no risk.”

The New York case is not the first time that vaccine-derived polio has been detected in the U.S.

In 2005, it was found in the stool of a Minnesota child who was unvaccinated and immunocompromised, and likely caught from someone who received the oral vaccine in another country, according to the CDC. Seven other children subsequently contracted polio but none ended up paralyzed.

In 2013, an infant who was severely immunocompromised received the oral vaccine in India. The baby ended up contracting polio and dying from the infection, the CDC said.

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(NEW YORK) — Amid growing concerns over highly contagious omicron subvariants that are spreading around the country, Americans are set to have one more COVID-19 vaccine from which to choose.

Earlier this week, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) signed off on use of Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine for those 18 years and older, making it the fourth COVID-19 vaccine now available to the American public.

“We now have four safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines available to protect Americans against serious illness, hospitalizations, and death,” President Joe Biden said in a statement on Tuesday. “…more people need to roll up their sleeves, particularly as we confront BA.5,” he added, referring to the highly contagious subvariant.

With a resurgence of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations — including news Biden tested positive for the virus — there has been a renewed push to get people vaccinated against COVID-19, particularly those who have yet to receive their first shot, leaving many people vulnerable to severe disease and even death.

“If you have been waiting for a COVID-19 vaccine built on a different technology than those previously available, now is the time to join the millions of Americans who have been vaccinated,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement on Tuesday, following the agency’s recommendation of Novavax’s vaccine. “With COVID-19 cases on the rise again across parts of the country, vaccination is critical to help protect against the complications of severe COVID-19 disease.”

Nationally, there are still more than 26.3 million American adults who remain completely unvaccinated.

With the currently available vaccines, the unvaccinated ages 5 years and older are 2.8 times more likely to test positive, and six times more likely to die, compared to the fully vaccinated, according to federal data.

Millions still unvaccinated

A number of health experts have expressed their hope that some of the individuals, who are still hesitant, may be more inclined to get the Novavax vaccine because it is based on a more traditional protein-based technology, one already used for the flu vaccine and other shots, while Pfizer and Moderna vaccine platforms tapped a new genetic technology — with messenger RNA — to produce their vaccines.

Since December of 2020, more than 205 million Americans have now received a mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, according to federal data, which health experts stress have also proven to be safe and effective and protecting Americans against severe forms of COVID-19.

“I think it’s an important advance. It’s actually giving proteins as vaccines as ‘tried and true’ in the sense that hepatitis and a variety of vaccines use that similar technology,” Novavax President and CEO Stanley Erck told ABC News last week, following the Food and Drug Administration’s authorization of the vaccine.

Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston said that although initial indicators suggest there may be low demand for the shots, even a sole person getting the Novavax vaccine could protect someone from severe outcomes of COVID-19.

“Every single person vaccinated is a potential life saved. In my mind there is no downside, only upside,” Doron said.

Data presented to CDC advisers this week showed that the vaccine was 90% effective against overall mild, moderate, and severe disease, and 100% effective against severe disease alone. However, the data was collected at the time when the Alpha variant was dominant, thus prior to the emergence of the omicron variant, which has been shown to chip away at vaccine efficacy. But the company announced on Tuesday that it had signed agreements with its partner, SK bioscience, for the creation of the company’s vaccine that would be designed to target the omicron variant.

Some prior concerns were raised by the CDC and FDA advisers, as preliminary data, reported by the company during presentations, indicated that some cases of myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation that can occur following vaccination, had been discovered after some trial participants received the Novavax series.

The rare cases of myocarditis have also been found to occur in people, most commonly in young men, who receive the other authorized COVID-19 vaccines, such as the Moderna and Pfizer. However, the occurrences have not been deemed serious enough to stop use of the vaccines in adults.

Ultimately, both groups of advisers unanimously voted to recommend the Novavax vaccine for use.

Some skepticism

Although many lauded the positive data presented by Novavax, some other experts said they are still skeptical that that the introduction of the new vaccine will truly make a difference in the overall fight against COVID-19.

“Despite impressive clinical trial results and a more traditional technology, it’s hard to imagine that Novavax will make much of a dent in vaccination coverage,” said John Brownstein, Ph.D. an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.

“While there is some hope that those who have waited this long may change their minds, widespread infection among the unvaccinated and hope for a more well-matched vaccine may continue to prolong those holding out,” he added.

There has not been a significant bump in the number of people receiving a first COVID-19 dose since November 2021. Since then, the average number has steadily fallen to around 50,000 first shots, administered among all age groups, each day.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that the Biden administration had secured 3.2 million doses of Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine, which will be made available for free to U.S. states and jurisdictions.

The two-dose vaccine, which is given three weeks apart, is expected to be made available in the coming weeks, according to the CDC, although the agency noted in a planning document that a “limited number of doses of Novavax COVID-19 vaccine will be distributed and not all providers are expected to carry Novavax COVID-19 vaccine.”

Ordering is tentatively expected to open the week of July 25, though it is still unclear when the first deliveries will arrive, and Novavax said on Tuesday that it expects to ship doses to the U.S. Government-designated distribution center in the coming days.

“This vaccine is likely to fill in the gap left as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is sunsetted,” Brownstein explained

In May, the FDA announced that it now limiting authorized use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine after conducting an updated investigation into reports of rare blood clots. Use is limited to people ages 18 and older for whom other authorized or approved COVID-19 vaccines are not “accessible or clinically appropriate,” and to adults who choose to receive the vaccine or else they would not get vaccinated, the FDA wrote at the time.

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(WASHINGTON) — The first case of polio reported in the U.S. in nearly a decade was detected in New York state, health officials said Thursday.

The case is in a resident of Rockland County, the state health department said.

State health officials said sequencing determined that the newly detected case is an instance of vaccine-derived polio. The oral polio vaccine contains a weakened version of the polio virus that can be excreted in stool and transmitted.

That vaccine has not been administered in the U.S. since 2000, suggesting that the virus may have originated somewhere outside the U.S., health officials said.

The Rockland County polio patient is a young adult whose symptoms began a month ago, according to public health officials in Rockland County. The person is no longer contagious but has suffered some paralysis. It is unknown whether that will be permanent.

The infected person contracted polio through exposure to someone who was inoculated with the oral vaccine. The patient did not travel outside of the country, so the exposure was here, said health officials, who are now investigating whether there are any close contacts of the patient who are at risk. There are no other suspected cases at this time.

Health officials urged those who are unvaccinated, and parents of unvaccinated children, to seek polio vaccination now.

“The polio vaccine is safe and effective, protecting against this potentially debilitating disease, and it has been part of the backbone of required, routine childhood immunizations recommended by health officials and public health agencies nationwide,” State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett said in a statement.

Rockland County will host vaccine clinics on Friday and Monday, the health department said.

The last known case in the U.S. was recorded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2013, which was also an instance of vaccine-derived polio. The last “wild” case of polio was detected in the U.S. in 1979.

The U.S. uses the inactivated polio vaccine, which cannot cause infection.

Being vaccinated against polio protects people against both vaccine-derived and “wild” polio.

Polio is a very contagious, potentially fatal, virus that can be spread even when an infected person has no symptoms.

Symptoms, which include fatigue, fever, headache, stiffness, muscle pain and vomiting, can take up to 30 days to appear. In rare cases, polio can cause paralysis or death.

“Many of you may be too young to remember polio, but when I was growing up, this disease struck fear in families, including my own,” Rockland County Executive Ed Day said in a statement. “The fact that it is still around decades after the vaccine was created shows you just how relentless it is. Do the right thing for your child and the greater good of your community and have your child vaccinated now.”

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(BATON ROUGE, La.) — Louisiana’s attorney general said he wants cities that don’t enforce the state’s abortion laws to have their funding withheld.

Louisiana was one of several states that had a trigger law banning abortion that would immediately go into effect upon the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, which occurred June 24.

A​​ temporary order blocking enforcement of the ban was issued June 27 and has since been extended several times, with a state judge expected to hear arguments Tuesday.

However, several state officials have said if the order is lifted and the ban goes into effect, they will not enforce or prosecute offenders.

Earlier this month, the New Orleans City Council — with the support of Mayor LaToya Cantrell — passed a resolution that prohibits public funds or resources from being used by local law enforcement to enforce the trigger ban.

Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams said his office will not prosecute abortion providers. Additionally, the New Orleans Police Department and the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office said they will not arrest or investigate providers.

In response, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry called upon the state treasurer and his fellow members of the Bond Commission to delay any applications and funding for New Orleans and Orleans Parish until officials agree to enforce the ban.

“As Attorney General and member of the Bond Commission, it is my belief that a parish or municipality should not benefit from the hard-working taxpayers of this State while ignoring laws validly enacted by the people through their representatives,” he said in a statement. “I urge the Bond Commission to defer any applications for the City of New Orleans, Orleans Parish, and any local governmental entity or political subdivision under its purview.”

The statement continued, “In addition, any other funding that will directly benefit the City of New Orleans should also be paused until such time as the Council, Mayor, Chief of Police, Sheriff, and District Attorney have met with and affirmed that they will comply with and enforce the laws of this State and cooperate with any State officials who may be called upon to enforce them.”

“The Attorney General’s hostility towards reproductive freedom comes as no surprise. However, what is surprising and troubling, is that the Attorney General would place critical infrastructure and state assets in harm’s way just to score political points for his run for Governor,” said Cantrell in response to the statement.

This is not the first time Landry has made headlines for his desire to strictly enforce the state’s abortion ban despite the order blocking it.

Last month, Landry threatened the licenses of medical providers who continue to provide abortions while the ban is blocked in a letter to the Louisiana State Medical Society.

“The temporary restraining order does not — and cannot — immunize medical providers from liability from criminal conduct,” he wrote. “It is incumbent on this office to advise you that any medial provider who would perform or has performed an elective abortion after the Supreme Court’s decision … is jeopardizing his or her liberty and medical license.”

The decision by officials to not enforce abortion laws reflects moves seen in other cities in states with restrictive laws. The Austin City Council passed a measure Thursday that decriminalizes abortion within city limits even though it is effectively banned in Texas.

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(WASHINGTON) — The first case of polio reported in the U.S. in nearly a decade was detected in New York state, health officials said Thursday.

The case is in a resident of Rockland County, the state health department said.

The last known case in the U.S. was recorded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2013.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(NEW YORK) — When White House officials announced President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 Thursday, they revealed he was prescribed Paxlovid.

Here’s what to know about the COVID-19 treatment:

Paxlovid is an at-home antiviral therapy developed by Pfizer, which was authorized under emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for those aged 12 and older at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19 in December 2021.

High-risk patients included those with underlying medical conditions, and those who are older or unvaccinated.

Clinical trial data showed Paxlovid reduced the risk of hospitalization and death for high-risk patients with mild-to-moderate symptoms by nearly 90%.

Paxlovid was hailed a game-changer because it was the first COVID-19 treatment that did not require an infusion, making it more convenient to give to patients.

The treatment is made up of two medications: ritonavir, commonly used to treat HIV and AIDS, but helps boost levels of other antiviral medications, and nirmatrelvir, an antiviral that works to inhibit an enzyme the virus uses to make copies of itself. Together, these drugs work to prevent the spread of the virus throughout the body.

Patients take three pills — two nirmatrelvir pills and one ritonavir pill — twice daily over the course of five days and it requires a prescription.

Side effects are rare but include an altered sense of taste, nausea, diarrhea, muscle aches and abdominal pain.

Doctors have said Paxlovid is most effective when given as soon after a diagnosis of COVID-19 as possible. Taking it later during the course of the illness may result in the drug not being as effective.

Paxlovid is not meant to be taken as a prophylactic after exposure to COVID-19 or if a patient is already hospitalized.

In May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an advisory, warning doctors to be on the lookout for a rare, but increasingly reported phenomenon known as “COVID-19 rebound.”

COVID-19 rebound has typically been reported to occur among patients who took Paxlovid between two and eight days after recovery. Patients either experience a recurrence of COVID-19 symptoms or test positive after having tested negative.

“Limited information currently available from case reports suggests that persons treated with Paxlovid who experience COVID-19 rebound have had mild illness; there are no reports of severe disease,” the CDC wrote.

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