(NEW YORK) — Although reported COVID-19 case levels in the U.S. are still falling after a viral resurgence over the summer, there are preliminary indicators that infection rates may be back on the rise across the country.
In recent weeks, federal data has shown that the number of U.S. wastewater sites reporting increases in the presence of COVID-19 in their samples appears to be back on the rise, following declines seen throughout the latter part of the summer.
In the U.S., about 50% of wastewater sites, which are currently providing data to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, have reported an increase in the presence of the COVID-19 virus in their wastewater over the last 15 days, up from the 40% of sites reporting increases last month.
From coast to coast, every area of the country has seen a rise, according to a regional breakdown from Biobot, a wastewater monitoring company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Northeast, in particular, appears to be seeing higher growth levels, reporting the highest wastewater levels of any region, Biobot data shows.
“Increase in virus concentration found in wastewater has [predictably] been a key indicator of a forthcoming COVID surge. In fact, given the challenges in case estimation and the decline in testing, wastewater surveillance may be one the last remaining high-quality datasets public health can rely on,” said epidemiologist Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, who is also a member on the board of advisers for Biobot.
In Boston, wastewater levels had plateaued after a spring and summer surge, but in recent weeks, data indicates that COVID-19 sampling levels have increased again to their highest level in two months.
However, on a national level, federal data is notably unavailable for many areas of the country, particularly across much of the South and the West.
Since last spring, many states have moved to shutter public testing sites, with more at-home COVID-19 tests now available.
COVID-19 testing levels have also plummeted to their lowest point since the onset of the pandemic, with approximately 350,000 tests reported each day, compared to more than 2.5 million tests reported daily at the nation’s peak in January.
Most Americans are not reporting their results to officials, and thus, experts suggest that infection totals are likely significantly undercounted.
With official COVID-19 case data becoming less reliable, many scientists have been turning to wastewater data to monitor the state of the pandemic.
“While there are important caveats in how these data are collected and integrated, we should still take this signal as a warning that we are not out of the pandemic,” Brownstein said.
With fall around the corner, health experts have reignited their calls for all Americans to get vaccinated.
“We’re calling on all Americans: Roll up your sleeve to get your COVID-19 vaccine shot,” White House COVID-19 Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said during a press briefing last week. “If you’re 12 and above and previously vaccinated, it’s time to go get an updated COVID-19 shot.”
To date, less than half of the fully vaccinated population has received their first COVID-19 booster.
(NEW YORK) — Weeks after a trigger ban criminalizing providing abortions went into effect in Tennessee, doctors told ABC News the ban created fear, confusion, anxiety and stress among patients and providers.
Physicians from different parts of the state are pushing back against claims made by lawmakers, including Gov. Bill Lee, who say the ban allows exceptions for pregnancies that threaten a woman’s life or could cause serious bodily injury, saying this is not the case. Under the law, performing or attempting to perform an abortion is a Class C felony.
Lawmakers are in “complete denial” about what the law says, saying it leaves “no exceptions, whatsoever,” Dr. Ashley Coffield, the CEO of Planned Parenthood Tennessee, told ABC News.
The disagreement between some politicians and providers over the ban is about an “affirmative defense” clause in the law that allows physicians being prosecuted for providing an abortion to justify their actions, claiming it was done to prevent the death or permanent bodily harm of a pregnant woman, according to Dr. Amy Bono, a primary care physician in Tennessee.
To utilize the affirmative defense justification, the abortion must be performed or attempted by a licensed physician, the physician must determine the abortion was necessary to prevent the death or serious injury of the pregnant woman, and the abortion must provide the best opportunity for the fetus to survive, unless that threatens the life or could cause serious injury to the pregnant woman, according to the law. The threat to life cannot be related to mental health, according to the law.
Physicians interviewed by ABC News are worried, saying under the law they could still be charged with a felony, even for medically necessary abortions, and say they would only be able to utilize affirmative defense during a trial.
By the time a physician has the chance to exercise affirmative defense, they will have been convicted of a felony and lost their medical license, Dr. Carolyn Thompson, a Nashville physician, told ABC News, adding that they may also have to wait years until the case goes to trial — so their life would be in shambles.
“A less-scary law would put the burden on the state to prove that the abortion was not medically necessary, and instead, the burden is on the doctor to prove that it was,” Coffield said.
This means that when it comes to abortion care options, Planned Parenthood can only help patients find care out of state or provide financial assistance, Coffield said.
Risks and fears
Physicians are worried about what this means they can do to help patients. Doctors interviewed by ABC News said many are afraid of potential prosecution and do not plan on providing abortions, while others, defiantly, plan on giving patients whatever care they need.
OB-GYN physicians and patients are “scared”; doctors feel like there is “a target on their backs,” while patients are “asking their doctors, ‘Will you save my life if I need you to?'” Bono said.
While some officials, including Nashville District Attorney Glenn Funk, have said physicians will not face prosecution for providing medically necessary care, this is of little comfort to providers.
In a statement released in July, Funk vowed he would not prosecute women who seek abortions or doctors who will provide them after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe.
“I will use my constitutional powers to protect women, health providers and those making personal health decisions,” Funk said.
In a separate statement, Funk condemned the court’s decision and said it will “forever stain the Court and this nation.”
California wildfire ‘looking a whole heck of a lot better’
“I’m not going to risk my freedom on somebody’s verbal assurance that I’m not going to be prosecuted for providing evidence based care to a patient,” Thompson said.
Thompson said physicians are concerned they won’t be able to provide appropriate care to patients who need it.
“It’s ironic that the name of this law is the Human Life Protection Act, because they’re certainly not concerned about the women’s lives,” Thompson said.
Dr. Ashley Huff, an emergency room doctor, told ABC News she made the personal decision that she will give patients whatever care they need, regardless of the consequences.
Half of the nine gynecologists in the state’s fifth-largest city, Clarksville, have already provided abortions to manage ectopic pregnancies since the trigger ban went into effect, according to Dr. Tracy Coffey, an OB-GYN practicing in the city.
Bono said physicians are “now going to be caught between a rock and a hard place”: either commit a felony by providing a medically necessary abortion, or open themselves up to medical malpractice liability by not providing what could be lifesaving care.
Thompson recalled having a patient’s ectopic pregnancy rupture in her office years ago, and she said the patient would have died if she was not in a hospital to receive an abortion.
“If I have a patient who has an ectopic, according to this law, I can either let her die, which is egregious malpractice, or I can take her to surgery and do the evidence-based, acceptable thing and remove her ectopic and save her life. And then be convicted of a felony and go to jail,” Thompson said.
Thompson said she knows of a patient who had to wait 10 hours for an ectopic pregnancy to be managed because her physician had to consult with the hospital’s lawyers before giving her an abortion.
She also pushed back against rhetoric claiming that managing an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion, saying it is according to the wording of the law.
Unintended impact of the ban
Physicians are already starting to see the impact the trigger ban is having on women in Tennessee, creating fear, confusion and limited access in a state with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country, according to data gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nearly all the providers interviewed by ABC News about the trigger ban said they are worried physicians, especially OB-GYNs, will leave the state because of the ban.
“I don’t know who they think is going to be doing obstetrics in five years if there’s no change to this law,” Thompson said.
Physicians are worried about what women who cannot get access to abortion care will do, warning they may get desperate or take measures into their own hands.
Huff said she is already seeing patients who have apparently taken matters into their own hands come into the emergency room, some of whom have been admitted for care.
“I’ve been practicing for seven years, and I have never seen people come into the emergency department in this situation before,” Huff said.
The majority of these patients have apparently self-managed abortions, often using medication, but have experienced complications, largely because they were not under the supervision of a physician. Some of the complications that can arise from self-managing abortions include infections, excessive bleeding or incomplete abortions, Huff said.
Thompson said the trigger ban has opened up Pandora’s box, creating a wave of tragedy and trauma for women across the state.
“These legislators had no idea what an absolute disaster that they would be creating,” Thompson said. “It will ultimately impact almost every family in this state.”
The governor’s office did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(NEW YORK) — Lawmakers are seeking to limit the sale of diet pills and weight loss supplements to children with the introduction of new bills in California and New York.
The bills in California and New York would prohibit retailers from selling dietary supplements for weight loss and over-the-counter diet pills to anyone under the age of 18 without a prescription. Such supplements and pills aren’t required to be reviewed or approved by the Food and Drug Administration and the federal agency has warned the public of the dangers of certain weight loss products, highlighting contaminated pills that have been tainted with dangerous ingredients.
Overall, the diet pill industry in the United States is largely unregulated.
Women between the ages of 14 to 36 who used diet pills were five times more likely to develop an eating disorder in the next one to three years than those who did not take pills, according a study released in 2020 in the American Journal of Public Health that examined data from over 10,000 women from 2001 to 2016.
More research is still needed to determine the correlation between weight loss supplement and diet pill use and eating disorders.
“Observation and association does not prove cause and effect. So we don’t know whether the eating disorder caused the dietary supplement or pill use or vice versa,” ABC News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton said Thursday on “Good Morning America.”
“Also, doctors don’t normally write prescriptions for over-the-counter supplements. But the intention here [behind the bills] is a good one, which is to try to protect this vulnerable population,” Ashton added.
For parents concerned about their kids possibly using unregulated diet pills, Ashton recommends that they find out what children are saying and doing and have conversations with them about healthy body perceptions.
“I think parents need to be on the lookout … and not just in girls but in boys as well. So I think they need to pay attention to what their children and their teens are saying and doing. Talk to them. Keep that dialogue in line of communication open and emphasize that health is really just as much internal as it is, if not more than, what you can see,” Ashton said.
In addition to ongoing discussions, parents should also model and encourage healthy eating habits, physical activity and sufficient sleep habits.
(NEW YORK) — It has been more than two and half years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and despite a return to a new form of normality for many people across the country, there are still hundreds of Americans dying from the virus every day, a grim reality of the pandemic’s continued destruction.
The U.S. is currently averaging just under 400 daily COVID-19 related deaths. Although the daily number of fatalities is far lower than it was at the nation’s peak — in January 2021, 3,400 Americans died of COVID-19 each day.
“The seven-day average daily deaths are still too high, about 375 per day — well above the around 200 deaths a day we saw earlier this spring and, in my mind, far too high for a vaccine-preventable disease,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House press briefing with the COVID-19 response team last week.
Over the last seven days, the U.S. has reported 2,500 deaths, and since the beginning of 2022, more than 221,000 Americans have died because of COVID-19.
The vast majority of Americans who are currently dying of COVID-19 are over the age of 75. Although more than 92% of Americans of the age of 65 have been fully vaccinated, many are not up to date on COVID-19 vaccinations, and are at a higher risk for severe disease due to the virus.
The persistently high death rate, alongside concerns over the potential threat of a COVID-19 resurgence, has reignited the call for all Americans to get vaccinated. It is particularly important for those older or more vulnerable to get vaccinated and boosted with the new bivalent shots, which target not only the original strain of the virus, but also the omicron variant, experts said.
“We’re calling on all Americans: Roll up your sleeve to get your COVID-19 vaccine shot,” White House COVID-19 Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said during a press briefing last week. “If you’re 12 and above and previously vaccinated, it’s time to go get an updated COVID-19 shot.”
As the vaccine rollout expands, Jha added the administration plans to put “special efforts” into reaching older Americans, people living in congregate care settings such as nursing homes, and others who may be particularly vulnerable to COVID-19.
Throughout the summer, COVID-19 case and hospitalization numbers have oscillated widely across the country. Numbers appeared to be on the decline, but in recent weeks, the number of U.S. wastewater sites reporting increases in the presence of COVID-19 in their samples appears to be back on the rise, after declines seen throughout the latter part of the summer.
In the U.S., about 50% of wastewater sites, which are currently providing data to the CDC, have reported an increase in the presence of the COVID-19 virus in their wastewater, over the last 15 days, up from the 40% of sites reporting increases, last month, according to federal data.
Several sites across the Northeast, in particular, appear to be seeing notable increases. In Boston, wastewater levels had plateaued, after a spring and summer surge, but in recent weeks, data indicates that COVID-19 sampling levels have increased again to their highest level in two months.
However, it is important to note that data is unavailable for many areas of the country, particularly across much of the South and the West.
The U.S. is currently reporting about 70,000 new cases a day. This comes as testing levels have plummeted in recent months, with now under 350,000 tests reported each day — the lowest total since the onset of the pandemic.
However, hospital admission levels continue to fall nationally. About 4,500 virus-positive Americans are entering the hospital each day, down by about 8.4% in the last week.
There are currently about 33,000 virus-positive Americans receiving care in the U.S., down from about 37,000 total patients receiving care, one week ago. Overall, the totals remain significantly lower than at the nation’s peak in January, when there were more than 160,000 patients hospitalized with the virus.
(NEW YORK) — A 10-year-old boy is on a mission to make life easier for the 37.7 million Americans who suffer from diabetes.
Jameson Wardle was 5 years old when he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, a chronic disease in which the insulin-making cells in the pancreas are destroyed, forcing a person to be dependent on insulin, delivered via shots or an insulin pump.
Jameson, a 5th grade student in Boerne, Texas, has met with his local congressmen to urge them to stand up against what he says are unaffordable insulin prices.
“[Diabetes] is when your body attacks the beta cells … which produce insulin which is a hormone that changes carbohydrates into energy,” Jameson told ABC News’ Good Morning America.
More than eight million Americans use insulin, which is a necessity for people like Jameson with type 1 diabetes, who often require multiple injections of insulin each day, according to the American Diabetes Association.
Jameson uses 100 units of fast-acting insulin everyday, said his mom, Jennifer Wardle.
Each vial of insulin, which is about the size of a golf tee, costs $300 without insurance. Wardle, a U.S. Air Force veteran, said her family fortunately has insurance under her military benefits.
“But what happens when [Jameson] turns 26 and he’s not on our insurance anymore?” she said. “And these are the things that we, as parents, have to help him plan for.”
Jameson and Wardle are calling on Congress to pass legislation that would cap the price of insulin. One piece of legislation they support, H.R.6833, the Affordable Insulin Now Act, would encourage insulin manufacturers to reduce list prices and expand access to insulin.
The legislation passed the House in March but it has stalled in the Senate.
A proposal by Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., to place a $35-per-month limit on insulin costs under private insurances failed this month in the Senate by a 57-43 vote.
Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States and costs a total estimated $327 billion in medical costs and lost work and wages annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Jameson said that he remains committed to meeting with more lawmakers, saying, “I feel empowered.”
He also shared a message of encouragement to other kids out there with diabetes, fighting like he is.
“Keep going and be strong because soon we’ll have a cure,” he said. “Contact your congressman.”
(NEW YORK) — Ryan Reynolds is raising awareness about colon cancer screenings by sharing details into his own experience with the procedure.
The Deadpool star, who is also the co-chairman of the Welsh football club, Wrexham Association Football Club, shared a video from colon cancer awareness organization Lead from Behind in association with the Colorectal Cancer Alliance on Tuesday that documented his colonoscopy procedure to bring awareness to others about lowering the risk of colorectal cancer.
The video, which featured actor Rob McElhenney, who is also the co-chairman of Wrexham AFC, opens with the both of them explaining that Reynolds bet McElhenney that he wouldn’t learn how to speak Welsh. And if he did, Reynolds would film his colonoscopy.
“Rob and I both turned 45 this year and you know, part of being this age is getting a colonoscopy,” Reynolds said in the video. “It’s a simple step that could literally, and I mean literally, save your life.”
Dr. Jonathan LaPook at NYU Langone Health led Reynolds’s procedure and told the actor that he found an “extremely subtle polyp” on the right side of his colon.
“This was potentially lifesaving for you,” LaPook told Reynolds. “This is exactly why you do this.”
The American Cancer Society said there is “no sure way to prevent colorectal cancer,” but there are things that people can do to help lower their risk. At the top of the list is getting screened for colorectal cancer, just like Reynolds.
During the process, doctors will look for cancer or pre-cancer in people who have no symptoms of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. It is one of the “most powerful tools for preventing colorectal cancer” the organization says.
“You are interrupting the natural history of a disease of something a process, that could have ended up developing into cancer and causing all sorts of problems,” LaPook said. “Instead, you’re not only diagnosing the polyp, you’re taking it out. Nobody would know that they had this, but he [Reynolds] reached the age of screening, 45, he got a routine screening, and there you go. And that’s why people need to do this.”
“This saves lives, pure and simple,” LaPook added.
According to the American Cancer Society, “from the time the first abnormal cells start to grow into polyps, it usually takes about 10 to 15 years for them to develop into colorectal cancer.”
Through regular screening, polyps can be found and removed before they turn into cancer, the American Cancer Society said.
Other ways to potentially lower the risk for colorectal cancer are by managing diet and physical activity, quitting smoking and taking daily multivitamins, according to the American Cancer Society.
McElhenney also brought cameras into his procedure where doctors found three small polyps, which they said were not a big deal and were able to remove them.
“It’s not every day that you can raise awareness about something that will most definitely save lives,” Reynolds said.
(NEW YORK) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a health alert on Friday that common respiratory viruses circulating this fall could lead to a rise in a rare, but serious condition that usually affects children called acute flaccid myelitis, AFM. This condition causes weakness that starts in the arms or legs and can lead to permanent paralysis or become life-threatening in severe cases.
AFM is known to occur every other year and is most common from August through November, according to the CDC. Before 2020, confirmed AFM cases were increasing in 2014, 2016, and 2018 growing from 120, 153 and 238 in these years.
The picture of AFM changed in 2020 when only 33 cases were confirmed. This is believed to be the effect of efforts aimed at mitigating COVID-like physical distancing and masking that led to fewer respiratory viral infections overall. As of early September 2022, 13 cases of AFM have been identified across five states.
But raising concern now is that a specific strain of a virus in the Enterovirus family that is linked to AFM, called EV-D68, has been reported in higher proportions compared to previous years on surveillance testing, the CDC said in the health alert on Friday. Because the neurological complications of AFM occur after the initial respiratory viral infection, there is concern that AFM cases could be on the rise in the coming weeks.
Prevention measures that slow the spread of many viruses can also prevent the viruses that are linked to AFM. The CDC recommends practicing routine hand washing, avoid sharing food or drinks with people who aren’t feeling well, sanitizing surfaces after use by someone who may be sick, and consider wearing a mask around others when experiencing cold-like symptoms.
What are early signs of acute flaccid myelitis
“The warning sign is often, you know, a child who’s recovering from a routine illness and then the recovery stops looking like what you would expect – they’re now getting worse again, and especially if they become weak,” Dr. Matt Elrick, assistant professor of neurology at the Kennedy Krieger Institute who specializes in AFM, told ABC News.
But Elrick said recognizing new weaknesses in kids may be easier said than done because kids may not tell you that they are having weakness in their arms or legs, and instead may say the affected limb hurts, stop using it altogether, or simply appear very tired. This vague onset can make early recognition difficult or delayed.
Still, Elrick said the threat of AFM should not cause panic among caregivers and AFM is rare, noting that asthma flare ups are a more common complication of these viruses compared to AFM.
“This is exceptionally rare even during an outbreak so it’s not something that should necessarily keep everyone up at night. But if your child has an illness and was recovering and is now getting worse again, or not behaving in the way that you might expect the normal recovery from illness to be, that’s a good reason to go see the pediatrician and sort out what’s going on,” Elrick said.
The CDC also said to see a health care provider immediately if you or your child have problems breathing or suddenly have limb weakness and to keep all asthma action plans up to date.
(NEW YORK) — Almost two years into the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, several states are still struggling to immunize their residents.
Among the 10 states with the lowest vaccination rates, as of Wednesday, none have cracked the 60% mark of being fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This is much lower than the nationwide total of 67.6% total U.S. population being fully vaccinated.
Of those states, five also have among the lowest booster rates in the country and among the highest COVID-19 case rate per 100,000 people, the data shows. What’s more, one of the states is recording among the highest death rates as well.
Most of the states fall in the South or the West, which have traditionally been more resistant to vaccines throughout the pandemic.
Experts told ABC News this could spell trouble during the fall, when COVID-19 is traditionally at greater risk of spreading as the weather gets colder and people congregate indoors.
“What has happened is [people in] the states where they refused to get the vaccine, or were hesitant to get the vaccine, got infected,” Dr. Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist with the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, told ABC News. “What we are seeing is due to waning immunity, we are going to enter winter with a higher percentage of people who are susceptible.”
Low vaccination rates and higher cases
Wyoming is the state with the lowest share of residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19 at 51.9%, as of Sept. 7, CDC data shows.
Among the other nine states with the lowest vaccination rates, six — Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee — fall in the South, and the remaining three — Idaho, Indiana and North Dakota — fall in the Midwest or West.
There are several reasons why these states have struggled to raise their vaccination rates over the last several months, according to Dr. Jason Schwartz, an associate professor of health policy at Yale School of Public Health.
“We’ve seen vaccination efforts really hit a wall for many months now, in terms of managing to change the minds of individuals who have been either hesitant or resistant about the vaccine,” he told ABC News. “Whether it’s because of anxieties about safety, whether it’s about a lack of appreciation for the value of the vaccines, themselves or for their communities, or because of the way in which it has become so tragically politicized in a way that was really damaging to the public health effort and really damaging to the to the value of the vaccination campaign.”
And these states are doing worse when it comes to other metrics.
Five of those states — Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee — are among the top 10 states with the highest seven-day case rate per 100,000 people as of Sept. 8.
Experts say the evidence is overwhelming that lower vaccination rates lead to a higher number of cases, but it’s more than just looking at the statewide data.
Several counties within those states have vaccination rates way below the national average.
In Cameron Parish, Louisiana — which borders Texas and the Gulf of Mexico — only 18.2% of the total population is fully vaccinated, CDC data as of Sept. 7 shows.
Similarly, in Alabama, two counties – Winston County in the northwest and Cleburne County – which borders Georgia to the northeast – have 22.3% and 29.3%, respectively, of their populations fully vaccinated.
“It’s worrisome enough to have low vaccination rates statewide, but then if you drill down into particular regions where we have even lower vaccination rates, that means that there’s just enormous susceptibility in those communities for the virus to run wild,” Schwartz said. “And without that protection that comes from high vaccination rates, everyone is a greater risk, not just of infections, which we’re seeing in those case rates, but especially when it comes to those severe outcomes.”
Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, said another reason for the higher case rates in these states is the lack of following mitigation measures.
Studies have shown people who are vaccinated are more likely to practice protections such as mask-wearing and social distancing,
“The kind of reluctance to get vaccinated often moves hand-in-hand with a reluctance to maybe observe other protective measures, masking crowded indoorded settings and so on,” she said.
Deaths not spiking in these states
There are some low vaccination states that aren’t experiencing high death rates.
Only one of the bottom 10 vaccination states, Georgia, is among the 10 states with the highest death rates at 1 per 100,000 as of Sept. 8.
Experts said there may be a few reasons why states with lower vaccination rates don’t have high death rates.
These include that many residents who were at risk of dying already passed early in the pandemic and because many of these states have large rural areas where it’s less likely to come into contact with those are infected and spread the virus.
However, Schwartz said it may also be because those who are at risk are fully vaccinated and those getting sick in the states with the low vaccination rates are younger adults who are at less risk of falling ill or dying.
In Wyoming, for example, which has among the lowest death rates but also the lowest vaccination rate, 75.9% of seniors aged 65 and older are fully vaccinated as of Sept. 5, according to the state Department of Health. Comparatively, just 55.5% of adults aged 18-64 are fully vaccinated and 34.5% of adolescents aged 12-17.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, only 23% of women over age 65 and 21% of men are vaccinated, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.
“Even if a state may be lagging in its overall vaccination rate, it could do a better job earlier in the vaccination campaign, or since then reaching those highest risk individuals, that could be something that could change what we’re seeing as far as death rates,” Schwartz said.
Experts say unvaccinated people not likely to get shots at this point
With COVID-19 expected to rise as the U.S. heads into the fall and winter — and peak in December 2022 or January 2023 — there are fears a surge will batter states with low vaccination rates.
“There’s two things happening at the same time, there’s the people that are going more indoors, they’re congregating more indoors, and the colder weather,” El-Sadr said. “There’s also maybe the risk of a new subvariant or a new variant that may then result in a surge.”
However, experts don’t think there will be as many hospitalizations and deaths as previous waves due to widespread immunity.
Schwartz said he’s not sure if there is anything that can be done to boost vaccination rates in these states because previous efforts have been unsuccessful and those who are not vaccinated yet are unlikely to be in the future.
“There had been hope that some folks were concerned that the vaccine hadn’t received full approval and then when the vaccine had received full approval rather than an [emergency use authorization] people would come out of the woodwork to get vaccinated. That didn’t happen,” he said. “There was a thought with the Novavax vaccine that was introduced earlier this summer that maybe there were folks that were sort of hesitant about mRNA vaccines that might be more comfortable with a new vaccine that uses a more familiar technology. That didn’t happen, either.”
Schwartz continued, “I think what we see now is that people who aren’t vaccinated have very deeply held beliefs at this point whether it’s you about safety or just being a part of their of their ideological commitment, unfortunately, makes it hard to see a way to sway them with messaging or encouragement.”
(NEW YORK) — The likelihood of an extreme epidemic, or one similar to COVID-19, will increase threefold in the coming decades, according to a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers used data from epidemics from the past 400 years, specifically death rates, length of previous epidemics and the rate of new infectious diseases. Their calculation is a sophisticated prediction based on known risks and can be a useful guide for policy makers and public health officials.
They also found that the probability of a person experiencing a pandemic like COVID-19 in one’s lifetime is around 38%. The researchers said this could double in years to come.
The probability of another pandemic is “going to probably increase because of all of the environmental changes that are occurring,” Willian Pan, an associate professor of Global Environmental Health at Duke University and one of the study’s authors, told ABC News.
Scientists are looking closely at the relationship between climate changes and zoonotic diseases, like COVID-19.
Climate change and zoonotic diseases
Zoonotic diseases are caused by germs that spread between animals and people. Animals can carry viruses and bacteria that humans can encounter directly, through contact, or indirectly, through things like soil or water supply, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“As you make that interface between humans and the natural world smaller, we just come in more contact with those things and climate enhances the ability for viruses to infect us more easily,” said Pan. He said our risk for any zoonotic or emerging viral infections is going to rise over time.
An example of this is the recent outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.
“There’s evidence that there is loss of forests in West Africa for palm oil. There’s a whole story around the palm oil industry, destroying forest tropics to plant palm oil trees,” said Dr. Aaron Bernstein, director of the Climate MD program at the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard University’s Chan School of Public Health.
“In this case, there are bats that live in those forests but they can’t live in palm oil plantations. And so those bats moved to a part of West Africa where they infected people with Ebola,” said Bernstein.
Zoonotic diseases now account for 60% of all diseases and 75% of emerging diseases, according to the CDC.
“More animals come into contact with more people but they also, in many cases, have resulted in animals bumping into other animals,” said Bernstein. “What we’ve observed is that animals and even plants are racing to the poles to get out of the heat. And as they do that, they may run into creatures that they’ve never run into before. And that creates an opportunity for spillover to happen.”
Looking ahead
Currently, scientists are playing catch up with viral outbreaks by racing to create vaccines, sometimes after an outbreak is already out of control.
“We can’t deal with pandemics with Band-Aids. Meaning after waiting until diseases show up, and then trying to figure out how to solve them,” said Bernstein.
Added Pan: “Globally, if we want to prevent another major pandemic from completely disrupting our society, we need to start investing heavily and sharing information across countries on surveillance of different viral infections. There’s some places in the world where we don’t even have the basic capacity to evaluate or test strains, viral fevers coming into hospitals. And so a lot of those things go unchecked until it’s too late.”
Preventing these diseases not only requires global collaboration, but attention to the source of the problem.
“We need to address spillover. And that means we need to protect habitats. We need to tackle climate change. We need to address the risk of large-scale livestock production because a lot of the pathogens move from wild animals into livestock and then into people,” said Bernstein.
Global spending on COVID vaccines is projected to reach $157 billion, according to Reuters. Annual spending on forest conservation is much less.
“We’re about to throw a whole lot of money at solutions that only address a fraction of the problem. We get very little back relative to what we could get back for $1 spent on post spillover intervention versus root cause prevention,” said Bernstein.
Emma Egan is an MPH candidate at Brown University and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — The United States recorded its one millionth organ transplant Friday afternoon, a historic milestone for the medical procedure that has saved thousands of lives.
The record achievement was confirmed at 12:50 p.m. ET by the United Network for Organ Sharing, a nonprofit that runs the only organ procurement and transplantation network in the country.
It’s unclear which organ was the record one millionth and details about the patient are unknown at this time.
The very first successful organ transplant occurred In 1954 at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston when doctors transplanted a kidney from 23-year-old Ronald Herrick into his identical twin brother, Richard, who was suffering from chronic kidney failure.
The lead surgeon, Dr. Joseph Murray, received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his role in the procedure.
Up until the early 1980s, the number of transplants every year remained low. However, success in transplants organs other than kidneys — such as hearts, livers, and pancreases — and the advent of anti-rejection medication led to a rise in transplants, according to UNOS.
Since then, transplants have become a far more common procedure.
More than 500,000 transplants have been performed since 2007 and, in 2021, more than 41,000 transplants occurred, which is the highest number ever recorded and twice as many as occurred 25 years ago.
Despite more patients undergoing transplants than ever before, it doesn’t mean the agency is without its faults.
Approximately 5,000 people die waiting on transplant lists ever year. And a study published today in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology in October 2020 found that many donor kidneys in the U.S. are unnecessarily discarded.
But organ donors and recipients hope that by sharing their stories, they will inspire people will sign up to donate and help reduce those long waiting lists.
When Nicholas Peters was killed in a motorcycle accident in 2020, his mother, Maria Clark, honored his wishes to be an organ donor.
His heart went to Jean Paul Marceaux, a sixth grader in Arkansas who had been suffering from heart conditions for years.
The families have since met and have become close ever since. Clark, of Madisonville, Louisiana, was even able to listen to her son’s heart beating in Marceaux with a stethoscope.
“This is why we tell our story — so that people will sign up to be donors,” Candace Armstrong, Marceaux’s mother, said in a statement.
Clark added, “We are all going to leave here. You have to talk to your family and let them know you want your organs to go on, to extend the lives of other people. I want people to know that Nick was love, he was the element of love, always helping, and it is just like him to keep giving and spreading love.”
