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(WASHINGTON) — Americans will likely have one more COVID-19 vaccine to choose from after the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine Wednesday.
The two-shot vaccine was authorized for use in people 18 years and older.
Novavax is the fourth COVID-19 vaccine to receive emergency use authorization in the U.S. by the FDA. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now expected to review data on the vaccine before providing its recommendation for authorization.
“Authorizing an additional COVID-19 vaccine expands the available vaccine options for the prevention of COVID-19, including the most severe outcomes that can occur such as hospitalization and death,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert M. Califf said in a statement on Wednesday. “Today’s authorization offers adults in the United States who have not yet received a COVID-19 vaccine another option that meets the FDA’s rigorous standards for safety, effectiveness and manufacturing quality needed to support emergency use authorization.”
The FDA said it had determined that the Novavax vaccine met the criteria for authorization, and that the data showed that the potential benefits of the vaccine outweighed any potential risks.
“The American public can trust that this vaccine, like all vaccines that are used in the United States, has undergone the FDA’s rigorous and comprehensive scientific and regulatory review,” said Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.
Some health experts have suggested that some hesitant Americans may be more inclined to get the Novavax vaccine, as it is based on a more traditional protein-based technology, one already used for the flu vaccine and other shots, while Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine platforms use more modern genetic technology.
The company applauded the agency’s decision to authorize the vaccine for emergency use.
“Today’s FDA emergency use authorization of our COVID-19 vaccine provides the U.S. with access to the first protein-based COVID-19 vaccine,” Stanley C. Erck, president and chief executive officer of Novavax, said in a statement. “This authorization reflects the strength of our COVID-19 vaccine’s efficacy and safety data, and it underscores the critical need to offer another vaccine option for the U.S. population while the pandemic continues.”
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that the Biden administration had secured 3.2 million doses of Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine will be made available for free to U.S. states and jurisdictions.
If the CDC signs off on use of the vaccine, the shots could be made available shortly thereafter.
To date, approximately two-thirds of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to federal data. However, more than 26.5 million American adults remain completely unvaccinated.
(NEW YORK) — For the first time since May, COVID-19-related hospital admissions are forecasted to increase again in the U.S., as highly infectious omicron subvariants continue to spread, according to updated forecasting models used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The models show that nearly 40 states and territories are currently projected to see increases in new hospitalizations over the next two weeks. States in the South, including Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, are expected to see the greatest increases in hospitalizations.
Nationally, between 3,200 to 13,800 daily confirmed COVID-19 hospital admissions are expected to be reported on Aug. 5. As of Wednesday, the U.S. is reporting nearly 5,800 virus-related hospital admissions each day, according to the CDC.
Hospitalization levels have already been increasing, with nearly 40,000 virus-positive Americans currently hospitalized, according to federal data. Totals are more than double the level they were at this time last summer, when the delta surge was beginning to emerge, and a growing number of COVID-19 positive people are also showing up to emergency departments, data shows.
In the South, where many states are forecasted to see notable increases, hospital admissions have risen by more than 20% in the last week.
Although the overall total remains significantly lower than at the nation’s peak, when more than 160,000 patients were hospitalized with the virus, hospitalizations are still at their highest point since early March.
The forecast also predicts that virus-related deaths will have either a stable or an uncertain trend in the next four weeks.
Even so, more than 5,700 deaths are still expected to occur nationally over the next two weeks. Texas, Oklahoma and California are projected to see the largest death tolls in the weeks to come.
“Deaths are still around 300, but hospitalizations are ticking up. This is something you don’t want to panic about, but we really need to pay attention to it because there are things that we can do to blunt that,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, a senior adviser to the president on the pandemic, told CNN on Wednesday.
Fauci and other federal health officials have been raising the alarm about omicron subvariant BA.5, which they say has been causing a resurgence of infections.
The U.S. is currently reporting more than 118,000 new cases a day, marking the country’s highest daily infection average since mid-February.
Fauci said the current reported case total is likely a “gross underestimate” as the majority of Americans are testing with home kits and not reporting their results to their local jurisdictions.
BA.5 is now the dominant variant in the U.S, accounting for an estimated 65% of new cases in the country. Scientists say it does appear to have a transmission advantage over the original omicron strain, although they do not believe it is more severe than prior strains.
“[BA.5] is certainly the most immune evasive. What we’re seeing is people who were previously infected getting reinfected at high rates, people who were vaccinated last year having a ton of breakthrough infections. It’s something we’re paying a lot of attention to,” White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America Wednesday.
However, Jha said the vaccines and boosters are still helping blunt the impact of severe disease.
(WASHINGTON) — Scientists at the nation’s top health agencies are looking into expanding vaccine eligibility so that more Americans can get a second booster shot during the latest COVID-19 wave, White House officials said on Tuesday.
“I know that the [Food and Drug Administration] is considering this, looking at it. And I know [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] scientists are thinking about this and looking at the data as well. The decision is purely up to them,” Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID coordinator, said at a briefing with reporters on Tuesday morning.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the White House, said conversations about booster eligibility have been going on for a while. But he also reiterated that the final call lies with the FDA and CDC.
“We always talked about it, it’s not something new, but we all recognize what the lines of authority are and that’s what we’ll be depending on,” he said.
In May, FDA vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks told ABC News that internal discussions were underway about second boosters for all adults.
Currently, everyone over 5 is eligible for an initial booster shot at least five months after their initial vaccination series. Everyone over 50 is recommended to get a second booster shot four months after their first, as is anyone who is immunocompromised.
But officials were clear on Tuesday that despite the potential for opening up second boosters to a wider population, there has been very low uptake among the older Americans who are already eligible — a problem because they are the most vulnerable to the virus.
“For people who are 50 years of age or older, my message is simple: If you have not gotten a vaccine shot in the year 2022 — if you have not gotten one this year — please go get another vaccine shot,” Jha said. “It could save your life.”
Jha also pushed people to start testing before gathering at big events, getting treatment like Paxlovid or monoclonal antibodies if infected with COVID and upping their use of face masks.
BA.4 and BA.5, the latest dominant COVID strains to spread in the U.S., are substantially more evasive of prior immunity, both from infection and from vaccines. Together, they currently account for around 80% of cases.
“The vaccine effectiveness against severe disease, fortunately for us, is not reduced substantially or at all compared to other omicron subvariants,” Fauci said Tuesday.
Jha said the White House was closely monitoring the subvariants and their impact.
“We’re encouraged that serious illness, hospitalizations and deaths have remained relatively low based on the level of infections. That’s not by coincidence, by the way. It’s not random,” Jha said, going on to tout “our successful vaccination program, our efforts to get people boosted and our incredibly focused effort on making sure that treatments and testing are widely available.” (The administration had faced criticism last year that testing wasn’t easily accessible nationwide.)
Still, Jha noted Tuesday that hundreds of people — far too many — were dying every day.
“We are experiencing about 300 to 350 deaths a day. That is unacceptable. It’s too high. And we will continue to use the infrastructure we have built and the tools we have to lower suffering and death as we manage BA.5,” he said, “and it is clear that with every American doing their part, we can get through the BA.5 infections together.”
What Americans can do to protect themselves
While Jha, Fauci and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky were all clear in their recommendations on Tuesday for the public to get up-to-date on their vaccines and boosters to fend off variants, the reality is murky for many Americans who have recently had COVID.
The CDC’s guidance is that people can wait up to three months after infection to get a shot — but reinfection with BA.5 could happen sooner than three months. Because the omicron subvariant is still new, there’s a lot scientists are still scrambling to learn.
“The overall principle is that we know immunity wanes with coronaviruses, whether that is infection or vaccination, and so if you’ve been infected or vaccinated and your time comes for a boost, that’s when you should go and get the boost,” said Fauci, who recently recovered from COVID.
“And I might say myself, having been someone who’s been vaccinated and infected, when we get the next round of having vaccines available, months later, I will be in line to get another boost after that,” he added.
The other factor many Americans are weighing is the new, omicron-specific vaccine that will be available beginning in October. Officials were adamant that anyone who gets a booster now will again be able to get one in the fall. But booster fatigue or hesitancy to get boosted twice within a span of a few months might prevent people from making that decision.
To that, officials said the benefit was worth it.
“People say, ‘Well, why do I want to get a prototype vaccine booster now, when I’m gonna have a variant-specific vaccine in four months or five months?'” Jha said.
“The biggest thing, and the data on this is very clear, is if you’re over 50, that extra booster dramatically lowers your risk of getting into the hospital, going into the ICU and dying. And there are very few things we do in medicine that have the kind of benefit that we see from that extra shot,” Jha said.
“And let me be clear: If you get vaccinated today, you’re not going to be ineligible to get the variant-specific vaccine as we get into the later part of fall and winter. So this is not a trade off,” he said. “We’ve got plenty. It’s a great way to protect yourself.”
(NEW YORK) — Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, ending nearly five decades of a precedent that protected the constitutional right to an abortion, there has been a lot of public debate and confusion over what constitutes an abortion and what is considered legal.
Emergency contraceptive medications such as Plan B, also known as the morning-after pill, taken to prevent pregnancy after unprotected intercourse, have also been falsely interpreted by some as a form of abortion.
With no exact consensus, some states have defined “life” as beginning at conception or fertilization — the moment egg meets sperm. Meanwhile, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) — the nation’s leading physician group for OB-GYNs — says complex medical concepts are being “misused” by state legislators.
“Conception and pregnancy are not the same thing,” said Dr. Elizabeth Schmidt, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology and director of family planning at North Shore University Hospital in New York. “Conception is not a medically recognized term.”
But doctors say the debate about when life begins shouldn’t have any bearing on Plan B, which works to stop pregnancy even earlier in the process — before fertilization, or conception.
What is Plan B?
Plan B is a progesterone hormone, which prevents ovulation or the release of an egg when taken at the appropriate time. This effectively prevents fertilization or the meeting of the sperm and egg for pregnancy. If taken after ovulation has already occurred, Plan B has no effect and there is no evidence that it harms an already established pregnancy, according to ACOG.
“Pregnant people make progesterone, and Plan B is a type of progesterone, so it makes sense that it would have no effect on a developing embryo,” Schmidt told ABC News.
Why is it confused with abortion?
Some of the confusion may stem from the Food and Drug Administration’s own website, which explains that Plan B “may prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the womb (implantation).” The problem, experts say, is that this description is not accurate.
When the FDA first approved emergency contraception back in the late 1990s, it wasn’t totally clear how the pills prevented pregnancy, said Susan F. Wood, Ph.D., George Washington University professor and former director of the FDA’s Office of Women’s Health.
Now, she said, “new evidence [that has] been around for about 10 years now has shown that actually, Plan B works, probably essentially only through that first mechanism — blocking ovulation.”
Still, the FDA’s statement has been interpreted by some to imply abortion, resulting in objections to Plan B.
How does Plan B work?
“When used as emergency contraception, Plan B only affects ovulation,” Schmidt said. “Studies have failed to show any effect from levonorgestrel on the uterine lining when used as a one-time dose in emergency contraception.”
In a 2001 study published in Contraception, scientists looked at 45 women who were treated with short-term levonorgestrel administration — the same hormone found in Plan B — and observed no impairment in the lining of the uterus whether levonorgestrel was administered around or after ovulation. Previous studies on monkeys and rats have also failed to show a significant effect of the levonorgestrel hormone on uterine lining to prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg.
Taken collectively, this evidence suggests Plan B works primarily on the first step in the process — preventing the body from releasing an egg in the first place, or ovulating.
If the body has already released an egg prior to taking Plan B, the drug does not stop an egg from meeting sperm, and it does nothing to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus.
Wood said given the current legal environment, the FDA should consider updating the language on its website “to pull Plan B out of the line of fire” from anti-abortion groups.
When reached for comment by ABC News, an FDA spokesperson did not comment directly on the language on its website but emphasized that “emergency contraception is used to reduce the chance of pregnancy after unprotected sex.”
“Plan B is an extremely safe medication and there are no medical contraindications to its use. It is safer than Tylenol — which is sold over the counter without restriction,” Schmidt said.
Although contraception currently remains legal throughout the U.S., the growing abortion restrictions in the country are now bringing some forms of contraception into question.
In his concurring opinion on the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that in the future, the court should reconsider other “demonstrably erroneous” precedents, including the 1965 ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut, which protects the right of married couples to buy and use contraception without government restriction.
“Limiting access to any medical care can have disastrous effects on communities,” Schmidt said. “It has been shown that states with restricted access to abortion also have higher rates of maternal and infant mortality. The situation is going to get even worse by prohibiting access to emergency contraception and abortion, which will disproportionately affect the most vulnerable and disadvantaged.”
Dr. Esra Demirel is a fellow in Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery at NYU Langone Health and is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.
ABC News’ Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A French-based pharmaceutical company announced Monday that it has asked the Food and Drug Administration to sell over-the-counter birth control pills in the U.S., making it the first business to file an official application.
Perrigo’s HRA Pharma said it hopes that regulatory approval comes early next year.
“This historic application marks a groundbreaking moment in contraceptive access and reproductive equity,” Frédérique Welgryn, chief strategic operations and innovation officer at HRA Pharma, said in a statement.
“More than 60 years ago, prescription birth control pills in the U.S. empowered women to plan if and when they want to get pregnant,” Welgryn said. “Moving a safe and effective prescription birth control pill to OTC will help even more women and people access contraception without facing unnecessary barriers.”
Currently, hormone-based birth control pills require a doctor’s prescription because of health concerns such as blood clotting in some women. But most doctors say the risk is minimal for the vast majority of the population and note that pregnancy can carry its own significant health risks.
Reproductive rights advocates say an over-the-counter pill would make it easier for women without access to health care to obtain contraceptives.
“In the wake of the overturn of Roe v. Wade, we must pull out all the stops to make it easier and more affordable for everyone to secure contraception and take bold steps to protect women by ensuring that health — not politics — guides medical decisions,” said Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat.
The FDA did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 65.3% of women aged 15 to 49 use contraception, with 14% taking pills.
The move comes weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which granted people a constitutional right to an abortion for nearly 50 years.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had said it was a relief, calling Roe v. Wade “one of the most egregious legal and moral mistakes of the 20th century.”
The fallout from Roe’s reversal has many people worried that the Supreme Court will overturn other constitutionally protected rights.
In his concurrent opinion, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas called for the court to reconsider other cases, including Griswold v. Connecticut, which gave married couples the right to use contraception.
He also asked the court to reconsider Lawrence v. Texas, which protects the right to same-sex romantic relationships; and Obergefell v. Hodges, which establishes the right to same-sex marriage.
“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is “demonstrably erroneous,” we have a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents,” Thomas wrote.
ABC News’ Kiara Alfonseca contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Health officials are once again raising the alarm about the threat of a resurgence of COVID-19 infections across the country, as concerns grow about the new omicron subvariant, BA.5, which is now the dominant viral strain in the U.S.
The BA.5 variant, first detected in South Africa earlier this year, is currently estimated to account for more than half — 53.6% — of all new COVID-19 cases in the states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
BA.5 appears to have a growth advantage over the original omicron variant, according to the World Health Organization, and scientists are closely monitoring the increase in reported cases observed in many countries across the globe.
At this time, BA.5 does not appear to have increased in severity, but officials have previously stressed that research on the new subvariant is still in its “early days,” and much remains to be learned about it.
As BA.5 spreads, a growing proportion of U.S. counties are seeing increases in infections and related hospital admissions.
Nearly three-quarters of the U.S. population is now living in a county with a high or medium community risk level for COVID-19, as defined by the CDC, federal data shows. About one-third of those people — 31.9%– are living in a high-risk community, while 41.6% are living in a medium-risk county.
A high community level suggests there is a “high potential for health care system strain” and a “high level of severe disease,” and the CDC recommends that people wear a mask in public indoor settings, including schools. A medium-risk level suggests there is “some impact on [the] health care system,” and “more people with severe disease.” Under the CDC’s official guidance, individuals considered at “increased risk” are advised to speak with their health care provider about whether to wear a mask.
Counties on both coasts — most notably in California, Montana, New Mexico and Oregon — are moving up and entering the high-risk level. In Florida, nearly every county is currently considered high risk. Puerto Rico and California currently lead the nation in new cases per capita, followed by New York City, where officials are once again urging residents to wear high-quality masks in indoor public settings and around crowds outside, amid a renewed surge of infections in the city.
“We’re currently seeing high levels of COVID-19 in NYC. To help slow the spread, all New Yorkers should wear a high-quality mask, such as an N95, KN95 or KF94 in all public indoor settings and around crowds outside,” the New York City Health Department wrote in a tweet on Friday, after the city moved back into the high-risk level.
The average number of new cases across New York City is up by 25% in the last two weeks, according to federal data. City data also shows that an average of 15% of reported tests are now coming back positive, marking the highest seven-day positivity rate in months.
Nationally, the country is currently reporting an average of more than 100,000 new cases each day. However, health officials say that the total is likely significantly undercounted.
As previously reported, dozens of states have moved to shutter public testing sites, with more at-home COVID-19 tests now available in pharmacies and through the federal testing program. Most Americans are not reporting their results to officials, and, thus, experts said infection totals are likely significantly undercounted.
Last week, White House COVID Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told NBC News that hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 infections are likely going undercounted.
“There’s no question in my mind we are missing the vast majority of infections right now,” Jha said. “The truth is there are probably several hundred thousand — 400,000; 500,000 infections a day happening across the country.”
The concerns over BA.5 come amid the nation’s continued push to get people vaccinated. Although the U.S. is set to roll out new bivalent vaccines in the fall, which will address omicron, millions of eligible Americans are still without their additional shots.
To date, less than half of eligible Americans — 49.5% or 108.6 million people — have received their first booster. Similarly, less than one-third — 29.5% or 42.2 million — of eligible Americans over the age of 50 have received their second booster.
Overall hospitalization numbers and death rates have yet to see a significant resurgence, though experts say metrics may also be undercounted, due to a lack of reporting from states.
As of July 5, about 34,000 patients are currently receiving care in U.S. hospitals across the country. This still marks one of the highest numbers of patients hospitalized with the virus since March.
On average, more than 5,200 virus-positive Americans are entering the hospital each day — the highest number of daily admissions since February. Hospital admissions in the Southwest and the South are up by more than 10%, respectively, in the past week.
The average number of daily COVID-19-related deaths remains just below 300 reported each day. Totals are still much lower than during prior COVID-19 surges.
However, thousands of Americans are still losing their lives every week. Over the last seven days, the U.S. has reported nearly 2,000 deaths.
(NEW YORK) — A new report found a “statistically significant” excess of cancer cases among people of all ages living within a Long Island school district compared to similar areas of the state.
The report, from the New York State Department of Health, looked at cancer cases over 20 years within the Northport-East Northport School District in Suffolk County — about 45 miles from Manhattan.
Researchers say the investigation is still in its early stages and does not mean people living in these areas need to immediately get cancer screenings.
Looking at data from the New York State Cancer Registry, researchers conducted an analysis comparing the number of cancer cases found with the number of cases that would be expected to be found.
Within the entire district, the report identified 4,593 total cancer cases, a 3% excess than the 4,454 cases that would be expected. Specifically, the DOH found “significant excesses in numbers of cases of pancreatic cancer, malignant melanoma of the skin, uterine (corpus) cancer and prostate cancer.”
“Cancer clusters are certainly an area of intrigue because we want to be able to identify if there are certain hotspots for cancer,” Dr. Arif Kamal, chief patient officer of the American Cancer Society, told ABC News.
Kamal said the interesting aspect of this case is that “if you look at the particular cancers that are represented, there’s not a single factor that tied them all together,” indicating a “mixture of explanations.”
When looking specifically at the Northport Middle School District, researchers detected 2,655 total cases of cancer, a 7% excess than the 2,486 cases expected, with “significantly greater than expected numbers of cases of malignant melanoma and prostate cancer.” However, the report found that the East Northport Middle School area did not have a significantly different total number of cancer cases from the number expected.
The department said it initiated the investigation in 2019 after members of the community shared a concerning number of graduates in the Northport High School class of 2016 who had been diagnosed with leukemia. Officials found around five graduates were diagnosed with leukemia, which was “statistically unusual” and much higher than the two cases that would be expected.
The DOH said it does not believe the study should cause alarm and that the higher number of leukemia cases may be “due to chance.”
Kamal said the higher number of leukemia cases is “concerning, but it’s a little early to make conclusions about what it means.”
“Leukemia can be a canary in a coal mine because a lot of environmental exposures can lead to it, but it needs to be followed over time to really understand,” he said. “If after five to 10 years those rates increase, you really should be worried.”
The district has battled concerns about toxic chemicals on school grounds for years and, in September 2020, parents filed a class action lawsuit against the district citing negligence. In the lawsuit, they allege the district “knew or should have known about the presence” of the presence of “contaminants” on its campus including benzene, mold, chlordane, mercury, lead, carbon monoxide and petroleum products.
Tara Mackey, the lead plaintiff, told ABC News her daughter attended Northport Middle School from 2015 to 2018. The lawsuit claims that in 2017, the district notified parents about a chemical spill beneath classrooms in the school’s K-wing.
“My daughter was in seventh grade when they told us about the chemicals they found under the K-wing,” she said. “She was suffering from migraines. Some days it would be so bad she would come home, and she would vomit.”
Mackey said she took her daughter to the pediatrician to be tested, and when the pediatrician called her back, she was shocked by the blood test results.
“My seventh-grade daughter had carbon monoxide levels equal to a two-, three-pack-a-day smoker,” Mackey said.
Mackey’s daughter just graduated high school in North Carolina, and although she currently does not suffer from migraines, she did develop asthma while attending Northport Middle School.
When the district was contacted by ABC News, Syntax Communication Group — which represents the district — replied, “The Northport-East Northport School District does not comment on active litigation and will not be providing comment.”
A car sits parked outside of the Whole Woman’s Health abortion clinic in San Antonio, Texas, Feb. 16, 2016. – Bloomberg via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Two weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the South has become covered with abortion bans.
Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Texas — along with Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and South Dakota — all now have near-total bans on abortion in effect. The clinics that had been working there spent years navigating previous restrictions and fighting off state laws.
Now, said Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, which has facilities in Texas, staff are grappling with the idea that “there is no narrative that’s going to allow us to reopen. There is no lawsuit we get to try to win this time or some kind of fight that we can fight this time that will allow us to resume the care that we know our communities need.”
Instead, clinic leaders in these states are fully changing plans as they have stopped providing abortions. For some, this means staying open but altering the care provided. For others, this means packing up and leaving for good, with the intention of serving patients in the South by reopening in nearby states where abortion is still legal.
For all, there is worry for the patients who will not be able to access care they seek.
“I am very concerned about what the hospitals are going to see, when the hospital emergency rooms begin to receive women who have been desperate and take desperate measures,” Kathaleen Pittman, administrator for the New Hope Medical for Women in Louisiana, told ABC News.
Staying open, with new priorities
The West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa halted abortion operations as soon as the Supreme Court decision was announced on June 24. The state swiftly moved to ban an abortion, with a law that makes it a Class A felony to perform an abortion, except to prevent a serious health risk to the pregnant person.
The center closed down on June 29. But at 8 a.m. on July 11, the center will be reopening, according to operations director Robin Marty, who called the two-week closure a “clean break” between the past and present.
Due to legal concerns, the clinic will no longer provide abortions but will continue to offer access to contraceptives and HIV testing, among other sexual health services, Marty said.
The clinic will also no longer provide information or resources to assist pregnant people traveling to obtain an abortion elsewhere. This, Marty said, is because Alabama officials, including the state’s attorney general, have said they will consider expanding the criminality of abortion to those who help — logistically or financially — someone obtain an abortion outside of the state.
Despite these changes, Marty said, the clinic will assist those experiencing bleeding or possible miscarriages, no questions asked.
“There is a severe lack of health care in Alabama, there’s not a lot of providers or hospitals, there’s not a lot of access to contraceptives or to OB care in general,” Marty said. “There are hospitals and doctors that just don’t entirely know what care to do for patients who are bleeding.”
The Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, Louisiana, too will stay open, Pittman said — for options counseling and to provide ultrasounds.
“We’re going to continue to keep our doors open. We’ll do everything we can within the law to help the women and just hope,” she said.
The Louisiana Supreme Court allowed a ban on nearly all abortion to go into effect Friday after a series of court challenges by local abortion providers was moved to another jurisdiction. There is ongoing legal action on this front.
New Mexico becomes an outlet for the corridor
Meanwhile, at least two clinics in the block of southern states with bans are closing down and relocating to New Mexico. Along the southern border, abortion is largely illegal from Texas to Alabama.
Florida and Georgia do not have full bans, but do have gestational limits either in effect (Florida, 15 weeks) or tied up in courts (Georgia, six weeks). With Republican governors, abortion rights advocates do not believe these states are safe for abortion access.
But out to the West on the southern border, abortion rights advocates and providers see hope in New Mexico, where Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, has vowed, “As long as I am governor, abortion will continue to be legal, safe, and accessible.”
Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, which was at the center of the Supreme Court case that led to the overturning of Roe, is taking that as an invitation. The clinic will be closing down in Mississippi, where a so-called “trigger law” went into effect on Thursday, and reopening in New Mexico, Diane Derzis, owner of the clinic, told ABC News, where they have been “accepted and welcomed.”
Derzis said the New Mexico facility will be a full-service abortion clinic.
“This is today in this country. Mississippi is the past, and the future is moving on to where women have an option,” she said.
Likewise, Whole Woman’s Health is closing operations in Texas, where the organization got its start almost 20 years ago, and planning to open a clinic in New Mexico, Hagstrom Miller told ABC News, calling the state “a beacon of hope.”
Just six years ago, Whole Woman’s Health won a Supreme Court case striking down abortion restrictions in Texas. The group has continued operating in the state in the face of an unprecedented ban that was allowed to go into effect almost a year before Roe was overturned. And like Jackson Women’s Health, Whole Woman’s Health has tried fighting the new ban in its state.
But in early July, the state Supreme Court dealt their case a blow. Legal proceedings are ongoing, but Hagstrom Miller said the state Supreme Court’s decision “sped up our timeline of trying to go to New Mexico.”
The organization, which also has clinics open in Maryland, Minnesota, Indiana and Virginia, where abortion is still legal, already provides abortions in New Mexico via telemedicine. They are now fundraising to open an in-person clinic, likely near the border with Texas, Hagstrom Miller said, to be more accessible to Texans.
“You can’t say for one second Whole Woman’s Health didn’t do everything we could to preserve access to safe abortion in Texas,” she said. “So, there’s some bitterness on our team, because people in Texas deserve the kind of care that we provide, and our staff deserve to continue to do this work that they love and that they’re trained to do. There’s grief and frustration.”
Concern for what happens to patients who can’t cross borders
These clinic leaders across Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama are doing what they can to reorganize to continue to work with patients in their states. Independent providers and those associated with Planned Parenthood have been in touch with each other to coordinate the new infrastructure for abortion care in a fractured United States, according to Hagstrom Miller.
Even so, Marty said, between bans and closures, “It’s a tidal wave that is working its way further and further up the nation. There’s never going to be enough clinics this way.”
Moreover, the clinic leaders each told ABC News they worry for the patients who will get left behind.
“There are a lot of people who did not vote for these laws or these politicians,” Marty said. “People here are affected and can’t leave. We can’t forget about them.”
“Not everybody can travel,” Hagstrom Miller said. “This sort of heroic narrative, the arc of ‘we’re setting up somewhere else, we’re going to take care of people,’ right? A lot of people are going to fall through those cracks.”
This is especially concerning, the leaders said, for communities already facing barriers to health care, including people of color, people with lower income, the young and those in abusive relationships.
“It’s sad to know that there are women getting left behind,” Derzis said. “Hopefully, it’s time that women rise up in this country and demand their rights.”
ABC News’ Briana Stewart and Ely Brown contributed to this report.
Wesley Lapointe / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Wesley Lapointe / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)(NEW YORK) — Since the COVID-19 vaccine was authorized for children under age 5 last month, states have been able to pre-order doses directly from the federal government.
Roughly 300,000 children between ages six months and four years have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine as of Thursday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That is equivalent to about 1.5% of the roughly 19.5 million children in the United States who recently became eligible.
Despite the low number, states are continuing to order vaccines as they expect infection numbers to increase and confidence to build over time.
ABC News reached out to all 50 state health departments between June 21 and July 7 asking how many doses had been ordered for children under age 5 and received data from 41 of them.
Those states have ordered at least 3.09 million vaccine doses for the youngest age group to be distributed to providers, hospitals, vaccination centers and more, according to the results.
This number does not include retail pharmacies in the states who have pre-ordered doses through the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program.
“Having millions of doses out of the gate is incredibly helpful,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “It’s a good start. My gut feeling is that there’s going to be an initial rush, like when doses became available for other age groups, and then a little bit more of stable access.”
As of June 21, California — the state with the largest population — has ordered more than 400,000 doses of the vaccine, the state’s Department of Public Health told ABC News.
Of those doses, more than 221,000 doses are of the two-dose Moderna vaccine and 176,00 are of the three-dose Pfizer vaccine, the California DPH said.
The doses “can be administered at the more than 8,500 vaccine sites throughout the state, with additional doses becoming available in subsequent weeks,” the DPH said in a statement.
Meanwhile the state with the smallest population, Wyoming, has ordered the fewest doses at 3,700 as of June 30, state health officials told ABC News.
The state’s health department there said 2,000 doses were of the Pfizer vaccine and 1,700 were of Moderna’s vaccine.
Brownstein said it’s incredibly important for young children to get vaccinated because they are also susceptible to severe effects of COVID-19.
“There’s always been this view that, for some reason, adults are the hardest hit with COVID-19,” he said. “And while that may be true proportionally, children also suffer severe consequences, sometimes deaths, even long COVID.”
He added, “Giving our kids that baseline protection through vaccines is incredibly important … especially as we head into the fall.”
Florida is the only state in the U.S. that didn’t preorder any COVID-19 vaccines for young children, federal officials told ABC News last month.
“The Florida Department of Health has made it clear to the federal government that states do not need to be involved in the convoluted vaccine distribution process, especially when the federal government has a track record of developing inconsistent and unsustainable COVID-19 policies,” a spokesperson for the department told ABC News in a statement.
Brownstein said he fears this will lead to disadvantaged groups that have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 also having disproportionate access to vaccines.
“When states are administering vaccines, they can optimize vaccination sites, making sure they’re available to lower income families, minority families,” he said. “In the absence of that, higher income families will always be able to find time off to get off work and find vaccines for their kids. Ultimately what will happen is a lack of vaccine equity.”
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
(HOUSTON) — A Houston woman says the secret to her success in losing over 200 pounds was simply walking.
Shenisha Armealine, 27, said she began walking in 2017, while at her heaviest weight of over 400 pounds.
At the time, Armealine said she was not only at her heaviest weight, she had also just survived Hurricane Harvey, which swept through Houston in August 2017, leaving a trail of devastation in its path.
“I lost everything I owned,” Armealine told “Good Morning America.” “My mental health was not really well, and I just I started walking.”
Armealine said she started small by committing to walking 15 minutes every day.
Slowly, Armealine said her daily commitment developed into a habit and then into a lifestyle.
She added jogging into her exercise routine and started to eat better too.
With those incremental changes — in addition to therapy, which she credits with helping her learn new coping skills — Armealine said she lost 218 pounds over five years.
“My life has a new perspective,” she said. “This is not just weight loss or weight gain. This is motivation.”
Armealine, now a college sophomore, shares her weight loss journey on Instagram and TikTok, where she inspires others.
“Once you realize who you are and you can love yourself, once you can believe in yourself and love who God created you to be the, the sky’s like literally the limit,” she said. “There is nothing you can’t do.”
