(NEW YORK) — When Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, takes stock of the coronavirus pandemic, she knows it’s far from over. But she also believes it won’t last forever.
For Walensky, one of the key signs the United States is exiting the pandemic will be when hospitals are no longer filled to the brim with COVID-19 patients. And when the number of daily deaths starts to plummet.
“We’ve gotten pretty cavalier about 1,100 deaths a day,” Walensky told ABC News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton in a rare in-person interview from CDC headquarters in Atlanta.
“That’s an extraordinary amount of deaths in a single day from this disease,” Walensky said. “We can’t — I can’t — be in a position where that is OK.”
For the nation’s public health experts, deaths and hospitalizations have become a more reliable benchmark for progress than overall cases.
The more scientists have learned about the virus, the more they have moved away from concept of herd immunity — the idea that the virus will one day be stopped in its tracks when enough people are immune.
Instead, scientists agree that some mild breakthrough cases are still likely to happen, even among the vaccinated. In a world where almost everyone was vaccinated, COVID-19 cases would still happen.
The virus would still spread among us, akin to the seasonal flu. And like the flu, some people would still be hospitalized, and some would die — but dramatically fewer than 1,100 deaths per day.
Right now, roughly 65% of eligible Americans are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. The more people who get vaccinated, the more deaths and hospitalizations are driven down.
The CDC’s real-world data is already demonstrating this to be true, with unvaccinated people 14 times more likely to die and 11 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19.
Despite the grim daily death count, Walensky said she believes that one day we’ll leave behind one of the key symbols of the pandemic: the face mask.
“Masks are for now, they’re not forever,” Walensky said. “We have to find a way to be done with them.”
And the best way to put the pandemic — and masks — in the rearview mirror is to “lean in” to the current strategies we know work, Walensky said.
And for now, Walensky is urging patience as public health guidance evolves to reflect new science.
“Science is hard in a two-minute soundbite,” she said. “Know that every single decision — as hard as they are — have been grounded in science.”
(ATLANTA) — With nearly 5 million children ages 5 to 11 now vaccinated against COVID-19, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky says real-world monitoring finds vaccines are safe for young children.
Crucially, the CDC hasn’t identified any concerns with the temporary heart inflammation known as myocarditis, a potential side effect of mRNA vaccines seen in rare circumstances in teenagers and young adults.
“We haven’t seen anything yet,” Walensky told ABC News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton in a rare in-person interview from CDC headquarters in Atlanta. “We have an incredibly robust vaccine safety system, and so if [problems] were there, we would find it.”
Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine was authorized for children 5 to 11 years old in early November. Despite robust safety data, fewer than 1 in 5 children in this age group has receive their first dose.
Meanwhile, about two-thirds of parents of elementary school children said they didn’t want to vaccinate their children or are holding off for now, according to a poll from the nonprofit KFF.
Walensky said that while new data is constantly emerging, one thing is clear: Vaccines are safe for young children.
“If you want your children fully vaccinated by the holidays, now is the time,” Walensky said.
In rare access, Ashton was invited inside the CDC’s Emergency Operation Center, where the agency monitors data for potential threats to human health.
Another worrying trend the CDC is monitoring is the alarmingly low vaccination rate among pregnant women, despite overwhelming evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are safe for mother and infant.
Less than 20% of pregnant people have received a vaccine during pregnancy, according to the CDC.
“I’m very concerned,” said Walensky. “When I hear about a pregnant woman in the community who is not vaccinated, I personally pick up the phone and talk to them.”
There is no evidence COVID-19 vaccines impact fertility, nor is there any scientific reason to believe they might harm fertility in the future.
Walensky said misinformation about the vaccine’s impact on fertility has been one of her most challenging battles during the pandemic.
“The vaccines are safe, they are effective and they are even more important in pregnant women,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — As COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations rise in Rhode Island, hospitals are strained by staffing shortages and testing turnaround times are delayed, Gov. Dan McKee is urging residents to “take these next six weeks seriously.”
The state has one of the highest COVID-19 infection rates in the country, as the Northeast, including Massachusetts and Connecticut, have seen a surge in cases during colder weather.
Nearly 85% of all Rhode Islanders have gotten at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to state data. That includes over 96% of adults. While breakthrough cases have steadily increased in recent weeks, the vast majority of new cases are in unvaccinated people, state data shows. Under 7% of all patients hospitalized for COVID-19 have been fully vaccinated, according to state data.
During a press briefing Thursday, Gov. McKee said the state is considering “all options,” including reinstating an indoor mask mandate, amid the increase in infections, while calling on residents to get vaccinated and receive booster shots.
It’s a message he repeated in a video addressed to Rhode Islanders Wednesday night.
“If we don’t take these next six weeks seriously, we risk all the progress that we’ve made together,” he said.
Officials expected an increase in cases as people gathered more indoors and after Thanksgiving, “but this is something that we need to watch,” he said.
“I want to be clear — all options remain on the table in terms of mitigation strategies, including reinstating an indoor mask,” the governor added.
We have the tools to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe this holiday season.
State leaders “strongly recommend” wearing a mask when in a crowded indoor public space.
Some hospitals and health leaders have voiced support of an indoor mask mandate, as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have reached their highest levels since January and February, respectively.
Hospitals statewide have also continued to see staffing shortages due to pandemic burnout, among other factors. McKee said Thursday he is exploring the idea of using FEMA and deploying the National Guard to provide support.
Cases in kids surge
The highest number of cases are in children ages 5 to 18, an age group that is also seeing its highest level of case rates since the pandemic started, the latest state data shows.
“We are seeing increases in COVID-19 cases among children,” the Rhode Island Department of Health said on Facebook this week, while encouraging parents to get their children vaccinated against COVID-19. “Between Halloween and Thanksgiving, the case rate among children age 5 to 9 has doubled, and it has tripled among children age 10 to 14.”
Dr. Allison Brindle, a general pediatrician at Hasbro Children’s Hospital primary care clinic and the president of the Rhode Island chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said she has also seen an increase in cases in the clinic since Halloween.
“We are seeing an uptick in cases in kids because everything is back,” Brindle told ABC News. “We have tools in our toolkit, though, with our two main tools being vaccinations and masking with distancing in order to prevent illness.”
Masks are currently required in the state’s schools under an executive order.
Children tend to have milder cases of COVID-19. Though hospitalization and death are uncommon, more data on the pandemic’s long-term impacts on children’s mental and physical health is needed, according to the AAP. There is also added stress on families when there is a positive case, Brindle said.
“If your child is home from school, then parents are out of work,” she said. “There’s less access to the distance learning strategies than were in place before.”
Addressing testing issues
In addition to masking and vaccination, staying home when sick and getting tested when you have symptoms will be key to limiting transmission, especially during the holidays, Brindle said.
Rhode Island has a “robust state infrastructure” for testing, especially for students, she noted. Though recently testing results have been delayed. Results of PCR tests taken at state-run sites are taking about 72 hours to process, instead of the usual 48-hour window, with some residents reporting even longer wait times.
McKee pointed to increased volume and prioritizing testing in school and nursing home outbreaks as causing delays for the general public.
The state’s health department is exploring additional laboratory capacity and using private labs to help with turnaround times, McKee said Thursday.
“The bottom line is this: Testing turnaround times must get back to where they used to be, and I’ve directed our team to make this a priority,” the governor said.
(NEW YORK) — COVID-19-related hospitalizations have been on an upward trend in New York state since last month, but there appears to be a drastic divide between the Big Apple and some of the state’s more rural areas, health data shows.
In New York City, the seven-day average of new COVID-19 hospitalizations per 100,000 people rose from 0.5 on Nov. 10 to 1.1 on Dec. 7, the New York State Department of Health said.
The story is different in several counties hundreds of miles north, where new COVID-19 hospitalizations are rising at a higher rate. In the Finger Lakes region, officials in several counties declared a state of emergency after the seven-day average of new COVID-19 hospitalizations per 100,000 people went from 2.9 on Nov. 10 to 4.9 on Dec. 7.
David Larsen, an associate professor of public health at Syracuse University, told ABC News that there are several factors behind this divide, but the most important one is the lower vaccination rates in certain counties upstate.
“At the end of the day, you’re more likely to get severe COVID-19 symptoms and go to the hospital if you’re not vaccinated,” Larsen said.
Health experts and state officials predict the situation upstate is only going to get worse during the holidays and colder months, but the tide can be turned if more people get their shots and heed health warnings.
As of Dec. 8, 74.9% of all New York state residents have at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, but those numbers vary by region, according to state health data.
New York City and Long Island had over 78% of their populations with at least one shot, the state data showed. Further north, the rates for at least one dose in the Mohawk Valley, the Finger Lakes and North Country sections were 60.6%, 68.5%, and 63% respectively.
There is even more division within the regions when it comes to vaccination, the data shows; for example, counties that are along the Interstate 87 corridor, such as Hamilton, Schenectady and Saratoga, all have rate of at least one dose above 75% of their populations.
Counties directly west of those locations, Schoharie, Fulton and Montgomery, have one-dose vaccination rates under 65%, the state data showed.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has repeatedly highlighted that the unvaccinated are the ones suffering and being hospitalized.
“It is a conscious decision not to be vaccinated. And the direct result is a higher rate of individuals in those regions upstate as well as it has a direct correlation to the number of hospitalizations,” she said during a Dec. 2 news conference.
Dr. Isaac Weisfuse, an adjunct professor of public health at Cornell University, told ABC News that there are fewer options for upstate residents to turn to for medical help and fewer hospitals in the area are handling patients from more locations.
Weisfuse, a former deputy health commissioner for New York City’s Health Department, noted that New York City residents have much closer access to amenities like free testing sites and medical clinics than their upstate counterparts.
“If you live in a rural county in New York state and it takes a while to get to a doctor, you may put it off. So when you do eventually go get care, you may be sicker versus someone who lives closer and gets a quicker diagnosis,” he said.
Larsen added that there has been pandemic fatigue across the country, and many Americans have scaled back on mitigation measures, especially mask-wearing indoors.
While New York City requires proof of vaccination for indoor activities, such as movie theaters and restaurants, there are no such rules in many upstate counties. As a result, some upstate residents have less of an incentive to get their shots, and are less cautious in indoor group settings, according to Larsen.
“We’re doing less mask wearing. What that does is it increases transmission, which is fine for the vaccinated people but it does go to the unvaccinated people and they are higher risk,” he said.
Weisfuse said the hospitalizations are likely to grow upstate and have ripple effects for those regions. The governor has ordered elective surgeries to be postponed at 32 hospitals upstate that have seen their available beds decrease.
State officials said they are beefing up their marketing efforts to encourage eligible New Yorkers to get their shots.
Weisfuse said this outreach needs to be done meticulously if upstate officials want to avoid more overcrowded emergency rooms this winter.
“The state needs to take a good look at the pockets of non-vaccination,” he said. “They need to make some targeted intervention in those neighborhoods.”
Anyone who needs help scheduling a free vaccine appointment can log onto vaccines.gov.
(NEW YORK) — Roughly two-thirds of parents of elementary school-aged children are either holding off on getting their younger children vaccinated or refuse to do so, according to a poll released Thursday by the nonprofit KFF.
Parents of teens are more willing to get their kids vaccinated, but only about half of that age group have gotten the shot so far, KFF found.
The new findings come despite increasing evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine is safe and that kids and teens are now helping to drive the pandemic.
According to a recent analysis by the Department of Health and Human Services, cases among kids under age 18 spiked 884% since last summer. It was the largest increase in cases among all age groups.
“Most of them haven’t had a chance to talk to their doctor about it yet, so I’m not surprised,” Liz Hamel, vice president of public opinion and survey research at KFF, said of elementary school parents who remain hesitant.
Hamel cautions that the poll was taken before news of the omicron variant, which could sway parents. But based on how the vaccine rollout has gone so far, Hamel predicts that the third of parents who flatly refuse the vaccine won’t budge even as time passes. That’s because the estimation of adults who don’t want the vaccine — about 12-16% — has remained steady for about a year.
But the other third of parents of elementary-aged children who say they want to “wait and see” to vaccinate their elementary school children will probably get their kids a shot with time.
“I do think it will take a longer time for parents to come around, but I think that that is the group that eventually will get their kids vaccinated,” Hamel said.
More than 5 million children ages 5 to 11 have received at least one shot of the Pfizer vaccine since it became widely available to the public on Nov. 2, following a clinical trial involving 3,100 kids that found no safety concerns.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which tracks vaccine safety, says it hasn’t seen any signs yet that the vaccine has caused serious side effects in that age group, including the myocarditis seen in a small group of older teens and young adults.
Immunization experts say that if serious side effects do occur, they would happen as soon as the immune system is triggered — no later than two months of receiving a shot.
“Data take time to look at and collect. But so far, really there have been no signals” of safety concerns, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told ABC News Wednesday.
“We have nearly 5 million children. I would say … if you want your children fully vaccinated by the holidays, now is the time,” she later added.
Still, many parents aren’t scheduling appointments just yet. While 5 million kids have gotten at least one shot, an estimated 28 million children ages 5 to 11 are eligible.
Vaccine hesitancy appears to be partisan, according to KFF. Nearly half of Republican parents of kids ages 5 to 11 plan to refuse the vaccine for their young children, compared with 7% of Democratic parents.
“Groups of parents who are less likely to say they have a vaccinated child — including younger parents, those without college degrees, and Republicans — are more likely to say they don’t have enough information,” according to the study.
(NEW YORK) — Oncologists have been warning about dangerous gaps in cancer care since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, a nationwide study based on data from Veterans Affairs hospitals is raising new alarms.
Since March 2020, COVID-19 has caused a disruption in surgeries and treatments for patients with cancer. At different periods during the pandemic, some states have also required health care facilities to suspend elective procedures, many of which include cancer screenings, to preserve resources during COVID surges.
“This is an area of tremendous concern,” Dr. Norman “Ned” E. Sharpless, director of the National Cancer Institute, said in an interview in Cancer Prevention Research. “The pandemic has affected cancer screening in a dramatic way…a massive screening deficit over the last 12 months—millions of screening events have been missed,” Sharpless added.
Compared with yearly averages in 2018 and 2019 as a baseline, the number of completed colonoscopies dropped by 45%; proportions of prostate biopsies decreased by 29% ;and cystoscopies for diagnosing bladder cancer decreased by 21% in 2020, according to the study, published online on the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s site.
The study’s researchers estimated that new diagnoses for prostate, lung, colorectal and bladder cancers among the veterans whose data was analyzed also plummeted by 13%, in 2020.
The declines in cancer screening and diagnoses were already striking in the initial months of the pandemic as the country reeled from the first wave of COVID-19 infections. Screening for breast, colorectal and prostate cancers dropped sharply in April 2020, and estimates based on statistical models highlight that 3.9 million breast cancer, 3.8 million colorectal cancer, and 1.6 million prostate cancer diagnoses may have been missed due to pandemic disruptions in care across the overall U.S. population, according to data from JAMA Oncology.
“Like other cancer centers, we observed a distinct downturn in routine cancer screening at the beginning of the pandemic, which has only partially recovered,” Dr. Brian McIver, deputy physician in chief of the Moffitt Cancer Center told ABC News. As a result, some patients were later diagnosed with more advanced stages of cancers that proper screening protocols may have diagnosed earlier, according to McIver.
Calculating the number of missed cancer diagnoses and the proportion of additional patients at risk is difficult and requires additional time for data collection — an endeavor that national organizations, like the NCI, are actively pursuing and monitoring.
Of course, cancer screening tests, which are administered to asymptomatic people and are regularly used for early detection of some types of cancer, are not the only way to catch cancer diagnoses. Patients often learn of their illnesses after developing symptoms and going to their doctors.
But hospitals continue to face challenges in catching up and counteracting existing deficits in important routine cancer screening tests and imaging, numbers of which still have not yet rebounded to pre-pandemic baselines.
“It’s unlikely we have the infrastructure to fully catch up,” said Sharpless in his interview. The situation is further complicated by patients’ own reluctance to seek medical care in the middle of the pandemic.
“There are a lot of moving parts. You have to increase your [healthcare] capacity above the pre-pandemic baseline…[and] the healthcare system is frankly overwhelmed right now,” said Dr. Craig Bunnell, chief medical officer at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to ABC News. “[Then,] you have people who miss their screenings, [who may] continue to delay or skip [appointments] completely.”
“There’s no reason to believe that cancer incidence is decreased,” said Bunnell. Rather, cancers “are likely to be diagnosed at more advanced stages when the treatment options may be fewer.”
With the new omicron variant now spreading throughout the country and the potential for another surge of cases during the winter months, physicians urge patients to continue practicing safety measures and to keep their medical appointments if possible. “COVID-19 should not prevent any of us from receiving appropriate medical care, including relevant cancer screenings,” says McIver.
Adela Wu, a neurosurgery resident at Stanford Hospital, is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — Just as hope rose that this year’s holiday season would inch back to pre-pandemic normalcy, the omicron variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 entered the picture , raising questions for many people.
Cases of the omicron variant have been confirmed in more than a dozen states across the country.
It comes as, for the first time in two months, the United States is now averaging more than 100,000 new cases per day, according to federal data.
Here are four things to know to help plan ahead for holiday gatherings and travel.
1. Vaccines are the best protection against omicron.
While researchers are still learning more about the omicron variant, it appears so far that being vaccinated helps protect people from getting severely sick, according to Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
“My sense is you’ve gotten two shots or been previously infected [with COVID-19], you’ll probably end up having a much milder course,” he said. “[With] a booster, you’ll do even better.”
“If you have nothing, no vaccine, not previously infected, I’m not sure it will be a milder disease for you,” he said.
Similarly, a study released Wednesday by Pfizer-BioNTech found that being vaccinated with a booster furthers one’s protection against omicron.
The study, which was not peer-reviewed, found that omicron likely reduces efficacy of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine but does not render it ineffective and that a third dose offers even greater protection against the new variant.
2. Travel remains ‘pretty safe’ if vaccinated.
For people hoping to travel to see loved ones this holiday season, they should be sure to get vaccinated first, according to Jha.
“For most Americans, if you’re fully vaccinated, especially if you’re boosted, I think travel is pretty reasonable, pretty safe,” he said. “Obviously wear good masks on the airplane, all of the things that we say, but it’s still a pretty safe thing to do.”
3. COVID-19 testing should be used ahead of holiday gatherings.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday updated its guidance on COVID-19 testing and is advising people, even those who are vaccinated, to get a test before they head to an indoor gathering.
The agency said a rapid test ahead of a gathering is important if the gathering includes unvaccinated children and older people who are more vulnerable to COVID-19.
“Even if you don’t have symptoms and have not been exposed to an individual with COVID-19, using a self-test before gathering indoors with others can give you information about the risk of spreading the virus that causes COVID-19,” the CDC said in its guidance.
President Joe Biden announced a new plan last week for a winter coronavirus strategy that includes making at-home rapid tests free.
4. If you don’t know vaccination status at a gathering, wear a mask.
In cases of a small holiday gathering where you know everyone attending is fully vaccinated, it is safe to not wear a mask while celebrating indoors, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, White House chief medical adviser.
But if you are at a gathering where you do not know the vaccination statues of everyone attending, Fauci recommends protecting yourself and others by wearing a face mask.
“When you are in a public congregate setting in which you do not know the status of the vaccination of the people involved, it is very prudent to wear a mask, and that’s what I do,” he said at a Dec. 1 White House press briefing. “Sure, when you’re eating and when you’re drinking, take the mask down, but to the extent possible, keep it on when you’re in an indoor congregate setting.”
(HARTFORD, Conn.) — Connecticut has seen an “extremely concerning” rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations in recent weeks, health officials said, as the number of cases also continues to trend up.
The state health department reported at least 500 hospitalizations on both Monday and Tuesday, marking a roughly 80% increase in the past two weeks — and the highest numbers since April.
“To go from 300 hospitalizations to 500 hospitalizations in such a short period of time is extremely concerning,” Dr. Manisha Juthani, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Public Health, told ABC New Haven affiliate WTNH Tuesday.
Today’s COVID-19 update in Connecticut:
➡️23,047 tests were administered and 1,919 came back positive (8.33% rate)
➡️525 patients are currently hospitalized (increase of 25)
The state also reported an 8.3% COVID-19 test positivity rate Tuesday, up from 5.8% the day before, an increase that Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont called “distressing.” Though the governor said he is not so much concerned with the infection rate as he is hospitalizations.
“We have over 500 folks in the hospitals now, so that’s triple where we were a few weeks ago,” Lamont said on the Connecticut Public Radio show “Where We Live” Tuesday morning. “[It’s] one-quarter of where we were a year-and-a-half ago, but it still is reason to be cautious.”
The state’s COVID-19 test positivity rate, which is the highest it’s been in nearly a year, may be elevated due to the use of at-home tests, Juthani said. Negative tests may go unreported, leading to fewer tests overall being factored into the positivity rate. But there is still cause for concern, she said.
“What we can be explicitly clear about is that this is a concerning trajectory that we are headed on in terms of the number of cases we have in our state,” Juthani told WTNH.
The health commissioner attributed several reasons to the recent increase in transmission in Connecticut — and the region in general — including colder weather, waning immunity among vaccinated residents and indoor gatherings, including holiday celebrations.
“You put all of these factors together, and it is not surprising that we see a rise in cases,” she told WTNH. “This virus is equal opportunity, and this virus finds the unvaccinated, primarily, but we do know that breakthrough cases can happen also.”
Over 85% of the state’s population has gotten at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to federal data. The “overwhelming majority” of those who are getting infected are unvaccinated, Lamont said. More severe cases are also largely in those who are unvaccinated; of those currently hospitalized, over 76% are not fully vaccinated, according to state data.
“We need to focus on those that are not vaccinated,” Patrick Charmel, president and CEO of Griffin Hospital in New Haven County, told reporters Monday during a press event encouraging vaccination and boosters. “We need folks to go out and protect themselves, because they are protecting the community, but they’re also preserving our capacity to take care of sick people.”
Amid concerns about the new omicron variant, which has been detected in at least two Connecticut residents, Charmel said the predominant delta variant has been contributing to the current surge in hospitalizations in the state.
“What we are seeing right in, in the increase in hospitalizations over the last two weeks … that’s not because of omicron. That’s because of the delta variant that’s still with us,” he said.
Charmel said Monday that 91% of hospital beds in New Haven County were full, leaving 200 available. Influenza cases are also starting to add another “layer” of strain on hospitalizations in the region, and he urged people to get the flu vaccine as well.
“There isn’t the capacity to handle what could come if we don’t do the responsible thing,” Charmel said.
As cases have gone up in recent weeks, Lamont said he isn’t considering implementing any new COVID-19 health orders, such as a universal indoor mask mandate. Currently, only unvaccinated people in the state are required to wear masks while indoors in public spaces. The governor has urged people to avoid large crowds, be cautious and get vaccinated or boosted. He told reporters Tuesday that he is “hopeful” that residents will “continue to do the right thing.”
Juthani has also encouraged people to get their boosters to help reduce transmission. About a quarter of eligible residents have gotten their boosters so far, federal data shows.
“Do not let your guard down,” she said. “This virus is not done with us, even if we’re done with it.”
(NEW YORK) — The Biden administration on Tuesday issued a “nationwide call to action” on the maternal health crisis in the United States, which continues to have the highest rate of maternal mortality among developed nations, according to researchers.
Vice President Kamala Harris said in remarks at the White House’s first Maternal Health Day of Action that the call to action is being made to both the public and private sectors.
“This challenge is urgent, and it is important, and it will take all of us,” Harris said, kicking off a summit that convened lawmakers, Cabinet secretaries and celebrities, including Olympian Allyson Felix. “To put it simply, in the United States of America, in the 21st century, being pregnant and giving birth should not carry such great risk.”
“But the truth is, and this is a hard truth, women in our nation are dying before, during and after childbirth,” she said.
Harris announced Tuesday a new initiative in which hospitals across the country will be rated on the quality of their maternal health care and designated as “Birthing-Friendly” hospitals if they meet the criteria.
In addition, Harris said the administration has received pledges from more than 20 companies and nonprofits to invest more than $20 million in maternal health efforts in the U.S. and more than $150 million globally. The organizations supporting the effort range from Uber, Lyft and DoorDash to Pampers, CVS, the March of Dimes, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, according to the White House.
“They have pledged to invest in remote care monitors for rural communities, to invest in innovative care models for the postpartum period, to invest in education programs for maternal health providers and so much more,” she said.
The vice president, who introduced several pieces of legislation on maternal health during her time in the U.S. Senate, also touted the $3 billion investment in maternal health in the Build Back Better Act, which passed the House of Representatives in November but remains stalled in the Senate.
In addition to the $3 billion in funding, one maternal health provision in the legislation includes allowing states to establish “maternal health homes” to coordinate care for people before, during and after birth, according to the White House.
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, also announced Tuesday that the agency is releasing new guidance to help states implement a new option, available April 1, 2022, that will allow them to extend Medicaid postpartum coverage from the current 60 days after birth to 12 months.
“This postpartum period is a very crucial time, with more than half of pregnancy-related deaths taking place after birth,” Brooks-LaSure said. “That makes maintaining continuous Medicaid or CHIP [Children’s Health Insurance Program] coverage and ensuring people can access the care they need during the postpartum period a critical issue.”
Tuesday’s summit marks the administration’s latest effort to draw attention to the issue of maternal mortality. In April, President Joe Biden issued the first presidential proclamation for Black Maternal Health Week.
At that time, Harris led a roundtable discussion with women of color affected by the maternal mortality crisis.
Black and Native American women in the U.S. are two to three times more likely to die during childbirth or in the months after than white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Black women are also more likely than white, Asian or Latina women to die from pregnancy-related complications regardless of their education level or their income, data shows.
Pregnancy-related deaths are defined as the death of a woman during pregnancy or within a year of the end of pregnancy from pregnancy complications, a chain of events initiated by pregnancy or the aggravation of an unrelated condition by the physiological effects of pregnancy, according to the CDC.
One reason for the disparity is that more Black women of childbearing age have chronic diseases, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, which increases the risk of pregnancy-related complications like preeclampsia and possibly the need for emergency C-sections, according to the CDC.
But there are socioeconomic circumstances and structural inequities that put Black women at greater risk for those chronic conditions, data shows, and Black women often have inadequate access to care throughout pregnancy, which can further complicate their conditions, according to a 2013 study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
In her remarks, Harris called the “systemic inequities” that affect pregnant people of color a “matter of life and death.”
She also drew attention to how the issue of maternal mortality affects people who live in rural areas with limited access to care, saying they are 60% more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications.
“Regardless of income level, regardless of education level, Black women, Native women, women who live in rural areas are more likely to die or be left scared or scarred from an experience that should be safe and should be a joyful one,” Harris said. “And we know a primary reason why this is true, systemic inequities, those differences in how people are treated based on who they are and they create significant disparities in our health care system.”
Last December, in the final weeks of the Trump administration, the Department of Health and Human Services launched an action plan to combat the high rates of pregnancy-related complications and deaths.
The plan set out three key targets aimed at improving maternal health by 2025: reducing maternal mortality rate by 50%, reducing low-risk cesarean deliveries by 25% and controlling blood pressure in 80% of reproductive age women.
Also last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched the “Hear her” campaign with the goal of creating public awareness of the warning signs of pregnancy emergencies.
(ATLANTA) — With the omicron variant now detected in at least 16 states in the U.S., Centers for Disease Control Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the agency is “following them closely” and that the number is “likely to rise.”
Walensky told This Week co-anchor Martha Raddatz that the CDC is still uncertain how transmissible the new variant is and how effective approved COVID-19 vaccines will work against it.
“We know it has many mutations, more mutations than prior variants,” she said. “Many of those mutations have been associated with more transmissible variants, with evasion of some of our therapeutics, and potentially evasion of some of our immunity, and that’s what we’re watching really carefully.”
The main concern right now, according to Walensky, is the dominant delta variant in the U.S. and the thousands of cases being diagnosed each day.
“We have about 90 to 100,000 cases a day right now in the United States, and 99.9% of them are the delta variant,” she said.
But South African studies have so far shown that omicron is about twice as transmissible as delta, and when pressed by Raddatz on what that means for the next six months in the U.S., Walensky said it depends on how the public mobilizes together.
“We know from a vaccine standpoint that the more mutations a single variant has, the more immunity you really need to have in order to combat that variant, which is why right now we’re really pushing to get more people vaccinated and more people boosted to really boost that immunity in every single individual,” Walensky said.
She said the CDC is “hopeful” that current vaccines will work to at least prevent severe disease and keep people out of the hospital.
Moderna is currently working on an omicron-specific booster should it be needed and Stephen Hoge, president of Moderna, said it could be ready early next year.
In an exclusive interview with Raddatz last week, Hoge said that a new variant-specific vaccine would be needed if the level of efficacy dropped below 50%.
Efficacy is a “really interesting, important question, but efficacy is sort of in itself on a spectrum,” Walensky said.
“Is it efficacy of preventing disease entirely? Preventing infection entirely, even if it just leads to a runny nose? Or is it efficacy of making sure people stay out of the hospital and prevent death?” Walensky questioned. “Certainly, we want to do the latter, absolutely first. And we’d really like to do the former as well.”
Walensky also said that the Food and Drug Administration is already in “conversations” with vaccine makers to streamline the authorization process of an omicron-specific booster and that the CDC would be moving “swiftly” after that approval.
When Raddatz asked how the U.S. can help to get even more shots into arms around the world and whether the omicron variant would have even appeared if more people in South Africa were vaccinated, Walensky touted U.S. donation efforts.
The Biden administration has pledged to donate more than 1 billion vaccine doses. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, as of Dec. 5, over 237 million doses have been delivered, 45 million have been shipped, leaving nearly 817 million pledged doses yet to be distributed. The White House has pledged to deliver 200 million more doses in the next 100 days to countries in need.
“We’re not only donating the vaccines for free and providing more vaccines to the globe than any — than every other country combined, but we at CDC work in 60 other countries providing on the ground assistance in vaccine safety and vaccine delivery and vaccine confidence, in vaccine effectiveness studies.”
Pressed by Raddatz if she fears a worst case scenario is possible with the omicron variant, Walensky said health experts are better situated to tackle the virus now than when it first appeared.
“We have so many more tools now than we did a year ago,” she said. “We know so many things that work against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, regardless of the variant that we’ve seen before.”
Walensky said getting immunity from the COVID-19 right now is “critically important” and continued to stress the importance of CDC regulations such as masking up in areas with high or substantial transmission.
The CDC director dismissed the idea of a nationwide mask mandate when Raddatz asked and said she’d “rather see people get vaccinated, boosted and follow our recommendations.”
“I’d rather not have requirements in order to do so,” she said. “People should do this for themselves.”
