(NEW YORK) — More than 100 million Americans have received their first COVID-19 vaccine booster dose, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Boosters first became available in August 2021 for immunocompromised Americans before federal officials gradually lowered the age requirement.
Since then, nearly half of those in the U.S. who are eligible — aged 12 and older — have received their first booster as well as two-thirds of people over the age of 65. As of April 18, an average of 85,000 Americans are receiving a booster dose every day, a nearly 9% increase from the 78,000 getting their first booster dose one month ago.
When broken down by state, Vermont has the highest percentage of fully vaccinated residents with a booster at 60.2% followed by Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maine and Michigan, respectively.
CDC data also shows 55 million Americans have received a booster dose from Pfizer-BioNTech and 43 million have received a Moderna booster. Only 1.5 million Americans have gotten a booster from Johnson & Johnson.
The new figures come as COVID-19 cases continue to rise in the U.S. Currently, the seven-day rolling average sits at 44,000 new infections — the highest number seen since March 3, according to the CDC.
Over the past few months, doctors have been stressing the importance of getting an additional shot, particularly as immunity from a primary vaccine series wanes and more infectious variants spread.
Additionally, Pfizer and Moderna have released data in the past showing efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines against infection declines after a few months, but a third dose boosts antibody levels.
About half of Americans eligible for a booster shot — approximately 91 million people — have yet to receive it, the CDC data shows.
“While vaccination milestones deserve celebration, our booster campaign has fallen far short of a success storm,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “Despite targeted public health messaging and wide availability of vaccines, getting to over half the eligible population boosted took many months to achieve.”
He added that experts predict new variants will emerge and without enough people boosted, it “enhances the risk of a significant surge that overwhelms our health systems.”
The CDC does not have data on how many Americans have received a second booster dose.
However, during a meeting last month of the CDC’s advisory committee, it was revealed that only about 4.3 million people over the age of 50 have received a second booster since they were authorized a few weeks ago.
(NEW YORK) — While top U.S. health officials are urging some Americans to get yet another coronavirus booster shot, local health departments across the country are grappling with a growing dilemma — how to address a declining demand for vaccines, while minimizing the waste of unused millions of doses currently in state stockpiles and at risk of expiring.
Since the emergency use authorization of the first COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. last winter, federal data shows that states received a staggering 720 million doses, and more than 570 million of those shots have been administered.
However, an ABC News analysis of state-provided data found that millions of those shots have not ended up in arms, largely due to a significant decline in the number of individuals willing to get vaccinated — with many vaccine doses now left unused in refrigerators or discarded in trash cans across the country.
ABC News contacted officials from health departments in all 50 states, and in analyzing state provided data, found that tens of millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses have either gone to waste, remain unused, or will expire in the coming weeks and months.
“It is a tremendous loss of opportunity for these vaccines to not make it into the shoulders of those who need them,” C. Buddy Creech, director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program and associate professor of pediatric infectious diseases, told ABC News. “Not only is it a financial loss for the purchaser of vaccines — the U.S. government — but also a significant health loss for those who are not yet protected from COVID and its complications.”
How some states are working to ensure shots don’t go unused
Although the total number of vaccines at risk of being wasted is not publicly accessible in every state, available data provides insight into some states’ efforts to ensure the shots do not go unused.
“We have worked with local public health to fill orders for vaccine from providers with existing inventory versus ordering new doses, and to redistribute vaccine with soon to expire dates to use up inventory within the state before we order more with longer expiration dates,” Lynn Sutfin, spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Health told ABC News. “Our field reps are moving vaccines across the state to help redistribute as needed to avoid wastage.”
In Michigan, about 1.7 million doses have been wasted since Dec. 2020, and more than 100,000 more doses are set to expire in the next two weeks.
Vaccine dose wastage can result from a variety of issues, including dropped vials and syringes; and improperly prepared, unused, or expiring vaccine doses, various officials reported.
“Most of the wasted or unused doses are reported because a provider punctures a multidose vial in order to give someone a vaccine but does not necessarily have enough people to give the remaining doses before the vial expires,” a representative for the State Joint Information Center in Colorado, where more than 619,000 doses have been unused, told ABC News. “This is aligned with CDC’s best practices that advise providers to not miss any opportunity to vaccinate every eligible person.”
In large states like California, where more than 70% of residents are fully vaccinated, nearly 3.6 million shots are sitting in the state’s stockpile, according to state data.
Similarly, in North Carolina, where 60% of residents have completed their primary vaccination series, 856,000 shots are currently available under state inventory, while 1.7 million shots have been wasted after the doses expired or were improperly opened.
Nearly 760,000 vaccine doses have been designated as non-viable, spoiled, or expired, officials in Oregon reported, but officials told ABC News that such totals are “not unexpected.”
“As demand for vaccines wanes, we expect there to be a similar drop in the number of doses vaccine providers request and, as a result, a decrease in the number of unused doses. Oregon will be left with excess inventory, but we believe that we have done everything we can to minimize waste,” a representative for the Oregon Health Authority told ABC News.
Many states ordered hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses in bulk in order to ensure they had enough shots to meet demand, but in many cases, the need turned out to not be as high as initially expected.
Although the total number of shots wasted in states was high, many state organizers stressed that the overall percentage of wasted doses was relatively low, in comparison to the number of shots provided to residents.
Officials said they continue to work to minimize wastage by controlling the amount of vaccine that is ordered and shipped to the state, and by redistributing vaccine when possible within the state.
55 million eligible Americans still without a shot
Last spring, millions of Americans flocked to COVID-19 vaccination clinics across the country to get their shots. In April of 2021, when every adult became eligible to get vaccinated, more than two million people were getting their first doses every day.
Overall, more than 220 million Americans have received a shot, representing about two-thirds of the U.S. population. Earlier this month, a new study from The Commonwealth Fund found that the U.S. COVID-19 vaccine program is now estimated to have prevented 2.2 million deaths, 17 million hospitalizations and 66.1 million additional infections through March 2022.
Now, a little less than a year later, with those most eager to get the shots now inoculated, vaccination rates have plummeted, federal data shows. A sizable group of more than 55 million eligible Americans remain unvaccinated against the virus.
“The pool of people that are unvaccinated is likely to remain unconvinced of the importance of vaccine-induced protection,” Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, said, adding that convincing those still hesitant to get the shot will be a difficult feat.
In recent weeks, following the introduction of a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose for some older and high-risk populations, there has been a slight uptick in the overall number of doses administered. However, the number of Americans initiating vaccination remains at a near record low of just over 50,000 Americans getting their first dose every day.
“Efforts including incentives, improved convenience, mandates and targeted public health messaging during a surge have all had various successes in increasing vaccination rates. It’s hard to imagine what might influence someone to change their stance especially with cases at low levels and restrictions being lifted,” Brownstein said.
Dr. Stephen Morse, an epidemiologist at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, described the waste of millions of COVID-19 doses in the U.S. as a “tragic combination of events.”
“The vaccine development was both one of the miraculous triumphs and one of the tragedies of the COVID response,” Morse told ABC News, further referencing a combination of factors to blame, including vaccine nationalism, in which wealthy countries, such as the U.S., pre-ordered large quantities of the shots, making less vaccine available for the rest of the world, and persistent issues with vaccine hesitancy.
“We naïvely underestimated the extent of vaccine hesitancy and resistance, some driven by what WHO called the ‘infodemic’ of misinformation and disinformation, which persists to this day,” Morse said.
Vaccine access and wastage a stark reminder of privilege
Some politicians and public health experts have raised concerns over the ethical implications of so many shots going to waste.
“The wastage of millions of doses is a stark reminder of the privilege we have had in accessing vaccines while the majority of the world had to wait months. Extraordinary resources and financial investment will ultimately go to waste,” Brownstein said.
Delaware Sen. Chris Coons warned last week that millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses, which were set to be shipped overseas, could expire, without proper funding from Congress.
“I was so disappointed that we, in Congress, could not come together and deliver critically needed global help to deliver the vaccines that we’ve already invented, developed and purchased, and to make sure that the nearly 3 billion people around the world who haven’t yet had a single vaccine dose get some protection against this pandemic,” Coons told CBS’ Face the Nation.
“We’ll negotiate what we have to in order to secure a chance to move forward and not waste the vital vaccines America has already purchased,” Coons added.
There may be additional ethical concerns about not donating enough shots to ensure that people can receive a full vaccination series.
“There are significant operational and potentially ethical issues around donating vaccines to other countries; is it ethical to donate the first dose when there is no guarantee of a second? What if the vaccine has not yet been approved in that country? Given how rigorously we regulate and authorize vaccines around the world, it is likely no surprise that the process of donating vaccines can become complicated very quickly,” Creech added.
Even if states wanted to donate their stockpiles to other countries in need, with so many doses left unused in the U.S., Brownstein explained that logistically, such donations would be near impossible.
“Once a vaccine ends up at a site, it is administered or thrown out. There is usually no third option of sending it to another site and even lower chance it could go to another state let alone another country,” Brownstein said. “These expired doses are a reminder of our challenged logistical platforms. While we optimized for distribution to vaccination sites, there was very little capacity to shift supply especially across jurisdictions.”
A continued concern for many health experts is vaccinating the rest of the globe, as they say the pandemic will never truly subside until vaccine-use is widespread and equitable.
“Assuming we won’t get immediate supply for most of the world, the best solution might be to retest and determine if we can legitimately extend shelf life,” Morse said, adding that he does not believe donating short-dated doses is realistic.
“We certainly should intensify efforts to provide vaccine now to those who, for some reason, haven’t yet been vaccinated and may now be willing to take it if vaccine is easily available,” Morse said. “Unfortunately, in the U.S., I fear we’ve reached diminishing returns by now. It would have been far better if everyone had gotten two doses early on, which might have slowed the virus down.”
(OTTOWA, Ontario) — Natalie Allport, a 28-year-old CrossFit athlete, stays in shape with an unlikely workout partner, her 84-year-old grandmother.
Allport, of Ottawa, Canada, said she started bringing her grandmother, Juanita Arteaga, to her workouts at a local CrossFit gym when Arteaga moved from Venezuela to Ottawa to be closer to family.
“I like to spend days with her, but my day-to-day is training,” Allport told Good Morning America. “She used to come with me to the gym and watch me weightlift and she’d cheer for me. She said she could see people look at me and see that I was strong, and she got interested.”
Artega began to take exercise classes designed for senior citizens, Allport said, but those classes were soon canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In response, Allport began working out with her grandmother every day via FaceTime.
“It stemmed from me wanting to spend more time with her, that I would get her to do workouts with me, and I knew this would help with her staying moving and her balance,” said Allport. “Especially during the pandemic … she was really stuck at home, she couldn’t do anything and I could see her mood really declining.”
Allport said because she loves to exercise, she saw exercising as a way to help, adding, “I thought the way I could help my family was to spend some time with her every single day through exercise.
For the past two years, Allport and Artega, have exercised together every weekday.
“It’s the same time so she always knows and can remember,” Allport said of their workouts. “She’s always excited when I call.”
Allport said she focuses on doing functional exercises with Artega, like lifting up and putting down weights so that she can pick things up off the floor, and increasing her grandmother’s mobility so she can get up and down off the floor.
“We can do the same workout. I can do squats with more weights and I can do a deadlift while she’s doing a variation, which I think is kind of cool,” said Allport. “She’ll see I’m doing squats fast and will try to beat me. She’s very competitive.”
The grandmother-granddaughter workouts typically last around 30 minutes, followed by 30 minutes on the stationary bike for Artega, according to Allport.
Over time, according to Allport, Artega’s ability to do the exercises has improved, as have some of the health conditions she faces. But Allport noted that not every workout is easy and fun for the duo.
“Some days are frustrating as I’m watching her struggle to do an exercise. It’s always tough to watch someone that we love age,” said Allport. “But we hold each other accountable.”
As pandemic restrictions have loosened, Allport and Artegay, who will turn 85 in May, are able to train together in person again.
“Through shared time together and love, you can really change mindsets,” said Allport. “She didn’t always believe that it’s normal for women to lift weights and be strong. Through spending time with me, she was able to open her mind to the possibilities.”
Explaining what she has learned from her grandmother, Allport added, “It’s not too late to change your mind and change your habits.”
L’Oreal Thompson Payton, left, speaks with Dr. Meggie Smith, a fertility specialist. – ABC News
(NEW YORK) — More than 6 million women of childbearing age in the United States have difficulty getting pregnant or staying pregnant, yet infertility, and specifically the emotional and physical pain that comes with it, is still a taboo topic, even among some women.
L’Oreal Thompson Payton, a 33-year-old from Chicago, said she never heard discussions about infertility and infertility treatments when she was growing up.
Even when Payton, a writer, found herself in her early 30s, married, unable to conceive and turning to in-vitro fertilization, she said she found few people talking honestly about the reality of what she calls “the messy middle” — that time between starting infertility treatments and, if it all goes according to plan, having a baby.
“IVF is a full-time job and it can wreck you physically, emotionally, mentally,” Payton told Good Morning America. “You’re just putting your body under a lot of physical stress and emotional stress as well, because you’re doing this with the hope that you’re going to get the result and the outcome that you want, and as we’ve learned firsthand, that’s not always the case.”
As a Black woman, Payton said she felt a particular stigma around help with getting pregnant, and then opening up about the toll it took on her body. Black women who have never given birth are almost twice as likely than white women to self-report infertility, but they seek medical help for it half as much, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Infertility is defined as the inability to become pregnant after one year of having regular sexual intercourse without the use of birth control, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The time span is shortened to six months without becoming pregnant for women age 35 and older.
“Because of the shame and stigma surrounding [infertility], you don’t hear a lot about it,” said Payton. “And so it does sort of put the onus on the person going through it to share with their network this is what’s happening, and this is what I need, and that requires a lot of vulnerability.”
‘Undergoing IVF is basically surrendering your body’
In IVF, the most well-known treatment for infertility, a woman’s eggs and a man’s sperm are combined in a laboratory to create an embryo, or embryos. The sperm may come from the woman’s partner or a donor.
Five to 10 days after the embryo is created, it is examined by an embryologist to determine its viability. If the embryo is viable, it is transferred into the woman’s uterus through her cervix.
And even before those steps, women have to undergo ultrasounds and blood work and take injectable and oral medications to stimulate the ovaries.
That is the “messy middle” that Payton said she was unprepared for, especially the side effects that took a toll on her body.
“Undergoing IVF is basically surrendering your body to the medication, to the doctors, to the appointments and the protocol,” she said. “You are no longer in control.”
Payton said she experienced scars, bruising and bloating while taking the daily hormone injections, describing it all as an “ugly process.”
“When we were going through our first egg retrieval, I felt super bloated and heavy, like my pants weren’t fitting and leggings were my best friends,” she said. “The symptoms are very similar to pregnancy, and also similar to PMS, so it can really mess with you. Things are sensitive and your hormones are out of whack.”
When undergoing IVF, a woman’s ovaries grow from the size of approximately a walnut to the size of an orange, according to Dr. Meggie Smith, a Nashville, Tennessee-based fertility specialist.
“The injection medications that we give [women] are trying to get at all the eggs that are available that month to grow,” said Smith. “So your ovary, which is normally pretty small, gets much bigger than it normally would be, and your estrogen, which is a hormone, goes so much higher than it normally would.”
“Estrogen causes us to retain water, so that’s one reason why you feel really bloated, and then the size of the ovaries is so much bigger than they normally are,” she said. “A lot of patients describe pelvic pressure feeling bloated and uncomfortable, and that’s why that’s happening.”
Taking multiple shots a day for several weeks, which happens during both the IVF and egg-freezing processes, is a common source of pain for women as well, according to Smith.
“A lot of women also talk about pain where they’ve been giving [the injections],” she said. “[There may be] bruising, depending on how easily you bruise.”
Smith noted that the physical pain women feel during infertility treatments can be made even more difficult by the fact that the pain is not something visible, like a broken arm, for example, or something that all women feel free to talk about.
“Infertility has been a taboo topic for so long,” she said. “Most people don’t view infertility as a disease.”
“There’s still a lot of shame, just because we all think that getting married and having children is something [women] are supposed to do. We’re supposed to bear children,” Smith added. “The idea that may not be a woman’s will at all times is kind of a relatively new concept, and the idea that being able to have children is not easy for everybody is also kind of a new concept that people are starting to wrap their heads around.”
The idea for women that their body is not easily doing what they believe it should be doing, getting pregnant, can also turn infertility into a hidden, emotional struggle for women.
“For so much of our lives, especially in our 20s, and maybe even our 30s, we’re trying to not get pregnant, and then when we flip the switch, it’s a lot harder, I think, than people realize,” said Smith. “I think a lot of time women don’t realize this as a disease, and they think it’s something they’re doing wrong, and for that reason, they don’t want to talk about it as much.”
Infertility is associated with high rates of “clinically significant symptoms of depression and anxiety, suicidal tendencies, and a strong conceptualization of grief,” according to the World Health Organization.
“Therapy has been such a help as well with the mental and emotional side of it,” Payton said of how she’s coped with her still ongoing infertility journey. “I don’t know what I would do without it.”
Smith said she also encourages her patients to speak with therapists and even, more specifically, reproductive psychiatrists and psychologists, as they go through infertility treatments.
“There are so many highs and so many lows and it can even happen within the same day, so it’s a huge emotional roller coaster,” said Smith. “I often say it’s a little bit of a depression induction, because there’s so many expectations that we have, that either are met or not met, and so you’re constantly having to readjust your own expectations to manage all the emotions that come along with trying to have a baby.”
Women who are looking into or undergoing infertility treatments should make sure they have a doctor they feel comfortable with and one with whom they can have open and honest conversations, according to Smith.
Those types of open and honest conversations — among doctors and patients, couples, friends, parents and children — are what will continue to knock down the stigma around infertility, noted Smith.
“I think people such as yourself, who are talking so openly about their stories is one big way that we’re going to do this,” Smith said to Payton, who writes about her infertility journey on her blog and on social media. “The more women hear about other women struggling to have a baby, I think it will open up more conversations where more people feel comfortable sharing.”
“The more we talk about [infertility], that can make a huge difference in normalizing what is so common,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, called the recent ruling by a Florida judge striking down the federal mask mandate on mass transit “a real challenge.”
“This is not going to be the last of the need for public health measures we’ve taken for any crisis,” Osterholm told “This Week” Co-Anchor Martha Raddatz exclusively on Sunday. “And what could be the crisis of tomorrow?”
The Transportation Security Administration announced last week that the travel mask requirement will no longer be enforced by the agency since the mandate was struck down. But the Department of Justice is appealing the decision after the Center for Disease Control weighed in.
“On precedence, this case is very, very important,” Osterholm added. “I think the confusion around the mask mandate itself and how effective it is, is a secondary issue, but one that is still important, too.”
Raddatz followed up, asking Osterholm about telling The New York Times this week that public health messaging around masking has been “way off the mark.”
“Well, it is off. First of all, let me be really clear, I am very, very strongly in support of a respiratory protection,” he said. “Someone can do a great deal to protect themselves and protect others if they’re using an N95 respirator. But this virus is transferred by what we call aerosols. It’s very fine particles that float into the air. It’s like smoke. It’s like perfume. And you have to have a high-quality respiratory protection device to protect yourself.”
“I think that what we want to do is stop talking about masking and talking about effective respiratory protection,” Osterholm added.
“And how do you do that?” Raddatz asked.
“First of all, the U.S. public is done with the pandemic, even though the virus is not done with us,” Osterholm responded. “And we have to recognize that in public health.”
“So, what is it that we can do? Well, we have to have credibility,” he added. “And again, what has happened is this has become … really a philosophical and political issue, not a science issue.”
Despite his objections to cloth masks, Osterholm still strongly recommends the use of N95 respirators, “particularly if you’re an immune-compromised individual.”
“If everybody can do that, they would keep in on to the duration of a flight, not wear it underneath their nose, then that would be a very effective way to have a mandate,” Osterholm said.
Raddatz also asked about the pandemic as cases rise in most states.
“What is the true state of the pandemic right now?” she pressed.
“You know, Martha, every day is a brand new day with this pandemic, relative to the variants,” Osterholm said. “We know that we have strains that are much more infectious, so that, you know, you can’t come up with an answer today to say this is where we’re at because tomorrow, it could change.”
Despite rising caseloads, hospitalizations stemming from the virus are still at all-time lows nationwide, something Osterholm called “good news.”
“But I want to emphasize that could all change tomorrow, and that’s what the public is not willing to hear,” he added. “They want this to be over.”
(LONDON) — A rise in hepatitis cases among children is under investigation by experts.
Some recent reports from the U.S., U.K., and EU health organizations including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, show that some children between 11 months and 13 years old have been diagnosed with hepatitis.
The exact cause is still unknown, experts say.
Hepatitis is a characterized by liver inflammation and damage. It can sometimes be caused by a virus, but sometimes caused by other factors, such as toxins or medications.
Pediatric hepatitis cases were first reported in the U.K. with 10 cases report on April 5, according to the World Health Organization. However, WHO’s report from April 15 showed there were 108 cases across the U.K. in the following days.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., nine cases of acute hepatitis were in children between 1 and 6 years old in Alabama, according to the U.S. CDC. In a statement on April 21, the CDC asked clinicians to be on the lookout for symptoms and to report any suspected cases of hepatitis of unknown origin to their local and state health departments.
While mild hepatitis is common in children, “severe inflammation of the liver in these children is a big concern,” Graham Cooke, professor of infectious diseases at Imperial College London told ABC News.
According to WHO’s report, some cases required transfer to specialists and six children have undergone liver transplantation.
“Six patients requiring a liver transplantation in such a short period is a big number,” Cooke said.
Cooke said the child hepatitis cases are “distributed widely across the UK,. with a higher density in UK’s northwest.
“But there is no information whether the cases are linked or if the disease is a contagious one,” he added.
There is no indication the cases are linked to COVID-19 vaccines. In fact, “None of the currently confirmed cases in the UK has been vaccinated” against COVID-19, according to a UKHSA report.
Hepatitis is often caused by viral infections, most commonly hepatitis viruses. , But laboratory testing has excluded hepatitis virus types A, B, C and E in the U.K. children.
Regarding the preventive effect of hepatitis vaccination against the new acute hepatitis outbreak, Cooke said: “one can expect they [the recent hepatitis cases] are vaccinated against the common hepatitis,” he said, clarifying specifically against hepatitis type B. He said that the information on the hepatitis vaccination of the recent cases is not officially stated in the medical reports yet.
“However, there are different causes that may lead to liver inflammation. The cause of this specific outbreak is not of the ones known and it may some take time until the real case is discovered,” he added.
“Of the confirmed cases, 49 are in England, 13 are in Scotland and the remainder are in Wales and Northern Ireland,” the U.K. Health Security Agency wrote in its updated report on April 21.
“As of 11 April, no death has been reported among these cases and one epidemiologically linked case has been detected,” the report added.
International teams are working to investigate the matter, Cooke said.
According to the UKHSA report: ‘adenoviruses’ are one of several potential causes under investigation.
The UKHSA’s update on its investigation, including information from patient samples and surveillance systems, continues to point toward “a link to adenovirus infection.”
Adenoviruses are commonly spread through the respiratory route, from person to person, and by touching contaminated surfaces. UKHSA advises the most effective way to minimize the spread of adenoviruses is to practice good hand and respiratory hygiene and supervise thorough handwashing in younger children.
However, other possible causes are also being actively investigated, including COVID-19, other infections or environmental causes.
(NEW YORK) — Firearms surpassed car accidents as the No. 1 killer among children and teens, according to startling new data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Friday.
As firearm deaths for all Americans reached a new peak in 2020 — 45,222 — researchers said the numbers were particularly troubling among people under 19 years old.
Gun deaths in that age group saw a 29.5% jump from 2019 to 2020, which was more than twice as high as the relative increase in firearm deaths seen in the general population, according to the CDC.
For the last 21 years, gun deaths were second to motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of death among children and adolescents, however, the gap between the two categories has been narrowing since 2016, the CDC said.
The cause behind the surging gun deaths in America was largely due to firearm-related homicides, which saw a 33.4% increase in the crude rate from 2019 to 2020, the CDC said. Firearm-related suicides in the U.S. increased by 1.1% during that period, according to CDC data.
In a letter to the editor published in the New England Journal of Medicine Friday, CDC researchers couldn’t provide a reason for the increase in gun deaths, but stated “the new data are consistent with other evidence that firearm violence has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“It cannot be assumed that firearm-related mortality will later revert to pre-pandemic levels,” the researchers wrote.
The researchers called for more investments in organizations and programs aimed at curbing community violence.
“The increasing firearm-related mortality reflects a longer-term trend and shows that we continue to fail to protect our youth from a preventable cause of death shows that we continue to fail to protect our youth from a preventable cause of death,” they wrote.
Dr. Grace Cullen, an internal medicine resident at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit, contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that the public health agency is looking into a cluster of hepatitis cases among children.
According to a press release, the federal agency is studying nine hepatitis cases in Alabama “of unknown origin in children ranging in age from 1 to 6 years old, all of whom were previously healthy.” The children have also tested positive for adenovirus infection, which most commonly causes respiratory illness, but depending on the type, can cause gastrointestinal infection in children.
How significant is this national health alert?
The rise in hepatitis cases in the U.S. mirrors an increase in cases among youths in the U.K.
“It falls under the category of the fact that the CDC is actively engaged in non-COVID surveillance and this is a perfect example of that,” ABC News’ chief medical correspondent Dr. Jen Ashton told Good Morning America.
“Hepatitis — that umbrella term for inflammation of the liver — can be caused by viruses but it can also be caused by toxins, medications. [It’s] very unusual to see it in this pediatric population,” Ashton added.
Should parents be concerned?
Parents should be aware that there are cases where children are getting sick and if they notice symptoms or suspect a case of hepatitis or liver inflammation, they should consult their child’s pediatrician immediately.
“At this point, this is rare. It’s just something CDC is keeping an eye on,” Ashton said.
What causes hepatitis?
Hepatitis viruses are the most common cause of hepatitis in the world, including hepatitis A, B, and C, but they’ve been ruled out in the Alabama cluster. Researchers at the CDC suspect that the adenovirus infections may have caused the pediatric hepatitis cases and are still working to find out more information.
What are the symptoms of hepatitis?
Hepatitis symptoms include jaundice or yellowing of the skin and eyes, abdominal pain, nausea, or vomiting, dark-colored urine, or pale bowel movements.
What can parents do?
The CDC recommends that children receive vaccinations for hepatitis A and B. There is currently no vaccine available for hepatitis C.
(NEW YORK) — When a judge on Monday overruled the mask mandate on public transportation, parents with kids too young to be vaccinated felt renewed anxiety about the country moving too quickly toward pre-pandemic normalcy while they were still stuck in a pre-vaccine world.
But there is hope that parents will be able to vaccinate their kids under five years old soon — perhaps as early as June, according to top Biden administration officials.
Neither vaccine companies, Moderna or Pfizer, have fully submitted their data to the FDA yet, the FDA said on Thursday.
But Moderna, which has a two-dose vaccine for children under five, is expected to officially file a request for authorization with the Food and Drug Administration by the end of April, a spokesperson for the company confirmed.
And Pfizer, which has been conducting clinical trials on a three-dose vaccine for kids under five, is expected to have results by early May, which it will then turn over to the FDA. In a recent podcast interview, the company’s CEO said he expects an authorization sometime in June.
In the meantime, the Food and Drug Administration has already notified the members of its independent panel, which would review the vaccine data ahead of the authorization, to reserve time for a meeting as soon as June 1, according to a source familiar with the plans. However, the dates were flexible and could get pushed back.
The question, however, is whether regulators will authorize Moderna a few weeks ahead of Pfizer, or wait to authorize them at the same time — in June — in an effort to minimize confusion.
In an interview on Thursday with CNN+, White House medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci suggested that regulators will wait.
Fauci said that the purpose of authorizing both at once, rather than Moderna a few weeks ahead of Pfizer, would be to not “confuse people.”
“It’s going to be two separate companies, two products that are similar but not identical, particularly with regard to the dose,” he said, explaining that Moderna’s regimen for kids under five is two doses, while Pfizer’s is three doses.
“And what the FDA wants to do is to get it so that we don’t confuse people,” Fauci said.
Asked multiple times by CNN’s Kasie Hunt why parents couldn’t be expected to navigate having two options separately authorized around the same time, particularly for those who are eagerly waiting for a vaccine as soon as possible and would take whichever came first, Fauci said he couldn’t answer.
“I can’t really honestly answer that question because I don’t know the answer to that question. Because I don’t have all the data in front of me,” Fauci said, adding that the data before the FDA was confidential while it was under review.
Still, Fauci confirmed that Pfizer’s vaccine would likely be authorized in June, meaning the wait would only be a few weeks, at most.
It would be unusual for the FDA to make a decision based on expected vaccine uptake, though Dr. Peter Marks, the FDA’s vaccine chief, has said that it’s a priority to handle the authorization of vaccines for young kids with extensive care so parents trust the final product. In older age groups, like kids 5 to eleven, only around a quarter of kids have been vaccinated since it was authorized five months ago.
“We know that in this population, we have to do our job extremely well to … ensure that there is a very good evaluation of the safety and effectiveness, so that when we make our recommendation, people will trust that recommendation,” Marks said at a press conference last month.
On Thursday, the FDA said it would work with urgency to authorize vaccines for kids once the companies submit the data, while also “adhering to our rigorous standards for safety and effectiveness.”
The agency also said that lower case counts and hospitalizations since the omicron surge had no effect on the urgency of the process.
“It is inaccurate to say that minimal hospitalizations and death play a part in any timeline as one death of a young child is tragic,” FDA spokesperson Abby Capobianco said in a statement.
But questions remain about the potential for regulators to authorize both vaccines at once, which could mean parents have to wait a few weeks longer to vaccinate their young children.
Dr. Diego Hijano, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, cautioned against the FDA “overthinking” and trying to predict how people will take vaccine news.
When it comes to vaccine hesitancy, “most people have made their choice already,” said Hijano, who is also an investigator for the Pfizer vaccine trials.
“So the fact that we are still wondering how it will affect people’s confidence in the vaccine — people’s confidence in vaccine has not changed significantly over the last year,” Hijano said.
Instead, Hijano vouched for authorizing the Moderna vaccine as soon as its ready. Even if the vaccine is two shots now, he said he predicted that the Moderna shot, like the Pfizer vaccine, would eventually be a three-shot vaccine — as most vaccines now are with the addition of boosters — and they would be very similar.
“Today, there are no options,” Hijano said. “And the Moderna vaccine data, it’s really good. So why wouldn’t you offer that to parents that want something to protect their kids?”
But Hijano also stressed that the timeline for kids under five getting vaccinated has been unpredictable. To help with anxiety, he’s moved away from focusing on dates and advises parents to try to find ways to feel normal in the meantime.
“I think at this point, parents should just sit back and say the vaccine will be ready when it’s ready. We cannot plan around when the vaccine is going to be ready,” Hijano said.
“So the way we have been approaching this with parents is, ‘Okay, let’s just take a step back and say, what are the things we can do to protect kids under five? And when the vaccine becomes available, then you vaccinate them.’ But at this point, that’s very uncertain,” he said.
(AUGUSTA, Maine) — A Maine resident has died from a rare but potentially dangerous tick-borne illness, health officials said.
The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday it has confirmed a fatal case of Powassan virus, an illness spread by the bite of infected deer (aka black-legged) or woodchuck (aka groundhog) ticks.
The person, a resident of Waldo County in south-central Maine, developed neurologic symptoms and died in the hospital, according to the Maine CDC. The person likely became infected in Maine, health officials said. No further details on the case were provided.
“Ticks are active and looking for a host to bite right now,” Nirav D. Shah, director of the Maine CDC, warned residents in a statement. “I urge Maine people and visitors to take steps that prevent tick bites.”
Cases of Powassan virus are very rare, with about 25 reported each year in the U.S. since 2015, according to the Maine CDC. Since 2010, Maine has identified 14 cases, the agency said.
Though rare, the number of reported cases of people sick from the virus has increased in recent years, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most cases occur in the Northeast and Great Lakes regions from late spring through mid-fall, it said.
Many people infected with Powassan virus do not get sick, according to the Maine CDC. Symptoms can start one week to one month after the bite and can include fever, headache, vomiting, weakness, confusion, loss of coordination, memory loss, slurred speech or seizures. The virus can also cause serious neurologic problems, like brain inflammation, known as encephalitis, which can be deadly.
There is no vaccine to prevent Powassan or medicine to treat the disease. The best protection against any tick-borne disease is to prevent tick bites in the first place.
Health officials advise avoiding tick habitats — wooded and bushy areas with tall grass — whenever possible and to stay in the middle of trails when hiking. People can further protect themselves with EPA-approved repellants on skin and clothing.
During tick season, people should perform tick checks on themselves every day, especially after leaving a tick habitat and upon returning home. They should also check their clothing, gear and pets for ticks.
