Health

(NEW YORK) — One year ago, on Dec. 14, 2020, Sandra Lindsay, an intensive care nurse from Northwell Health, became the first American to roll up her sleeve and receive a COVID-19 vaccine, following the green light from federal authorities.

“That day, when that needle pierced my arm, all I felt was this huge boulder, this weight just roll off my shoulders. I’m always optimistic, but my light got even brighter that day,” Lindsay told ABC News.

Lindsay’s image rapidly circulated across the country, a symbolic representation of the light at the end of the tunnel after the pandemic had forced families apart, shuttered businesses and schools and confined millions of Americans to their homes.

“I just felt hopeful for myself, for the entire country, for the world — that yes, the day that we’ve waited so long for healing is coming,” Lindsay said.

The country’s unprecedented creation and rollout of the vaccine was once considered a nearly impossible feat, given that vaccine development is often a long and arduous process, requiring years of regulatory and manufacturing hurdles to be overcome before it can be made available to the general public.

However, leaning on years of prior research on vaccine technology and with support from the federal government, the process was expedited, allowing for emergency authorization of the shots less than a year after work began.

“When the vaccine first became available a year ago, it seemed miraculous that a vaccine could be developed, rigorously tested in large clinical trials and ready to go in less than a year after the virus was identified,” Dr. Stephen Morse, professor of epidemiology at Columbia University, told ABC News. “That’s an amazing accomplishment considering that we really didn’t have the infrastructure for a rapid national mass vaccination campaign when we started.”

Nevertheless, hundreds of millions of Americans are now inoculated — but tens of millions of others remain completely unvaccinated, an ongoing hurdle that experts say will likely result in the loss of tens of thousands of more lives.

Millions vaccinated but hundreds of thousands still lost to COVID-19

Nearly two years after the vaccine companies first raced to study the virus genome, around 600 million vaccine doses have been distributed and more than 200 million Americans — about 61% of the population — have been fully vaccinated.

“Overall, I think that the vaccine rollout has been a major success over the past year,” Dr. Cindy Prins, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Florida, said. “This took a lot of effort and flexibility, with public health professionals in different states tailoring the rollout to the needs of their own populations. … Looking back, I’m really in awe of what the U.S. has achieved in the past year.”

Pfizer, along with its partner BioNTech, was the first company to receive U.S. regulatory emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine. Reflecting on the one-year anniversary of the rollout, Pfizer CEO and Chairman Albert Bourla told ABC News he feels proud of what the company has accomplished over the last two years.

“I’m proud and proud for the people at Pfizer. I’m proud for everything that we’re able to do. They [made] the impossible possible, in the way that they manufactured, they brought the treatment, they brought the vaccine,” Bourla said, later adding, “We have the tools to control the situation and go back to our normal way of life.”

However, the road to vaccinate the country has not been easy.

Even with the Trump administration’s multi-billion dollar initiative, Operation Warp Speed, created to speed up the development, manufacturing and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, as well as a subsequent push from the Biden White House to acquire vaccines and get Americans vaccinated, there have been inconsistent ebbs and flows of interest in the shots.

Over the last year, an average 1.3 million shots — including first, second and third doses — have been administered every day. Comparatively, an average of more than 1,300 lives have been reported lost to the virus each day.

When the first COVID-19 vaccines were administered last December, many hoped the shots would herald a return to normalcy. However, even with vaccines, the U.S. continues to lose thousands of lives every week.

The one-year vaccine anniversary coincides with yet another pandemic sobering milestone: 800,000 Americans reported lost to the virus. Since the first shots went into arms a year ago, approximately half a million Americans have died of the virus.

Of those lost in the last year, just shy of half — 230,000 — have died since mid-April of 2021, when President Joe Biden announced that the vaccine was widely available to every American over the age of 18.

“Since the unvaccinated are most likely to get serious disease and end up in the hospital, vaccination is lifesaving,” Morse said. “This week, we will reach 800,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. At least a quarter of these deaths, and probably more, were preventable and didn’t have to happen if these people had been vaccinated.”

According to federal data compiled in September 2021, unvaccinated individuals had a 5.8 times greater risk of testing positive for COVID-19 and a 14 times greater risk of dying from it, as compared to vaccinated individuals.

Vaccine hesitancy an ongoing obstacle

Across the country, the issue of vaccine hesitancy remains an ongoing obstacle in the country’s fight against COVID-19.

About 93 million Americans remain completely unvaccinated, including 73 million Americans who are currently over the age of 5, and thus, eligible for a shot.

“I think we were unprepared for the ferocity of the negative response and how many were adamantly opposed,” Morse said.

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll released earlier this month, one in four adults remain unvaccinated, with about 14% saying they will “definitely not” get vaccinated. An additional 3% said they will only get the shot if they are required to do so for work, school or other activities.

In addition, despite the fact that all children above the age of 5 are now eligible to receive a shot, millions of youth remain unvaccinated.

About 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 another recent KFF poll, conducted before the discovery of omicron.

Coronavirus infections among children continue to surge, currently accounting for about a quarter of all new cases.

“The challenge with having so many people remain unvaccinated is that the virus will circulate most efficiently among those people,” Prins said.

Issues of access still a roadblock for many Americans

Minority communities in the U.S. have faced disproportionate hardships in the pandemic. According to federal data, adjusted for age and population, the likelihood of death because of COVID-19 for Black, Latino and Native American people is approximately two to three times that of white people.

Vaccination rates among Black and brown Americans have notably improved since the first months of the pandemic, though some groups are still lagging behind in the rollout.

Despite representing 12.4% of the U.S. population, Black Americans currently account for 10.1% of those fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

“It’s OK to have questions, but go to trusted sites,” Lindsay, who has become a vaccine advocate, said. “Everyone knows that we are scarred from historical events. But you’ve got to put that aside. So much has happened since all those terrible things. Safeguards have been put into place to ensure that these terrible experiments don’t happen again.”

Issues of access, particularly in minority communities, remain a significant hurdle for many to get vaccinated.

“The access issues still exist, and I think that they can be even more challenging now, because a lot of the mass vaccine clinic and mobile clinic efforts have given way to vaccines being distributed by pharmacies or doctors’ offices,” Prins said. “There are many neighborhoods in the U.S. where people don’t have access to a pharmacy or physician’s office and may not have good transportation to be able to get to one easily.”

According to an ABC News’ analysis of pharmacy locations across the country conducted earlier this year, there are 150 counties where there is no pharmacy, and nearly 4.8 million people live in a county where there’s only one pharmacy for every 10,000 residents or more.

“While it is important to celebrate the incredible science, engineering and public health expertise that went into designing and delivering so many vaccines this past year, we must also remember the lack of equity both nationally and internationally in who has been vaccinated,” said Samuel Scarpino, managing director of pathogen surveillance at the Rockefeller Foundation. “As we move forward, it is critical that we address the systemic barriers preventing more equitable delivery vaccines.”

‘Now is the time to take action’

Ultimately, experts concurred that the country’s vaccination efforts are far from over.

“If we had controlled the virus early on, we could have avoided this. More recently, if everyone had been vaccinated, we could have prevented many deaths and much suffering. Too late now, but still not too late to use the vaccine to soften the landing,” Morse said.

With the waning of immunity over time and the potential that the omicron variant could chip away at efficacy, experts are urging Americans to slow the rise of infections by getting vaccinated and boosted.

“The virus isn’t going anywhere,” Lindsay added. “Now is the time to take action, get informed and make the right decision for yourself and for your loved ones.”

ABC News’ Sony Salzman and Chris Donato contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Omicron can evade the protection initial vaccines give, but boosters increase efficacy and better protect against the newest variant of concern, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday.

The variant can also evade protections provided by monoclonal antibodies and convalescent plasma, the White House chief medical adviser told ABC This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos. “If you want to be optimally protected, absolutely get a booster,” he said.

Omicron has a high degree of transmissibility, which Fauci said is easy to see as the delta and omicron variants compete for dominance. With less than 140 omicron cases confirmed in the United States so far, delta is still driving the pandemic. The U.S. is currently averaging more than 118,000 new cases a day — an increase of more than 42% in the last two weeks — and hospitalizations are also on the rise; in the last month, COVID-related admissions are up nearly 50%.

Fauci said there are 60 million eligible Americans who are not yet vaccinated and about 100 million who are eligible for boosters. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Protection, 60.7% of the entire U.S. population is fully vaccinated, and around 26% of fully vaccinated individuals — more than 50 million — have received a booster shot.

The omicron variant was discovered in southern Africa last month and has been deemed a “variant of concern” by experts. Early anecdotal data has shown that most who contract the new variant experience mild illness, but the main consensus among experts is that it’s too early to tell what the long term impacts will be.

“The level of severity appears to be maybe a bit less than delta. But there are a lot of confounding issues there,” Fauci told Stephanopoulos. “It may be due to the underlying protection in the community due to prior infections, but these are just preliminary data that we’re going to have to just follow carefully to get them confirmed.”

With omicron’s transmission advantage and protection evasion, Stephanopoulos pressed Fauci on whether a three-shot vaccine regimen will become the standard of care. But while the official requirements remain two doses of an mRNA vaccine and one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, Fauci said if individuals “want to be optimally protected, (they should) absolutely get a booster.”

Stephanopoulos noted the World Health Organization has said boosters will exacerbate global vaccine distribution inequities and has asked richer countries to hold off on boosters. The organization’s concern is that some people are getting multiple doses, when those in other countries have yet to receive their first shot.

“That’s an understandable concern, but it isn’t really that valid if you do both,” Fauci responded. “We are, right now, vaccinating our own country, we’re going to be boosting as many people as we possibly can. But you can also simultaneously make doses available to the developing world.”

According to Fauci, the U.S. has given “over 300 million doses to over 100 countries.” The U.S. has pledged to give upward of “1.1 billion doses” and have given more assistance “than all of the other countries combined.”

After nearly two years of lockdowns, masking and consistent news about the longevity of the pandemic — Fauci said yearly boosters are a possibility — some people are experiencing “pandemic fatigue.” Touching on that, Stephanopoulos asked Fauci what signs of hope he sees for this holiday season.

“Well, we have the tools to protect ourselves,” Fauci said. With the vaccines, “We can go a long way to getting us through this cold winter season, which clearly is always associated with a spike in respiratory illnesses.”

There’s also fatigue — and protests — regarding masks, something Fauci hinted toward when talking about tools to stay safe.

“Masking is not going to be forever, but it can get us out of the very difficult situation we’re in now,” Fauci added.

Low vaccination rates in young children may be contributing to the difficult situation. Stephanopoulos noted less than one in five eligible children have been vaccinated so far.

Speaking directly to parents, Fauci said, “If your child is 5 years of age and older, please get them vaccinated. We need to protect the children. This idea that children are not vulnerable at all is not so.”

While children who contract COVID-19 don’t typically experience severe symptoms, “over 2 million children from 5 to 11 have been infected,” Fauci said. “There have been over 8,000 to 9,000 hospitalizations and well over 100 deaths.”

“So it’s not only good for the health of the child, but also to prevent the spread in the community,” he said.

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(NEW YORK) — Since the first case of the new Omicron variant was detected last month, early anecdotal reports indicate people infected seem to be experiencing mild illness — leading some scientists to wonder if this version of the virus could be less dangerous than prior variants.

But scientists have cautioned it’s too soon to know for sure.

It “looks less severe in really early data,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told ABC News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton in an interview from CDC headquarters in Atlanta. “We’re certainly following and very interested in disease severity.”

Omicron was dubbed a “variant of concern” due to its many mutations. As a result, scientists are scrambling to determine if these changes lead to increased transmissibility or weakened response from vaccines. The World Health Organization said several studies are underway and that more information will emerge in the following days to weeks. Preliminary studies show that the Pfizer vaccine may be less effective against the Omicron variant, but, again, more research is needed.

Early clinical data from researchers in South Africa hint that the virus may cause less severe COVID-19 infections. The South African Medical Research Council has reported that very few hospitalized patients with the Omicron variant have required supplemental oxygen or were admitted to an ICU.

Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and professor with the Department of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, said that preliminary results are “very encouraging.”

The U.S reported its first Omicron case on Dec. 1 in California. Many subsequent cases in the U.S. have happened among younger, healthier and vaccinated people who already are less likely to become very sick from COVID-19. But there are still too few people with Omicron to draw meaningful conclusions about whether the variant itself causes a more mild illness, experts told ABC News.

With an increase in the number of cases, Brownstein said scientists “will be able to characterize the [variant] better.” This information will aid public health officials in establishing better guidelines and preventative measures.

If it turns out Omicron is more transmissible but less severe than other variants, some experts said that could bode well overall — perhaps signaling the virus will still circulate among people but become less life-threatening.

“I think Omicron may represent the first step in adaptation that you want to see, which is that it’s more contagious and less virulent,” said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease pediatrician.

Even with all eyes on the Omicron variant, experts are reminding the public that the Delta variant remains the predominant circulating strain in the United States, where it’s still responsible for more than 99% of cases. Among best practices for avoiding all variants, officials continue to recommend vaccinations, obtaining booster shots as soon as eligible and following mask-wearing guidelines.

Bernadette Baker M.D., a family medicine resident physician with Emory School of Medicine, is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit. Sony Salzman is the unit’s coordinating producer.

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(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.”

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(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.

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(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.

✅ Vaccinating
✅ Boosting
✅ Testing
✅ Masking

My message to Rhode Islanders: pic.twitter.com/oiPPaoHO0J

— Governor Dan McKee (@GovDanMcKee) December 8, 2021

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.

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(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.

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(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.

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(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.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also reports that screening tests for breast cancer fell by 87% and 84% for cervical cancer in April 2020.

“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.

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(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.”

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