(NEW YORK) — A North Carolina school board voted Monday to make masks optional for students and staff indoors, even as 430 students are under quarantine.
The Harnett County School Board voted 4 to 1 for the optional mask policy Monday and it takes effect Tuesday.
Prior to Tuesday, masks were mandatory in the school district, which has more than 19,600 students.
The board also voted to pass an amended quarantine policy allowing students exposed to COVID-19 who haven’t tested positive to return after seven days instead of 10 days. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that those who are unvaccinated should quarantine at home for 14 days after exposure. However, 10-day or seven-day quarantines are acceptable if combined with testing and a negative test result.
According to the school district’s COVID-19 dashboard, as of Monday there are 53 positive virus cases among students and 13 among staff. Further, seven staff and 430 students are currently under quarantine.
The school district has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
Mask mandates in schools have been an ongoing heated debate as more than 48 million children under the age of 12 are still ineligible to be vaccinated.
Pediatrician Dr. Lori Langdon spoke at the boarding meeting, saying: “Your students are my patients. I want you to remember that not all students in Harnett County are healthy … Some of them live in homes with immunocompromised parents and grandparents.”
“Our concern is that if we don’t have a mask mandate, we’re just going to be on the countdown back to virtual school and that’s not what any of us want,” she added. “My mask protects you and your mask protects me from you.”
Local residents shared their opinions both for and against the mask during the virtual meeting Monday night.
Parent Gina Carucci said during the meeting, “Obviously this is very political. Masks and virus has nothing to do with the virus, it has to do with complying with the government.”
“You’re taking away their freedom of speech, their freedom to talk to their friends, their freedom to show their smiles,” she said. “These children … it should be their choice.”
Board member Vivian Bennett was the lone member to vote against making masks optional.
“I think the best interest for the people of this county is for there to be masks,” she said before the vote. “My neighbor died, and her sister is taking care of her daughter. She says that she wears a mask every minute, even sleeps in one … I could never vote to think that I might hurt some of the people that I know and don’t know in this county.”
The move by Harnett County Schools comes as a slew of other school districts have imposed mask requirements for students and staff, at times in defiance of state -level bans on mask mandates.
Vaccinations for students will likely be the next frontier of debates. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday a state requirement for COVID-19 vaccines for all school children between 12 to 17 once the U.S. Food and Drug Administration grants full approval of the vaccine for that age group.
(NEW YORK) — The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine remains 90% effective at reducing a person’s risk of hospitalization from the virus six months after it is administered, a new study has found. This is true even in the face of the delta variant as well as if the person has not received a booster shot.
Still, when it comes to preventing infections, the vaccine’s effectiveness wanes rapidly as time passes, the study found. After five months, it is just 47% effective at preventing infection.
In the study, funded by Pfizer, researchers assessed data from Kaiser Permanente and calculated the percentages of fully vaccinated patients who contracted COVID-19 on a monthly basis after vaccination. Data from roughly 3.4 million people was analyzed between December 2020 and August 2021.
The results of the study are in line with previously published data from Israel and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that looked at vaccine effectiveness over time, but the Pfizer-funded study is the first to consider how the delta variant may impact Pfizer vaccine effectiveness over time.
“The effectiveness of the vaccine against the delta and non-delta variants remained high during the study, suggesting that the vaccines worked well even when a variant was present,” Dr. Simone Wildes, an infectious disease specialist and ABC News contributor, said.
The delta variant was virtually non-existent in the United States when mass vaccinations began in the winter, but it now comprises more than 99% of all coronavirus cases in the country.
Vaccines might be less effective for older adults and people with underlying medication conditions, the study found.
The new data is particularly timely given that the Food and Drug Administration and the CDC recently authorized Pfizer vaccine booster shots in people who fall into certain risk categories — many of whom are over six months past their first dose.
“Our findings support policymakers who continue to monitor vaccine effectiveness over time,” Sara Y. Tartof, PhD, MPH, an infectious disease epidemiologist with the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation, and a lead author on the study, said. “Given the observed waning, it will be vital for policymakers to assess whether recommendations for booster doses may be warranted … to help control heightened transmission of delta, especially as we enter the upcoming fall/winter viral respiratory season.”
The study followed patients for nearly half a year, but experts still don’t know if Pfizer vaccine effectiveness continues to decrease over time or plateaus. It is also unclear what happens to vaccine effectiveness after the third shot or how factors such as adherence to mask mandates and social distancing measures could impact the data.
(NEW YORK) — Northwell Health, the largest hospital system in New York state, announced Monday that all of its employees have been vaccinated against the coronavirus.
The move comes just one week after the state issued a vaccine mandate for all health workers.
Northwell Health representatives said in a statement that all of the company’s 76,000 employees, from 23 hospitals and more than 830 outpatient facilities, have received their shots.
“Northwell believes that having a fully vaccinated workforce is an important measure in our duty to protect the health and safety of our staff, our patients and the communities we serve,” the company said in a statement.
A spokesman for the hospital system told ABC News that 1,400 employees were laid off because they did not comply with the mandate.
“Northwell regrets losing any employee under such circumstances, but as health care professionals and members of the largest health care provider in the state, we understand our unique responsibility to protect the health of our patients and each other,” the hospital said. “We owe it to our staff, our patients and the communities we serve to be 100% vaccinated against COVID-19.”
As the deadline for the mandate approached, Gov. Kathy Hochul said that thousands of unvaccinated health care workers got their doses. No hospital in the state was forced to close its doors following the termination of employees who didn’t comply with the mandate.
New York hospitals were the epicenter of the pandemic during the spring of 2020, with bed space scarce in several locations in New York City. Hospital admissions peaked 18,825 on April 12, 2020, according to the New York State Health Department.
Hospitalization rates in the state have seen a jump since the summer, when they hit a low of 349 on July 13, state health data showed. As of Oct. 2, 2,151 people are hospitalized throughout the state, most of whom are unvaccinated patients, according to state health officials.
As of Oct. 4, 71.9% of all New York residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
(NEW YORK) — Stanley Tucci is opening up about how his cancer battle three years ago affected his ability to enjoy one of his greatest passions — food.
The 60-year-old actor, who previously revealed he was diagnosed with a tumor at the base of his tongue three years ago, opened up about undergoing chemotherapy and radiation in a new interview with The New York Times.
Noting that he developed ulcers in his mouth in addition to losing his appetite, Tucci said food began to taste like “wet cardboard slathered with someone’s excrement.”
The “Devil Wears Prada star” admitted one of his fears during his fight with cancer was losing his ability to taste, adding, “I mean, if you can’t eat and enjoy food, how are you going to enjoy everything else?”
The actor said he was shooting his show, “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy,” at the time and his ability to swallow was affected.
“It was hard because I could taste everything, but I couldn’t necessarily swallow,” he explained.
In order to eat steak Florentina, “I had to chew it for 10 minutes to get it down my throat,” he added.
To comfort himself, Tucci admitted to binge-watching cooking shows, which he said he found “weird because even the smell of food then would just make me want to throw up.”
But he said he would “live vicariously through them” so he could have the experience of enjoying food again.
Tucci previously said he is now in remission and his cancer is unlikely to return.
(WASHINGTON) — As the U.S. sees its first notable decline in COVID-19 metrics in more than three months, with coronavirus-related hospital admissions and average daily new cases dropping by more than 30% over the last month, Dr. Anthony Fauci says the country is making progress against the current surge, but warned we’re not out of the woods yet during an interview on ABC’s This Week.
“We certainly are turning the corner on this particular surge, Jon,” the nation’s top infectious disease expert told This Week co-anchor Jonathan Karl on Sunday. “But we have experienced over now close to 20 months surges that go up and then come down, and then go back up again. The way to keep it down, to make that turnaround continue to go down, is to do what we mentioned: Get people vaccinated.”
“When you have 70 million people in the country who are eligible to be vaccinated, who are not yet vaccinated, that’s the danger zone right there,” he added. “So it’s within our capability to make sure that that turnaround that we’re seeing — that very favorable and optimistic turnaround — continues to go down and doesn’t do what we’ve seen multiple times before, where it goes down and then it comes back up.”
Despite the positive signs, the U.S. also marked a grim milestone this week in the pandemic, surpassing 700,000 deaths from COVID-19 on Friday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
“This is the most formidable virus,” Fauci said, reflecting on the staggering death toll.
“There are certain elements about this that were just unavoidable, in the sense that there were going to be deaths, there were going to be a lot of infections globally, no matter what anyone did. But there were situations where we could have done better, and we can do better, and I think we’re living through that right now,” Fauci said, again pointing to eligible Americans who have not gotten vaccinated.
“When you say ‘Are some of those deaths avoidable?’ They certainly are. In fact, looking forward now, most of the deaths could be avoidable if we get people vaccinated,” he said.
One state taking action to increase vaccinations is California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a new requirement for all eligible students in the state to get vaccinated without a testing opt-out.
While some parents have expressed their outrage over the move, Fauci argued that the requirements are really nothing new.
“I have been and I still am in favor of these kinds of mandates. You can make some exceptions to them, but in general, people look at this like this is something novel and new, when in fact, throughout, you know, years and years, decades, we have made it a requirement for children to get into schools to get different types of vaccines — measles, mumps, rubella and others,” he said.
“So when people treat this as something novel and terrible — it isn’t. A requirement for children to come to school, to be vaccinated with certain vaccines, is not something new. It’s been around for a very long time,” Fauci continued.
While increasing vaccinations remain the priority for the Biden administration, Fauci also noted the positive preliminary results of a new antiviral drug from the pharmaceutical company Merck, which showed it could lower the risk for hospitalization or death for someone infected with COVID by 50%.
Fauci stressed the drug would “absolutely not” be a replacement for getting vaccinated but said the future implementation of the drug held a lot of promise.
“It’s a big deal, Jon, I mean you have now a small molecule drug that can be given orally,” he said, “and the results of the trial that we just announced yesterday and the day before, are really quite impressive.”
(NEW YORK) — The skin care ingredient retinol has been receiving a lot of attention lately, especially on social media apps like TikTok.
But what does retinol actually do and should you be using it?
According to the Journal of America Academy of Dermatology: “retinoids, chemicals that have vitamin A activity, have become important therapeutic agents for a variety of cutaneous disorders, including acne.”
Below, dermatologist Dr. Whitney Bowe answers five questions about retinol.
1. What is retinol?
“Retinol is an over-the-counter form of topical vitamin A. It is one of the most researched and effective skin care ingredients that you can use without getting a prescription.
In fact, retinol is considered by many dermatologists and experts in skin health to be the gold standard in terms of ingredients that deliver clinically evident results and lead to healthier skin.
Retinol can increase skin cell turnover, boost collagen production over time, regulate oil production, even out skin texture, and help brighten dark spots on the skin resulting in a more even skin tone. It can even help fight acne and brighten those dark marks left over after acne pimples go away (post inflammatory hyperpigmentation).”
2. Should you be using retinol?
“Anyone looking to smooth out wrinkles, smooth skin texture, minimize the appearance of pores, or brighten skin can use retinol.
I do not recommend that pregnant women, or women who are breastfeeding, use retinol.
I also advise my patients with eczema or rosacea flares to hold off on retinol until their skin is under better control. Then, they can reintroduce this ingredient, but slowly and carefully.”
3. How do you use retinol?
“I recommend what I call ‘skin care cycling,’ which means cycling on and off powerful but potentially irritating ingredients like retinol.
I usually recommend that my patients start using a pea-sized amount once every fourth night.
If their skin is tolerating it well after a few weeks (no stinging, burning, redness, flaking) then they can graduate to every third night.”
4. Is retinol a new ingredient?
“It’s definitely not new! It’s finally getting the attention it deserves, though.
People are more skin savvy than ever these days, and I believe that dermatologists like myself, taking a more active role on social media, is playing a large role in that evolution.
I’m personally blown away by the sophisticated questions I get about skin care ingredients on my TikTok and Instagram channels. My social media followers are incredibly informed, and demand science-backed, scientifically proven recommendations from me, which I love!”
5. What should you look for when purchasing retinol products?
“Studies, studies, studies. Reputable brands will take the time to put their final formulations to the test in clinical studies.
Just because an ingredient performs well in a test tube doesn’t mean it will translate into meaningful results on someone’s skin.
Furthermore, especially with retinol, it’s not just about that single ingredient or what percentage that ingredient is being used in the product. You must also look at studies done on the final formula. Results from the formula should be greater than the sum of its parts.
Retinol can be unstable, or irritating. However, when formulated by someone who really understands the ingredient and how it will ‘play’ with other ingredients in the cream, gel, or lotion, that’s when you can see beautiful results and minimize side effects.”
(NEW YORK) — When Sarah Smith experienced three miscarriages in less than two years, she suffered through each of them while at work.
“I didn’t ever feel like there was a space to talk about it with anybody,” Smith, now a mom of three, told “Good Morning America.” “It’s not listed like in your benefits, like if you suffer pregnancy loss, you can take time off, so nobody’s even talking about it.”
During one miscarriage, Smith, of Washington, D.C., remembers sitting at her desk in an open office, trying to pretend like nothing was wrong.
“I went through the day having meetings and talking to people while in excruciating pain, just waiting for the day to be over,” she said. “And every time I got up to go to the bathroom, I was petrified that there would be blood.”
During another, Smith said she sat at work while awaiting a scheduled dilation and curettage (D&C), a medical procedure performed to clear the uterine lining after a miscarriage, because she did not know how to talk about it with her employer.
Smith said the experience of suffering three miscarriages at work led her to change careers. She now works for the March of Dimes, a nonprofit organization focused on the health of moms and babies.
“You’re just in this place where you’re like, ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here,'” she said of her past experiences. “You just are kind of suffering in silence.”
When Hannah Crowder, of California, suffered her first miscarriage, she said she continued to work because she had no available time off.
“I remember going [to the doctor] at 9:30 in the morning, not hearing a heartbeat, knowing it was going to be a miscarriage and having to go back in to to teach my afternoon classes,” said Crowder, a teacher and now the mom of a 4-year-old daughter. “I ended up having to have a D&C, so that was a day of missed work and then had to go back to the work the next day.”
“I don’t think people who haven’t experienced loss understand how invasive it really is if you end up having to have a D&C,” she said. “I had to wake up the next day like, ‘OK, I have 12 fourth-graders I have to go teach about American history today,’ and just turn that switch back on in my brain.”
As many as 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Stillbirth, the loss of a baby after 20 weeks of pregnancy, happens in around 24,000 births each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Both forms of loss are emotionally devastating and physically painful for those who endure them, yet there is relatively little support around pregnancy loss in society today, and especially in the workplace.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) recalled going through 10 years of failed cycles of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and a miscarriage while continuing nonstop at work.
“I would find out that morning that I wasn’t pregnant or in the case of a miscarriage that I had, and I had to go right back on the campaign trail,” she told “GMA.” “I was still working my job and in the Senate and I was campaigning at the same time, so it just became so overwhelming and so emotional.”
“I thought, ‘This is crazy that women have to go through this and try to deal with all of this,'” added Duckworth, who in 2018 became the first U.S. senator to give birth while in office, when she delivered her second daughter.
Duckworth is now the co-author of the Support Through Loss Act, a bill she introduced in the Senate in July that would require U.S. employers to provide at last three days of paid leave to workers to address their own health needs or the health needs of a partner following a pregnancy loss, as well as an unsuccessful assisted reproductive technology procedure, a failed adoption or surrogacy arrangement or a medical diagnosis or event that impacts pregnancy or fertility.
The bill, introduced in the U.S. House by Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), also proposes a $45 million annual investment in pregnancy-loss research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a federal public information campaign to share information on both how common pregnancy loss is, and how people can be supported.
“I remember being in my doctor’s office after he said my pregnancy had failed. I was devastated and at the same time my doctor was saying, ‘It’s fine. It’s perfectly normal,'” recalled Duckworth. “I didn’t know that so many pregnancies could fail. Having that information I think would really help all our families who are going through the process of trying to get pregnant.”
Duckworth and Pressley’s legislation calls for employers to provide “at least” three days of paid leave, and advocates say it’s a step in the right direction towards employers recognizing the long recovery for a pregnancy loss.
“As a federal mandate, it’s at least a good start because in too many situations some workers have no accommodations,” said Stacey D. Stewart, CEO of March of Dimes, which has endorsed Pressley and Duckworth’s legislation. “We have to understand that when we don’t provide these accommodations, there’s a real cost in productivity.”
“The idea that women go through a miscarriage or stillbirth and just bounce back immediately and go back to work is just simply unrealistic,” said Stewart.
The emotional, physical pain of pregnancy loss
Many of the causes of miscarriage and stillbirth are still not known or understood.
People who have gone through either form of pregnancy loss though know the toll it takes on the body, in addition to the emotional trauma.
In the case of a stillbirth, a person goes through childbirth, delivering the baby.
“I still delivered a four-pound baby,” said Elizabeth O’Donnell, a former teacher who said she was denied paid leave after her daughter, Aaliyah Denise, was born stillborn in December, after a 48-hour labor. “I wanted to be recognized as having a baby, which I still did, and have the time to heal my body back.”
“But these things are just not spoken about,” she said.
With miscarriage, people may experience bleeding, cramping, diarrhea and nausea while the pregnancy tissue is expelled. Some people may need a surgical treatment like a D&C, which is done in an operating room under anesthesia to remove pregnancy tissue, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).
In many cases, it takes as long as four to six weeks for a person’s body to recover from a miscarriage.
“It can be an extremely painful experience for a family and it not only takes time for a pregnant person’s body to recover from a miscarriage or stillbirth, it can take even longer sometimes to recover emotionally,” said Stewart. “It’s often painful for families to even share with others what they’ve been going through.”
For people who are not comfortable sharing with their employer that they are trying to get pregnant, a fearful topic of conversation that can keep people silent in the workplace, Duckworth noted the Support Through Loss Act would provide them a layer of protection on the federal level.
“It’s important that it’s federal [in] that it does offer that protection much earlier in the process,” she said. “This is just sort of bringing the humanity back into our leave policies and more protections for families that are trying to get pregnant.”
Introduced four months ago, the legislation is still far from becoming law. If it were to be enacted, it would leap frog the U.S. from among the worst countries in the world on paid family leave to a pioneering role.
Earlier this year, New Zealand passed legislation that is believed to be among the first of its kind globally and would also require three days of paid leave after pregnancy loss for both the mother and her partner or spouse.
While a federal paid family leave policy is currently being debated in Congress, under current U.S. policy, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), employees who qualify can take time off to care for a newborn or loved one or recover from illness without fear of losing their job, but in most cases the leave is unpaid.
Only about one-fifth of employees in the private sector have access to paid family and medical leave, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families.
And data shows that access to paid leave is lower for Black workers than their white counterparts, while the risk of miscarriage is 43% higher for Black women, according to a study published this year in The Lancet, a medical journal.
According to Pressley, the Support Through Loss Act would apply to both federal and private employers and would supplement current paid leave policy.
“These three days would be a separate layer of leave protections than those set in paid family and medical leave,” she said. “We have to ensure within those paid leave policies … that we’re not leaving behind families who have experienced pregnancy loss.”
Pressley, one of the founding members of the Black Maternal Health Caucus, said her goal with the Support Through Loss Act is to not only ensure people have time to recover, but also have support and information.
“I was unaware of the fact that there are doulas who can support you through pregnancy loss, and I’d be willing to bet that there are many healthcare professionals that might not be aware of that resource,” she said. “So we have to close that gap, make sure the information is more easily accessible, again, to better support those when they’re already in the midst of what is a traumatic and very isolating experience, and make sure that those supports are culturally responsive and holistic.”
The potential for not only paid time off but also recognition from the government and employers that pregnancy loss is both common and serious cannot come soon enough for people like Abby Mercado, who suffered a miscarriage three years ago while working in a nearly all-male office.
“I went to work because why wouldn’t I? Experiencing a pregnancy loss is just not something we talk about,” said Mercado, who went on to co-found Rescripted, an online infertility support community. “But my miscarriage was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to go through in my life. From a grief perspective, I still grieve it, and from a physical perspective, it hurt.”
“With an effort like [the Support Through Loss Act], it elevates the conversation and one by one the dominoes start to fall and women are finally able to really advocate for themselves and have the government backing them up as they’re advocating for themselves,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — She was an animal lover in Kentucky who was a “bright ray of sunshine” to all who knew her. He was a father of two and “young soul” in Florida who could often be found out on the water on his boat. They were excited about the next chapters in their lives — for her, a wedding; for him, his first grandchild.
Samantha Wendell and Shane O’Neal both also resisted getting vaccinated against COVID-19 for months, stemming from feelings of either fear or fearlessness, before deciding to make an appointment to get the shot. But before they could, they contracted COVID-19 and, following weeks of severe illness, died last month after doctors exhausted all options, their families said.
Their two tragic tales were shared publicly on social media and to news outlets by grieving family members trying to make sense of what happened, and maybe prevent others from going through the same loss.
They also represent a population that public health experts are still trying to reach, as millions in the United States remain unvaccinated against COVID-19 as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.
‘Misinformation killed my cousin’
Days after returning home from her Nashville bachelorette party in July, Wendell, a surgical technician from Grand Rapids, started to feel sick, her cousin, Maria Vibandor Hayes, told ABC News. Her fiance, Austin Eskew, also fell ill, she said, about a month before the two college sweethearts were set to tie the knot on Aug. 21.
Eskew recovered, but Wendell’s illness progressed to the point where she was having trouble breathing and needed to be hospitalized the second week in August, according to Vibandor Hayes. The next month was a “rollercoaster” of progress and setbacks, her cousin said. Wendell was moved to a hospital in Indiana, where she was put on a BPAP (bilevel positive airway pressure) machine to help with her breathing, but the week of her wedding she was intubated and put on a ventilator, Vibandor Hayes said.
After a few more weeks of ups and downs, Wendell’s condition didn’t improve and doctors told the family they had done everything they possibly could, her cousin said. She died on Sept. 10 from COVID-19 at the age of 29.
“I didn’t think that this would be our story,” Vibandor Hayes said. “Surely, we’re gonna have a wedding to attend before the end of the year, Sam is gonna wake up and she’ll be better and we’re going to celebrate and live life. But that was not what was the case.”
“I just never want another family to experience what our family has gone through, to say goodbye to somebody on the phone,” she said.
It was particularly hard to see what her cousin went through because Vibandor Hayes is a COVID-19 long hauler, after contracting the virus in March 2020. “I remember how I felt, I remember how I thought I could possibly die,” said Vibandor Hayes, who still suffers from brain fog.
The couple had appointments to get vaccinated after Wendell returned from her bachelorette party, but then they both got sick, Vibandor Hayes said. They had previously hesitated due to concerns of infertility, but Wendell’s mother had encouraged them to get vaccinated ahead of their wedding and honeymoon, the cousin said.
Wendell was not alone in her fears of the vaccine — others have hesitated on getting the shot due to unfounded rumors that it might lead to infertility. Medical experts and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have stressed there is no link between the vaccines and fertility.
“Misinformation killed my cousin,” Vibandor Hayes said. “She is a smart young woman, she always has been. I feel like if she was able to look at things from another perspective and that if she had all the information at her hand, that she would have eventually not hesitated for so long.”
Delta variant a turning point
Shane O’Neal was an avid outdoorsman who could often be found fishing, jet skiing or hunting, his daughter, Kylie Dean, told ABC News.
The resident of Maxville, outside Jacksonville, wasn’t too concerned about getting vaccinated against COVID-19 — he mostly kept to himself on his boat when he wasn’t at his construction company, Dean said.
“He knew [COVID-19] was real, and he knew what was going on, but I don’t think he lived his life in fear of it,” Dean said.
The “turning point,” she said, was the delta variant, which has fueled a surge of cases and hospitalizations, particularly in the Jacksonville area.
“He knew people affected by it, that it’s not something that’s going away, it’s actually coming back with a vengeance almost,” Dean said. “So that’s why he was like, you know what, I’m just going to go ahead and do it.”
The week O’Neal planned to get the vaccine, though, he tested positive for COVID-19 in early August, his daughter said. He was hospitalized a week later and eventually put on a ventilator. He was a good candidate for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment, a last resort for COVID-19 patients, though his hospital didn’t have the machine available, Dean said. After she put out a plea for an ECMO bed, doctors were able to find him one. But his condition deteriorated, and he died in the early morning hours of Sept. 3 at the age of 40.
About 20 minutes after he died, Dean gave birth to her baby boy, O’Neal’s first grandchild.
“I literally broke down, hysterically crying,” Dean said of when she got the call that her dad was going to pass soon. “I didn’t want him to die alone.”
The family is still “in shock,” Dean said. Her father was young and had no comorbidities, but his illness progressed rapidly.
Dean, an intensive care unit nurse, hopes to improve access to ECMO therapy and has been speaking out to warn others about the virus and urge them to protect themselves. “It’s a monster and people need to be careful,” she told ABC News Jacksonville affiliate WJXX.
Personal perspective
Wendell’s and O’Neal’s stories are akin to others shared by family members. Other recent reports of people who planned to get vaccinated but died after contracting COVID-19 include a 53-year-old former Texas councilman, a 39-year-old Illinois teacher, a 48-year-old teacher in Florida, and a 20-year-old college student in North Carolina.
Nearly all COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths are among people who are unvaccinated, as health care workers and in some cases those hospitalized themselves plead for vaccination.
As of Wednesday, some 70 million people who are eligible to get the COVID-19 vaccine remain unvaccinated, according to federal data. Over 65% of those ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated nationwide, which is low considering the level of access to free vaccines in the U.S., Rupali Limaye, director of Behavioral and Implementation Science at the International Vaccine Access Center, based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News.
At this stage, two main forces may get someone who is hesitant vaccinated, Limaye said — one is hearing about someone regretting not getting the vaccine, the other a vaccine mandate.
“If someone they know themselves is dealing with a very severe case, and someone they know dies from it or they’re close to death, I think that tends to change their mind,” Limaye said. “Or the vaccine mandate, because then that’s sort of an economic sanction.”
Hesitancy continues to be fueled by safety concerns and distrust of the vaccine development process, as well as the belief that preventative measures are unnecessary, she said. Public health experts continue to work to dispel misinformation, but hearing personal stories could be impactful.
“If it is someone that you know where you can hear from a friend, ‘This is what happened to my mom,’ I think that puts it into perspective for people a lot versus just public health folks saying you should get it,” Limaye said. “I think it makes it much more real.”
Vibandor Hayes said she has received “hate mail” from strangers after urging people to get vaccinated, but wants to continue to speak out to help prevent another family from experiencing the same heartbreak.
“If this is the gift she has left us, to share with others, then that’s what we’ll do,” Vibandor Hayes said.
(NEW YORK) — A breast cancer survivor has created a mobile app, called Feel For Your Life, to help women conduct breast self-exams.
“I found out there were three reasons women weren’t doing self exams,” Jessica Baladad, 36, told Good Morning America. “They were afraid of finding something and not knowing what to do, they weren’t comfortable with their bodies, and they didn’t know how because no one’s ever showed them or talked to them about the importance of a exam, so I thought, ‘I need to advocate for this.'”
According to the National Cancer Institute, breast cancer is one of the three most common cancers in women. The NCI estimates there will be more new cases of female breast cancer than any other cancer in 2021, with a projection of 281,550 new cases.
Breast cancer is primarily detected through a mammogram, ultrasound, MRI or biopsy, and usually involves a combination of testing to ensure an accurate diagnosis. Mammograms can often detect tumors before a lump appears, so screenings are crucial for early detection.
“As a supplementary tool for women of all ages, self-breast exams can increase women’s awareness of their body and what their breasts normally feel like,” Dr. Elizabeth Comen, breast medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering, told GMA. “As a screening strategy, it helps women identify any concerning findings such as new changes in the shape, skin, or nipple as well as any concerning lumps which may require further imaging and work-up.”
Most guidelines recommend women begin routine annual screenings once they’re 45 years old; a recommendation that can leave younger women vulnerable to missing early detection of the disease.
For those under the recommended age for screening, Comen said that self-exams can have an important role in picking up breast abnormalities and prompt patients to seek out further care from their doctor.
“This is particularly true for women under the age of 40, for whom there’s no routine breast cancer imaging screening recommendations,” she said. “Since most of these women aren’t indicated to have mammograms, many of these cancers are actually detected by women themselves, through self-breast exams.”
Baladad has done regular self-exams ever since she had surgery to remove a benign fibroadenoma tumor in her breast when she was 18 years old, she said.
“I had a pain in my breast and I ran to the bathroom real quick, right before class, and I noticed there was a lump and it scared me,” she recalled, adding that she immediately went to health services after class and it was from there that doctors discovered the tumor. “It was that experience that got me into the habit of doing self-breast exams throughout the rest of adulthood.”
A personal connection to breast cancer
Breast cancer runs in Baladad’s family on her father’s side, with her great-grandmother, grandmother, five grand-aunts, and two aunts all having lived with the disease, she said. Fifteen years later after that initial scare, Baladad was diagnosed with breast cancer herself.
In March 2018, Baladad said she didn’t do her routine self-exam that month because she was scheduled to see her nurse practitioner around then.
“I thought, ‘Who better than my practitioner to do a clinical breast exam?’ and when I saw her, she didn’t say anything about a lump to me so I thought I was good to go,” she said.
When Baladad did a self-exam in the shower just two weeks after her appointment, however, she found a lump in her left breast.
“I just started freaking out like ‘This is it, it’s cancer,'” Baladad said. “But then I thought, ‘Wait. I’m working out in the gym almost every day. I take care of myself. I eat well. I just saw my doctor, surely she would’ve said something about this.'”
After calming herself down, Baladad went on with her life. But when an acquaintance posted about shaving their head due to having breast cancer, Baladad said she decided to get her own lump checked out in August 2018.
“She was a year older than me,” she said. “If she’s young enough to get breast cancer then I’m young enough to get breast cancer.”
This time, Baladad went to a different doctor and had a mammogram, ultrasound and a biopsy. The lump was confirmed as breast cancer, making her one of the millions of women in the United States living with the disease at the time.
“I found out later that my original practitioner didn’t tell me about the lump in my breast because she thought I was too young to have breast cancer and she thought I’d be fine,” Baladad, who was 33 when diagnosed, said. “A self-exam saved my life.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most breast cancers are found in women 50 and older, though age is not the ultimate determining factor. In 2018, CDC data found that there were 184 new cases of breast cancer in women ages 20-24; 1,173 in ages 25-29; and 3,300 in ages 30-34, with the number of cases continuing to increase thereafter.
“Most breast cancers are identified in women over age 50. That being said, younger women can get breast cancer too,” Comen said. “Any woman, or any patient for that matter, who has an inkling that they need a second opinion, should get a second opinion. Intuition and trusting your doctor are critical for a therapeutic doctor-patient relationship.”
Fortunately, Baladad’s cancer has been in remission since May 2019 — but the road there wasn’t easy.
“I did 16 rounds of chemo, a double mastectomy, 24 rounds of radiation, a hysterectomy, and back in February I had a 10-hour flap reconstruction procedure done where they took fat, tissue, and blood vessels from my abdomen and placed them in my chest,” she said. “I have phase two of that surgery in October.”
From a social media project to app launch
Baladad originally created Feel For Your Life as a social media project during her cancer journey, where she would share her story, as well as cancer statistics, and encourage women to perform self-exams and get checked out by a doctor.
“One night I was in the shower literally watching my life go down the drain as I watched my hair come off my head and the idea just kind of came to me,” she said. “I felt like I was called to do it.”
The idea to build an app came last year after Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October. Baladad said she “wanted to reach more women” and thought the way to do so was through an app.
Over the following months, she researched how to build an app, the features she wanted it to have, and consulted tech-savvy people who helped her with the process. It officially launched on Apple and Android app stores in September 2021.
“I just thought about [the app] from a woman’s experience, and I wanted it to be really intuitive for how a woman may want to use it,” she said. “I’m not a coder or developer, I’m an advocate. I look at the app as an advocacy tool that women can use to communicate with their physicians. I’m not a doctor and I’m not trying to be a doctor — my mission is to help women advocate for their breast health.”
The information on the app is sourced from the CDC, the National Breast Cancer Foundation, and Johns Hopkins Medicine. There are instructions on how and when to do a self-exam and information on genetic testing and counseling, types of breast screenings, risk-reducing surgical procedures, breast reconstruction options and more.
Other features of the app include the ability to set reminders for self-exams and a space to track any changes. There’s also a section where users can share their advocacy wins with Baladad, plus a community feature where users can talk to others about what they’re doing.
“I also have reminders throughout the app that if you find anything, please talk to your doctor,” Baladad said.
Baladad hopes to one day include a telehealth feature within the app, where users can connect with medical professionals in real time.
“If a woman is doing a self-exam and she finds a lump, she may get scared or have anxiety,” she said. “I want to be able to connect her with a physician and they can put her on the right track to help her [with] getting the answers that she needs.”
(NEW YORK) — Taking a course of a particular antiviral pill over five days, shortly after COVID-19 diagnosis, may slash the risk of being hospitalized or dying of the virus by 50%, according to preliminary results announced by pharmaceutical companies Merck and Ridgeback.
If this pill — called molnupiravir — is ultimately authorized by the Food and Drug Administration, it would be the first antiviral pill people can take at home to reduce their risk of winding up in the hospital from the coronavirus. The medication would require a prescription and likely be for people with mild or moderate symptoms of COVID-19.
“It’s really exciting,” Dr. Carlos Del Rio, the executive associate dean and a global health expert at the Emory School of Medicine, said.
Right now, most COVID-19 patients are sent home and told to monitor their symptoms. Having an effective pill to offer them would “make a difference,” Del Rio added.
Merck Thursday morning announced the results of an ongoing Phase 3 study are so compelling that an independent monitoring board recommended, in consultation with the FDA, ending the trial early so the companies can swiftly seek authorization. The full set of data would become available to the public at that time.
Other companies, including Pfizer and Roche, are also working on antiviral pills that could become available soon. Merck plans to seek emergency authorization in the U.S. “as soon as possible” so that it can start mass distributing its antiviral pill.
The company has started producing the pills with the goal of having 10 million courses of the medication by the end of the year. The U.S. has already asked for 1.7 million doses, at a cost of over $1 billion.
Currently, doctors have some treatments to help those who are already sick with the virus, but those treatments are cumbersome, as they’re typically administered via intravenous infusion and usually reserved for patients who are hospitalized or have a high risk of becoming so.
“What we really need is the Tamiflu, if you will, for COVID-19,” Dr. Todd Ellerin, the director of infectious diseases at South Shore Health and an ABC News Med Unit contributor, said. “It’s possible that molnupiravir could be the agent.”
Molnupiravir is an antiviral drug, meaning it works by slowing the replication of the virus that causes COVID-19.
In an early analysis of 775 volunteers in a late-stage clinical trial, people who tested positive for COVID-19 within the last five days were split into two groups. The first group got the drug and the second got a placebo pill.
About 14% of people who got the placebo were hospitalized or died, compared to just over 7% of those who got the real drug.
“More tools and treatments are urgently needed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, which has become a leading cause of death and continues to profoundly affect patients, families, and societies and strain health care systems all around the world,” Robert M. Davis, the chief executive officer and president of Merck, said.
“I think this is exciting,” Ellerin said, “because we need an oral antiviral. We desperately need an oral antiviral that can be given early in the course.”
