Health

(NEW YORK) — While all adults in the United States are now eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, parents with young children find themselves in an uncomfortable limbo state. Fully vaccinated parents are protected against the virus, but their kids under 12 aren’t even eligible for a shot.

While children are less likely to have serious infection than in adults, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noting that “most children with COVID-19 have mild symptoms or have no symptoms at all,” in rare instances, children have developed severe COVID-19 cases that led to hospitalization or death.

As of early June, 4,000 children nationwide had developed multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), a rare but serious condition associated with COVID-19. There’s also an element of uncertainty associated with any COVID-19 infection, since the long-term health consequences of having COVID-19 are not yet known.

Navigating kids and COVID is complicated. Come fall, vaccines are likely to be approved for children younger than 12, but until then, some parents are wondering how to keep their kids safe as guidelines about masks and social distancing loosen.

ABC News spoke with Dr. Judith Flores, a pediatrician and former chief of ambulatory care at NYC Health + Hospitals, who has been in practice for more than 30 years, about how parents can lower their kids’ COVID risk.

Q: My kid is going back to school in person this year. What do I need to know?

You should start planning and ask questions, Flores says.

“I would also inquire who is vaccinated at school and keep an eye on what their environmental controls are,” Flores said.

According to the CDC’s guidelines for K-12 schools, “consistent and correct use of face masks reduces the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and, with some exceptions, is recommended for use indoors among people aged 2 and older who are not fully vaccinated.” The CDC also recommends handwashing, improving ventilation, staying home if sick, social distancing and testing in schools to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 outbreaks.

Depending on school guidance and your risk tolerance as a parent, send your child to school with a mask. Flores noted that if she had a small child, she would have them wear a mask at school, especially in the beginning, while you determine whether or not the school is doing a good job of keeping the environment safe.

But ultimately, it’s important to keep in mind that schools have been reasonably safe settings so far.

“It’s been well documented that kids get sicker when they’re home with family,” Flores said.

Despite that reality, some parents are rightfully nervous. Flores works with families that were hit hard by COVID-19’s initial wave in New York City. Some parents and children are anxious about returning in person, she explained, adding that behavioral and mental health support are critical, especially for kids who lost family members during the pandemic.

“It’s not just, ‘let’s make sure we have your supply list for the teacher this year,'” she said. “You really have to prepare your children mentally — and yourself,” she said.

Q: Is there anything I can do to lower my child’s COVID risk until they’re eligible for a vaccine?

“The best way to take care of your child is for you, your family and your community to be vaccinated,” Flores stressed. “Your kid’s risk goes up depending on the community you live in or go to school in. If your community has a low vaccination rate and high infection rate, there’s a greater risk your child will get sick.”

“If I were in Mississippi, I’d be very concerned, because the vaccination rate is low. So there, I’d keep a mask on my child and keep social distancing. If I lived in Massachusetts, I might breathe a little easier,” she said.

Mississippi’s vaccination rate trails the national average. As of Monday, 37% of residents had received at least one dose, and 33% were fully vaccinated, according to the CDC, compared with 71% of people in Massachusetts who’ve gotten at least one shot and 63% who are fully vaccinated.

Your child doesn’t need to wear a mask in most outdoor settings because the risk of transmission is low, Flores noted, but it’s a good idea to have them wear one in indoor public spaces, especially if ventilation is poor or if the space is crowded.

The same fundamental practices the CDC recommends for schools, like handwashing and social distancing, are useful for reducing kids’ risk in non-school settings. You can also model wearing a mask for your child, even if you’re vaccinated and don’t technically need one yourself. If you’re not going to wear a mask around your child, having a conversation as a family explaining why masks are important is key, Flores suggested.

“This is an added protection for you. Just like I would put a seatbelt on you, I would put a mask on you for this time,” she said. “Kids understand seatbelts.”

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(NEW YORK) — Amanda Hunt, a Florida native, said she grew up spending summer days at the beach as a child and using tanning beds as a young adult.

Now 39 years old, Hunt, of Titusville, Florida, is battling stage 4 metastatic melanoma and is speaking out about her experience in hopes of saving other lives.

“I want people to know the things that I didn’t know,” Hunt told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “I can say for myself that having to fight for your life due to something so superficial as being tan, that’s a really tough pill to swallow at the end of the day.”

Hunt’s life changed last June when she discovered a lump in her breast. A biopsy of the lump came back as malignant melanoma. Hunt then learned the cancer had spread throughout her body, including her lungs.

“One day you wake up and your life is one way and the next day you wake up and your life is totally different,” she said. “I remember being shocked and confused and I got angry and thought, ‘How did my body fail me?'”

Hunt said she was even more shocked by her diagnosis because she had been going to annual skin checks since 2011, when she was successfully treated for basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer.

After undergoing treatment for her first skin cancer diagnosis, Hunt said she stopped using tanning beds but did not change her daily sun protection routine dramatically, knowing that she was being checked annually by her dermatologist.

“I got my annual skin checks so that was always in the back of my mind like a crutch,” she said. “But I learned in all of this that there is an occurrence where you do not have melanoma appear on the skin. I never knew that was even possible.”

Hunt’s diagnosis made her one of the approximately 3% of cases where the melanoma has already spread to a subcutaneous site when it is discovered, according to her doctor, Zeynep Eroglu, a medical oncologist at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa.

Because the spread of melanoma was already underway in Hunt’s body, she began treatment less than one month after being diagnosed. Since July 2020, Hunt has made the four-hour roundtrip drive from Titusville to Tampa to undergo immunotherapy treatments at Moffitt.

The treatments have been working but Hunt has suffered severe side effects from the immunotherapy, including being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes this March.

“It happens to less than 1% of [immunotherapy] patients,” she said of the diabetes diagnosis. “Everything in my case is rare and the exception.”

Hunt, an attorney, lost her job due to layoffs during the pandemic just two days before her diagnosis. Not long after, she said she started a blog, Love and Sunblock, about her battle with melanoma to educate and provide hope to others.

“When I was first diagnosed, I started searching the internet for information and all I could find were just grave statistics,” said Hunt, whose family and friends started a GoFundMe to help cover her medical expenses. “I started blogging about my journey because I wanted to be that person for someone else in the future, that person that I was desperately trying to find.”

Hunt said her diagnosis has made her reflect on the time she spent in the sun as a child, spending hours at the beach without reapplying sunscreen and spending hours in tanning beds to try to overcome her naturally pale skin.

“I even remember missing school because of sunburns,” she said. “I was on my way to becoming a melanoma statistic and had no idea.”

Now, Hunt said she covers herself from head to toe to even walk to the mailbox and is making sure her 14-year-old daughter learns important lessons about incorporating sun protection into her daily skin care routine.

“It’s almost always preventable,” Hunt said of skin cancer. “Sun protection has got to become a habit and it’s got to start with your kids.”

What to know about melanoma and sun protection

Melanoma is a rare form of skin cancer in which cancer cells form in melanocytes, the cells that color the skin, according to the National Cancer Institute.

It can occur anywhere on the body, but in women is found most often on the arms and legs, according to NCI.

The main risk factors for melanoma include exposure to ultraviolet rays, which are found in tanning beds and sun lamps, a family history of melanoma, a personal history of melanoma or other skin cancers, a weakened immune system, moles and a complexion of fair skin, freckling and light hair, according to the American Cancer Society .

In the United States, the risk for melanoma varies by age. Before age 50, the risk for melanoma is higher for women; after age 50 the risk is higher in men, according to ACS.

In order to prevent the occurrence of melanoma, Hunt’s doctor, Eroglu, shared four tips:

1. Go to the dermatologist early and often: “With melanoma, every millimeter matters,” said Eroglu. “Time is really of the essence. If there is any concern, go and have it checked out.”

Eroglu also stressed persistence in seeking testing and a diagnosis if something on your skin continues to look abnormal to you.

2. Always wear sunscreen and reapply it often: Eroglu recommends using a sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher and reapplying it often, especially when exposed to water.

A broad-spectrum sunscreen that protects you from UVA rays, which can prematurely age your skin, and UVB rays, which can burn your skin, is also recommended.

It matters less what type of sunscreen you use — spray or lotion or cream — and more that you choose a type of sunscreen you will use consistently and frequently, according to Eroglu.

“Even one bad sunburn from when you were a child can years later, decades later, develop into skin cancer,” she said.

3. Avoid the sun when it is at its strongest: The sun’s rays are at their peak from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. so it is best to avoid being exposed to the sun at that time, according to Eroglu.

People should also be extra vigilant with sun protection when near water, sand and snow because the sun’s rays are strengthened by the reflection off those surfaces.

People should also avoid using tanning beds, according to Eroglu, because of the intensity of their ultraviolet radiation.

4. Do regular skin checks on yourself: People should regularly lookout for new spots or a spot that is changing in size, shape or color on their skin, according to Eroglu.

The ABCDE rule is a guide people can follow to see if any spots have features that need to be flagged to a doctor.

Here is the rule, as described by the American Cancer Society.

A is for Asymmetry: One half of a mole or birthmark does not match the other.
B is for Border: The edges are irregular, ragged, notched, or blurred.
C is for Color: The color is not the same all over and may include different shades of brown or black, or sometimes with patches of pink, red, white, or blue.
D is for Diameter: The spot is larger than 6 millimeters across (about 1/4 inch — the size of a pencil eraser), although melanomas can sometimes be smaller than this.
E is for Evolving: The mole is changing in size, shape, or color.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday warned of an increased risk of Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological disorder, following the Johnson & Johnson vaccine after 100 preliminary cases of the syndrome were reported among the 12.5M doses administered.

The agency noted that 95 of the cases were serious and required hospitalization. There was one death.

While the FDA said it’s updating vaccination materials for health care providers and patients to note an “association” between the vaccine and a risk of GBS, the agency said the data are “insufficient to establish a causal relationship.” And, the agency added, it still recommends the vaccine to prevent the serious health risks posed by COVID-19.

“Importantly, the FDA has evaluated the available information for the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine and continues to find the known and potential benefits clearly outweigh the known and potential risks,” the FDA stated.

Johnson and Johnson said it has discussed the reports with federal regulators at the Food and Drug Administration.

“The chance of having this occur is very low, and the rate of reported cases exceeds the background rate by a small degree,” the company said in a statement released Monday.

Similar issues have not been reported tied to the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.

Guillain-Barré syndrome is a rare disorder that occurs when a person’s immune system damages nerve cells and causes muscle weakness or paralysis.

Most people recover fully although some will report long-term nerve damage.

According to the CDC, the majority of people who develop GBS report the symptoms after having a respiratory illness, including the flu or getting sick with diarrhea. One common cause is a bacteria tied to eating uncooked poultry.

It’s also linked to vaccination, though rare, and is why the CDC monitors reports of GBS each flu season.

The CDC estimates there is one to two additional GBS cases per million doses of flu vaccine administered.

On the most recent cases tied to the J&J vaccine, the CDC said older men were mostly impacted.

“These cases have largely been reported about two weeks after vaccination and mostly in males, many aged 50 years and older,” the CDC said in a statement.

According to the FDA, patients should seek medical attention if they experience a weakness or tingling sensations, especially in the legs or arms, and that might worsen or spread to other parts of the body. Other symptoms might include difficulty walking or making facial movements; double vision or inability to move eyes; or difficulty with bladder control or bowel function.

ABC News’ Eric Strauss contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — With the pandemic causing uncertainty, isolation and disruptions in routine, research has continued to show increases in far-reaching physical and mental health problems — and now, dentists are noting that teeth grinding and jaw clenching, known as bruxism, also seem to be on the rise.

“Since the pandemic, patients have been coming to me with new complaints of jaw pain, tooth pain, broken or chipped teeth or just because their partners are telling them they’re grinding — in numbers that I’ve never seen before,” Dr. Saul Pressner, a family dentist in New York City, said.

Clenching and grinding is a common problem, but Pressner said he has even treated adults whose teeth clenching issues are brand new.

“I’m really seeing both — people who were pre-disposed to clenching and grinding, who already had appliances made for them, and some who had no evidence to show they were ever clenching or grinding before,” Pressner said.

While the causes of bruxism are largely unknown, some experts believe this behavior is related to sleep patterns and processes within the central nervous system. There are a few risk factors that are associated with increased rates of bruxism, including anxiety, highly stressful life circumstances and heavy alcohol use — all things that have increased across the population this year.

“Patients admit to being more tense since the start of the pandemic,” said Dr. Yanell Innabi-Danial of River Town Dental in Dobbs Ferry, New York. “They exhibit tenderness radiating to head and neck muscles, causing headaches.”

The stress isn’t only affecting people while they sleep. It can persist into daytime grinding and clenching as well.

Patients are also clenching their jaws “while working, driving, and doing other activities during the day,” Innabi-Danial said, who noted that clenching and grinding can cause wear on the chewing surfaces of the teeth, which can lead to cavities and gum disease.

And bruxism isn’t just affecting adults. Children can experience it, too.

Dr. Kevin Simon, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Harvard, said he has seen an increase in patients with anxiety or other mental health-related disorders who make note of physical complaints such as headaches and jaw pain.

“Physical complaints are associated in no small part to the tension and stress they are carrying around in the form of clenching and grinding. More headaches, more tension in the jaw and neck,” Simon said. “Treating the underpinning mental health condition becomes essential to treating those symptoms.”

Ultimately, dentists and mental health professionals agree that tackling this issue will involve addressing stress and anxiety along with preventive dental care to ensure that complications don’t arise in the future.

“Night guards do not stop patients from clenching and grinding, but it does protect the teeth and joint while doing so,” Innabi-Danial said.

Mouth guards, however, can be cost-prohibitive, with few insurances covering the expense, and dentists also caution that over-the-counter guards may not adequately protect a patient’s teeth. Innabi-Danial said that if night guards, behavioral intervention, jaw and tongue exercises and a diet consisting of softer foods do not help, then patients can consider having Botox injected in their jaw muscle.

“Mouth guards are just one piece of it,” Pressner added. “I always recommend meditation, yoga, trying to separate their workspace from relaxation space, exercise, all those things for my patients as soon as I notice signs of teeth grinding. This can have so many benefits to their dental and jaw health down the line.”

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(NEW YORK) — The American Academy of Pediatrics released a new report that identified top drowning risks for children and recommendations to help prevent tragedy.

Drowning is the leading cause of unintentional injury-related death in the U.S. for children ages 1 to 4 and the third-leading cause of unintentional injury-related death in children and teens 5 to 19, according to the AAP.

The latest research from the AAP’s Prevention of Drowning report found that male toddlers and teenage boys are at the highest risk of drowning.

The report also emphasized that no single intervention, such as swim lessons or lifeguards, is sufficient and therefore recommended “multiple layers of protection to prevent drowning.”

AAP’s key ways to prevent children from drowning:

– Close, constant, attentive and capable adult supervision when children are in and around water as well as life jacket use among children and adults.

– To prevent unsupervised access, four-sided pool fencing at least 4-feet tall with self-closing and self-latching gates that completely isolates the pool from the house and yard.

– In the home, be aware that infant bath seats can tip over, and children can slip out of them and drown in even a few inches of water in a bathtub. Infants should never be left alone in a tub, even for a minute.

– Parents and caregivers should prevent unsupervised access to the swimming pool, open water or a bathtub.

– To prevent drowning in toilets, young children should not be left alone in the bathroom, and toilet locks may be helpful.

– Water should be emptied from containers, such as pails and buckets, immediately after use.

Check out more information from the full report.

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(NEW YORK) — Trista Hamsmith’s 18-month-old daughter, Reese, died in December, two months after Hamsmith discovered her daughter had swallowed a button battery, the small, round batteries found in many home devices and toys.

Now Hamsmith, of Lubbock, Texas, is on a mission to make sure no other parent has to suffer the pain and loss her family has experienced.

“When we thought everything was going to be fine, I just had this vision of advocating for the safety and awareness of button batteries with Reese by my side,” Hamsmith told Good Morning America. “Her being gone did not change my desire to want to protect other children and get this information out there.”

“Every day we wait, another kid is going to ingest a battery,” she said. “Had somebody [spoken out] before, our lives would look very different.”‘

Reese was 16 months old this past October when she developed cold-like symptoms, including a very stuffy nose, according to Hamsmith, who also has a 9-year-old daughter.

Hamsmith and her husband, Chris, took their daughter to see the pediatrician, who suspected Reese had croup, an infection of the upper airways, and prescribed steroids, according to Hamsmith.

Shortly after, the family discovered a button battery was missing from a remote control in their home. After looking online and discovering that symptoms of button battery ingestion — including coughing, wheezing and chest discomfort — matched those of Reese, Hamsmith and her husband rushed Reese to the emergency room.

There, an X-ray confirmed that a battery was lodged near the top of Reese’s esophagus. The toddler underwent emergency surgery to remove the battery, and after a few days she was sent home from the hospital with instructions to stay on a liquid diet.

Hamsmith soon learned what she now wants other parents to know: Button batteries can continue to cause damage by burning tissue, even after they are removed.

When Reese did not improve, a CT scan confirmed she had a fistula through her esophagus and trachea that was created by the inflammation, according to Hamsmith.

Reese underwent another surgery to implant a gastronomy tube so she could receive nutrition, and she was placed on a ventilator.

“She came back sedated and on a ventilator, and that was the last time I saw my child like herself,” Hamsmith said.

“She went back for surgery, and that was the last time she was not on sedation for the rest of her life,” Hamsmith said, adding, “I wasn’t able to hold her, because her airway was so small, every single move was critical.”

Reese spent the next six weeks hospitalized and undergoing various surgeries and attempts to try to save her life. She ultimately died Dec. 17, 2020, with her mom by her side.

“I finally got to rock her in a rocking chair for a while,” said Hamsmith, who said she found inspiration to keep going and advocate for button battery awareness from a plaque in Reese’s hospital room.

“There was a plaque that read, ‘He has a plan, and I have a purpose,’ and I know that God has a plan, and Reese has a purpose,” she said. “It sits on my fireplace mantel now to remind me not to quit.”

In the seven months since Reese died, Hamsmith has created a nonprofit organization, Reese’s Purpose, to educate parents about button battery safety and to try to create change around how button batteries are protected in packaging and in the items in which they are found.

Hamsmith has testified before the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), created a national Button Battery Awareness Day (June 12) and is now calling on Congress to enact legislation that would create national standards for consumer products with button batteries. A Change.org petition launched by Reese’s Purpose calling for legislation has nearly 80,000 signatures.

“The main thing is that 10 years down the road, if I hear about a kid dying of a button battery ingestion, I want to know that I did everything I could without a shadow of a doubt to help prevent and help put the knowledge out,” Hamsmith said. “It’s a hidden danger.”

What parents need to know

Hamsmith calls button batteries a “hidden danger” because they are used many items, including remotes, hearing aids, thermometers, tealight candles, battery-powered jewelry, greeting cards, key fobs, kids’ toys and even toothbrushes.

“It literally takes one second [for button battery ingestion to happen],” she said. “You can set your kid down, turn around and pick up a piece of laundry, and it’s happened.”

More than 3,500 people swallow button batteries each year in the United States, according to the National Poison Control Center.

But the actual number of button battery ingestions each year is actually much larger because the incidents are vastly underreported, according to Dr. Kris Janata, professor in the department of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University and Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Janata helped create the GIRC App, a global database by the Global Injury Research Collaborative for medical professionals to track the severity of injuries, including from button batteries.

Over the past year of the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a 93% increase in emergency department visits for battery-related complaints in school-age children, according to Janata’s research.

“I do think there is a lack of awareness among parents that these are severe hazards,” he said. “We can’t fix the injuries that these batteries cause, so that’s what’s led us to how can we prevent these injuries in the first place.”

Here are three tips from Janata and Hamsmith to both prevent and treat button battery ingestion injuries.

1. Keep an inventory of button batteries in your home: Because the symptoms of button battery ingestion can mimic the symptoms of other illnesses in kids, as was the case with Reese, both Hamsmith and Janata say the most important thing for parents and caregivers is to always be aware of and know about the presence of all the button batteries in their home.

Hamsmith’s advice to caregivers is to keep products that contain button batteries not just out of reach but also out of sight of children, especially those ages 6 and under, who are most at risk for swallowing a foreign object.

Janata said to not only know where the button batteries are in your home, but to also to regularly check all electronic devices to make sure the battery compartment is secured.

2. Know the symptoms: Symptoms of swallowing a button battery may include fever, not wanting to eat or drink, irritability, wheezing, difficulty breathing, coughing, throat pain, choking, gagging, problems swallowing and vomiting, according to a button battery resource website created by Janata and Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

Children may also put a button battery in their nose or ear, which can also present dangers. Symptoms to look for include irritability, pain or swelling around the ears or nose, fever and fluid drainage or bleeding from the ears or nose, according to Janata.

Children who ingest button batteries may also present no symptoms at all, which is why parents and caregivers should know the whereabouts of button batteries in their home at all times, Janata said.

3. Act quickly: Serious esophageal injury can occur within two hours of a child ingesting a button battery, before symptoms even start, according to Janata.

“The clock is ticking from the moment the battery is lodged in the esophagus,” he said.

If a child ingests a button battery, immediately call for help, either through 911 or the National Battery Ingestion Hotline at 800-498-8666, which is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Parents and caregivers may also use honey to treat the child while waiting for medical help. Experts recommend giving 10 mL of honey every 10 minutes to children 12 months and older.

Janata stressed not to delay going to the emergency room and said seeking professional medical help should be the top priority.

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(LOS ANGELES) — For Meg Keene, climate change is something that not only needs to be addressed but is also very difficult to cope with personally.

“As someone with anxiety, I kind of try not to think too much about the future with regards to climate change, because it’s so terrifying,” Keene, 41, said.

Keene’s life has been bookended by devastating wildfires in increasingly hot and dry California. As a baby she survived the 1980 Panorama Fire in San Bernardino. Most of the houses in her neighborhood were burned, her family’s home was one of the lucky ones that survived.

She has also been through the latest extreme wildfires in East Oakland, where she now lives with her husband and her two children.

Keene says she has been struggling with anxiety since she was a kid and for her, talking about the uncertain and changing weather patterns is triggering.

“I find it crippling with my anxiety and depression, but mostly with my anxiety,” Keene told ABC News.

Some experts say that the mere discussion of climate change can contribute to that anxiety.

“Climate change can affect mental health by just increasing people’s stress and worry about the issue, the more they hear about it,” said Dr. Susan Clayton, a professor in psychology and environmental studies in The College of Wooster, in Ohio.

“It’s been described as an existential threat, something that really challenges the way we think about the world. And I think it has the potential to really erode our sense of security,” Clayton added.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stated climate change “may weigh heavily on mental health in the general population and those already struggling with mental health disorders.”

Other drastic weather patterns like rising temperatures, droughts and natural disasters combined with socio economic stresses could also have a toll on certain people since some communities rely heavily on agriculture, a report published by the CDC says.

According to another report by the American Health Public Association, 25-50% of people exposed to extreme weather disasters are at risk of adverse mental health effects. And more than half of adults and 45% of children suffer depression after a natural disaster, the report said.

The day the sky turned orange

Last September, a mix of smoke and fog caused the sky in some areas of Northern California to look eerie and orange during the wildfire season.

“We were driving along the highway and you couldn’t see the ocean, it just looked like the world ended,” Keene told ABC News.

“I sort of can’t explain how apocalyptic it was. It was like being in some sort of apocalypse movie.”

The scene was so impactful she said she had a panic attack in the car, forcing her to stop driving.

“I was not breathing,” Keene recalled.

According to Clayton, “people experience more mental health impacts” as natural disasters become more intense or more frequent.

“I think we can all recognize that if you experience a natural disaster, it’s a very stressful event. It’s frightening. It disrupts your life, it disrupts your community,” Clayton told ABC News.

The climate impact has also affected Keene’s 8-year-old son and husband. She says both deal with anxiety and depression.

“At one point, my son said, ‘Mommy, I think we’re living through something that’s going to be in history books. I would rather not. I would prefer to live during something that would not be in a history book, ‘” she said.

Hurricane Katrina’s impact on mental health

Tyffani De La Cruz is a Hurricane Katrina survivor. She was 13-years-old when the Category 5 storm slammed the Gulf Coast in August 2005, leaving over 1,800 people dead and an estimated $161 billion in damages, according to the nonprofit World Vision Organization.

De La Cruz’s house was located in the hard-hit 9th Ward. Before Katrina made landfall, the family sought shelter in another family’s house in North Louisiana.

As a result of the historic flooding in the area, their home suffered major damage, forcing the family to relocate to a nearby city.

“I was about maybe 15 or 16, when I realized that Katrina had an impact on my well being as far as just being in totally new environments,” De La Cruz told ABC News.

When De La Cruz enrolled in college, she said she started to disengage from extracurricular activities, miss classes and lay in bed all day as part of the instability she was feeling ever since the impact of Katrina.

“I felt like I was chasing a feeling that I could not give back. I wanted to feel how I felt before Katrina, but I never got that feeling. I never was anywhere that I felt as comfortable as I was before the storm,” De La Cruz said.

After noticing that something was off, she searched online for some of her symptoms, she recalled.

“When you see psychiatrists, or psychologists, you’re like ‘Oh well, I’m not crazy I’m just a little tired,'” De La Cruz mentioned.

A psychiatrist diagnosed De La Cruz with post-traumatic stress disorder. Years later she said she was also diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Nearly 50% of Hurricane Katrina survivors developed an anxiety or mood disorder, AHPA’s report says.

The association also reported that suicide and suicide ideation more than doubled, while 1 in 6 developed PTSD.

De La Cruz says it took her a while to understand and internalize what was happening because of the stigma mental health issues had.

“As a global society, there’s still often a lot of stigma around mental health problems,” Clayton told ABC News.

Despite the reluctance to get help, experts encourage that “it’s okay to get help.”

“There are things that can help you with this, I think we would help people cope,” Clayton added.

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(WASHINGTON) — Unvaccinated Americans should put politics aside and get vaccinated to protect themselves from the highly transmissible and “nasty” delta variant, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday.

“What we’re trying to do is to just put politics aside, this is no time for politics. This is a public health issue and viruses, and public health don’t know the difference between a Democrat and Republican or an Independent,” the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos.

A recent ABC News/ Washington Post poll found that 93% of Democrats said they were vaccinated or planning to get vaccinated, while only 49% of Republicans said the same.

“We’ve got to get away from the divisiveness that has really been a problem right from the very beginning with this outbreak,” Fauci added.

The delta variant was present in at least 51% of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. between June 20 and July 3, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which Fauci said should concern individuals who aren’t vaccinated.

“It’s very clear that this is a nasty variant, it has a much greater capability of transmitting from person to person,” Fauci said.

At least 25 states have seen an uptick in coronavirus cases as vaccination rates dropped to their lowest point since January, averaging 600,000 daily administered doses this past week compared to an average of 1 million administered doses the week prior. According to the CDC, 99.7% of current cases are among the unvaccinated.

Stephanopoulos also noted that Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who appeared later on “This Week,” has said that the vaccines’ lack of full authorization has contributed to vaccine hesitancy.

“I think the governor does have a point there,” Fauci said in response.

“So although it’s understandable — quite understandable that some people might say, well, we want to wait for the full approval, that’s really only a technical issue,” Fauci continued. “But there’s no doubt in my mind that these vaccines are going to get full approval because of the extraordinary amount of positive data.”

Stephanopoulos also asked Fauci to clarify the need for booster shots after the CDC and Food and Drug Administration said a booster shot is not necessary at this time, following an announcement from Pfizer about the need for a third shot of its COVID-19 vaccine 6 to 12 months after individuals are fully vaccinated.

“So there’s a lot of dynamic things going on right now,” Fauci responded. “Though the CDC and the FDA correctly said right now we don’t feel you need a booster. That doesn’t mean that we’re not very — very actively following and gathering all of this information to see if and when we might need it and — if and when we do — we’ll have everything in place to do it.”

“The CDC put out guidance this week urging all schools to open this fall. They said masks are not necessary for fully vaccinated students and teachers. But they left most of the key decisions on issues like distancing and whether to wear masks up to the local school districts. That’s led to some confusion. Should the guidance be more specific and strict?” Stephanopoulos asked Fauci.

“The guidance I think is pretty explicit there, George,” Fauci responded, adding that school districts should implement social distancing, testing or enforce any guidelines recommended from the CDC that they see as fit to keep schools open and safe.

“The bottom line is we need to get the children back in school, in-person classes in the fall,” Fauci continued. “But also to do it safely for the children.”

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(FORT WORTH, Texas) — A hospital broke its record of high-volume stretches of births twice between June 24 to June 28, delivering 107 babies in a total of 91 hours.

The “baby boom” was not entirely an anomaly for Andrews Women’s Hospital at Baylor Scott & White All Saints Medical Center, as it is considered high-volume delivery hospital. However, this influx of births was higher than any the hospital had experienced in the past, surpassing the previous record of 48 births in 41 hours.

Staff at the hospital speculate that this record, which Baylor Scott & White All Saints Medical Center called “rare and exceptional” in its press release, may have been influenced by the pandemic.

“Last spring, when we first went into quarantine, we were all speculating … that perhaps around December [or] January, we may see a boom, and it didn’t happen,” Michelle Stemley, a labor and delivery nurse at Andrews Women’s Hospital, told “Good Morning America.” “Our volumes stayed steady through the winter months, but they have hit now.”

So, Stemley said, she and her colleagues think people got more comfortable “expanding their families after things with the quarantine started to get to be the new normal.”

Stemley was “very busy” when working through the “baby boom,” although she enjoyed helping families bring new life into the world.

“The team was working very hard but we were having a lot of fun taking care of all of these families during these busy times,” Stemley said.

One of the ways in which the team adapted to the high volume deliveries was by rushing the process of transporting mothers post-delivery.

“Everybody has to pull together to make sure that we were able to get our moms moved through as quickly as possible so they would deliver, and, after they had their recovery period, we would get them out to their next room to their postpartum room right away so that we could open up another room in labor and delivery to get these patients in,” Stemley said.

OBGYN Dr. Jay Herd had a different experience. In fact, he didn’t even notice a heightened number of births until they counted the numbers, because the Women’s Hospital is a “busy, busy unit,” he said.

“And my patients didn’t notice that much difference in their delivery,” Herd added.

He believes the boom is not an isolated incident. Instead, he foresees that due to the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, birth rates will continue to rise.

“I don’t think it’s going away,” Herd said. “Seven or eight months from now, we’re going to see lots of … population growth.”

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(ATLANTA) — Students who are vaccinated don’t have to wear masks in school this fall unless they are riding the school bus or their school decides otherwise, according to new guidance released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new federal guidelines aren’t mandatory but are expected to influence school officials, local health departments and governors who are in the midst of preparing for students to return to the classroom full time this fall.

The recommendation also could encourage parents who were previously undecided. Kids older than 12 qualify for the Pfizer vaccine, which requires two doses three weeks apart.

“Achieving high levels of COVID-19 vaccination among eligible students as well as teachers, staff, and household members is one of the most critical strategies to help schools safely resume full operations,” the CDC stated.

The CDC recommendations specifically call for unvaccinated students and staff to continue mask-wearing and encourages schools to offer voluntary routine testing at least once a week. It also encourages 3-feet of distancing among unvaccinated kids in the classroom but says that recommendation shouldn’t prevent classrooms from reopening.

The CDC also recommends that all bus drivers and their passengers — vaccinated or not — wear a mask while traveling to school.

The biggest sticking point for schools though will likely be whether to require proof of vaccination. Most schools already require proof of childhood immunizations with few exceptions.

The CDC, which does not set vaccination requirements for schools or child care centers, makes clear in its recommendations that it will be up to schools and local officials to decide what to do. The agency specifically notes that schools may opt for a universal masking policy, particularly if they have unvaccinated populations and don’t want to require verification that a person has been vaccinated.

“We do allow for flexibility in our guidance,” said Capt. Erin Sauber-Schatz, who helped to write the guidelines as a member of CDC’s COVID response team.

In the end, “this is really about protecting the people who are either not yet eligible for vaccine due to their age, or people who are not yet fully vaccinated,” she added.

The Biden administration has said it won’t pursue a federal mandate for vaccines and is leaving it up to schools and businesses to decide what to enforce. But it has called for universal mask-wearing, even among vaccinated people, on airplanes, trains, buses and other public transportation because of the risk of variants spreading through travel.

So far, many businesses have been reluctant to mandate the vaccines or ask for proof, creating a kind of honor system. Health experts say that could change in a few months if federal regulators grant full approval to the vaccines, which are currently distributed under emergency authorization.

It’s likely that many schools will set their own policies anyway, even ignoring CDC guidance.

In Arizona, Chandler Unified School District, which welcomes back students July 21 — one of the earliest start dates in the nation — had already decided masks would be voluntary when Republican Gov. Doug Ducey signed a law that prohibits local counties and school districts from requiring students or staff to wear face coverings.

Sauber-Schatz said the CDC’s goal was to write useable guidance for all schools, even jurisdictions that were planning to forgo mask mandates.

Under the recommendations, the CDC advises schools to lift COVID protocols slowly — including for masks — if the community has low case numbers and high vaccination rates; on the contrary, areas with high cases and low vaccination rates should keep various strategies in place to prevent outbreaks, according to the CDC.

Parents also should know a child isn’t “fully immunized” until two weeks after their second shot. Because the shots are spaced three weeks apart, that means a teen hoping to become fully immunized by mid-August would need their first shot now.

“The message is really, if your child is eligible for vaccine, the time to get vaccinated is now,” Sauber-Schatz said.

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