(WASHINGTON) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads. More than 637,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.5 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 61.2% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
Here’s how the news is developing today. All times Eastern.
Aug 30, 11:48 am
Vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization drops, CDC says
The COVID-19 vaccines’ ability to keep people out of the hospital appears to be dropping slightly, particularly for those 75 and older, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Monday during an advisory panel.
The CDC has previously estimated that 97% of people in the hospital being treated for COVID-19 are unvaccinated, but that data was collected before the spread of delta, a hyper-transmissible variant that many doctors have warned appears to be making people sicker.
The latest CDC analysis estimates that the ability of the COVID vaccines to keep a person out of the hospital is now between 75% to 95%.
For people older than 75 in particular, vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization experienced the steepest decline, from more than 90% to 80% between June and July.
Health experts are also concerned that a person’s immunity could be waning over time, particularly among older people whose bodies are less likely than younger people to develop a strong immune response to the vaccines.
However, the vaccine still remains highly effective at preventing serious illness, according to the briefing.
(NEW YORK) — As many parents wait for COVID-19 vaccines to be authorized for children younger than 12, doctors increasingly are alarmed at the rising number of kids who are missing routine vaccinations — a trend that’s had a domino effect from last year, when so many families were confined to their homes.
Now, a new analysis finds that to catch up, community health centers may need to increase the number of childhood vaccinations by 265% — and maintain that pace for at least six months.
“The decline in routine pediatric immunizations is very concerning because measles, pertussis and chickenpox still remain threats to child health,” said Dr. Josh Sharfstein, a pediatrician and vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
With in-person schooling restarting this fall, a growing chorus of doctors is now urging parents to make sure their children receive their routine pediatric vaccinations, which run along a specific schedule. For example, babies are supposed to get their measles, mumps, rubella vaccination near their first birthday. By age 11, it’s time to be vaccinated against human papilloma virus.
But with so many children missing these routine immunizations, doctors are now warning of a potentially sharp uptick in vaccine-preventable diseases, which may coincide with a potentially difficult flu season if children also are receiving fewer flu shots.
“We now face the double challenge of keeping children safe from the delta variant and making sure they’re not falling ill from other preventable diseases as they return to in-person schooling,” Sharfstein said. “The next year will be an immense challenge for parents, pediatricians, teachers and school administrators to protect children.”
HealthEfficient, a not-for-profit organization in New York that supports community health centers nationwide, has been tracking childhood immunization rates since the beginning of the pandemic.
“Our data shows a substantial and persistent drop in the number of childhood immunizations occurring over the last two years,” Alan Mitchell, the group’s executive director, told ABC News. “The numbers in 2021 are in some cases even lower than 2020, and 2020 already represented a large drop-off from 2019.”
Analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of high-performing immunization information systems from 10 jurisdictions in the U.S. showed that administered doses of routine childhood and adolescent vaccines were substantially lower from March to May 2020 compared with that same time period in 2018 and 2019.
A study conducted by a team at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington found a similar drop-off in vaccination rates throughout the world, with the most significant decrease seen in April 2020. Data from the World Health Organization and UNICEF shows that at least 23 million children missed routine vaccinations in 2020 because of the disruption in health services.
“Any time there is a decrease in vaccination rates, this lowers herd immunity and increases the potential for an outbreak, as we saw for measles in Minnesota in 2017 and in New York in 2018-2019,” said Dr. Keila Lopez, an associate professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine/ Texas Children’s Hospital.
“These declining immunization rates risk reversing years of gains via public health efforts to improve pediatric immunization trends,” Mitchell said. “In our view, a sustained, coordinated public health initiative is needed to drive these rates back up to pre-pandemic levels.”
Experts recommend restoring vaccination services and campaigns, helping health care workers and community leaders educate the public about the importance of vaccinations, identifying and rectifying vaccination gaps in individual communities, making sure COVID-19 vaccinations don’t affect the routine childhood vaccination drive, and implementing plans to prevent and respond to outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases.
The impact of the pandemic can be felt as a ripple through other serious conditions that make catching up even more critical.
Health care providers and schools should assess the vaccination status of all pediatric patients, including adolescents, and contact those who are behind schedule to ensure all children are fully vaccinated, experts told ABC News. Furthermore, more public health campaigns to combat misinformation and reinforce the overwhelming value of vaccines also could help, and community health centers have a critical role to play.
“Based on the current delta surge impacting higher numbers of children, school reopening’s with varied public health practices and more frequent quarantines,” Lopez said, “I fear that routine and flu vaccine acquisition will fall even lower this season.”
Tushar Garg, M.D., an incoming postdoctoral research fellow at Johns Hopkins Hospital, is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit. Jay Bhatt, D.O., an internist and adjunct faculty at the UIC School of Public Health, is an ABC News contributor.
(WASHINGTON) — Public health officials are sticking with the recommendation that people get booster shots eight months after getting the COVID-19 vaccine, but that could change based on reviewing the data, Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Sunday.
“We’re still sticking with the eight months,” the chief medical adviser for the White House told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz. “However, as we’ve said, even in the original statement that came out, we’re gonna have to go through the standard way of the (Food and Drug Administration) looking at the data and then the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. So although we’re sticking with eight, we’re remaining flexible, that if the data tells us differently, we’ll make adjustments accordingly. But for now, we’re sticking with the eight.”
As the U.S. prepares a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot program, President Joe Biden said on Friday that the administration is considering whether booster shots should be given as early as five months after vaccination. Biden was meeting with the Israeli prime minister and credited his advice that the U.S. should start earlier.
The new daily COVID-19 case average in the U.S. has risen to 142,000, and is 130,000 daily cases higher than the average was about two months ago, as of Thursday. The U.S. has also continued to experience its steepest rise in COVID-19 related hospitalizations since the winter of 2020, with more than 101,000 patients hospitalized across the country with COVID-19. This marked the highest number of patients hospitalized with the virus in seven months.
Pediatric hospital admissions for children under 18 with COVID-19 were also up by 514% since July Fourth, as of Friday.
Regarding when children under 12 will be eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, Fauci said that the FDA should be examining the data toward the middle or end of September.
“Hopefully we’ll be acting quickly, depending on the data, and their assessment of the risk-benefit ratio,” Fauci said.
But the nation’s top infectious disease doctor also emphasized that there are other ways to protect unvaccinated children as they head back to school amid a surge in COVID-19 cases, fueled by the delta variant of the virus.
“You can protect children who can’t get vaccinated because of their age. Yes, we can protect them by surrounding them with a community of people who are vaccinated. That’s how you protect children. And you also do it by complying with the CDC guidance about masking, particularly masking in school, even though you have vaccinated teachers and vaccinated personnel. You want to give that extra, added level of protection for the children.”
Fauci also addressed an unclassified report released on Friday by the intelligence community that did not come to any definitive conclusion over the origins of the coronavirus first detected in Wuhan, China. The agencies that worked on the report wrote that two hypotheses are still possible: “natural exposure to an infected animal” or “a laboratory-associated incident.”
When asked if the origins will ever be known, Fauci said, “You know, I hope so … because it will help us to avoid this in the future. But we will need the cooperation of Chinese scientists and Chinese public health officials, if we’re gonna do the proper surveillance serologically of people who were infected in China, as well as the animals; being able to asses whether or not animals had viruses that are closely related to SARS-COV-2. We’ll need to do that in China with the cooperation of the Chinese,” Fauci said.
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
This is a developing news story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — A new, peer reviewed study estimates that the delta variant of COVID-19 doubles the risk of being hospitalized compared to the prior alpha variant among unvaccinated people.
The delta variant is the most highly transmissible strain seen yet, first emerging in India in late 2020 and quickly sweeping the globe. But scientists have debated whether this variant is also deadlier.
Preliminary studies from Scotland and Canada hinted that this version of the virus might be making people sicker, but some researchers said this could also be explained by the variant’s hyper-transmissibility, which leads to massive COVID surges that overwhelm hospitals.
This new study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, adds increased evidence that the delta variant is more likely to send people to the hospital than the previously dominant alpha variant.
This doesn’t apply if you’re vaccinated, researchers say. Vaccines dramatically reduce the risk of hospitalization and death for both the alpha and delta variants. Most of the people in the U.K. study were unvaccinated.
“Our analysis highlights that in the absence of vaccination, any Delta outbreaks will impose a greater burden on healthcare than an Alpha epidemic,” said Dr. Anne Presanis, one of the study’s lead authors and senior statistician, MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, in prepared remarks.
In one of the largest studies yet looking at this question, U.K. researchers analyzed medical records of more than 40,000 COVID cases from March to May, roughly 20% of which were delta variant infections. By measuring what happened to people within 14 days of testing positive, researchers found that people infected with delta were more likely to seek medical care at a hospital or emergency room compared to people infected with the alpha variant.
“This is a large study that suggests a slight increase in [emergency department] visits and hospitalizations among unvaccinated persons infected with delta versus alpha,” said Dr. Carlos Del Rio, executive associate dean of the Emory School of Medicine and Grady Health System in Atlanta.
“But to me, what the paper says more about delta is the fact that vaccines work,” Del Rio said.
In the United States, the delta variant was first identified in March and had become the dominant variant by July. It has led to a massive surge among mostly unvaccinated people, including many young adults and children, who are less likely to be vaccinated than older adults.
“I know from anecdotal reports here in the U.S. that we are seeing more serious infections with the delta variant than the alpha variant, and these data support that,” said Dr. Anna Durbin, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
“I think this is a trend we are seeing in the U.S. where pediatric ICUs are filling up and we are seeing young adults requiring intubation at a much higher rate than with the alpha peak in early 2021,” Durbin said. “I am confident that we are seeing more severe illness in younger people with the delta variant.”
In early August, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins said there wasn’t enough data yet to be confident that the delta variant is more serious for children, but preliminary evidence so far is “tipping in that direction.”
The Pfizer vaccine is currently authorized for children ages 12 and older, with authorization for children 5 to 11 expected sometime this winter. Roughly half of children ages 12 to 17 have received their first shot, according to White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients, speaking at Friday press briefing.
-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. intelligence agencies remain “divided on the most likely origins of COVID-19,” after President Joe Biden’s 90-day push for his intel community to “redouble their efforts” to find a more definitive conclusion regarding the source of the virus.
In a declassified summary released late Friday afternoon, the agencies said that two hypotheses for the virus’ origin remain possible: either natural exposure to an infected animal, or an accidental lab leak.
Four elements of the U.S. intelligence community said with “low confidence” that COVID-19 was initially spread from an animal to a human, while one element assessed with “moderate confidence” that the first human infection was the result of a “laboratory-associated incident, probably involving experimentation, animal handling, or sampling by the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” and pointing to the “inherently risky nature of work on Coronaviruses.”
The agencies, however, generally agreed that the virus was most likely not developed as a biological weapon, and that China’s leaders did not know about the virus before the start of the global pandemic.
Barring new information, said the report, a more definitive explanation will not be possible without Beijing’s cooperation.
Biden, responding to the report, said that efforts to identify the cause of the virus will continue.
“While this review has concluded, our efforts to understand the origins of this pandemic will not rest,” Biden said. “We will do everything we can to trace the roots of this outbreak that has caused so much pain and death around the world, so that we can take every necessary precaution to prevent it from happening again.”
Referring to China, the president said, “Responsible nations do not shirk these kinds of responsibilities to the rest of the world. Pandemics do not respect international borders, and we all must better understand how COVID-19 came to be in order to prevent further pandemics.”
But international scientists tasked with studying the virus’ origins warned Wednesday that a crucial window is “closing fast”: the shrinking opportunity for any thorough scientific study to be completed. As time wears on, potential evidence wanes, and tracing back biologic breadcrumbs will yield diminishing returns, said more than ten of the authors of a World Health Organization-led report that is urging action to “fast-track the follow-up scientific work required” for better answers by the WHO.
Assessing the intelligence and raw data available this spring, it became apparent to Biden and his top officials that a large cache of information had yet to be fully analyzed, officials told ABC News — including potential evidence that could hold clues to the virus that has now claimed more than four million lives worldwide.
Consensus among top officials in the Biden administration has been that the pandemic originated in one of two ways: The virus emerged from human contact with an infected animal, or from a laboratory accident.
But with no “smoking gun” and limited access to raw data, discussion of the science has played out in a haze of circumstantial evidence.
Following Biden’s call for clarity in May, intelligence agencies have spent the last three months poring over an untapped trove of information, and have amassed classified records and communications, genomic fingerprints of the virus, and early signals as to where and when the virus may have flared up first.
Biden’s August deadline marks zero hour for the next phase of a larger international quest: to trace back the virus in order to hold the responsible parties to account, and to understand its inception in order to prevent the next one.
Any emerging answers, however, come amid a roiling geopolitical debate, as COVID-19’s origins have become a contentious wedge issue at home — while abroad, the Chinese government vehemently denies the virus could have come from one of its labs.
“What the U.S. cares about is not facts and truth, but how to consume and malign China,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Wednesday ahead of the U.S. report, claiming that China had welcomed collaborative research which “laid the foundation for the next-phase global origins tracing work.”
The Chinese government rejected the World Health Organization’s proposed audits of Wuhan’s labs in July, part of the UN agency’s recommended phase two study — saying they could not accept needless “repetitive research” when “clear conclusions” had already been reached.
But there have been no definitive conclusions as to where COVID-19 came from. The joint WHO-led team presented a range of options in their March report, calling a lab leak “extremely unlikely,” but offering pathways for further investigation. Team members have voiced frustration with the lack of cooperation from the Chinese government — echoed in international criticism that politics had stymied science.
Since then, the WHO has become increasingly receptive to the possibility that the virus resulted from a lab leak. In July, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged that ruling out a lab leak theory was “premature” and recommended audits of the Wuhan labs in further studies. China’s subsequent rebuff left the WHO to proceed without them.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has underscored that the U.S. will continue the “diplomatic spadework” of rallying support for the WHO-led study — while warning that the administration will not accept Beijing’s stonewalling.
“Either they will allow, in a responsible way, investigators in to do the real work of figuring out where [COVID-19] came from, or they will face isolation in the international community,” Sullivan told Fox News in June.
A group of bipartisan lawmakers urged Biden not to let this month’s deadline hamstring a thorough investigation.
“If the 90-day effort you have announced does not yield conclusions in which the United States has a high degree of confidence, we urge you to direct the intelligence community to continue prioritizing this inquiry until such conclusions are possible,” Sens. Mark Warner (D-Virginia) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote in a late July letter to the president.
Asked about the report’s release, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said it would take “several days” for an unclassified and collated version to come together, but that agencies were working “expeditiously to prepare that.”
With no definitive proof of the virus’ origin, scientists and policymakers alike have been left to speculate. Some of the first COVID-19 clusters occurred around Wuhan’s wet markets, where exotic wild fare was sold in close quarters, offering ample opportunity for the virus to jump from animals to humans, as in past epidemics.
No direct animal host for COVID-19 has been identified, and if there is one, it could take years to find, experts say. While environmental samples from the Wuhan markets tested positive, animal samples that were tested did not. Transmission earlier on and within the wider community would suggest the market was not the original source of the pandemic, experts say.
In late summer and early autumn of 2019, satellite imagery shared exclusively with ABC showed dramatic spikes in auto traffic around major Wuhan hospitals — suggesting the virus may have been spreading long before the world was alerted. U.S. intelligence officials had already been warning that a contagion was sweeping through the region as far back as late November 2019, changing patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the populations, according to sources briefed on the matter.
Proponents of the lab-leak theory point to gain-of-function research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a controversial study that amplifies a virus’ potency to understand how to neutralize it better. They also point to concerns over biosafety at the WIV’s facilities, where researchers had worked with bat coronavirus samples 96% similar to SARS-CoV-2 — as well as workers at the lab who were hospitalized with “symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses” in November 2019.
Advocates of zoonotic origin, however, emphasize that the 4% discrepancy means a world of genetic difference — and WIV lead researcher Shi Zhengli insists that she tested all her workers for COVID-19 antibodies, and all tests came back negative.
Despite pressure to approach the “high degree of confidence” desired by the public and requested in the lawmakers’ July letter, such certainty remains elusive — something presaged by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines in an interview with Yahoo News earlier this summer.
“We’re hoping to find a smoking gun,” Haines said. “It’s challenging to do that.”
-ABC News’ Josh Margolin, Karson Yiu, James Gordon Meek, Eric M. Strauss, Ben Gittleson and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — As many children return to in-person learning and adults end a period of working from home, experts are concerned about the upcoming flu season and its implications for hospitals that are already pushed to the limits of capacity due to the COVID-19 delta variant.
Flu season usually runs from October to May, with experts suggesting the best time to get vaccinated is from early September to the end of October, although some major retail pharmacies have already begun advertising this year’s supply.
“We should always prepare for the flu season by planning to get vaccinated. This fall and winter there is likely to be circulation of COVID, influenza as well as other respiratory viruses,” said Dr. David Hirschwerk, an infectious disease specialist at Northwell Health in New York.
For some, that might mean getting vaccines for the flu and COVID-19 at the same time — either a booster shot or primary COVID-19 vaccination. Either way, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say it is safe to get the COVID and flu vaccines during the same visit.
“There is currently no contraindication to receiving both at the same time and for many people, this will be the most convenient way to handle it,” said Hirschwerk.
Experts say that with multiple viruses now circulating, every bit of protection helps.
Other seasonal respiratory viruses — such as RSV and adenovirus — have proven unpredictable, surging during the summer, a time typically outside their regular season.
By the same token, it’s not possible to predict the severity of the 2021-2022 flu season. Public health officials like to say if you’ve seen one flu season, you’ve seen one flu season — meaning every year starts and ends at different times, with different strains and different severities. Some worry the low number of cases last year during remote learning and work from home situations — as well as people wearing masks when they were in public — could be the calm before a very severe flu season this year.
Influenza activity during the 2020-2021 season was at a record low despite high levels of testing. Less than 1% of tested respiratory samples were positive for the flu. For comparison, the prior three flu seasons showed positive tests for influenza between 26% and 30%.
During the 2019-2020 season, 38 million people became sick with flu, resulting in more than 400,000 hospitalizations and 22,000 deaths.
A major contributor to the low cases of flu during 2020-2021 was a record number of flu vaccinations. An estimated 193.8 million doses were distributed in the U.S. during the 2020-2021 season.
Many primary care doctors, especially pediatricians, are playing catch-up when it comes to making sure that everyone is getting their routine vaccinations as the COVID pandemic resulted in many maintenance visits being canceled or rescheduled.
While children under 12 are not yet eligible for the COVID vaccine, those ages 6 months and older are strongly encouraged to get the flu vaccine. Many school districts insist on it.
“The first time a child gets the flu vaccine, it’s two doses, not just one, so people should plan for that,” said Dr. Eric Cioe-Pena, emergency medicine specialist at Staten Island University Hospital.
Annual flu vaccines are especially important for children ages 6 months to 4 years, adults aged 50 and older, nursing home residents, people with underlying health conditions such as heart disease and lung disease, people who are immunosuppressed and people who are pregnant.
By now, most people are aware that vaccines prevent serious illness for the individual getting the vaccine and for those around them who are more vulnerable to severe illness. In a typical year, hundreds of children die from the flu. The CDC estimates that an average of 36,000 adults have died of the flu each year over the past decade. The worst recent flu season was 2017-2018, when 61,000 people died, according to the CDC.
“It is very important that all children (6 months and older) receive the flu vaccine. This helps to reduce risk of infection, of severe complications from flu, and it protects the entire household and communities by reducing transmission to others,” said Hirschwerk.
To vaccinate as many individuals as possible, vaccine makers are producing large quantities of several types of flu vaccine. Flu vaccines are typically made using a process that involves eggs, but alternative vaccines will be available for people who have egg allergies.
Getting vaccination is a key step in preventing the flu and decreasing transmission, experts say. Continuing mitigation measures are also likely to keep any influenza surges at bay, especially as the country to struggles to cope with the devastation caused by COVID-19.
“Mask-wearing has significantly curbed the spread of influenza,” said Cioe-Pena. “Wash your hands, wipe down commonly touched surfaces like keyboards, phones and door knobs. Stay home when you are sick, and wear a mask.”
(NEW YORK) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced an investigation into an outbreak of Salmonella that may be linked to Italian-style meats.
They reported 36 illnesses and 12 hospitalizations across 17 states and found that most people ate Fratelli Beretta brand uncured antipasto trays before they became ill, according to a release on Thursday.
This does not include Italian-style meats sliced at a deli.
No deaths have been reported.
The CDC is advising people not to eat Fratelli Beretta brand pre-packaged uncured antipasto trays, including uncured salami, prosciutto, coppa or soppressata. The trays were sold nationwide and have “best by” dates on or before Feb. 11, 2022.
The investigation is ongoing to determine if additional products are linked to illness. ABC News has reached out to Fratelli Beretta for comment, but has not heard back at this time.
(CHESTERFIELD, Mo.) — Dr. Steven Brown is on the front line of the battle against the surge of COVID-19 cases. But for him, the front line is also the home front.
Working overnights, the 66-year-old critical care specialist manages hundreds of intensive care unit patients in hospitals across the Midwest, more than half of them COVID cases, many on ventilators. And he does it from his living room in suburban St. Louis.
Sitting before an array of four large computer screens and two laptops, he compares his work to that of an air traffic controller. He can read charts, scans, X-rays and even look in on patients with the help of sophisticated cameras in the ICUs.
“Each room has its own camera in it and I’m remotely operating it,” he told ABC News.
So despite being distant from his patients, his care is intimate. “I can look in a throat. I can look at how they’re using their muscles of respiration and whether they have disordered breathing. I’m able to do extreme fine-tuning of the ventilator settings for patients.”
And lately, more and more of his cases are COVID patients on ventilators. On his regular 12-hour shifts, he reports that the “amount of disease I am seeing is amplified. While some critical care doctors on a night shift might be managing eight or 10 patients with COVID-19 who are on ventilators for their shift, I’m managing 10 times as many because I’m managing patients in multiple sites.”
Remote care is not new for Brown, who had been working that way alongside colleagues at Mercy Virtual Care Center for more than 12 years. However, age and other factors put him at higher risk for COVID-19. So, when the pandemic struck, he got installed in his home the equipment needed to continue working there and has done so now for more than a year and a half.
“There are a lot of telemedicine physicians and providers and vendors out there,” Bethany Pope, spokesperson for Mercy Virtual, told ABC News. “There are likely very few who are doing critical care medicine from home.”
Working from home, however, does not mean working less. Brown forecasts that the surge in the disease will mean a surge in his already grueling work schedule, from 10 straight days of 7 p.m. to 7 a.m shifts to 12 days in a row or more.
But while the current situation is grim, he thinks a good outcome is still possible, perhaps even a Hollywood ending. “Initially this felt, at the end of 2020, as being like the end of the first original Star Wars movie,” he said. “We’re in the ‘Empire Strikes Back’ right now with the delta variant. And we’re going to have a happy sequel, but there’s a lot of work ahead for us.”
(ST. LOUIS) — A Missouri mom whose newborn son passed away after she gave birth to him while battling COVID-19 is speaking out in order to urge pregnant women to get vaccinated.
Vanessa Alfermann, a registered nurse from Franklin County, says she was 22 weeks pregnant with her second child when she contracted COVID-19 in November, before the first COVID-19 vaccine received emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“My husband had symptoms and he tested positive and the next day I also tested positive,” Alfermann, 33, told Good Morning America. “I never had shortness of breath but was just really tired.”
Alfermann said she had more symptoms of COVID-19, like a loss of taste and smell and headaches, but never experienced the more serious complications she sees COVID-infected patients suffer from at the hospital, Missouri Baptist Sullivan, where she works.
Around 10 days after she first tested positive for COVID-19 though, Alfermann began experiencing back pain and cramps and went to see her OBGYN.
“The baby was fine [in an ultrasound] but my white blood cells were really high and they said I had an infection from COVID and gave me an antibiotic and some muscle relaxers to go home with,” she recalled. “The next morning at about 1:30 I got up and realized I was in labor.”
Because her husband was still isolating due to his own COVID-19 diagnosis, Alfermann’s mother-in-law drove her to Mercy Hospital in St. Louis, where she would quickly give birth to her son, whom she named Axel.
“Within a half hour from me getting there and getting up to the [labor and delivery] floor, Axel was born,” said Alfermann. “I didn’t even get to hold him. The NICU people held him and he took his breath with them and then he passed away.”
Alfermann said doctors told her she suffered a placental abruption, a pregnancy complication that happens when the placenta separates from the uterus. In her case, the abruption was caused by blood clots in the placenta due to COVID-19.
“It was mind-blowing because don’t think you’re going to get a blood clot on your placenta. [You think] you’re going to be put on a ventilator because you can’t breathe,” Alfermann said, referring to respiratory problems that were the most well-known COVID-19 complication at the time. “I went through all of these emotions but I also thought if this is what’s coming, what COVID does, it just scared me.”
Placental abruption can be a deadly complication for the mother. Alfermann said she is thankful she survived and is able to still be here for her family, including her husband, son and stepdaughter.
As she continues to walk through the grief of losing a child, Alfermann said she is sharing her story to help encourage pregnant people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
“There’s so much misinformation out there that’s killing people and it’s frustrating,” she said. “I speak out about this for Axel’s legacy … because there shouldn’t be another Vanessa or Axel.”
Alfermann, who was vaccinated against COVID-19 in December, said she thinks about how her life may be different if the vaccine had been available during her pregnancy.
Describing the moment she received her first vaccine shot in December, Alfermann said, “I was so happy because I was protecting everybody else but I went upstairs to our bathroom and just cried because I thought ‘what if.’ What if five or six weeks earlier I could have gotten the shot? I could still be waiting to have my baby boy.”
“It’s very bittersweet,” she said.
Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) strengthened its recommendation for COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy, stating that all women who are pregnant, breastfeeding or trying to get pregnant now or might become pregnant in the future should get a COVID-19 vaccine.
Still, 3 out of 4 four pregnant women in the U.S. have not yet received a COVID-19 vaccine, according to new data from the CDC.
The low vaccination rate among pregnant women combined with the more infectious delta variant spreading in the U.S. has led to an increase in hospitalizations among pregnant women, including in the St. Louis-based healthcare system where Alfermann works.
“We’re getting pretty desperate,” said Dr. Jeannie Kelly, a Washington University obstetrician at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, part of the BJC HealthCare system. “We have had to say no to transfers because we are completely full and that in my eyes is just unacceptable for American medicine in 2021 and it’s infuriating that we’re here at this point.”
“I think all of us who are taking care of pregnant patients at this point are really worried, are really concerned and are really scared,” she said. “It’s a really hard situation for a pregnant person who is in the ICU with a baby who is also sick because mom is so sick.”
Dr. Laura Vricella, a maternal fetal medicine physician at Mercy Hospital, where Alfermann was treated, said the hospital is also seeing record number of COVID-positive pregnant patients.
“In the past month we have seen the largest amount of pregnant people being hospitalized with COVID, and be critically ill with COVID, than we did at any time last year, said Vricella. “We have eight [pregnant people with COVID-19] in the hospital now, five are critically ill and virtually all are unvaccinated.”
Vricella, who was not involved in Alfermann’s care, said doctors and researchers are learning more and more now, as the pandemic continues, about the negative effects COVID may have on pregnant people.
“What we’re seeing right now is that COVID-19 seems to be much more dangerous for pregnant people than what we were seeing in the spring,” she said. “This is why the three national bodies [the CDC, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM)] are now recommending the vaccine in pregnancy regardless of timing.”
COVID-19 is especially dangerous in pregnant people because their immune systems are already less active in order to support their growing fetus and their hearts and kidneys are already working harder during pregnancy to support the fetus, according to Vricella.
Pregnant people must also keep their oxygen levels higher in general to support their fetus, which can be a herculean task to do when COVID-19 is in the body, according to Vricella.
And in addition to pregnant people with COVID-19 being more likely to deliver prematurely, Vricella said her hospital is also seeing more COVID-positive pregnant patients deliver stillbirths, even with mild COVID cases.
“COVID-19 begins as a respiratory illness but can affect the entire body and also seems to increase the risk of thrombosis or blood clots,” she said. “We suspect that this decreased oxygen to the fetus may be responsible for the stillbirths that we are seeing, though we need further research.”
Just as doctors are learning more about the complications of COVID-19 in pregnant women, they are also seeing more data about the safety of the vaccines, according to Vricella.
“The risks of COVID are much, much greater than the theoretical risks of the vaccine,” she said. “The overwhelming evidence indicates that the vaccine is safe.”
When the CDC strengthened its recommendation for COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy this month, it did so citing new evidence of safety with the vaccines, a point that Kelly also stressed.
“I tell my patients that at this point, the [COVID-19] vaccine is one of the most studied medications, or interventions, during pregnancy,” said Kelly, noting that over 140,000 pregnant people have been vaccinated and doctors now have nearly nine months of data pointing to the vaccine’s success. “During pregnancy, we’re pretty excited when we see a study come out with a couple thousand women enrolled in it, and now we’re talking so many more numbers than we typically see for any other type of research in pregnancy.”
Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines also use mRNA technology, which doesn’t enter the nucleus of the cells and doesn’t alter human DNA. The two COVID-19 vaccines are the first mRNA vaccines, which are theoretically safe during pregnancy, because they do not contain a live virus.
“It’s never too late and it’s never too early,” Vricella said of when pregnant women should get vaccinated. “I think the fall could be a really terrifying time for pregnant people if we don’t increase their vaccination rates quickly.”
(NEW YORK) — Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, one in five kids in the U.S. has experienced anxiety, according to data published this month in JAMA Pediatrics, a medical journal.
Now with most kids returning to school in-person this year amid the delta variant and as mask mandate debates continue throughout the country, it is to be expected that anxiety and stress levels may again be on the rise, experts say.
“We need to make space for the fact that kids may be experiencing very new things,” said Dave Anderson, Ph.D., vice president of school and community programs at the Child Mind Institute, an organization dedicated to mental health work with children and families. “It’s really important
to say, ‘Just because we’re excited to be returning to some sense of normalcy, what do I need to support you around? What might you be nervous about?'”
Leena and Sunil Saini, of Newtown, Pennsylvania, said they are in the midst of anxiety-inducing change as they send their daughters, Kirina and Ela, to school after socially isolating together for the past 18 months.
“We’ve been in this protective bubble until now and now we’re sending them out into the world,” said Leena Saini, whose husband, Sunil, is also returning to work in-person. “Sending them back to school now, it’s kind of anxiety-provoking, and what’s hard is we as parents are anxious, but don’t want to transfer that anxiety to our kids.”
Here are four tips from Anderson to help the anxiety families like the Sainis are experiencing in this time of big changes.
1. Stay calm and open with your child.
While parents like the Sainis’ may be worried about pushing their own anxiety onto their children, Anderson said it is okay for parents to talk to a certain extent with their kids about how they’re feeling.
“The answer is always something in moderation,” said Anderson. “We don’t want a parent to fully suppress everything that they’re feeling.”
When talking with their kids about school, parents should try not to ask leading questions, like, “Are you nervous about going back to school?” according to the Child Mind Institute’s back to school guide.
Anderson recommends parents listen to and validate their child’s feelings by telling them, “We know you’re going to have feelings. Those feelings are very valid. Let’s focus on the things that might you might be optimistic about this particular change, and then beyond that, we’re just going to take it as it comes.”
And parents themselves can help to ease their own anxiety by, first, taking a deep breath, according to Anderson. He noted that parents may also find it helpful to review the procedures their child’s school has put in place to help ease their worries.
2. Reassure your child you’ll still have time with them.
For many families, the pandemic lockdown meant more time together than they were used to spending. For some children, adjusting back to the routine of being apart during the day may prove difficult, according to Anderson.
“We can say to kids, ‘Even as I go back to the office, maybe those days where you see me less, know that I have valued this time where we’ve been able to see each other, and there will still be days when that rhythm is still kind of there,'” he said. “And I think kids get comforted by that.”
3. Talk to your child about things to do to stay safe.
Wearing face masks and taking other safety measures against COVID-19 may be anxiety-inducing for some students who are being asked by their parents to do so when their peers are not.
Especially when it comes to masks, which have become a heated debate in some school districts, parents should have conversations with their child ahead of time, according to Anderson.
“It’s going back and saying to the child, ‘Well, look, we’ve made the decision that you’re going to wear a mask. We’re going to find you a good fitting one,'” said Anderson, who added that parents can also talk to their child about when they can take mask breaks and the fact that some classmates may be unmasked. “And the reality is that any child who’s in a mixed-mask environment is going to feel comfortable fairly quickly with that norm, likely even more quickly than adults.”
4. Focus on sleep, diet and movement.
In addition to focusing on kids’ feelings, parents should also pay attention to what their kids are eating and how much sleep and movement they’re getting, according to Anderson.
Those elements of an overall healthy lifestyle can help children, and parents, cope with stress.
“It’s going back to basic wellness habits. Get some sleep, make sure you’re feeding yourself, make sure you’re moving your body in some way and that you’re getting some sort of social support,” said Anderson. “If you can check off those boxes a bit, you’re going to be better able to confront the challenges.”
Bonus tips:
Encourage flexibility.
A lesson from the pandemic is that anything can change at any time, so parents should prepare their children to be flexible and prepared for potential changes with school, according to the Child Mind Institute’s back to school guide.
“It’s helpful for kids to know that you’re prepared for changes that may occur. Let your child know that the whole family is going to have to be flexible,” the guide recommends.
Know when to seek help.
Parents can look for several behavior changes in their child that signal it is time to seek professional mental health help.
Those changes include having severe meltdowns at drop-off time for more than two or three weeks, and being unable to recover or to even stay at school, for more than three or four weeks, or having school-related worries that cause repeated headaches and stomachaches, constant visits to the school nurse, or refusal to go to school, according to the Child Mind Institute.
