Health

(LAS VEGAS) — With coronavirus infections on the rise again in the U.S., hospitals across the country are trying to meet the needs of thousands of patients who are testing positive for COVID-19, and are in need of medical care.

One state that has seen a rapid increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations has been Nevada, where case levels have swelled by nearly 200% in the last month, the state’s highest level since February, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Basically, we’re reliving 2020 in 2021,” Dr. Angie Honsberg, medical director for the intensive care unit at University Medical Center told ABC News. “We, unfortunately, are back to having a very high number of COVID patients. We have had a break for the last two and a half months and unfortunately, now we’re back to feeling like we were back in January in February when close to half of our ICU was critically ill patients with COVID respiratory failure.”

Since mid-June, the average number of patients being admitted to the hospital each day with COVID-19 in Nevada has tripled, according to the CDC. This marks the highest number of patients seeking care in more than five months.

Although hospitalization levels in Nevada and nationwide remain significantly lower than at their peak in January, as of Wednesday, 38 states and territories are reporting an increase of 10% or more in hospital admissions over the last week, with nearly 22,000 patients hospitalized around the country, the CDC said.

In light of the state’s recent viral resurgence, Nevada joined a growing list of states on Chicago’s travel advisory list, which will require travelers to either quarantine for 10 days or present a negative COVID-19 test result.

The majority of the state’s infections, according to the CDC, appear to be coming from Clark County, home to Las Vegas, where cases have been steadily increasing since June. In the last week, hospital admissions there have increased by more than 16%.

“Sadly, we’re reliving a lot of what we experienced last year, in the recent weeks,” Dr. Luis Medina-Garcia, an infectious disease physician at UMC, told ABC News. “As businesses reopened, and there’s more traffic of tourists to our city, this increased exposure has resulted in new cases of COVID-19 almost exclusively in the unvaccinated population.”

Thus, with cases increasing, last week, the Southern Nevada Health District also announced it would recommend both unvaccinated and vaccinated people wear masks in crowded indoor public places, “where they may have contact with others who are not fully vaccinated.”

Health experts say the likely driving force behind the significant increase in cases across the country has been the highly infectious delta variant, which is now estimated to account for more than 83% of all new cases.

Although it is still unknown whether the delta variant is potentially more dangerous, this strain of the virus is more efficient at transmitting the disease, and Honsberg said it appears to more virulent, with patients becoming sicker faster.

“The current group of patients seems to get sick quicker than the patients that we saw with the earlier COVID outbreak and we’re also seeing, for the most part, a younger group of patients,” Honsberg said.

Some of the patients have very severe pneumonia, Honsberg added.

A similar message is conveyed by Robin Ringler, charge nurse in UMC’s Medical ICU, who said that the patients she is seeing in the ICU are very sick, many struggling to breathe, and on ventilators.

In fact, she said, some of these patients are so sick “that the doctors currently are talking about doing tracheostomy on them, and that is going to keep them on the ventilator for prolonged periods of time because they cannot breathe on their own.”

Ringer’s team is now anticipating more COVID-19 ICU admissions, with a growing number of COVID patients appearing in the emergency room.

“In the last two weeks, we’ve had a real increase in COVID infections in the hospital. Our COVID numbers have gone up so high. They’ve almost, I think they quadrupled from two weeks ago,” Ringler said. “The number of patients seeking treatment has been getting higher every week.”

The increases are a discouraging development, said Ringler, when vaccines were introduced, and cases began to decline, her team thought they may have been finally out of the woods.

According to the White House COVID-19 Task Force, nearly all of these patients, 97%, are unvaccinated.

Just 43% of Nevada residents have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, “which is a growing concern for us, when our data shows that about 85% of our COVID-19 patients are without a history for vaccination,” added Alma Angeles, director of Critical Care Services at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in Las Vegas.

“We’ve had many patients that have told us that they wish they had been vaccinated. Sadly, it’s too late by the time they get to us,” Dr. Luis Medina-Garcia, an Infectious Disease Physician at UMC, told ABC News. “The death toll from this disease is unbearable. It is unspeakable the loss of life, health, and outcomes that we have had to go through. It’s just sad to see people getting sick, for no good reason.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Puerto Rico could lose Medicaid funding in less than two months, putting at risk roughly 1.5 million people — nearly half the island’s population — unless Congress acts quickly.

As COVID-19 continues to batter the island — with at least 2,561 deaths among 141,905 confirmed cases, according to World Health Organization data — several U.S. representatives have teamed up to propose the Supporting Medicaid in the U.S. Territories Act.

“Territories get less funding through Medicaid than states do, and it has led to all sorts of adverse health outcomes, debt and a sub-standard of living in those areas,” Rep. Darren Soto, D-Fla., told ABC News in an interview. Puerto Rico was getting “far less than many states, and that led to an erosion of their health care system.”

The territory’s annual Medicaid needs are predicted to reach about $3 billion, but due to restrictions in the Social Security Act Section 11108, Puerto Rico has instead only been given roughly $375 million in Medicaid for the year, Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Pierluisi told ABC News.

Puerto Rico, by statute, is only set to receive 55% of what is needed to fund Medicaid each year from the federal government, according to the think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. But since the island’s federal block grant is small and often exhausted, CBPP reports that some years the Medicaid program is funded at less than 20%. Whatever the federal government doesn’t pay for, the island is responsible.

“The funding is not the same we would be getting as a state,” Pierluisi said. “You cannot plan or budget reasonably when you are facing this [Medicaid] cliff every couple of years.”

The new bill states that it would extend the federal Medicaid funding to account for 76% of what is needed for five years, offering much relief during the island’s ongoing economic crisis. Mississippi, the poorest U.S. state, also gets 76%.

But with a 43.5% poverty — more than twice that of Mississippi — and higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, asthma and more, Puerto Ricans need reliable health coverage perhaps more than ever.

Roughly 46% of the island’s population relies on Medicaid, according to the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, and almost 44% of Puerto Ricans live in poverty.

“We need that money to provide good medical and hospital services to our population,” said Jorge Galva, executive director of the Puerto Rico Health Insurance Administration. “There is a dire need to provide the full complement of Medicaid services.”

Providing care, Galva added, is made even more difficult as thousands of physicians and other health professionals continue migrating to the U.S. mainland, where they typically receive better pay and enjoy a higher standard of living.

Even with an increased amount of Medicaid funding for Puerto Ricans, Galva said, this wouldn’t be enough to help the island offer some of the federally mandated services, like nursing home care, home health care and nonemergency medical transportation.

“Over the years,” Galva continued, “the gap between the cap on the federal funds for our Medicaid program and the needs of the program grew bigger and bigger and bigger. As a territory, and under the present state of the law, Congress is fully allowed to discriminate and make differences between the treatment to territories and states.”

Local officials are calling on lawmakers to address what’s seen as the U.S. neglecting Puerto Rico because it’s a territory, not a state.

“It’s a matter of fairness and equity that we receive funding in parity with the states and allow Puerto Rico to provide its medically indigent population with all the services they need and deserve,” Galva said.

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The anesthesia medication ketamine is showing increased promise as a treatment for people experiencing depression who haven’t found relief with other prescription medications.

Though ketamine is known for its recreational use as a party drug, it can also be prescribed legally by doctors. In recent years, ketamine has become more accessible for those struggling with depression. In 2015, there were fewer than 60 ketamine clinics in the U.S. Three years later, there were more than 300, according to the journal of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences.

Generic ketamine isn’t specifically approved as a depression treatment, but U.S. doctors are often allowed to prescribe Food and Drug Administration-approved medicines “off-label” for another use.

A growing body of evidence has shown ketamine, which has been used since the 1970s in the field of anesthesia, can be successful in treating depression and suicidal behaviors. In fact, ketamine is part of a growing field of research into whether drugs that have traditionally been viewed as illegal psychedelics or party drugs could, in certain contexts, help people with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other behavioral health and psychiatric disorders.

In 2019, the FDA approved Spravato, a ketamine-related nasal spray drug, given in conjunction with antidepressants that has been shown to help people with treatment-resistant depression. But many clinics offer generic ketamine, often in the form of intravenous infusions.

Dr. Steven Mandel, founder and president of Ketamine Clinics Los Angeles, said because ketamine is already a low-cost generic drug, it’s unlikely that a pharmaceutical company would pay for the process that would be needed to get the drug approved specifically as a depression treatment.

“For a medicine like ketamine that is already approved and available, adding a new indication for the treatment of depression would probably cost tens of millions — if not hundreds of millions — of dollars,” Mandel said. “No one wants to spend that money.”

But ketamine’s unique status can create problems for patients. Ketamine’s use for depression is off-label and it is typically not covered by health insurances. Because of this, “there are some access issues,” said Dr. Panagiota Korenis, a psychiatrist and associate professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

“It’s often limited to a subset of the population that can pay out of pocket or be a part of a trial,” she said.

There are also certain risks associated with ketamine.

“It is a drug that can be abused potentially,” said Korenis, who noted that patients typically need to be treated in the clinic and typically cannot take multiple doses of the medication home with them.

Nevertheless, Korenis is hopeful ​that ketamine may prove itself as another powerful option for those with depression.

“Ketamine certainly is being shown to be a medication of interest and one that has potential for the future,” said Korenis.

Experts debate whether ketamine is a psychedelic and able to produce similar altered states of consciousness as MDMA and psilocybin, which have shown healing properties in some studies.

But many clinics are opting to administer ketamine in a manner similar to psychedelics in clinical trials. Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, or KAP, is a combination of ketamine and therapy that is similar to psychedelic-assisted therapy used in recent carefully controlled clinical trials.

For example, MDMA, also known as molly or ecstasy, is a psychedelic drug that is now being studied in controlled therapy settings as a possible treatment for PTSD. But no psychedelic treatments are FDA-approved, meaning doctors cannot administer them outside of a clinical trial. MDMA is illegal for recreational use in the U.S.

For those who are unable to get into a clinical trial of psychedelics like MDMA and psilocybin, KAP may be the closest legal equivalent.

“Ketamine works for depression and suicidality — it works quickly, it’s safe,” said Mandel. “For the other medicines, we just don’t know. They seem to have great early promise, but we do need a lot more data and a lot more time before we can fully embrace them.”

Psychedelics like MDMA and psilocybin may require a couple of more years until they receive FDA approval, according to Rick Doblin, Executive Director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. In the meantime, Mandel hopes more patients learn about ketamine as an option for depression.

“Ketamine should be available to anyone suffering from these afflictions,” said Mandel.

Nicholas Nissen, M.D., is an author, host of the “Brain Health with Dr. Nissen” podcast and a contributor for the ABC News Medical Unit.

 

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(WASHINGTON) — With more than 161 million people now fully vaccinated in the U.S., experts say we are bound to see reports of breakthrough infections, meaning people test positive for COVID-19 while fully vaccinated.

These breakthrough COVID-19 cases aren’t proof the vaccines aren’t working, experts said, but are normal and expected. All evidence suggests that even in the face of the new, highly-transmissible delta variant, COVID vaccines are still working as they should to dramatically decrease the risk of hospitalization and death.

“When you hear about a breakthrough infection, that doesn’t necessarily mean the vaccine is failing,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said before Congress on Tuesday.

COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective, but they do not block the virus 100% of the time, meaning that some breakthrough infections occur after vaccination.

“I think people need to appreciate when you talk about breakthrough infections that the original data from the clinical trial — the efficacy data was based on preventing clinically apparent disease, not preventing infection, such as a symptomatic infection,” Fauci said.

Despite many high-profile cases of breakthrough infections with mild or no symptoms, including among Olympic athletes and some politicians, the overall number is very low compared to the number of people vaccinated.

And the number of people who have been hospitalized or died after being fully vaccinated is even lower, according to the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state health departments. This demonstrates that vaccinated people are far less likely to die of COVID-19 compared to unvaccinated people.

That doesn’t mean severe illness as the result of an infection isn’t possible, but this tends to happen in people who are elderly or otherwise immune-compromised, experts said.

“Out of 157 million fully vaccinated in the US, there were 4,909 hospitalizations and 988 deaths,” Dr. Carlos del Rio, infectious disease physician and professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Emory University School of Medicine, said during a press briefing on Monday.

“Of course we will see some breakthrough infections that lead to severe illness, more in vulnerable populations with underlying chronic conditions who couldn’t mount a response to vaccines because they couldn’t,” Dr. John Brownstein, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Boston’s Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, told ABC News.

Although studies on this aren’t completed, Fauci said last week that the risk of a vaccinated person spreading COVID to someone else is assuredly far less than an unvaccinated person spreading COVID.

“You could make a reasonable assumption that the rate of transmissibility from the asymptomatic vaccinated person to an uninfected person would be less likely than if the person was unvaccinated,” Fauci said at a White House COVID-19 Response Team briefing last week.

The overall number of breakthrough infections is rising, but that could be because more people overall are getting vaccinated, resulting in more breakthrough cases, Dr. Shobha Swaminathan, an associate professor and infectious disease expert at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, told ABC News.

“As the number of infections in the U.S. increases, there may be a slight increase in the number of ‘breakthrough’ infections,” Swaminathan said. “However, the majority of infections continue to be reported among those who have not been vaccinated.”

Experts said the delta variant could be contributing to these cases, but for now, research is ongoing.

“If it causes an increased rate of breakthrough infections, that’s unknown,” adds Brownstein.

But experts feel reassured by what they do know, that even with the highly-transmissible delta variant sweeping the country, more than 99% of COVID-19 deaths are among people who are unvaccinated.

 

Alexis E. Carrington, M.D. is an ABC News Medical Unit Associate Producer and a rising dermatology resident at George Washington University. Sony Salzman is a Coordinating Producer for ABC News Medical Unit.

 

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(NEW YORK) — With many students heading back to school soon, researchers are gathering information that can help schools set COVID protocols.

Some devices being studied are portable air purification units, which could add a layer of protection and slow the spread of aerosols and droplets in a classroom setting. In fact, New York City plans to have such devices in its classrooms.

Good Morning America got an exclusive look at testing by the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota at the Well Living Lab to examine these devices.

“I think it just provides another layer of security for people,” Dr. Bruce Johnson of the Mayo Clinic told GMA.

In its study, a team of more than 20 researchers built an experimental “classroom.” They rigged up a mannequin in the center to spray out a neon-colored solution to mimic how a sick student might spread particles as they breathe.

Then, researchers measured what was collected on 70 surfaces all over the room, such as desks, chairs and iPad, to see how the droplets spread with and without air purification.

“We’re able to say at each point in the room — how quickly are particulars depositing on different surfaces,” researcher Dr. Zachary Pope said.

Researchers also found that using portable air purifiers to supplement a classroom HVAC system, it may result in up to five times lower particle concentration in the air, improving air quality throughout the room, not just near the unit.

The study from the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota drew similar results to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted earlier this month.

The agency now recommends schools should “filter and/or clean the air in the school by improving the level of filtration as much as possible.”

“I think they [parents] should be put at ease in the sense that we have solutions available,” Hogan said. “There’s a lot of information that is — now available to school administrators and they should be comfortable with the fact that they’re looking into it. And hopefully will be able to implement these solutions.”

For teachers or parents looking to invest in an air filter system, researchers said that any portable air filtration system will do the job. But a quick skim through the product specifications will show how many square feet the product will cover to ensure that it covers enough units of the entire room.

If an air filtration system is beyond your budget, another option would be to update your HVAC system or open a window to add that layer of protection.

 

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(PROVINCETOWN, Mass.) — A popular Cape Cod, Massachusetts, summertime destination is reporting a new spread of COVID-19 infections following the Fourth of July.

Officials in Provincetown, Massachusetts, issued a number of renewed mitigation measures on Monday after at least 132 individuals tested positive for COVID-19 in the weeks after the holiday weekend.

Town Manager Alex Morse told ABC News on Monday that the “vast majority” of the COVID-19 cases associated with the town’s outbreak are among vaccinated individuals.

Eighty-nine of the reported cases are amongst Bay State residents, 39 of whom reside in Barnstable County, and the remainder of the individuals, who tested positive, reside in other states and jurisdictions, local officials said.

At the height of its tourist season in the summer months, Provincetown’s population swells from 3,000 year-round residents, to over 60,000 people, according to state data.

Morse reported most individuals are experiencing “mild symptoms.” According to medical experts, fully vaccinated individuals are far less likely to become severely ill, and hospitalized, if infected with COVID-19.

Nina Hargus, and her husband, Stan, of Sudbury, Massachusetts, were among the influx of tourists who enjoyed the busy Fourth of July weekend in Provincetown.

“It really felt like a pre-COVID Fourth of July in Provincetown,” Hargus said. “Restaurants and bars were packed. The streets were filled with pedestrians, we saw very few masks, and no social distancing.”

Last week, Johnny Chagnon, of Vermont, and several of his friends, were thrilled to return to Provincetown after a difficult year. Although Chagnon had heard about breakthrough Fourth of July infections, he had not been too concerned, he told ABC News, because he was fully vaccinated.

“I have a lot of faith in vaccines,” said Chagnon, who has also conducted COVID-19 testing throughout the pandemic for the Vermont Department of Health.

Nevertheless, preferring to be cautious, “we were avoiding indoor events, because they were very packed,” opting instead for outdoor events, but without wearing a mask, he said.

However, on Monday, right after leaving Provincetown, he began to feel sick, coming down with a fever, and experiencing shortness of breath, a sore throat and cold-like symptoms.

“Today my fever is even worse,” Chagnon said on Tuesday. Although his symptoms have been manageable, “it’s definitely not what I expected being fully vaccinated.”

In light of the outbreak, officials in Provincetown have issued a new mask advisory, in which masks are now advised indoors where social distancing cannot be achieved. All unvaccinated individuals, including children under the age of 12, are required to wear masks both outdoors in crowded areas where social distancing cannot be achieved and in public indoor spaces.

Local officials are also now “strongly advising” venues with high density, where social distancing is not achievable, to enforce vaccine verification prior to admittance.

The Boston Public Health Commission also announced that it too would issue guidance for recent Provincetown visitors, after officials identified at least 35 positive COVID-19 cases tied to the Cape cluster among Boston residents.

The city’s residents, who have traveled to Provincetown since the first of the month, are now being urged to get tested, regardless of vaccination status or symptoms, self-isolate, and avoid groups or gatherings for at least five days and until residents have received a negative COVID-19 test. All residents are now being asked to take additional precautions to help identify COVID-19 infections, and to prevent additional spread.

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(LITTLE ROCK, Ark.) — A federal courthouse in central Arkansas on Wednesday will be the site of a consequential moment for the LGBTQ+ community in the state — and for health care precedent across the country — as a federal judge is slated to hear a constitutional challenge to a first-of-its-kind ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender youth.

U.S. District Judge James Moody is scheduled to consider an effort by the American Civil Liberties Union to block a new Arkansas law that effectively bans gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, prohibits doctors from even providing referrals, and allows private insurers to refuse coverage of gender-affirming care to transgender persons at any age.

The law, which plaintiffs like Amanda Dennis argue will have a devastating impact beyond Arkansas, is set to go into effect next week on July 28 — unless the judge issues an injunction.

“We’re doing everything that we can to stop this dangerous legislation, not just for our daughter, but on behalf of transgender kids all over the United States,” Dennis told ABC News in an interview ahead of the hearing. “Because we know, right now, all eyes are on Arkansas.”

Here’s what you need to know: When did HB1570 pass?

In April, the GOP-led Arkansas state legislature passed HB1570, the first bill in the country that would effectively ban transgender youth from gender-affirming care — despite a surprise veto by Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

While Hutchinson supported two earlier anti-transgender bills in the state legislative session this spring, he called the third bill a “government overreach” and refused to sign it.

He warned lawmakers they’d set a bad precedent by getting overly involved in decisions between physicians, patients and their families — but since the Arkansas legislature requires only a simple majority to overrule a veto, the law moved on.

Republican sponsors say the bill is meant to protect minors, who, they say, are too young to make decisions on transition-related medical care.

However, health care experts say gender-affirming care, or treatment that affirms a person’s gender identity, is life-saving. For minors, any surgery is far more often the exception, but therapy and reversible treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone replacements can be prescribed to combat the distress of gender dysphoria, or the incongruence between one’s assigned sex at birth and gender identity.

Activists argue that if the Arkansas law is allowed to go into effect, it will have detrimental effects on the mental, emotional and physical health of transgender people — beyond state borders.

What’s at stake?

The ACLU filed its challenge to HB1570 on behalf of four transgender youths, as well as their families, and two medical doctors back in May, arguing that the law is both unconstitutional and cruel.

One of the plaintiffs, Brooke Dennis, is nine-years-old, entering the fourth grade and hopes to pursue rhythmic gymnastics when she grows up. She was assigned male at birth, but her mother, Amanda, says Brooke has known she was a girl since she was two.

“[After accepting Brooke’s new pronouns,] it was as if a cloud lifted and Brooke’s smile came back. We had a happy, bright-eyed child again, and we were relieved to see our child flourishing once more,” said parents Amanda and Shayne Dennis in a brief submitted to the court.

But under the new law, Brooke won’t be able to get puberty-blocking hormones. Her mother told ABC News, that without access to the therapy Brooke will soon need, her daughter’s mental, emotional and physical health are at stake — and that’s not something she’s willing to risk as a parent.

“We would have to move,” Dennis said. “It would mean new jobs, a new home, all of the stress of picking up your entire life and starting over somewhere else. That’s a really, really frightening thing to even have to consider after all that Brooke and our family have been through.”

Dr. Kate Stewart, a professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health, told ABC News that health professionals in the state have already had experience with minors they say have become suicidal because of the law.

“We’ve seen how treatment can be life or death,” Stewart said, speaking in her personal capacity. “Anecdotally, I’m already hearing increased reports of emergency rooms seeing kids that are in crisis, just being so concerned about this law passing. It’s nothing short of devastating.”

Stewart also raised concerns that since the law limits one’s scope of practice, it will also discourage medical professionals from working in Arkansas.

What’s next?

The judge is expected to issue a decision before next Wednesday, July 28, when the law is set to take effect.

Until then, all of the plaintiffs must weigh how they’ll respond if the law does pass.

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(NEW YORK) — A major Texas hospital system has reported its first case of the lambda COVID-19 variant, as the state reels from the rampant delta variant.

Houston Methodist Hospital, which operates eight hospitals in its network, said the first lambda case was confirmed Monday.

The lambda variant was first detected in Peru in August 2020, according to the World Health Organization and makes up 81% of COVID-19 cases sequenced in the country since April 2021, according to a June WHO report. Currently, WHO designates lambda as a “variant of interest.”

Houston Methodist had a little over 100 COVID-19 patients across the hospital system last week. That number rose to 185 Monday, with a majority of those infected being unvaccinated, according to a statement released by the hospital Monday.

Among those infections, about 85% have been diagnosed with the delta variant, hospital officials said.

“We’re seeing an alarming spike in the number of COVID-19 cases across the Houston area, with the steepest increase happening over the weekend,” Houston Methodist said. “The increased hospitalizations add stress to many of our hospitals that are nearing capacity.”

Hospital president and CEO Dr. Marc Boom stressed it is “imperative” that the community “get vaccinated and decrease virus spread.”

Despite the report of the lambda variant, experts at Houston Methodist say delta is still the primary concern in the U.S.

“The lambda is the dominant variant in Peru and Peru has had a very difficult time with COVID-19. It shares mutations in common with the alpha variants, the beta, the gamma, which is the dominant variant in Brazil,” Dr. Wesley Long, medical director of Diagnostic Microbiology at Houston Methodist, told ABC News.

“I don’t think there’s sufficient evidence at this point that we should be more concerned about lambda than delta, I still think delta is the primary concern for us. There’s a lot more evidence that we have that delta is much more contagious, the viral loads are much higher,” he added.

The lambda variant “has been associated with substantive rates of community transmission in multiple countries, with rising prevalence over time concurrent with increased COVID-19 incidence,” the WHO said in its June report. In June, the variant was detected in 29 countries.

The delta variant, which was first detected in India in December, now accounts for about 83% of all sequenced COVID-19 cases in the United States, Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a Senate hearing Tuesday. The WHO designates delta as a “variant of concern.”

Long noted that Houston Methodist has seen its positivity rate increase and hospitalizations rise, but the situation on the ground is still “far below” the winter peak.

“[Infections are] on the increase. How many more cases are we going to get?” Long said. “We’re going to need more folks to get vaccinated and folks who aren’t vaccinated in particular to practice all the safe practices that we learned through the pandemic to help slow the spread of COVID. All those are critically important to keep this delta wave under control.”

At the moment, 51% of Texas’ state population aged 12 and up is fully vaccinated, according to state data.

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(NEW YORK) — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky told lawmakers Tuesday the delta variant now makes up 83% of cases, up from 50% at the beginning of this month.

“CDC has released estimates of variants across the country and predicted the delta variant now represents 83% of sequenced cases. This is a dramatic increase from — up from 50% for the week of July 3rd,” Walensky testified in a hearing before the Senate Health Committee.

Walensky said the alarming increase was happening in unvaccinated areas and that they were “allowing for the emergence and rapid spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant.”

“In some parts of the country, the percentage is even higher, particularly in areas of low vaccination rates,” she said.

The best way to stop the spread is with vaccines, she said.

“To date, our data indicates that vaccines are available to neutralize the circulating variants in the United States and provide protection against severe disease, hospitalization, and death,” she said. “The message from CDC remains clear: the best way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 variants is to prevent the spread of disease and vaccination is the most powerful tool we have.”

And on the subject of whether booster shots — which could offer extra protection against the variant for immunocompromised people — will be recommended, Walensky and Food and Drug Administration acting chief Janet Woodcock said they don’t yet have a timeline on an answer.

They were pushed multiple times by Republicans who argued Israel has already made the call to use boosters.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah pressed Woodcock on when boosters might be available to people who are immunocompromised.

A CDC advisory panel is scheduled to discuss on Thursday what the research shows on that point. While no vote is planned, the discussion could pave the way for the FDA to alter its authorization of the vaccines to allow for booster shots for the immunocompromised.

“Why should we not allow people who, who are elderly or have other compromised conditions to be able to get that booster?” Romney asked, noting that Israel was allowing it.

“Certainly, we are looking at all that,” Woodcock responded.

“Remember this vaccine right now — the vaccines are under emergencies use authorization and require an additional authorization for a booster,” she said.

“Well, how long is that going to take? That’s the question,” Romney asked. “We have people who want to get that booster and I’m hearing that from people who are at risk and concerned… Why can’t they?”

Woodcock didn’t answer directly, but noted that Pfizer was submitting data “to potentially make the case” for a booster and that “the FDA will be looking at that.”

Romney responded: “I don’t like the timeframe, frankly, given the fact that this is being done elsewhere.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Since the onset of the pandemic, children in the U.S. have faced multiple challenges and hardships. Tragically, recent data reveals that a staggering number of children have been faced with the most heartbreaking reality: the loss of a caregiver to COVID-19.

An estimated 119,000 children across the country have lost a primary caregiver due to COVID-19 associated death, and more than 140,000 children experienced the death of a primary or secondary caregiver, defined as co-residing grandparents or kin, according to data in an internal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document obtained exclusively by ABC News.

“This is yet another horrible byproduct of the pandemic and we as a global community must commit to supporting these children and families. The effects of this pandemic will be felt for decades,” Dr. Rebecca Katz, director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University Medical Center, told ABC News.

The data is provisional, and the CDC confirmed to ABC News that it plans to release official data next month.

The figures are particularly staggering in comparison to a JAMA Pediatric study published in early April, which estimated approximately 40,000 children in the U.S. had lost a parent to COVID-19.

Emily Smith-Greenaway, associate professor of Sociology & Spatial Sciences at the University of Southern California, called the new CDC figures “astounding.”

“These numbers demonstrate how the mortality shock of the pandemic is directly affecting tens of thousands of children. These are really intimately experienced losses that will certainly have consequences for children’s wellbeing going forward,” Smith-Greenaway said.

As more than 609,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S., an analysis published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which tracks the extent of loss of kin due to COVID-19 with a bereavement multiplier, estimates that 5.48 million family members have grieved the loss of a loved one due to COVID-19 since last year.

Pamela Addison, a 36-year-old New Jersey teacher, and mother to two young children, lost her husband, Martin, to COVID-19 in the early months of the pandemic.

As a single parent, Addison said she felt very alone and vulnerable as she struggled to care for children and find her place in a “new normal,” which no longer included her husband.

“My heart aches for them to know that they just have me now,” Addison said.

Addison said she’s doing the most she can to make sure they remember their father and the deep love he had for them. “Every night, they kiss their papa’s picture and tell him goodnight. My daughter taught my son to do that, and it’s an important part of our bedtime routine.”

The scale of COVID-19 related deaths is so large that even if a small fraction of those who have lost their lives had children under the age of 18, there would still be a significant number of children affected, Dr. Ashton Verdery, professor of Sociology, Demography, and Social Data Analytics at Penn State, told ABC News.

“There are substantially elevated death rates among adults in their 50s, a non-trivial fraction of whom still have children under 18,” Verdery said. “Each death can leave multiple children behind.”

According to the data, children of color have been significantly affected by the loss of a caregiver, something that reflects a disparity built on an existing inequality, even prior to the onset of the pandemic, according to Smith-Greenway.

“Black youth experience higher rates of familial loss earlier in life relative to white children–speaking to the racial inequality in mortality conditions. Specifically, we find that even as Black children represent about 14% of the U.S. child population, our estimates suggest they represent 20% of those bereaved,” she said.

A 2018 Pew Research study estimated that in 2016, 64 million Americans, or 20% of the U.S. population, lived with multiple generations, and 3.2 million Americans lived in households consisting of grandparents and grandchildren.

Children of color are often more likely to reside with grandparents, acting as their primary or secondary caregivers, according to Verdery, which further aggravates their disproportionate burden.

“The much higher death rates seen in communities of color, and more specifically, the greater death rates at younger ages owing to more exposure because of inability to socially isolate, employment situations, lead to the expectation that children of color will constitute an outsize share of those who lost a caregiver,” Verdery said.

Children who have lost a caregiver to COVID-19 will be particularly affected, according to experts, potentially experiencing long-lasting adverse health, educational and economic outcomes.

“Studies across the medical and social sciences routinely show that those who lose parents are at elevated risks of depression and related mental health challenges, have higher risks of criminal justice system involvement and higher rates of substance use, are more likely to drop out of schooling and less likely to attend college,” Verdery said. “Further down the line, we know all of those factors above place the individuals at greater risk of lower earnings, more unemployment, poor physical health, and relationship strains. To some extent, though the literature is more tenuous here, there is likely greater risk of early death.”

Although children are often resilient, and many who have been bereaved after the loss of a caregiver will be able to lead healthy and productive lives, “these youth are certainly ‘at-risk’ following a death and deserve adequate resources and support to try to help them navigate corresponding adversities,” Smith-Greenaway said. “These deaths leave holes in the lives of children that are not easily mended.”

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