(PHILADELPHIA) — A group of doctors in Philadelphia is offering free measles vaccines on the heels of an outbreak in the city.
There have been eight confirmed cases of the disease since late December, all among unvaccinated people, according to the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.
The first case occurred among a child who was admitted to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in December. At least three other unvaccinated children were exposed at the hospital and contracted measles, according to the city’s Department of Public Health.
Some of the initial patients went to day care instead of following quarantine instructions and exposed other children, health officials said.
In response, The Black Doctors Consortium is holding a pop-up clinic in northern Philadelphia to administer the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, free of charge.
The vaccine will be “provided to unvaccinated children and adults. We will also test you if you’ve been exposed to measles & you’re not sure if you’re protected (immune),” the group wrote in a post on Facebook.
Vaccines will be distributed at the Dr. Ala Stanford Center for Health Equity. No identification is required and there will no out-of-pocket cost, the group said.
The city’s health department is also hosting additional free vaccination sites for residents, but requires participants to provide either an ID or a piece of mail with an address to qualify them as proof of residency.
Measles is a very contagious disease, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) saying every individual infected by the virus can spread it to “up to 9 out of 10 people around him or her” if they are unprotected, including not wearing a mask or not being vaccinated.
Complications from measles can be relatively benign, such as rashes, or they can be much more severe, including viral sepsis, pneumonia and brain swelling.
In the decade before the MMR vaccine became available, approximately three to four million Americans fell ill every year, 48,000 people were hospitalized, and between 400 and 500 people died each year among reported cases, according to the CDC.
The CDC says anybody who either had measles at some point in their life, or who has received two doses of the MMR vaccine, is protected against measles.
One dose of the measles vaccine is 93% effective at preventing infection if the recipient is exposed to the virus and two doses are 97% effective, according to the CDC.
In Philadelphia, at least 93% of children are fully vaccinated against measles by age six, according to the health department. However, experts say 95% of children are required to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, meaning enough people are protected against a disease to the degree that it is unlikely to spread.
In 2000, measles was declared eliminated from the U.S., thanks to a highly effective vaccination campaign, but outbreaks have popped over the last few years in unvaccinated pockets of the country.
Between November 2022 and February 2023, 85 children were sickened with measles in Ohio, 80 of whom were unvaccinated.
In California, an unidentified person with measles who visited Disneyland caused an outbreak, infecting 125 people between December 2014 and February 2015.
(NEW YORK) — Run down, depressed, or trying to stay positive?
Don’t reach for a tub of ice cream or a big bag of chips. There’s growing evidence that you can boost your mood with food, but it has to be the right food.
Diet decisions that improve the rest of the body may also improve the brain’s outlook on the world.
Overall healthy eating — fruits, vegetables, healthy fats and whole grains — has been linked in studies to lower risks of depression and even suicide.
Nutrition also influences the immune system, which has been shown to affect the risk of depression as well.
Try adding these five mood-boosting foods to your daily diet:
1. Salmon
Salmon is a nutritional powerhouse full of omega-3 fatty acids, a key nutrient that our bodies don’t produce on their own.
Omega-3 fatty acids are part of the membranes that surround cells in the body, particularly in the brain. Research has shown that consuming fish like salmon with omega-3 fatty acids may ease depression.
Salmon is also an inflammation-fighting food.
Increased inflammation in the body could play a role in depression, according to new research released in January.
2. Dark chocolate
A candy bar may leave you feeling blah after you eat it, but a piece of dark chocolate could give you a mood boost.
Dark chocolate may be giving not only your brain but also your immune system and eyes a real boost, research shows.
Be careful, though, with the chocolate you choose.
In their studies, researchers used dark chocolate with 70% cacao, a recipe reserved for the darkest of dark chocolate. This usually means the chocolate tastes more bitter than sweet because only 30% of the candy bar is sugar and milk.
3. Berries
Fruits are all good for you as part of a balanced diet, but berries are particularly powerful for the brain.
Berries are rich in flavonoid, which helps regulate mood and improve memory and reduces inflammation.
4. Spinach and kale
Dark, leafy greens like spinach and kale are full of omega-3 fatty acids and are inflammation-fighting foods too.
Greens are also rich in magnesium, which plays a major role in brain function and mood.
5. Almonds
Almonds are a healthy fat, which boosts brain health.
They are also rich in a compound called tyrosine, which has been found to prevent a decline in cognitive function, especially in response to stress.
(NEW YORK) — Respiratory virus activity continues to remain elevated across the United States but there may be some signs that a peak has been reached for at least one virus, newly updated federal data shows.
As of Friday, “high” or “very high” levels of respiratory illness activity — defined as people visiting a health care provider with symptoms including cough and fever — were seen in 35 states in addition to New York City and the District of Columbia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, down from 38 earlier this week.
Emergency department visits with diagnosed influenza, COVID-19 and RSV remain high, but all three conditions saw a decrease over the last week. The CDC, however, said this is may due to “holiday-related healthcare seeking behavior and will be monitored.”
For the week ending Jan. 6, weekly COVID hospitalizations rose to 35,801. This marks the ninth straight week of increases, but remains lower than hospitalizations recorded at the same time last year.
Nearly 40% of all counties in the U.S. are in the medium category for hospital admission levels, meaning hospitals are seeing 10.0 to 19.9 new admissions for COVID-19 per 100,000 people in the past week.
Those aged 65 and older have the highest rate of weekly COVID hospitalizations by age group followed by those between ages 50 and 64, according to the CDC.
The rise of COVID-19 hospitalizations may be partly due to the spread of the JN.1 variant, which makes up an estimated 61.6% of cases in the U.S. as of Jan. 6.
JN.1 has mutations that may make it either more transmissible or more likely to evade the immune system, the CDC says, but there is no evidence that it causes different symptoms or more severe cases.
Nationally, COVID-19 wastewater viral activity levels are very high, typically an early sign of an increase in cases. There are indications, however, that wastewater activity levels may be slowing in the Midwest and Northeast, the CDC says.
Although influenza activity remains high and key indicators have been increasing for several weeks, the number of weekly new hospital admissions slightly decreased to 18,506, according to CDC data.
“CDC will continue to monitor for a second period of increased influenza activity that often occurs after the winter holidays,” the federal health agency wrote on its website.
The CDC estimates that there have been at least 14 million illnesses, 150,000 hospitalizations and 9,400 deaths from flu so far this season. Adults over 65 have the highest rates of flu hospitalizations.
Meanwhile RSV hospitalizations appear to be remaining stable, with a very slight increase in the weekly hospitalization rate from 3.6 per 100,000 the week ending Dec. 16 to 3.7 per 100,000 for the week ending Dec. 23, the last week of complete CDC data.
Unlike with COVID and flu, RSV hospitalizations are highest among children aged 4 and younger followed by adults aged 65 and older.
Vaccines are available for COVID, flu and RSV, but the CDC says “the percent of the population reporting receipt of COVID-19, influenza, and RSV vaccines remains low for adults.”
As of Friday, just 21.4% of adults aged 18 and older and have received the updated COVID vaccine, CDC data shows. Additionally, 46.8% of adults have received the flu vaccine. Meanwhile, just 20.1% of adults aged 60 and older have received the RSV vaccine, which was rolled out for the first time this season.
(NEW YORK) — Cindy Mullins was a healthy 41-year-old mom of two when she went into the hospital nearly six weeks ago for surgery on kidney stones.
On Friday, Mullins is finally going home after a life-changing experience that resulted in both of her legs being amputated, and both of her hands scheduled to be amputated soon.
“The hardest part about this is I miss my children, of course,” Mullins told “Good Morning America.” “Without my faith, I don’t think I could be where I’m at today. The plan is on Sunday morning, I’m going to church, and I cannot wait for that.”
Mullins, who lives in Kentucky with her husband and their 7-year-old and 12-year-old sons, said she went to the hospital on Dec. 1 for an elective procedure to remove kidney stones. The doctor left a temporary stent in her body following the surgery to prevent blockage, as is common in kidney stone procedures, according to the American Urological Association.
In Mullins’ case, she said she removed the stent at home, per medical orders, and soon after began to feel sick. When her husband found her collapsed on the bathroom floor, she said he rushed her to their local hospital.
“They checked my blood pressure and it was 50 over 31, and in my mind, I knew that was not good,” said Mullins, a nurse who has worked for a family medicine practice for nearly 20 years. “They started IVs on both arms, and I don’t remember anything after that.”
When doctors performed tests on Mullins, they discovered she had a kidney stone surrounded by infection, and that she was in septic shock, with her organs starting to fail.
Septic shock is the most dangerous stage of sepsis, when your body has an extreme response to infection. If it is not treated quickly, septic shock can lead to “tissue damage, organ failure, and even death,” according to the National Institutes of Health.
In septic shock, the body has dangerously low blood pressure. Risk factors include a recent infection or surgical procedure.
Mullins had to be stabilized and placed on a ventilator before she was able to be transferred to a larger hospital in Lexington, where she said doctors warned her family she was in dire condition.
“My husband and sister were there and they told them that I was on the edge of a cliff and it was about to get worse before it got better,” Mullins recalled. “After the surgery, I was put on ECMO and dialysis, and was still on the ventilator.”
Mullins was put on dialysis to help her kidneys, and an ECMO machine — a lifesaving device that removes carbon dioxide from the blood and sends back blood with oxygen to the body — to give her heart and lungs time to rest and heal.
Over the next several days, Mullins said her organ function began to improve, but she developed blisters on her legs and arms. When she was taken off the ventilator and conscious again, Mullins said she was told both her legs and hands had deteriorated to the point they would require amputation.
“When they told me that was going to happen, that I was going to lose my hands and my feet, I wasn’t angry,” Mullins said. “I had a peace about me. I just felt God’s presence saying, ‘It’s going to be OK. You’re alive. This is what has happened,’ and I wasn’t upset about it.”
The following day, Mullins underwent surgery to amputate both her legs above the knee.
She said she expects to undergo another surgery to amputate both hands in the coming weeks. Her doctor, according to Mullins, is working to try to preserve as much of her arm as possible and amputate below her elbow joints.
Despite all that she has endured, Mullins said she is doing well medically, and is now just coping with the amputations and moving forward in what she calls her “new normal.”
“Doctors tell me they can’t put a percentage on how close I was to actually dying, and then me doing as well as I am after being on ventilator, ECMO and dialysis… for me to be doing that well, as fast I did, is yet another miracle,” Mullins said.
Mullins said she had no preexisting medical conditions prior to going into septic shock, adding that what happened to her is a “rare case.”
“It was just one of those things where they explain all the bad things that can happen when you have surgery, and I was that rare case,” she said. “I was really healthy.”
Mullins said her family and her community have rallied around her as she has spent the past two weeks in a rehabilitation facility, learning how to be as independent as possible. She said her husband DJ and their sons Teegan and Easton have helped care for her, from feeding her and brushing her hair to just sitting by her side.
Dr. Nate Thomas, the University of Kentucky-based physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist overseeing Mullins’ care, said Mullins has put in the work through near daily three-hour physical therapy sessions to get to where she is today.
“The attitude that she’s had in staying positive, staying upbeat and doing everything that she can has been something that’s been truly amazing,” Thomas told “GMA.” “I don’t think that’s something that should be taken lightly, given the situation that she’s in and having gone through a lot. I think her whole [medical] team is ready to take a lesson from her mindset and the way that she’s really gone through this.”
In addition to friends and family offering in-person help, a GoFundMe started for the family has raised over $250,000.
When she returns home, Mullins said she will rely on a power wheelchair to be able to move around independently, and will later be fitted for prosthetics so she can ultimately walk on her own. In what Mullins called a “blessing in disguise,” she said she and her husband live in her husband’s childhood home, which had been made wheelchair accessible years ago to accommodate her father-in-law.
Describing all the support she and her family have received, Mullins said she “can never say thank you enough.”
“That has kind of been hard for me to wrap my head around,” she said of the support. “I’m a normal person, and for these people to do those things for me is just, you know, that’s another God thing.”
(WARREN, Ohio) — A grand jury decided Thursday not to indict an Ohio woman on allegations that she mishandled the remains of a fetus after miscarrying her pregnancy at home.
The case had alarmed reproductive rights groups and legal experts who said there is no clear guidance on how to handle an at-home miscarriage and that police and local prosecutors overreached by charging the woman, who is Black, with “abuse of a corpse.”
Brittany Watts, 34, of Warren, was arrested last October and pleaded not guilty to the charge. If convicted, she would have faced up to a year in prison. Because the grand jury decided not to indict, the case has been dropped.
Supporters has been planning a rally at the courthouse Thursday at 4:00 p.m. ET, according to local reports.
According to the Trumbull County Coroner’s Office, Watts’ water broke last September when she was 21 weeks and five days pregnant. A fetal heartbeat was present, but her doctors at Mercy Health – St. Joseph Warren Hospital recommended that Watts be induced to prevent a life-threatening infection from developing.
At the time, Ohio allowed abortions up to 22 weeks gestation unless a woman’s life was at stake.
The coroner’s report said Watts then signed herself out of the hospital against medical advice “to process the information she was told.” She returned to the hospital the next day, but again left a second time against the advice of doctors.
The hospital declined to comment, citing privacy concerns.
Two days later, Watts delivered the fetus at home over a toilet. She then returned to the hospital, where she told authorities she thought she had taken the fetal remains out of the toilet and placed them in a black bucket.
The fetal remains were found wedged inside the toilet bowl, according to the coroner’s report.
“Not wanting to destroy any evidence, the bottom portion of the toilet was removed” and taken to the local morgue “for further investigation,” the coroner’s office wrote.
A subsequent autopsy showed that the baby had died before being born due to a spontaneous miscarriage and that no illicit drugs were present. Watts was arrested two weeks later on accusations of “abusing a corpse.”
During a hearing in November, Watts’s attorneys argued that she had gone to a hospital before the miscarriage and waited for hours before leaving and miscarrying at home.
Assistant prosecutor Lewis Guarnieri argued to have the case move forward, which was agreed to by Warren Municipal Court Judge Terry Ivanchak.
Ivanchak referred the case to a grand jury, arguing there was “probable cause” of a crime. He has since retired. The case would have been tried by Judge Andrew Logan.
The local police and the city attorney of Warren, responsible for initiating charges against Watts, have not responded to requests for comment.
Watts’ attorney has also not responded to requests for comment.
Dennis Watkins, the Trumbull County prosecutor, said after receiving charges from the city attorney of Warren, it was “duty bound” to put the case before a judge, who found there was “probable cause” a crime had been committed.
In a statement released following the grand jury’s decision, Watkins said his office believed Watts “did not violate the Ohio Criminal Statue of Abuse of a Corpse as alleged in the complaint.”
“We respectively disagree with the lower court’s application of the law,” he said in the statement.
The charge against Watts occurred before Ohio voters passed an amendment in the November 2023 election to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution.
The ballot measure ended an earlier effort in Ohio by Republican lawmakers to enforce a near-total abortion ban after six weeks.
(NEW YORK) — Drinking more water every day is a healthy habit, but a new study has raised concerns about the container you should sip from.
Researchers from Columbia University and Rutgers University published the study Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which reveals an average of 240,000 detachable plastic fragments were found in a standard liter of bottled water.
Although the tiny “nanoplastics,” which are smaller than one micrometer in size — less than one-seventieth the width of a human hair — may seem too small to be an issue, the data showed a large jump in concentrations found in bottled water.
Concentrations of micro-nano plastics found in testing were estimated to be 240,000 particles on average per liter of bottled water, “about 90% of which are nanoplastics,” researchers wrote in the paper, after testing three unidentified brands of bottled water.
“This is orders of magnitude more than the microplastic abundance reported previously in bottled water,” the paper notes.
“Individual particles for all seven plastic polymers from the library were identified, enabling statistical analysis of plastic particles with sizes down to 100 to 200 [nanometers],” the researchers said.
The International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) responded to the study, saying in part that there is “both a lack of standardized methods and no scientific consensus on the potential health impacts of nano- and microplastic particles,” and adding that “media reports about these particles in drinking water do nothing more than unnecessarily scare consumers.”
The IBWA also noted that the organization had “very limited notice and time to review this new study closely” and so “cannot provide a detailed response at this time.”
For years, scientists have looked for microplastics, which can measure anywhere from one micrometer to half a centimeter in size. But identifying and analyzing nanoplastics, which are far smaller, presented a greater challenge. In response, researchers in the new study developed a “hyperspectral stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) imaging platform with an automated plastic identification algorithm” — essentially, using laser technology combined with computer analysis and machine learning — to enable identification and analysis of particles of plastics “at the single-particle level,” according to the report.
Pieces of tiny plastics have previously been found in oceans, beaches and even tap water.
Phoebe Stapleton, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Rutgers University and co-author of the new study, said that scientists have known nanoplastics were in water, but explained, “if you can’t quantify them or can’t make a visual of them, it’s hard to believe that they’re actually there.”
The new findings can help further study and identify the extent that nanoplastic consumption by humans may pose a health threat.
In 2022, the World Health Organization said there wasn’t enough evidence “for reliable characterization and qualification of the risks to human health” adding the need for further research.
Although microplastics have been discovered in people’s lungs, blood and excrement, scientists have said evidence that the particles may be harmful to human health has so far been inconclusive.
(NEW YORK) — Aides to President Joe Biden remain divided on a plan to ban menthol cigarette sales, according to several people familiar with the matter who say concerns of voter backlash in the election and pressure from civil rights groups are stalling the measure.
The fate of the proposal has been the subject of internal discussions in recent days among White House aides and top officials from the Department of Health and Human Services.
The internal debate, described by officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly, comes on the 60th anniversary of the landmark warning by the surgeon general urging Americans not to smoke.
If Biden wants to guarantee the rule is enacted under his watch, he would have to finalize the regulation by next week.
“This moment goes beyond public health — it is about who we are as a nation and whose lives we value. We strongly urge the administration to make the right choice, and to make it now,” said Dr. Avenel Joseph, vice president of policy at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Behind the lobbying effort to keep menthols on the market are some civil rights groups, including Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and lawyer Ben Crump.
The National Action Network has declined to comment on reports that major tobacco companies have sponsored some of the organization’s activities, but says it’s concerned about criminal prosecution of Black smokers.
“National Action Network has taken the position that, unless there are real safeguards against criminal prosecution of Black and Brown communities, the proposed menthol ban will have unintended consequences,” the organization told ABC News.
The rule would prevent the marketing and distribution of menthols. It would not make possession of a menthol tobacco product illegal.
Crump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Menthol is a flavor additive with a minty taste and aroma that health experts say masks the harsh effects of smoking. Menthol also makes smoking harder to quit, according to the Food and Drug Administration, which initiated the proposed ban.
That’s why health experts say it’s particularly troubling that menthol cigarettes have been aggressively marketed to Black communities. Nearly 85% of all non-Hispanic Black smokers use menthol cigarettes, compared to 30% of non-Hispanic white smokers, per the FDA.
An estimated 45,000 Black people die from smoking each year, according to the American Lung Association.
“By quickly finalizing and implementing rules to remove menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars from the market, the administration would be taking historic action to reduce disparities, advance health equity and prevent death and disease from tobacco use,” said Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association.
With groups like the American Heart Association and the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids pushing the administration to move ahead with the plan, the proposal was nearing its final regulatory hurdle this month with a review by the White House budget office. But sources say internal debate on whether to finalize the plan — or to wait until the election is over — stalled those efforts.
(NEW YORK) — Although rates of strokes in the adult population have generally decreased over the last several decades, the racial inequity gap persists, according to a new study in Neurology, which found that Black adults are still more likely to have strokes compared to white adults, and at younger ages.
Researchers analyzed data on patients with their first stroke in Ohio and Kentucky from 1993 to 2015, and found that overall, the rates of strokes have decreased. However, Black adults became more likely to have their first stroke at a younger age than white adults – the average age for a Black adult decreased from 66 to 62 years of age, and for white adults only decreased from 72 to 71. Black adults remained 52 to 83% more likely to have first-time strokes than white adults for all time points of the study, especially for younger adults aged 20 to 44.
“Black adults had higher rates of stroke in all of the study periods, and unfortunately the difference in the higher rates in Black versus white adults did not improve over time,” said Dr. Tracy Madsen, associate professor of emergency medicine at Brown University.
Strokes are leading causes of long-term disability and death, and from 2018-2019 cost the U.S. health care system nearly $56.5 billion, according to the CDC.
Inequities in stroke diagnosis, management, and long-term functional and cognitive outcomes have been well documented for Black Americans. The study showed that medical conditions that increase risk for stroke, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, became more common in both Black and white groups, but disproportionately for Black individuals.
Structural racism creates access barriers to treatment, financial and transportation barriers, and lived experiences of personal racism, all of which contribute to toxic stress, inflammation and conditions like high blood pressure, according to Dr. Olajide Williams, professor of neurology at Columbia University. “These are searing, tragic, preventable inequities, really driven by structural racism,” said Williams. “It’s like an endless ocean of problems, disproportionally with Black and brown people”.
Experts do not feel like biologic differences drive this inequity, especially given that race is a social construct and cannot be genetically or biologically defined. While structural determinants of health may result in altered epigenetics, reversible expressions in DNA that are caused by one’s environment, ultimately it is still the upstream social factors that are the root cause. “Black people don’t have genes that predispose them to getting more strokes,” said Williams. “That is a myth.”
The study was not able to examine systemic racism or barriers in access to care. The study also did not look at other minoritized groups such as Latine, Asian, Native Hawaiian, and American Indian individuals.
While Madsen feels that future research on these inequities is important to raise awareness, the next step is to take action. “We have enough evidence to show that these inequities exist without a doubt,” she said. “The next step is to look towards the interventions that could help address or eliminate these disparities.”
Angela Y. Zhang, MD (she/hers), is a pediatric resident at University of Washington/Seattle Children’s Hospital and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
AED are portable, life-saving devices designed to treat people experiencing sudden cardiac arrest, a medical condition in which the heart stops beating suddenly and unexpectedly. CREDIT: Boy_Anupong/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Bystander use of automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, for witnessed out-of-hospital cardiac arrests remains low despite legislative efforts to improve access to these life-saving devices at recreational facilities across the United States, according to a study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the University of Missouri-Kansas City reviewed how frequently bystanders used AEDs in 9,290 cases of witnessed cardiac arrest at recreational facilities, based on data from the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES). They further compared the frequency of AED use among states with and without enacted laws requiring the presence of AEDs on site at recreational facilities.
Although 46.8% of patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest had shockable heart rhythms, bystander use of AEDs remained low across the country, with only 19% of bystanders using AEDs in AED-enacted law states, and 18.2% of bystanders using AEDs in non-law states, the JAMA study, published Jan. 2, found.
Low rates of “bystander use of AEDs could be due to several reasons, including lack of AED availability on-site,” “unawareness that an AED is available, or not knowing where it is located,” wrote Dr. Ahmed Kolkailah, corresponding author of the study, from the division of cardiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. “Even if an AED is available, bystanders may not know how to use it or may be afraid of causing harm.”
Bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation was only performed in 5,693 cases, or 61.3%, the study found. Additionally, rates for surviving an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and making it to the hospital were similar for patients living in AED law states (44.5%) and non-law states (45.0%).
These findings emphasize the need to increase public awareness of the lifesaving measures AEDs can provide, and where they can be found.
“If CPR is not started within the first few minutes, brain function and survival decline by 10% for every minute without CPR. We need to educate people about CPR and AED use. The American Heart Association strongly advocates for CPR and AED training as a high school graduation requirement,” according to Dr. Dianne Atkins, a pediatric cardiologist and volunteer for the American Heart Association’s Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee.
“AEDs placed in public areas need to be made very visible. Often AED signage is placed on the wall instead of perpendicular to the wall, so as you’re walking you can see it easily. AEDs need to be obvious and quickly found,” Atkins said. “I always look for an AED when I’m in a new building. Sometimes I’ll ask a receptionist or security guard where the AED is.”
“Cardiac arrest can happen to anyone at any time. CPR and AED use should be considered life skills for everyone,” wrote Dr. Steven Brooks, emergency medicine physician at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and lead author of an American Heart Association statement from the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation published in 2022.
“Using an AED may seem intimidating, but it’s important to remember that all you have to do is power on the unit, and it will guide you through the steps to save a life with audio and visual prompts,” Brooks said. “Just do what the AED says and you could save a life.”
The first steps you can take to save a life involve watching this video from the American Heart Association on how to properly administer hands-only CPR, and be on the lookout for the nearest AED in public spaces.
Joey K. Ng, M.D., is an emergency medicine resident at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
Jennifer Miao, M.D., is a fellow physician in cardiology at Yale School of Medicine/Yale New Haven Hospital, and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — More than three years into the pandemic, hundreds of Americans are still dying from COVID-19 every week.
For the week ending Dec. 9, the last week of complete data, there were 1,614 deaths from COVID, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The last four weeks of complete data show an average of 1,488 weekly deaths.
By comparison, there were 163 weekly deaths from the flu for the week ending Dec. 9, according to CDC data.
While high, these COVID death figures are still lower than the high of 25,974 deaths recorded the week ending Jan. 9, 2021, as well as weekly deaths seen in previous winters, CDC data shows.
The current “weekly rate of COVID mortality is similar to what we were getting per day at [the worst] parts of the pandemic. So, proportionally, we’re in a completely different place than where we were, thankfully,” Dr. Cameron Wolfe, a professor of infectious diseases at Duke University in North Carolina, told ABC News. “But there’s still a pretty significant mortality; 1,500 patients dying every week is unacceptable, frankly.”
Experts said there are several reasons why people might still be dying from the virus, including not enough people accessing treatments or getting vaccinated as well as waning immunity.
Additionally, if more people get sick, even if in lesser numbers than in previous waves, it will naturally lead to more people becoming hospitalized and, in turn, dying.
“We do have very good vaccines that [researchers] have been able to adjust as the variants have changed and very good treatment options that have been shown to decrease the risk of hospitalization as well as deaths,” Dr. Shivanjali Shankaran, an associate professor of infectious diseases at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, told ABC News.
“However, if we’re not accessing those particular tools, then having them doesn’t sort of make any difference,” Shankaran added.
Too few people getting vaccinated
As of Jan. 5, just 19.4% of adults aged 18 and older and 8% of children have received the updated COVID vaccine, CDC data shows. Additionally, just 38% of adults aged 65 and older, who are at higher risk of severe illness, have been vaccinated.
The updated vaccine is targeted against variants that are related to XBB, an offshoot of the omicron variant.
Currently, JN.1, a descendant of BA.2.86 — which is itself descended from XBB — makes up an estimated 61.6% of U.S. COVID cases, CDC data shows.
Although the CDC has suggested JN.1 may be more transmissible or better at evading the immune system than other variants, there is no evidence that available vaccines don’t work.
“The longer someone has gone since their last vaccine, or their most recent infection for that matter, the more likely their COVID breakthrough would occur and the more likely it’s going to be severe enough that they land in hospital” and potentially die, Wolfe said.
Experts said there may a level of vaccine fatigue and complacency in the population with people not getting the updated vaccine because they don’t feel like they need it after getting the original vaccine and then subsequent boosters. This, however, doesn’t account for waning immunity.
“[Vaccines] don’t retain their memory as effectively as we might like, so if you were vaccinated short of more than 12 months ago, your chances of maintaining really good memory again from that vaccine is probably pretty poor at this point,” Wolfe said.
For a high-risk person, this increases their chance of severe illness if they get infected. For lower risk people, this increases the risk of them spreading the virus to more at-risk groups, he added.
Americans not accessing treatments
COVID-19 treatments have evolved since the early days of the pandemic with antiviral pills available, particularly Paxlovid from Pfizer.
Paxlovid is three pills given twice daily for five days for those at high risk of severe illness. Initial clinical trial data showed Pfizer’s pill reduced the risk of hospitalization and death for unvaccinated patients at risk of severe illness who began treatment within three days of symptoms by nearly 90%. More recent studies including omicron strains of the virus and vaccinated patients have upheld similar results showing the treatment cut the risk of hospitalization and death in half.
It’s been a relatively underused treatment with some reports suggesting that in some states it’s prescribed in less than 25% of cases — and it may be another reason why deaths have increased.
Experts said there may be several factors at play.
“It’s a combination of misunderstanding about who’s eligible for Paxlovid, a misunderstanding about whether Paxlovid works and then sometimes trouble getting prescriptions,” Dr. Megan Rainey, dean of the Yale School of Public Health, told ABC News. “Because we know, for example, that Paxlovid use is much lower in rural areas, as well as among those who have lower educational levels, so I suspect for Paxlovid that there is this kind of element of access as well.”
Physicians may also feel hesitant to prescribe Paxlovid due to concerns about how the medication interacts with other prescription drugs or even due to instance of people experiencing a Paxlovid rebound, which is a recurrence of COVID symptoms.
“The data on rebound is still being figured out, but what’s clear is that whether or not you get a rebound with Paxlovid, it absolutely decreases risk of hospitalization and death,” Rainey said.
More infections mean more severe illnesses
Another reason for the increase is the sheer fact that more people getting sick naturally means more hospitalizations and more deaths, according to experts.
“It’s nothing obviously like the omicron wave where we had just millions and millions of people getting sick, and because of that many more people going to the hospital and dying, but yeah, as the total number of people who are infected increases, then you are going to have a similar increase in the number of people who need hospitalization,” Shankaran said.
For those who may be elderly or immunocompromised, even a case of mild COVID-19 can result in severe illness and even death.
Experts said the messaging to the public is the same as in earlier phases of the pandemic and advise that Americans remain diligent.
“The message is to be aware of your own risk factors, be aware of your own symptoms, recognize that vaccines provide protection, not only against getting sick but severity of sickness,” Wolfe said. “That’s the same message that we try and send for flu and RSV each year, it’s no different.”
