(ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla.) — A Florida mother was fatally shot by her toddler while on a Zoom video call for work, prompting one of her colleagues to call 911, authorities said.
Shamaya Lynn, 21, was killed Wednesday at her apartment in Altamonte Springs in central Florida after one of her two toddlers picked up an unsecured, loaded handgun and shot her in the head, according to police.
A woman on the video call dialed 911 after she heard a noise, observed Lynn fall backward and then saw blood.
“I don’t know where to begin, but I’m on a live with a company, we just got hired. And one of the girls just passed out. She’s bleeding,” the coworker said in a 911 call released by police.
The woman told the dispatcher she could hear a baby crying but couldn’t see anything else.
“We heard a loud ‘kaboom’ and then she leaned back, and then we just got blood from her face,” the woman said.
A man who identified himself as Lynn’s boyfriend also called 911 after coming home and finding her unconscious and bleeding.
“Hurry!” he told the 911 dispatcher. “There’s blood everywhere.”
The man, who told police he was the father of the two children, was handcuffed at the scene due to his “state and guns being present in the apartment,” the police report stated.
Responding officers and paramedics rendered aid but couldn’t prevent Lynn from dying due to her injuries, police said.
“This young mother lost her life after one of her toddlers found an unsecured handgun in the apartment,” Sgt. Rob Ruiz of the Altamonte Springs Police Department told reporters. “We do have a responsibility as adults to keep people safe, especially when you own a firearm.”
Detectives are working with the Seminole County State Attorney’s Office to determine whether charges should be filed against the children’s father, who owned the gun, police said. The case was still being reviewed as of Saturday evening, Ruiz told ABC News.
The father was questioned but not arrested, ABC News Orlando affiliate WFTV reported.
(BETHEL, Penn.) — A search is underway for a 3-year-old Pennsylvania boy who went missing from a camping area along the Allegheny River in Bethel Township Friday afternoon.
Pennsylvania Police in Kittanning are searching for Dwight Dinsmore, who is described as 3-foot-5 blonde with blue eyes, last seen wearing a gray T-shirt with a black collar and a motorcycle depicted on the front, police said in a news release.
Police said the search started around 3:15 p.m. Friday, in a news release.
The search was conducted by several local police departments, K9 units, state police and family members, but was called off Friday evening due to inclement weather, officials said.
It will resume Saturday morning.
Police are asking anyone who sees the child to contact them at 724-543-2011 immediately.
(NEW YORK) — Tropical depression Fred continues to produce heavy rain across central Cuba as of Saturday morning.
Fred is located about 90 miles south of Key West, Florida, and moving northwest at 13 mph.
Sustained winds are traveling at 35 mph with higher gusts.
Tropical storm conditions are expected in portions of the warning area across the Florida Keys later Saturday.
A tornado or two may even be possible across central and South Florida.
Fred is expected to strengthen to a tropical storm as it passes near or west of the lower Florida Keys on Saturday afternoon.
It will move across the eastern Gulf of Mexico overnight and into Sunday, and move inland over the northern Gulf Coast on Monday.
Through Monday, 3 to 5 inches of rain are anticipated across the Keys and South Florida.
Across the Florida Big Bend and Panhandle, 3 to 7 inches with isolated maximum totals of 10 inches are expected. Flooding may occur. From Monday onward, heavy rain and flood impacts could extend into inland portions of the Southeast and into the southern and central Appalachians and Piedmont, as Fred interacts with a front in the area.
(BENA, Minn.) — A 3-year-old girl was fatally shot by a 5-year-old boy in a home in Bena, Minnesota, early Friday, officials said.
The Cass County Sheriff’s Office received a report of an accidental shooting around 3:50 a.m.
When deputies responded they learned the little girl “had been shot by accidental gunfire” by the boy, Sheriff Tom Burch said in a news release.
She was transported to the Deer River hospital by family members and intercepted by the Deer River Ambulance and lifesaving efforts were attempted on the child.
The girl was pronounced dead at the Deer River Hospital.
An autopsy is pending with the Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office and an investigation is underway.
The relationship between the boy and girl is not clear. It’s also not know how the child got a hold of the firearm.
It’s not clear whether possible criminal charges will be filed in the fatal incident.
So far this year 968 children have been killed by guns, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
In 2019, 3,371 American children and teens were killed with guns, the Children’s Defense Fund, a nonprofit child advocacy and research group reported.
(NEW YORK) — A teenager who was struck by lightning Thursday at a New York City beach has died, officials said.
Carlos Ramos, 13, of the Bronx, died at Jacobi Medical Center, city officials confirmed to ABC News Friday.
He was one of seven people who were struck by lightning while at Orchard Beach in the Bronx around 5 p.m. when a fast-moving storm approached, according to city officials.
Stacy Saldivar, 13, was among those struck when she and her parents and two sisters were running off the beach, she told New York ABC station WABC outside the hospital Friday.
“A huge lightning just went in front of me, hit in front of me and I passed out,” Saldivar told the station. “Then I was shaking and blood started coming out of my mouth.”
When she woke up, she was in the ambulance, she said.
The lightning felt like “a little tingle, it really hurt a lot,” Saldivar said. “I feel lucky because Jesus revived me.”
Saldivar told WABC she didn’t know Ramos.
“I feel lucky because Jesus revived me,” she said.
The others struck included a 41-year-old man and a 33-year-old woman and three other children — two boys ages 14 and 5 and a 12-year-old girl, according to city officials.
EMS responded and transported them to the hospital, officials said. They are expected to survive, WABC reported.
Prior to the incident, lifeguards had cleared all swimmers from the water, and NYC Parks staff instructed visitors to clear the beach, according to NYC Parks Department spokeswoman Meghan Lalor.
“Our hearts go out to the victims of this tragic incident,” Lalor said in a statement.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 618,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 4.3 million people have died worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 58.9% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing Friday. All times Eastern:
Aug 13, 5:36 pm
ACP says masks should be required in schools
The American College of Physicians said Friday that masks should be required in all schools “as part of a comprehensive effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19.”
The statement follows similar recommendations from the American Association of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and comes as some school districts have been defying bans on masks mandates in states including Texas and Florida.
“Masks are a key public health tool in keeping everyone in our school communities safe,” ACP President Dr. George Abraham said in a statement. “Especially with such a large segment of our schools’ populations unable to yet access COVID-19 vaccines, masks remain a necessity in our fight to control the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The ACP is the largest medical specialty society in the U.S., with over 161,000 internal medicine members.
Aug 13, 4:45 pm
CDC director endorses recommendation for additional dose for immunocompromised
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory panel voted unanimously Friday to recommend an additional dose of Pfizer or Moderna for immunocompromised people. (This recommendation applies only to people who already had an initial series of mRNA — it does not apply to people who received J&J.)
Immunocompromised people will not need a doctor’s note, prescription or proof of their condition to get their third dose, CDC officials said at Friday’s meeting.
“This is a self-attesting. We do not anticipate — we are not recommending that either prescriptions or a physician sign off, or be necessary for individuals to receive an additional dose of mRNA if they’re immunocompromised,” said Dr. Kathleen Dooling, Medical Officer for the Division of Viral Diseases, the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, and the CDC.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky signed off on the recommendation later on Friday.
-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett, Sasha Pezenik
Aug 13, 4:44 pm
Mississippi governor says request for military hospital ship denied
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said Friday that the state’s request for a military hospital ship has been denied by the federal government.
Reeves said the request for a ship “was as much about the over 500 personnel that come with it as it was the actual physical facilities.”
“I don’t anticipate that the USS Comfort is going to come to Mississippi, although we would welcome any of the 550 health care professionals that are on that particular facility that the federal government would like to send us,” he said.
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie
Aug 13, 4:21 pm
In Dallas ‘your child will wait for another child to die’
Dallas has no ICU beds left for children.
“That means if your child’s in a car wreck, if your child has a congenital heart defect or something and needs an ICU bed, or more likely if they have COVID and need an ICU bed, we don’t have one,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said at a Workers Defense Action Fund event.
“Your child will wait for another child to die,” Jenkins added. “Your child will just not get on the ventilator, your child will be CareFlighted to Temple or Oklahoma City or wherever we can find them a bed, but they won’t be getting one here unless one clears. And that’s been true for 24 hours.”
Aug 13, 4:15 pm
Daily case average has skyrocketed nearly 884% since mid-June
The daily case average in the U.S. has surged to about 114,000, skyrocketing nearly 884% since mid-June, according to federal data.
Several states, including Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana and Mississippi, are now experiencing their worst surge yet, averaging more daily cases than at any point in the pandemic, according to federal data. New York City’s case average is now nearly five times higher than it was one month ago.
And more people are dying every day.
The nation’s daily death average has now climbed to nearly 500, a 183% jump in the last month. Seven weeks ago, daily deaths were at their lowest point since late March 2020.
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Aug 13, 3:29 pm
Kids must get caught up on routine vaccinations, officials say
Federal health officials said Friday it is now more critical than ever for parents to get their kids’ routine vaccinations.
“There are a lot of vaccine doubters,” said Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, “in part because we have been so successful with vaccination.” People no longer know what the havoc that diseases like polio, measles or smallpox can cause, because we no longer have them around, and thus, “we’re in some ways, victims of our own success,” he said.
Dr. Anne Edwards of the American Academy of Pediatrics noted that pediatricians are seeing a large number of respiratory illnesses now, and not all are COVID-19. She said that underscores the importance of having their routine vaccinations.
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Aug 13, 3:03 pm
Canada to require plane passengers get vaccinated
The Canadian government will soon mandate vaccinations for commercial plane travelers, cruise ship passengers and people on trains between provinces, according to The Associated Press.
Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said this will go into effect “as soon as possible in the fall and no later than the end of October,” according to the AP.
Aug 13, 2:57 pm
Louisiana hospitalizations at highest point of pandemic
Hard-hit Louisiana has 2,907 COVID-19 patients in hospitals — more than any point of the pandemic so far, the state’s Department of Health said Friday.
Louisiana’s Ochsner Health said they have 1,063 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in their system, exceeding all previous surges. Of those patients, 88.99% are unvaccinated, officials said.
Gov. John Bel Edwards said 399 patients in the state are on ventilators.
Fifty-seven people died of COVID-19 in Louisiana in the last 24 hours, the health department said.
The governor warned Friday that Louisiana isn’t near the peak of this surge and hospital leaders are more alarmed now than at any point in the pandemic.
“We are really close to the breaking point,” Edwards said.
Aug 13, 1:46 pm
Feds send ‘fatality management trailers’ to Texas
Federal officials are deploying extra resources to COVID-19 hot spots, including sending five “fatality management trailers” to Texas, according to a federal planning document obtained by ABC News.
Oklahoma was set to receive 100 ventilators on Thursday, according to the planning document, while Mississippi has requested enough medical personnel to staff more than 1,000 beds.
Aug 13, 11:49 am
Chicago requires school employees to be vaccinated
Chicago Public Schools, the nation’s third-largest school district, is requiring all employees to be vaccinated.
Seventy-eight percent of district employees were already fully vaccinated, partially vaccinated or had a vaccination scheduled as of June, the district said.
“For the social and emotional well-being of our young people, they need to be in school, and the vaccine adds another layer of protection to our plan to safely re-open schools,” the city’s department of public health commissioner, Allison Arwady, said in a statement.
Chicago’s school year starts on Aug. 30.
-ABC News’ Whitney Lloyd
Aug 13, 8:03 am
Former acting CDC head talks next steps for booster shots
Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the CDC, told Good Morning America that he expects booster shots will “be available to people with immune disorders very quickly.”
The FDA announced late Thursday that immunocompromised Americans – such as cancer patients, transplant recipients, people with HIV and people on immunosuppressant drugs — will be able to get a third shot of Pfizer or Moderna.
But Besser stressed, “I think about this less as a booster shot” and more of “a recognition that for certain people with immune problems, two doses wasn’t enough” and “the third dose is necessary for them to get the same high level of protection that the rest of people do.”
The CDC panel is expected to vote to recommend the third dose when it meets Friday at 11 a.m. and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky will likely sign off after a Friday afternoon vote.
Aug 13, 5:27 am
Alabama children’s hospital sees rise in patients
Children’s of Alabama reported a significant increase in the number of COVID-19 positive patients being treated at the hospital in recent weeks.
As of Thursday, the hospital said it is treating 22 COVID-19 positive patients, five of whom are on ventilators.
The hospital said in January, at the height of the last surge, their highest number of patients was 13.
“There are three proven ways to slow the spread of this highly transmissible strain of the virus: Vaccination for everyone 12 and up, masking, especially when indoors, and social distancing,” the hospital wrote in a Facebook statement.
Aug 12, 11:48 pm
FDA authorizes booster shot for immunocompromised
Immunocompromised Americans will be able to get a third shot of either of the mRNA vaccines, Pfizer or Moderna, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced late Thursday.
The booster will be targeted specifically for people who did not have an ideal immune response to their initial vaccines, which has proven to be the case for many cancer patients, transplant recipients, people with HIV and people on immunosuppressant drugs.
“The country has entered yet another wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the FDA is especially cognizant that immunocompromised people are particularly at risk for severe disease,” acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said in a statement. “After a thorough review of the available data, the FDA determined that this small, vulnerable group may benefit from a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna Vaccines.”
(MINNEAPOLIS) — More than a year after the murder of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, the city is putting its issues with police brutality in the spotlight once again.
This time, the power is in the hands of voters, who will take to the ballot box in November to decide whether to replace the existing Minneapolis Police Department.
The vote would be on whether to change the city charter and implement a department of public safety instead, which activists say would take on a public-health approach to policing — opting for social workers and violence interrupters over the police-only model that the city has now.
Advocates have said that many cases in which police are called can often be resolved by others. Detractors say the move will undermine public safety. In either case, police reform has been a fraught issue, especially in the wake of Floyd’s death, with deep divisions forming over whether to “defund” the police or change the way departments operate.
“We want to do something different, to actually make real concrete changes, so that we don’t have to revisit this feeling of powerlessness, hopelessness, helplessness — so that we don’t have to continue to bury people year after year,” said JaNaé Bates, the communications director at Yes 4 Minneapolis, a leading coalition of activists in the effort to replace the police department.
The charter change would also put the city council in charge of the department, instead of the mayor, and remove requirements to hire police based on the city’s population size.
Activists say this effort is inspired by other policies and practices from across the country — and that they’ve taken into consideration what has worked and what has failed.
Local opponents believe the charter change has the potential to rid the city of police altogether, due to language that says police officers will respond to calls “when necessary.”
“These are trojan horses backed by radicals to achieve their goal of police defunding and abolition,” said a statement on the Operation Safety Now website. Operation Safety Now is a local pro-police political advocacy group.
The organization stated: “We are against police defunding — and the “police-less society” envisioned by some council members and their radical supporters. We need more cops, not fewer.”
Mayor Jacob Frey, a member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, also rejects the effort. In a statement to the press, his office said he “appreciates the careful work and thorough analysis done by city staff to prepare fair and accurate language for voters to consider this fall,” but will not be signing onto the proposal.
Frey believes that id the city council is in charge of the department, it could lead to a major setback for “accountability and good governance.”
Residents like Bates and city council members like Steve Fletcher say that Minneapolis has struggled with racist policing for decades.
The Mayor’s office did not respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that in the past 20 years, more than 200 people have been killed in “a physical confrontation with law enforcement” in Minnesota. Only 7% of Minnesotans are Black, but Black victims accounted for 26% of these deaths.
At least 36 of these deaths occurred in Minneapolis. And last year, Black youths were disproportionately incarcerated — making up 55% of the youth incarceration population.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Justice Department also opened a pattern or practice investigation into the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Police Department earlier this year.
“We have had a long history of producing racially unjust outcomes in our overall system and policing,” Fletcher said. “We can’t continue to operate this way.”
Minneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo was among several other Black officers who sued MPD for racial discrimination in 2007, MPR News reported, which was settled for almost $1 million.
To solve these issues, community leaders involved in Yes 4 Minneapolis have adopted the tactics to amend the charter in ways that have proven to work.
One of the programs that inspired this public health approach was the Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS) program in Oregon, which started in 1969. The program sends out two-person teams, including a medic and a crisis worker with training in the mental health field, to crises involving mental illness, homelessness, and addiction instead of policing.
Out of roughly 24,000 CAHOOTS calls in 2019, police backup was requested only 150 times, according to the organization’s website.
The Support Team Assisted Response program in Denver started in 2020, and it similarly sends pairs of mental health and medical professionals to respond to low-level calls instead of sending law enforcement.
And disbanding efforts are nothing new either — Camden, New Jersey successfully disbanded its police department in 2013 and rebuilt the police department from the ground up, with new trainings, new officers, and a new department culture against brutality.
“We’re integrating our police officers with other services that we know, allow qualified professionals to handle things that they’re prepared and trained to handle,” Bates said. “Having mental health responders, social workers, violence interrupters different interventions for folks experiencing homelessness, and drug crisis — those things are things that should be happening within fully integrated departments that include police.”
More than 20,000 signatures gave the proposed Minneapolis charter change measure a spot on the ballot, according to Bates, and roughly $1 million was raised for the effort.
Like many states, cities, and counties across the nation, some reform efforts have already been in the works in Minneapolis — like banning chokeholds and neck restraints and requiring officers to intervene in excessive uses of force.
The city council also cut $8 million from the mayor’s proposed police budget and diverted to mental health and violence prevention units in the department.
Shortly after Floyd’s murder, City Council members tried to implement the charter change, but the council failed to meet the deadlines necessary to get it on the November 2020 ballot.
Now, they hope to set an example for policing efforts nationwide, as the country continues to confront police brutality.
“Every city is facing some version of this,” Fletcher said about the efforts to reimagine policing. “I really believe that this Minneapolis is going to rise to the occasion and create a system that is far more compassionate, far more equitable, and far more effective than the old system of policing that we’ve inherited.”
(NEW YORK) — Several states have reinstated indoor mask mandates as the delta variant continues to rip across the country, but others have fiercely resisted and imposed bans on such rules.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a guidance update late July that vaccinated people may be able to spread COVID-19 and should resume wearing masks in public indoor settings in areas with high transmission levels, a reversal of May’s guidance that said they didn’t need to mask up. The unvaccinated are still urged to wear masks in public.
The guidance also called for universal masking in schools — a contentious issue that has triggered a slew of lawsuits.
Masking has long been a divisive issue, despite science indicating that face coverings are “critical” in the battle against transmitting the disease, according to the CDC. At the same time, misinformation about face coverings has proliferated and changing guidance has added to the confusion.
Currently, at least four states and Puerto Rico have indoor mask mandates for the vaccinated and unvaccinated: Oregon, Nevada, Hawaii, Louisiana.
Most states have not issued new mandates — focusing on vaccination instead — but a number, including California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington, have recommended constituents follow the CDC’s guidance. Each state’s guidelines vary slightly.
On the other hand, the idea of masking up once again, has been met with resistance in some places.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, said the CDC guidance on masks “will unfortunately only diminish confidence in the vaccine and create more challenges for public health officials.” Other officials have argued against mask mandates, citing arguments like parental freedom.
Worry over delta variant
Concern is mounting over the surge of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations among children, now at their most dire level yet in the entire pandemic.
Nearly 94,000 new child COVID-19 cases were reported last week, with the worst numbers in Louisiana and Florida, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) reported.
Nationwide, COVID-19 has surged at an alarming rate in recent weeks. The daily COVID-19 case average in the U.S. has surged to more than 113,000, up by 24.3% in the last week, according to the latest federal data. Hospitalizations have also soared, hitting its highest point in six months with more than 75,000 patients currently hospitalized across the country with COVID-19.
So far, 59% of the US population over the age of 12 is fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. There is still no vaccine authorized for kids under the age of 12.
A number of states — Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Virginia and Washington state — have also called for masking in schools.
But efforts to ban masks in schools in several states, such as Florida, Texas, South Carolina and Arkansas, have sparked bitter backlash and legal battles.
Kentucky and Arkansas
In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, signed an executive order Tuesday requiring masks for all schools, a move immediately slammed by state Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a Republican.
Cameron filed a response to the mask mandate in schools on Wednesday with the Kentucky Supreme Court, arguing the governor’s order goes against laws passed in the General Assembly this year. He accused the governor of engaging “in an unlawful exercise of power by issuing his executive order,” in a statement.
Earlier this year lawmakers passed bills to restrict the governor’s power to mandate health restrictions like masks. He vetoed the legislation, but was overturned, and Beshear filed a lawsuit. Now the case is pending a Supreme Court decision, which has yet to hand down a ruling.
In a press conference Tuesday, Beshear cited grim COVID-19 numbers as the reason for the mandate, as the state reported 2,500 new COVID-19 cases, with 490 among individuals 18-years-old and younger, that day.
“We cannot keep our kids in school if we’re unwilling to put on a mask,” Beshear said. “It’s everywhere, and we all need to act like we’re in that red zone.”
In Arkansas, the state’s Department of Education recommended students wear masks in schools on Tuesday, in line with the CDC guidance, but didn’t mandate it.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, said earlier this month that he regrets signing an April law banning mask mandates as virus infections surged among unvaccinated youth.
He called on lawmakers to consider rolling back the ban for schools but faced fierce opposition among his GOP peers. Last week, a judge temporarily blocked the state from enforcing that law, saying it violates the state’s constitution, and several schools have since announced mask requirements, local ABC affiliate KATV reported.
Hutchinson said he supports the judge’s decision.
“It is conservative, reasonable and compassionate to allow local school districts to protect those students who are under 12 and not eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine,” he said on masking in schools last week.
Texas
Meanwhile in Texas, at least two districts, Austin ISD and Dallas ISD, have defied Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s May executive order banning mask mandates.
The Southern Center for Child Advocacy, a nonprofit education group, filed a lawsuit Sunday night in Travis County against the ban, seeking to give power to local districts to decide for themselves. No response has been filed in that case yet.
The ban has faced litigation from city and county officials in Dallas and Bexar counties. The Harris County Attorney also announced Tuesday plans to take legal action against Abbott’s ban on mask mandates, though but documents have not yet been filed.
“First responders and school leaders are speaking out and standing up as delta ravages our community. We have their back,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a statement Tuesday. “Protecting the community during an emergency is a duty, not an option for government leaders.”
On Tuesday two separate state district judges granted local authorities in those counties temporary power to issue mask mandates on Tuesday, the Texas Tribune reported. Both decisions are temporary and pending hearings later this month.
The following day the governor and state Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a petition to halt the judge’s order in Dallas County. “Any school district, public university, or local government official that decides to defy GA-38—which prohibits gov’t entities from mandating masks—will be taken to court,” Abbott said in a statement.
“Removing government mandates, however, does not end personal responsibility or the importance of caring for family members, friends, and your community,” Abbott said in response to the lawsuits to CBS affiliate KHOU-11. “Vaccines are the most effective defense against contracting COVID and becoming seriously ill, and we continue to urge all eligible Texans to get the vaccine.”
Florida
Florida is facing least three lawsuits against its ban on school mask mandates: one filed by a parent in Broward County, another by parents in several counties including Miami-Dade and Palm Beach and a third in Orange and Volusia counties.
In late July, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order directing the state’s health and education departments to bar the use of face coverings in school. DeSantis said that move was meant to “protect parents’ freedom to choose whether their children wear masks.”
DeSantis said in a press conference last month Florida students shouldn’t be “muzzled” during the school year, adding, “We need them to be able to breathe.”
Despite the order, several school districts have announce masks will be mandatory for the 2021-22 school year.
Despite public outcry, many governors are doubling down in their refusal to reimpose masks.
In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster said on the heels of the CDC guidance release, “State law now prohibits school administrators from requiring students to wear a mask…Shutting our state down, closing schools and mandating masks is not the answer. Personal responsibility is.”
State positions on masking are still changing. A number of states never created a mask mandate in the pandemic, including Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Idaho.
(NEW YORK) — Florida’s latest COVID-19 wave is making Bob Gortney, an intensive care nurse in Fort Myers, think twice about his two decades in medicine.
Gortney, who works at Gulf Coast Medical Center, recently came back from vacation and found the hospital full of COVID patients. “I never left the COVID battle from last year,” Gortney told ABC News Fort Myers affiliate WZVN-TV. “We went from having three or four COVID patients that weren’t really sick to now probably 20 to 30 patients [who are] actually on a ventilator that are very, very sick and unvaccinated.”
COVID-19 is surging throughout the United States, with daily case averages reaching more than 110,000, up 25.5% from last week. Hospitalizations, which tend to follow rising cases, particularly in areas with low vaccination rates, are now at their highest point in six months, with more more than 75,000 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized, according to updated data from the Department of Health and Human Services.
“It’s disheartening,” Gortney said. “I know some nurses have walked away from it. Some have just picked up and said, ‘I can’t do this no more.'”
“It is a challenge to find experienced talent due to the national health care worker labor shortage,” said Mary Briggs, a spokesperson for Lee Health, the not-for-profit hospital system that owns Gulf Coast. Despite that challenge, Lee Health has made an effort to staff, Briggs explained, hiring 160 registered nurses in June and July and bringing in travel and contract nurses.
As hospitals across the country, including in Arkansas, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida and Mississippi, scramble to meet the rising need, Jean Ross, co-president of National Nurses United, the nation’s largest nursing union, pointed to a systemic health care issue that predates COVID-19. Similar to public health funding, hospitals follow a pattern of panic and neglect. They pour money into acute problems, like a COVID surge, then disband those efforts when the situation becomes anything less than a crisis. Preparation and prevention are afterthoughts.
“There was a failure to plan before the pandemic,” Ross said. “There was a failure to listen to us during it. And now that we’re experiencing another surge, once again, there is a failure to plan.”
In Ross’ estimation, hospitals were too frugal about staffing even before the pandemic, in order to maximize profits. COVID exacerbated that. Earlier in the year, when it looked like the virus was receding in the United States, and as hospitals were struggling financially after a year of canceled elective procedures and low patient volume, some hospitals cut costs by furloughing or laying of health workers, or reducing their pay, according to Becker’s Hospital Review. Many other hospitals closed altogether.
“Unfortunately, the national nurse staffing shortage is a difficult challenge for hospitals throughout the U.S. and is at critical levels for certain parts of the country,” said Jennifer McDonnell, director of public relations and communications at MountainView. “We are doing everything in our power to retain and recruit new nurses to our community, from shift bonuses to new grad programs.”
“I don’t necessarily feel like there is a nursing shortage in terms of actual people who are registered nurses,” said Nicole Taylor, a labor and delivery nurse at MountainView Hospital in Las Vegas and chief nurse representative for her hospital at National Nurses United. “There’s a shortage of people who are willing to work in unsafe conditions.”
Taylor is currently on maternity leave, but she said she speaks with nurses at the hospital every couple of days. When COVID surged in the area and the hospital had to start putting two patients in a room instead of one, nurses were expected to pick up the slack. “They can’t possibly hire people in a fast enough manner to accommodate that. That’s really unsafe.”
“I feel pretty confident,” she added, “that a majority of the units are running on bare minimum and just trying to survive.”
During the first wave of the pandemic, traveling nurses descended on New York City and other hotspots, then moved on as the virus did. This time around, much of the country is a hotspot. And adding traveling nurses can be costly.
“Travelers are expensive,” Ross said. “We have our nurses begging for them to get extra help. Some states I’m told that are hardest hit right now are finally looking to other states and asking for help, and asking for travelers.”
But even if hospitals have the budget, Ross added, securing travelers only gets harder as demand skyrockets “country-wide, even worldwide.”
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 618,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 4.3 million people have died worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 58.9% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing Friday. All times Eastern:
Aug 13, 5:27 am
Alabama children’s hospital sees rise in patients
Children’s of Alabama reported a significant increase in the number of COVID-19 positive patients being treated at the hospital in recent weeks.
As of Thursday, the hospital said it is treating 22 COVID-19 positive patients, five of whom are on ventilators.
The hospital said in January, at the height of the last surge, their highest number of patients was 13.
“There are three proven ways to slow the spread of this highly transmissible strain of the virus: Vaccination for everyone 12 and up, masking, especially when indoors, and social distancing,” the hospital wrote in a Facebook statement.
Aug 12, 11:48 pm
FDA authorizes booster shot for immunocompromised
Immunocompromised Americans will be able to get a third shot of either of the mRNA vaccines, Pfizer or Moderna, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced late Thursday.
The booster will be targeted specifically for people who did not have an ideal immune response to their initial vaccines, which has proven to be the case for many cancer patients, transplant recipients, people with HIV and people on immunosuppressant drugs.
“The country has entered yet another wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the FDA is especially cognizant that immunocompromised people are particularly at risk for severe disease,” acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said in a statement. “After a thorough review of the available data, the FDA determined that this small, vulnerable group may benefit from a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna Vaccines.”
