National

(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Education on Thursday urged districts to combat pandemic-fueled teacher shortages by offering them more money from the pot of federal COVID-relief aid, in a letter sent to schools nationwide.

Schools are facing dire staffing losses as droves of teachers leave their posts, exhausted by the stresses of the pandemic. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said federal money could be used to hire more substitute teachers and give permanent teachers much-needed time-off, or to offer teachers better salaries through hiring or retention bonuses.

“Let us be clear: [The American Rescue Plan] provides vital resources to hire additional educators and school staff and to improve compensation to recruit and retain educators and school staff,” Cardona wrote in the letter to educators, obtained exclusively by ABC News.

“School districts should act with urgency to keep schools open for in-person learning and ensure they do not waste this opportunity to make critical investments,” he said.

The American Rescue Plan, signed into law last March by President Joe Biden, provided over $122 billion to schools.

Cardona listed various ways schools could use this pot of money to improve the situation for teachers, custodians, bus drivers, school nurses and other educators, and cited schools that have already done so.

“The most common reason educators have cited for leaving school employment in the last year is stress, followed by insufficient pay,” Cardona wrote.

“Many school leaders are increasing wages by offering hiring and retention bonuses, working towards permanent salary increases, or providing premium pay that help educators receive the compensation they deserve and keep them in the profession, and we encourage others to continue to work towards increasing compensation,” he wrote.

Cardona cited reports of schools offering signing bonuses of up to $6,000 in California, and other financial incentives offered to new teachers in Oklahoma, North Carolina and New Jersey.

“Now, more than ever, supporting educator well-being is critical for retaining our current educators and staff,” Cardona wrote.

Still, some schools have noted that short-term pay increases aren’t enough to solve their staff shortages.

Some principals have found that there are simply not enough trained professionals in the pipeline for them to recruit, and it takes time for teachers or counselors to get certified. Others have found that the temporary pay increases from federal relief are unsustainable.

And other schools have reported that nearby districts have been able to poach teachers with higher salaries funded by federal aid, leaving schools in lower-income areas with less teachers.

On the other hand, the National Education Association, a powerful teachers’ union, has thrown its weight behind the policy of using federal aid to retain teachers, saying it’s been effective with educational support professionals, or ESPs, when paired with other solutions.

“ESP leaders have found that increasing pay and benefits is the top strategy,” the NEA said in a post on its website.

“But what also helps is providing flexibility for retirees to return to work while still receiving pension payments, revisiting licensure challenges, providing incentives, creating cross-state collaborations to make it easier to work in other states and localities, and looking at the well-being of current staff and ways to improve it to keep them on board,” the union wrote.

The NEA noted that the average salary of ESPs in 22 states is $30,000 or below, “which is not a livable wage or an attractive career proposition.”

Without addressing the educator shortages, schools are facing interruptions in all facets of the school day, from longer bus routes due to less bus drivers, larger class sizes or substitute teachers who aren’t qualified for the subjects they’re assigned to, and even school closures.

Schools in 11 states — Idaho, California, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Tennessee, Vermont, and West Virginia — have had to close temporarily because of staffing shortages, according to an October report in Ed Week.

For his part, Cardona acknowledged that the short-term solutions were just the beginning, but called on schools to take advantage of what was available.

“[The Department of Education] strongly encourages you to use funding under ARP to respond to the urgent needs resulting from the pandemic while beginning to plan for the investments needed to ensure that every student has access to the qualified educators and staff they need,” Cardona wrote.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.3 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 802,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

About 61% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Dec 16, 8:04 am
Omicron will be dominant variant in US ‘very soon,’ Fauci says

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, warned Thursday that omicron will become the dominant variant of the novel coronavirus in the United States “very soon.”

“It has an extraordinary ability to transmit efficiently and spread,” Fauci, the chief medical advisor to U.S. President Joe Biden, told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in an interview on Good Morning America.

“It has what we call a doubling time of about three days and if you do the math on that, if you have just a couple of percentage of the isolates being omicron, very soon it’s going to be the dominant variant,” he explained. “We’ve seen that in South Africa, we’re seeing it in the U.K. and I’m absolutely certain that’s what we’re going to be seeing here relatively soon.”

Fauci, who is also the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged Americans to “absolutely” get vaccinated against COVID-19, if they haven’t already, and to also receive a booster shot when they become eligible.

“At this point, we don’t believe you need an omicron-specific boost,” he added. “We just need to get the boost with what you got originally for the primary vaccination.”

Dec 16, 6:14 am
France to ban non-essential travel with UK over omicron surge

France announced Thursday that it will ban non-essential travel to and from the United Kingdom due to the country’s surge in cases of the omicron variant.

Starting Saturday, France will require people to have “a compelling reason” to travel between the two countries. Travel for tourism or work will not be allowed. French citizens, however, can return to France, according to a statement from the French prime minister’s office.

All travelers from the U.K. will be required to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken less than 24 hours before departure. Upon arrival in France, they must self-isolate for a week, but that period can be ended after 48 hours if they test negative for COVID-19 again.

The new rules apply to people regardless of their vaccination status.

“Faced with the extremely rapid spread of the Omicron variant in the United Kingdom, the Government has chosen to reinstate the need for an essential reason for travel from and to the United Kingdom, and to strengthen the requirement for tests on departure and arrival,” the French prime minister’s office said in the statement Thursday. “The Government is also calling on travelers who had planned to visit the United Kingdom to postpone their trip.”

Dec 16, 4:24 am
Indonesia confirms 1st case of omicron variant

Indonesia announced Thursday its first confirmed case of the omicron variant.

The case was detected in a janitor who works at the COVID-19 Emergency Hospital of Kemayoran Athletes Village in Jakarta, according to a statement from Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin.

The hospital’s cleaning staff are routinely tested and the results for three people were positive for COVID-19 on Dec. 10. Those samples were then sent to a genome sequencing lab, which identified the omicron variant in one of the samples on Wednesday, according to the statement.

Indonesia’s Ministry of Health has also identified probable cases of omicron among five travelers who were in quarantine — two Indonesian citizens who had just returned from the United Kingdom and the United States, and three foreigners from China. Their test samples are being sequenced and the results will be known in a few days, according to the statement.

The health minister urged Indonesians “not to panic and to remain calm,” and to get vaccinated against COVID-19 if they haven’t already.

“The arrival of new variants from abroad, which we identified in quarantine, shows that our defense system against the arrival of new variants is quite good, we need to strengthen it,” Sadikin said. “So it’s normal to stay 10 days in quarantine. The goal is not to make it difficult for people who came, but to protect the people of Indonesia.”

Dec 15, 4:46 pm
Forecast: US could see up to 845,000 deaths by early January

Forecast models used by the CDC suggest weekly death totals and hospital admissions will rise over the next four weeks.

The U.S. could reach a total of 845,000 deaths by Jan. 8, according to the forecasts from the COVID-19 Forecast Hub at UMass Amherst.

The COVID-19 Forecast Hub team monitors and combines forecasting models from the nation’s top researchers. They then create an ensemble, usually with a wide cone of uncertainty. Nicholas Reich, a biostatistician who runs the forecasting model, told ABC News Wednesday that he doesn’t think the forecasts included omicron in their predictions because the majority of data isn’t publicly available yet in a format that can be easily incorporated into a model.

-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Dec 15, 4:20 pm
US cases up 45% in the last month

The U.S. is now reporting nearly 118,000 new cases each day — up by 45% in the last month, according to federal data.

Daily COVID-19-related hospital admissions have leapt by 46% in the last month.

Maine and New Hampshire are now averaging more new cases than at any other point in the pandemic, according to federal data.

New Hampshire currently holds the nation’s highest case rate, followed by Rhode Island, Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.3 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 801,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

About 61% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Dec 16, 6:14 am
France to ban non-essential travel with UK over omicron surge

France announced Thursday that it will ban non-essential travel to and from the United Kingdom due to the country’s surge in cases of the omicron variant.

Starting Saturday, France will require people to have “a compelling reason” to travel between the two countries. Travel for tourism or work will not be allowed. French citizens, however, can return to France, according to a statement from the French prime minister’s office.

All travelers from the U.K. will be required to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken less than 24 hours before departure. Upon arrival in France, they must self-isolate for a week, but that period can be ended after 48 hours if they test negative for COVID-19 again.

The new rules apply to people regardless of their vaccination status.

“Faced with the extremely rapid spread of the Omicron variant in the United Kingdom, the Government has chosen to reinstate the need for an essential reason for travel from and to the United Kingdom, and to strengthen the requirement for tests on departure and arrival,” the French prime minister’s office said in the statement Thursday. “The Government is also calling on travelers who had planned to visit the United Kingdom to postpone their trip.”

Dec 16, 4:24 am
Indonesia confirms 1st case of omicron variant

Indonesia announced Thursday its first confirmed case of the omicron variant.

The case was detected in a janitor who works at the COVID-19 Emergency Hospital of Kemayoran Athletes Village in Jakarta, according to a statement from Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin.

The hospital’s cleaning staff are routinely tested and the results for three people were positive for COVID-19 on Dec. 10. Those samples were then sent to a genome sequencing lab, which identified the omicron variant in one of the samples on Wednesday, according to the statement.

Indonesia’s Ministry of Health has also identified probable cases of omicron among five travelers who were in quarantine — two Indonesian citizens who had just returned from the United Kingdom and the United States, and three foreigners from China. Their test samples are being sequenced and the results will be known in a few days, according to the statement.

The health minister urged Indonesians “not to panic and to remain calm,” and to get vaccinated against COVID-19 if they haven’t already.

“The arrival of new variants from abroad, which we identified in quarantine, shows that our defense system against the arrival of new variants is quite good, we need to strengthen it,” Sadikin said. “So it’s normal to stay 10 days in quarantine. The goal is not to make it difficult for people who came, but to protect the people of Indonesia.”

Dec 15, 4:46 pm
Forecast: US could see up to 845,000 deaths by early January

Forecast models used by the CDC suggest weekly death totals and hospital admissions will rise over the next four weeks.

The U.S. could reach a total of 845,000 deaths by Jan. 8, according to the forecasts from the COVID-19 Forecast Hub at UMass Amherst.

The COVID-19 Forecast Hub team monitors and combines forecasting models from the nation’s top researchers. They then create an ensemble, usually with a wide cone of uncertainty. Nicholas Reich, a biostatistician who runs the forecasting model, told ABC News Wednesday that he doesn’t think the forecasts included omicron in their predictions because the majority of data isn’t publicly available yet in a format that can be easily incorporated into a model.

-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Dec 15, 4:20 pm
US cases up 45% in the last month

The U.S. is now reporting nearly 118,000 new cases each day — up by 45% in the last month, according to federal data.

Daily COVID-19-related hospital admissions have leapt by 46% in the last month.

Maine and New Hampshire are now averaging more new cases than at any other point in the pandemic, according to federal data.

New Hampshire currently holds the nation’s highest case rate, followed by Rhode Island, Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — A storm system is impacting the Midwest and 29 states are on alert for damaging winds, heavy snow and avalanches.

A tornado threat was issued for Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin, with a tornado touching down in Plainview, Minnesota, just outside Rochester, on Wednesday night, according to the National Weather Service. This was the first time Minnesota has recorded a tornado in December.

There is already snow on the ground in parts of Minnesota where more tornadoes could occur Wednesday into Thursday.

Heavy rain is expected for Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas on Thursday and Friday. There could be between 2 to 4 inches of rain in the area, which was severely impacted by the deadly storms last weekend.

Forty-four deadly tornadoes tore through nine states last weekend, killing at least 88 people. Kentucky was by far the hardest hit.

Severe storms were impacting Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin Wednesday afternoon and into the evening across the Mid-Missouri Valley to the Upper Mississippi Valley.

“Widespread severe wind gusts of 60-75 mph along with at least a few tornadoes are likely from late afternoon through this evening,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Embedded gusts of 80 to 100 miles per hour and a strong tornado or two are also possible, particularly across western to northern Iowa and southeast Minnesota.

Hundreds of thousands of customers in the area — from Colorado to Kansas and Minnesota — were without power at 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

Areas from Texas to New York could see very strong winds ahead of the storm. Wind gusts could be between 40 to 70 mph.

There is an avalanche warning in place for the West, where 5 feet of snow was reported in the mountains. More snow is still expected.

This storm system has already brought more than 8 inches of rainfall in Southern California. The state also saw mudslides and debris flow, forcing some people to be rescued. There is also an avalanche warning issued for California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Whiteout weather conditions shut down Interstate 90 from California to Nevada Monday night. Parts of Northern California saw rockslides and mudslides.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — The nation’s top health officials warned Wednesday that the fast-rising omicron variant “undoubtedly” compromises the protection of two doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, putting the U.S. at risk of a tidal wave of fresh COVID cases in the next month if more people don’t get vaccinated and sign up for booster shots.

The good news, though, is that booster shots mostly reconstitute protection, reducing the need for the U.S. to roll out an entirely new vaccine formula specific to omicron.

“Booster vaccine regimens work against omicron,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser.

The speculation about what happens next has rattled many Americans as they prepare to travel for the holidays. Cases of the new variant have been doubling every two days, with a sevenfold increase in the prevalence of the omicron variant in the last week– proving itself to be even more transmissible than the delta variant.

“We expect to see the proportion of omicron cases here in the United States continue to grow in the coming weeks,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Health officials said the best bet is wearing a mask indoors and improving ventilation, in addition to vaccinations and boosters.

“Those are the tools we have. If we didn’t have these tools, I would be telling you to really, really be worried. But we have tools. So, get vaccinated, get boosted,” Fauci said.

The White House on Wednesday sought to tamp down any speculation of lockdowns. Jeff Zients, Biden’s chief coordinator on the COVID response, said they weren’t necessary.

“We know how to keep our kids in school and our businesses open and we’re not going to shut down our economy in any way,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “We’re going to keep our schools and our businesses open.”

Still, whether the U.S. faces shutdowns again is largely in the hands of state and local officials who typically have splintered ideas on how to handle surges.

In New York, a statewide mask mandate for all indoor public places was to take effect Jan. 15 unless businesses already have a vaccine requirement in place. In Texas, the governor has tried to ban mask mandates and is fighting a federal mandate that large businesses either require vaccines or weekly testing.

New York University and Princeton University joined Cornell University this week in canceling events and moving winter exams online. Cornell declared “alert level red” after finding 900 cases, including a “significant number” of students infected with the omicron variant.

The omicron variant was believed to have originated in southern Africa, whose lower-income countries have struggled to obtain and distribute vaccines needed to tamp down outbreaks. In recent weeks, scientists have been collecting real-world data while conducting lab studies on how the virus responds to antibodies induced by the vaccine.

The latest research found that booster shots significantly improved protection against disease. Yet only 55 million Americans have received boosters, making many Americans vulnerable.

“The omicron variant undoubtedly compromises the effects of a two-dose mRNA vaccine induced antibodies and reduces the overall protection,” Fauci said. But early studies “indicate that boosters reconstitute the antibody titers (numbers) and enhance the vaccine protection against omicron,” he added.

In one study cited by the CDC, nursing home residents with a booster have 10 times lower rates of getting COVID compared to people who are unvaccinated or vaccinated but without a booster.

The CDC has been looking at various scenarios involving a triple whammy this winter – COVID-related hospitalizations stemming from omicron or delta, along with cases of seasonal flu. The worst case scenario is a peak in January with cases slowly trending downward by March, though the data informing the forecast is still sparse.

The dreary possibility was discussed in a phone call on Tuesday with public health organizations, which said the message from the CDC was to take steps now to blunt the impact.

Chrissie Juliano, executive director of Big Cities Health Coalition who participated in the call, said her takeaway from the discussion was that there are a lot of unknowns with omicron.

But it’s also clear what has worked against every variant so far — masks in public indoor settings, vaccines, and now, boosters for everyone eligible.

“We do have tools in place and we do know what to do. But we need to make sure that those things happen,” Juliano said.

ABC News producer Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(BENTON, Mich.) — After seeing elevated levels of lead in its drinking water for three years, the city of Benton Harbor, Michigan, a majority Black community, is finally seeing decreasing numbers, according to a recent report.

The six-month sample results released Wednesday showed that for the first time since 2018, Benton Harbor reports lead levels within federal limits.

“This is encouraging news, an indication that corrosion control treatment is taking hold and reducing the amount of lead getting into the water,” Eric Oswald, director of Michigan’s Drinking Water and Environmental Health Division,said in a release, adding that the news “does not lesson the urgency” to reduce lead exposure in the city.

Residents of Benton Harbor have been forced to use bottled water provided by the state for years due to lead contamination. The lead contamination issues in Benton Harbor echo similar water crises in poorer, majority nonwhite cities.

Environmental Protection Agency data shows that 1 in 6 majority nonwhite ZIP codes has at least one water district with excessive lead contamination, compared to 1 in 8 majority white ZIP codes, according to ABC News analysis of the data in October.

From the same data, 1 in 4 of America’s poorest ZIP codes, where median household income is less than $35,000, has at least one water district with excessive lead contamination.

Over 90% of residents in Benton Harbor are nonwhite and the median household income is only $21,916, according to 2019 Census data.

In early September, a coalition of environmental and community organizations demanded the removal of lead service lines in Benton Harbor. Soon after, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced a commitment to remove all of the lead service lines within 18 months, a project that will cost approximately $30 million.

Construction began in November to replace the city’s service lines that had been poisoning the water supply for years.

Despite decreased levels of lead, state and city officials emphasized that they are not changing guidance and urged residents to continue to use bottled water for cooking, drinking and brushing teeth.

ABC News’ Catherine Thorbecke, Briana Stewart and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LOS ANGELES) — The Los Angeles public school district’s board of education has approved delaying enforcement of its COVID-19 vaccine mandate to the fall, as thousands of students at the nation’s second-largest school district remain non-compliant.

Under the mandate, which the board passed in September, all students ages 12 and up were required to be fully vaccinated by Jan. 10, 2022, to be allowed on school campuses for the second semester, unless they had an approved exemption or deadline extension.

Currently, over 87% of eligible students are in compliance with the mandate, Los Angeles Unified Interim Superintendent Megan Reilly said during Tuesday’s board meeting, calling it a “major milestone.”

Some 27,000 students are not in compliance with the mandate, as it’s too late to complete the two-dose vaccine series to be fully vaccinated by the January deadline.

Under Reilly’s proposal, the transfer of non-compliant students to the remote program will be delayed until the beginning of the fall 2022 semester.

“It allows more time for families to get this vaccine,” Reilly said ahead of the board’s vote. “This effort remains a top priority for Los Angeles Unified. We will continue to engage students and families around the importance of vaccines and the deadlines to participate for in-person learning. We will improve vaccination rates for eligible students and we will continue to provide a consistent, stable learning environment and access to vital resources.”

Most board members said they were reluctant to vote in favor of delaying enforcement of the vaccine mandate, though did so to limit disruption to in-person learning in the middle of the school year.

“I will support this because it keeps our promise to the vaccinated students in our district that we would not disrupt their education needlessly,” board member Jackie Goldberg said. “To be clear, we are not moving one inch from the mandate. Not one inch, not a centimeter. We are simply saying you now have more time to do it because we want all of you to be vaccinated and safe. And also we do not want your not being vaccinated to disrupt the education of those who have complied.”

Board president Kelly Gonez said voting in favor of the delay “is not a decision I am happy to make.”

“But like my fellow board members, I am very enthusiastic about our vaccination progress,” she continued. “I believe that this board unequivocally made the right decision in September, and it has made our schools safer, it has made our communities as a whole safer and it has saved lives.”

The vote came a day after a Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied two parent groups’ bid for a preliminary injunction against the student vaccine mandate, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.

The school district had also mandated that staff get both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine by Nov. 15, barring exemptions due to disability or religious belief.

During its meeting Tuesday, board members also approved extending the district’s student and employee vaccination policy to all district-authorized charter schools to maintain a consistent vaccine policy.

The school district is one of the few nationwide that has implemented vaccine mandates. The policies came ahead of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement in October that the state will require COVID-19 vaccines for all school children ages 12-17 once the Federal Drug Administration grants full approval. The state policy includes personal exemptions, not just religious or medical.

“So there’s plenty of latitude for families to make decisions,” Newsom told Good Morning America last week. “LA is slightly different, and we’re going to obviously have to work through that with that district.”

“You have to work to accommodate, and I have all the confidence in the world the school board will work to accommodate,” he added.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.3 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 800,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

About 61% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Dec 15, 8:09 am
Journalist traveling with Blinken tests positive for COVID-19 in Malaysia

A journalist traveling alongside U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on his visit to Southeast Asia has tested positive for COVID-19 in Malaysia, according to U.S. Department of State spokesperson Ned Price.

Meanwhile, Blinken and his senior staff all tested negative for COVID-19 upon arrival in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday night. The member of the traveling press pool who tested positive had last tested negative in Indonesia’s capital, their previous stop, on Tuesday.

“The individual who tested positive will remain in isolation,” Price said in a statement Wednesday, “and we will continue to adhere to and go beyond CDC guidance, including with our rigorous testing protocol, for the remaining traveling party.”

Blinken has canceled a scheduled trip to Thailand “out of an abundance of caution” and will return home to the United States, according to Price.

“The Secretary expressed his deep regret to the Foreign Minister that he would not be able to visit Bangkok this week,” Price said. “He explained that, in order to mitigate the risk of the spread of COVID-19 and to prioritize the health and safety of the U.S. traveling party and those they would otherwise come into contact with, the Secretary would be returning to Washington, D.C. out of an abundance of caution.”

“The Secretary extended an invitation for the Foreign Minister to visit Washington, D.C. at the earliest opportunity and noted that he looked forward to traveling to Thailand as soon as possible,” Price added. “They affirmed that they would use the upcoming engagements to further deepen the U.S.-Thai alliance.”

The U.S. Embassy in Malaysia confirmed that the infected individual “was not involved and has not participated in any of Secretary Blinken’s program in Kuala Lumpur.”

“The sole member of the traveling party who tested positive is observing all requirements of the Ministry of Health,” the embassy said in a statement Wednesday. “We confirm all other members of the party tested negative for COVID-19 upon arrival in Malaysia.”

Blinken was in Indonesia on Tuesday, and the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta confirmed that no members of the traveling party tested positive for COVID-19.

All members of the U.S. delegation are required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and undergo regular testing on trips.

-ABC News’ Conor Finnegan

Dec 15, 6:23 am
Over 67,000 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in US as winter surge intensifies

With winter closing in and COVID-19 cases on the rise, hospitals across the United States are once again facing the pressures of caring for thousands of patients.

More than 67,000 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 nationwide, according to federal data.

Rebecca Long, lead nurse in a COVID-19 intensive care unit at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, told ABC News that she and her team “literally do not have any ICU beds” available.

“I don’t want anyone else’s family member or loved one to have to be in the position where we say, like, we can’t help you because we don’t have the resources,” Long said. “As health care providers, all we want to do is help people and we can’t because we physically can’t.”

Dr. Kyle McCarty, medical director of emergency services at both HSHS St. Mary’s and HSHS St. Vincent hospitals in Green Bay, Wisconsin, told ABC News that health care workers are feeling burned out after “being asked to do more with less.”

“We’re exhausted by the knowledge that we are the duct tape that is preventing a complete collapse of the health care system,” McCarty said. “There’s a national shortage of hospital staff, which is making it difficult to take care of patients the way that we want it. There aren’t enough inpatient beds for the patients that need to be admitted to the hospital.”

“This is a call for reinforcements, not a warning to stay away, because we don’t want this to be the new normal,” he added. “If we can recruit more health care teammates, it doesn’t have to be.”

-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Dec 14, 7:19 pm
US death toll from COVID-19 crosses 800,000

The number of people who have died from COVID-19 in the United States surpassed 800,000 on Tuesday, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

The figure is greater than the approximately 700,000 Americans who have died from AIDS-related illnesses over the last four decades, and it’s higher than the total number of U.S. troops who have fallen in battle since 1900.

Since last December, when the first COVID-19 vaccines were being administered, an additional 500,000 people in the U.S. have died from the virus.

Of those, some 230,000 have died since April 2021, when U.S. President Joe Biden announced COVID-19 vaccines were widely available to every American over the age of 18.

-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Dec 14, 6:59 pm
US sees sevenfold jump in omicron cases over the last week

The U.S. saw a sevenfold increase in the prevalence of the omicron COVID-19 variant over the last week, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Just over two weeks after it was first discovered in the country, the omicron variant is now estimated to account for nearly 3% of all new cases in the U.S., the latest data from the CDC shows.

Last week, omicron accounted for an estimated 0.4% of all new cases, according to the data.

-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Dec 14, 2:52 pm
Omicron will ‘for sure’ become dominant strain in US: Fauci

Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN Tuesday that omicron will “for sure” become the dominant strain in the U.S. given how rapidly it is spreading.

“Omicron is going to be a challenge because it spreads very rapidly,” Fauci said.

Fauci reiterated that omicron so far appears to be less severe, adding, “Whether it is inherently less pathogenic as a virus or whether there is more protection in the community, we’re just going to have to see when it comes in the United States.”

-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — As Americans gather to toast the end of another particularly difficult year, many loved ones will be notably missing from holiday celebrations, a glaring reminder of the tragic realities of the coronavirus pandemic.

On Tuesday, the United States reached yet another staggering milestone, with 800,000 Americans now confirmed lost to the coronavirus, according to newly updated data from Johns Hopkins University.

“This will be a defining tragedy of our generation,” David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News. “We’ve gotten to the point where our eyes glaze over on these numbers. But by now, almost every one of us knows someone who has died of COVID-19.”

The sobering marker comes less than two years into the pandemic, and despite the introduction of the first coronavirus vaccines, nearly one year ago.

Half a million lives lost since last December

When the first COVID-19 vaccines were administered last December, many Americans hoped the shots would herald a return to normalcy. However, since last December, an additional 500,000 Americans have died of the virus. Of those, just shy of half — 230,000 — lost their lives since April 2021, when President Joe Biden announced the vaccine was now widely available to every American over the age of 18.

“The vast majority of these deaths could have been avoided,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “Despite the availability of vaccines, we have seen close to half a million deaths since first shots went into arms last December.”

Americans in every state, city and town have felt the personal impact and ripple effect of the virus.

An analysis tracking the extensive reach of COVID-19 loss of kin with a bereavement multiplier, published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, estimated that 7.2 million family members may be grieving the loss of a loved one due to the virus.

The staggering number of deaths due to COVID-19 is now higher than the 700,000 Americans who have died from AIDS-related illnesses over the last four decades. It is also higher than the total number of American troops who have died in battle since 1900, and about the same as the population of North Dakota.

“Every other minute in this country, for almost two years now, that story has repeated itself. By the time you finish reading this [story], someone else will have died of this disease,” Dowdy said.

Although the death rate is significantly lower than it was at the nation’s peak last January, on average, more than 1,000 Americans are still being reported lost to the virus each day.

“[The average] is more than twice the rate of most countries in places like Europe, even though they have more cases than we do. This is an ongoing failure of our society,” said Dowdy.

Some experts believe that the current COVID-19 death count could potentially be greatly undercounted, due to inconsistent reporting by states and localities, and the exclusion of excess deaths, a measure of how many lives have been lost beyond what would be expected if the pandemic had not occurred.

‘This pandemic is clearly not over’

In the early days of the pandemic, even the highest death toll projections seemed unimaginable.

Studies have found that the virus was present in the U.S., potentially as early as December 2019, although widespread transmission likely did not occur until late February 2020, according to experts.

The COVID-19 death toll is now eight times what former President Donald Trump once stated, in the early days of the pandemic.

“The minimum number was 100,000 lives, and I think we’ll be substantially under that number… So we’ll see what it ends up being, but it looks like we’re headed to a number substantially below 100,000,” Trump said in April 2020.

Forecasts predict that as the U.S. faces yet another winter viral resurgence, and it is possible that thousands more lives could be lost before the end of 2021.

Experts say that a confluence of factors, such as vaccine hesitancy, cold weather, relaxed restrictions, the highly transmissible delta variant and the impact of waning vaccine immunity over time have all contributed to the higher death toll.

“This pandemic is clearly not over,” UMass Memorial Health Care President and CEO Dr. Eric Dickson told ABC News. “This is really the toughest period of this whole pandemic right now for some of us.”

Although 60% of Americans are currently fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 95 million Americans remain completely unvaccinated, and thus at risk for infection, severe illness and death.

Now, with new concerns over the omicron variant, health experts are urging Americans to get boosted as soon as possible. About 50 million people – 25% of fully vaccinated Americans — have received an additional vaccine dose, according to the CDC.

Unvaccinated individuals had a 5.8 times greater risk of testing positive for COVID-19 and a 14 times greater risk of dying from it, as compared to vaccinated individuals, according to federal data compiled in September 2021.

Although masking is required in all forms of public transportation across the country, COVID-19 restrictions have become sparse, with few jurisdictions now requiring face coverings or social distancing.

“Vaccine resistance coupled with a rapid return to normal life has been at the expense of a tragic loss of life,” Brownstein said.

The rest of the upcoming winter holidays also continue to be a major source of concern for experts, after many communities saw an increase in cases and hospitalizations following Thanksgiving.

“While so many have done their part, we still have tens of millions of eligible people who have yet to recognize the tremendous loss of life that can be averted with the benefit that comes from getting vaccinated. This divide means that our devastating march to a million lives lost becomes even more certain,” Brownstein said.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.