(SAN FRANCISCO) — The search continued Thursday for a gunman who shot two people, one fatally, on a packed Muni commuter train in San Francisco on Wednesday, police said.
The shooting occurred around 10 a.m. as the light-rail train was moving between stations, according to San Francisco Police Department spokesperson Kathryn Winters.
Winters said police were initially called to the city’s Forest Hill Muni station for a report of a shooting, but the train had already pulled away. Officers caught up to the train at the busy Castro Street Station, where they discovered the two victims, Winters said.
Police late Wednesday released a photo of a person of interest connected to the shooting.
Winters said the gunman and commuters aboard the train ran off as soon as it stopped and the doors opened at the station.
Winters said one victim, a man, was pronounced dead at the scene. A second individual was taken to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center with non-life-threatening injuries.
The shooting happened ahead of this Sunday’s Pride Parade in San Francisco and in the heart of the city’s popular Castro District, which is expected to be filled with revelers celebrating LGBTQ pride this weekend. Winters said preliminary evidence showed that the shooting has no connection to this coming weekend’s activities or directed at the city’s LGBTQ community.
San Francisco Supervisor Myrna Melgar told ABC station KGO-TV in San Francisco that police informed her that the shooting occurred during a confrontation the gunman had with the victim who died.
“We do know the shooting happened after a heated verbal argument,” Melgar said.
It was not immediately clear whether the gunman and the deceased victim knew each other. She said the second victim who was wounded was an innocent bystander.
Winters said on Wednesday that homicide detectives were securing surveillance video from the train and the Forest Hill and Castro stations in hopes there was footage of the shooting that could help them identify the assailant.
Police had released a vague description of the perpetrator, saying he was a man wearing dark clothes and a hooded sweatshirt.
Melgar asked any commuters who were on the train and witnessed the shooting to contact police immediately.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — After Thursday’s hearing, the House Jan. 6 select committee will delay its final hearings for several weeks, a spokesperson confirmed to ABC News Wednesday.
“The Select Committee continues to receive additional evidence relevant to our investigation into the violence of January 6th and its causes. Following tomorrow’s hearing, we will be holding additional hearings in the coming weeks. We will announce dates and times for those hearings soon,” the spokesperson said.
Initially, the committee was expected to hold its sixth and seventh hearings by the end of June. But after Tuesday’s session, members said they need more time to incorporate new information into their public presentations.
Chairman Bennie Thompson said later “at least two” are planned for next month starting the week of July 11, after the House returns from the Independence Day recess. But the panel has not ruled out adding even more hearings down the road.
He claimed the delay is due to the need to take in new information the committee has obtained, from a documentary filmmaker who turned over hours of taped videos with Trump and his inner circle spanning “almost a year,” and additional Trump White House records from the National Archives.
“There may well be a need for future hearings because of information elicited because of the hearings,” Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., who is regularly briefed by committee chairs, told ABC News on Wednesday.
Following Tuesday’s hearing, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., also told reporters he expected the committee would continue its hearings beyond June because of new evidence they have been receiving.
The committee’s next hearing and last one for June, scheduled for Thursday at 3 p.m., will focus on what the committee has called Trump’s pressure campaign on the Department of Justice.
The new schedule comes after British documentary filmmaker Alex Holder, who had substantial access to Trump, his family and closest aides around the Jan. 6 attack, confirmed in a statement this week he “fully complied with all of the committee’s requests” and handed over footage which includes interviews with Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner and Vice President Mike Pence.
According to Vice Chair Liz Cheney, the final two hearings will focus on how former President Donald Trump “summoned and assembled a violent mob in Washington and directed them to march on the U.S. Capitol” and “ignored multiple pleas for assistance and failed to take immediate action to stop the violence and instruct his supporters to leave the Capitol,” she said in the committee’s first June hearing.
(SARASOTA COUNTY, Fla.) — A Florida judge told lawyers for the parents of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie that he will make a decision on whether he will dismiss a civil lawsuit brought by the Petitos in the next few weeks. The two sides appeared in Sarasota County Court on Wednesday.
Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt, the parents of Gabby Petito, brought a lawsuit against Christopher and Roberta Laundrie after their daughter was murdered. The Petitos claim in the lawsuit that Brian Laundrie, Petito’s boyfriend, told his parents he had killed her before he returned home alone from their trip out West.
The Laundries filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
In court filings, lawyers for the Petitos claim the Laundries failed to disclose that Petito was killed or where her body was and then went on a vacation with their son after she was killed.
In a hearing held over Zoom, Matthew Luka, a lawyer for the Laundries, argued that the law did not oblige them to disclose any information on Gabby Petito and that they had a first amendment right not to speak.
Patrick Riley, a lawyer for Petito’s parents, told the judge the case was about Laundrie parents’ conduct after they found out that Gabby Petito was killed by their son. Riley alleged that the Laundries knew on Aug. 28 that Gabby Petito was killed, where the body was and that her family was desperately looking for information. The family then knowingly went on vacation with Brian Laundrie, Riley alleged.
Riley also alleged that a statement made by a lawyer for the Laundries saying they hope Gabby Petito is found was made while they knew she was dead and that her body was in a different location than where investigators were searching at the time.
Riley claimed first amendment protections does not apply in this case.
Judge Hunter Carroll also held a hearing in a wrongful death suit filed by Gabby Petito’s mother. Schmidt is seeking damages in excess of $30,000 and is demanding a trial by jury. Riley said he is awaiting a response from representatives for the estate before the case could move forward.
Petito and Brian Laundrie were on a cross-county trip last year, documenting their travels on social media. Petito suddenly disappeared on Aug. 25. Brian Laundrie returned home to North Port, Florida, alone.
Eleven days into the search, Petito’s body was found in a remote area in a national park in Wyoming in September. The cause of death was ruled to be strangulation.
In January, the FBI concluded that Petito was murdered by Brian Laundrie, saying that Laundrie wrote in a notebook that he killed her. The notebook was found near his body, along with a backpack and a gun.
Laurie Skrivan/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Tribune News Service via Getty Images, FILE
(ST. LOUIS, Mo.) — Penelope Quigg is a lifelong Republican voter.
But the chair of the Republican Party in Cole County, Missouri, said she won’t vote for Eric Greitens, her state’s former governor, if he wins the party’s nomination this summer for an open Senate seat. Greitens — once disgraced — is now leading a resurgent campaign four years after he resigned amid a criminal investigation and the threat of impeachment, admitting to an extramarital affair but denying other claims that ultimately included alleged abuse of his ex-wife.
“Everything about him I question,” said Quigg, one of four county GOP chairs who told ABC News that they would not vote for Greitens in the general election — even if it means risking a Democratic victory in a state former President Donald Trump carried by more than 15% in 2020.
Quigg isn’t alone: Interviews with nearly a dozen current and former Republican Party leaders in Missouri, where voting in the Senate primary began this week, revealed a broad distaste for Greitens and a hesitation by many in the establishment to support him were he to win the nod on Aug. 2.
So what? says his campaign, which touted his allegiance to former President Donald Trump. “Greitens is doing exactly what he needs to do to win over voters,” his campaign manager Dylan Johnson said in a statement. “He’s holding grassroots events multiple times a week. He’s leading the conversation on the America First agenda.”
But the officials who spoke with ABC News nearly all expressed a belief that a Greitens win in the primary race would put the Senate seat, opened by retiring Republican Roy Blunt, in jeopardy of falling into Democratic hands — even in a national environment that favors the conservatives seeking to regain Congress.
Those concerns were underscored on Monday when Greitens’ campaign released an instantly controversial video ad showing him armed with an assault rifle and backed by weapon-carrying men dressed in camouflage to storm into a house to hunt “RINOs,” or Republicans in name only.
Many of the Republicans interviewed by ABC News condemned Greitens’ video, calling it “demented” and “tasteless” and they are worrying it could incite violence.
“It’s absolutely horrible,” said Gary Grunick, chair of the Republican Party in Lincoln County, northwest of St. Louis. “And I’m a gun person. I’ve got plenty of guns around. It’s just totally irresponsible.”
Rene Artman, a member of the Missouri Republican Party’s executive committee, told ABC News: “I’m quite concerned because I feel that there could be people who take him seriously. You don’t make comments like that in today’s climate with what’s going on.”
“I’m all in favor of the Second Amendment. If you want a gun, you can have a gun,” added Artman, who serves as the party chair in the state’s biggest county, St. Louis. “But for Greitens to use the word ‘MAGA’ and to call for the ‘hunting’ of ‘RINOs’ is a total disgrace and he needs to step down.”
Facebook removed the video and Twitter hid it behind a warning about “abusive behavior.”
In a statement, Greitens’ campaign manager said, ”Those who have an issue with the video and the metaphor are either lying or dumb. We believe Big Tech and its oligarchs are both.”
Greitens told a local morning show that he relished the “faux outrage” and noted how much interest the clip drove to his fundraising website.
‘So much baggage’
For all the headlines Greitens makes, some Missouri Republicans say he is not the best choice: Polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight show him leading by slimmer margins than his primary opponents in hypothetical matchups with leading Democrats, a discrepancy other conservatives attribute to the scandals that pushed him from office and the allegations of domestic abuse leveled by his ex-wife earlier this year.
In 2018, Greitens, who was elected governor two years prior, resigned while facing a charge connected to alleged campaign finance violations, which was later dropped in a deal with prosecutors. He had also admitted to an affair with a hairdresser, whom he was accused of blackmailing, which he denied. A felony invasion-of-privacy charge related to that case was also dropped.
Earlier this year, in a striking affidavit, his ex-wife said he had abused her and their young son during their marriage, claims which Greitens has rejected. The accusations by Sheena Greitens included a charge that her husband struck their son across the face during dinner and, in another altercation, hit the boy so hard that he was left with “a swollen face, bleeding gums, and [a] loose tooth.” (Court records in their ongoing custody dispute show the Greitens have been in mediation, with a trial set for July.)
“He’s not fit for office,” Jim Berberich, chair of the Republican central committee in Jefferson County, south of St. Louis, told ABC News. “Voters are not going to be happy to support a candidate for the U.S. Senate who has so much baggage that he amassed in such a short order.”
Cyndia Haggart, the GOP chair in Vernon County, in western Missouri, called Greitens “a non-starter.”
“He is damaged goods, and there are just those people who are not electable,” she said. “We will hand that seat to a Democrat.”
After the abuse allegations were disclosed in March, Artman, the member of the state Republican executive committee, wrote a letter asking Nick Myers, chair of the Missouri state GOP, to remove Greitens from the ballot. But she told ABC News the party did not take those steps.
Asked if she would vote for Greitens if he won the nomination, Artman told ABC News, “Hell no.”
Myers did not respond to multiple requests for comment about Greitens’ candidacy.
Still popular
Despite their misgivings, most Republicans who spoke to ABC News consider Greitens a serious contender to win the nomination over opponents like Rep. Vicky Hartzler and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt.
“A lot of people don’t believe what happened,” said David Lightner, chair of the Republican Committee in Jackson County, which includes Kansas City. Lightner was referring to the domestic abuse allegations while explaining Greitens’ buoyancy with voters. Lightner also cited his high profile and connections to Trump.
“Yes, he lost a lot of Republicans. But the thing is, he’s got a 500,000 email list that he goes by, and he also has Kimberly Guilfoyle and [Donald Trump Jr.] and a few others who are supporting him,” Lightner added, referring to the former president’s oldest son and his son’s fiancée.
Greitens’ base of support, said Lightner, “is solid.”
Jean Evans, a former chair of the Missouri Republican Party who is now a political consultant, attributes Greitens’ popularity to a passionate slice of the base.
“There’s a real fervor among a certain segment of the Republican Party now to get rid of RINOs,” she told ABC News.
Meanwhile, some GOP leaders think polls might be undervaluing Greitens’ popularity.
“There’s a lot of diehard Republicans who just aren’t going to get out there in front and say they’re voting for him. When they go in and vote at the polls, it may be different,” said Violet Corbett, a member of the Johnson County Republican Central Committee.
Multiple local Republicans said that a PAC supporting Greitens has invested in attack ads against his primary opponents but, to their knowledge, Republican groups inside and outside Missouri have not coordinated financial attacks on him.
A spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee did not respond to a request for comment about the group’s involvement in the primary.
Greitens’ campaign dismissed any notion that he would be less competitive in a general election than other Republicans and struck back at county leaders who said they would refuse to vote for him.
“That’s the definition of a RINO— willing to let a seat turn blue because they aren’t willing to fight for conservative values,” Johnson, the campaign manager, said.
Can a Democrat win in Missouri?
Missouri, where Barack Obama ran neck-and-neck with John McCain in the 2008 presidential election, veered rightward in subsequent cycles, with Trump winning the state by double digits in 2016 and 2020 and outpacing President Joe Biden with Missouri voters in a hypothetical 2024 matchup, according to polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight.
But in Greitens, some see a chance for Democrats to take advantage of a weakened candidate and steal back a Senate seat in a red state, as Democrat Claire McCaskill did in Missouri in 2012 when she won out by 15 points over Todd Akins, a Republican who drew widespread backlash for a comment about “legitimate rape.”
In an interview, Lucas Kunce, a leading Democratic candidate for Senate, declined to say whether he would prefer to face Greitens in a general matchup over another Republican.
“We’re just running our race. He stands for everything that we don’t stand for,” Kunce told ABC News.
“I think the guy should be in a jail cell at this point. I don’t think he should be on the ballot at all. If it happens, we’re going to crush it. But I think it’s sad,” he added.
But Michael Butler, chair of the Missouri Democratic Party, said that facing anyone but Greitens would be more difficult.
“I think we’d have less of a chance,” he told ABC News,” but we’d definitely still have a chance.”
Stephen Zenner/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images, FILE
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — Ohio State University was granted a trademark to use the word “THE” on apparel and merchandise to promote its athletic teams.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had previously rejected Ohio State’s application, claiming the trademark appeared to be for a “merely decorative manner” and as an “ornamental feature” that didn’t function as a trademark that would differentiate the items from others, the Associated Press reported.
The USPTO did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the approval.
In a statement to ABC News, the university said “THE” was used by students at the school for years and that it worked hard to “protect the university’s brand and trademarks because these assets benefit students and faculty and support our core academic mission of teaching and research.”
Ohio State said that the school’s trademark and licensing program generates more than $12.5 million a year in revenue and funds university scholarships and programs.
The university filed its patent application in August 2019, months after fashion designer Marc Jacobs filed to use the word “THE” on his products. The USPTO also struck down Jacobs’ application.
Jacobs and the school reached an agreement last year that allows both to use “THE” on their respective products.
(NEW YORK) — Nearly 1 in 5 American adults who have had COVID-19 are still suffering from long-haul symptoms, according to new data collected by the Census Bureau and Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.
The data, collected from June 1 to June 13, 2022, showed that more than 40% of adults in the United States reported having been infected with COVID-19 in the past, with 19% reporting that they are currently still experiencing symptoms of “long COVID.”
Overall, approximately 1 in 13 adults in the U.S. — or 7.5% — have long COVID-19 symptoms, which the groups define as symptoms that were not experienced by individuals prior to their COVID-19 infection, and these symptoms have lasted three or more months after first contracting the virus.
The new data showed that older Americans are less likely to suffer from long COVID-19, as compared to younger adults. Nearly three times as many individuals, in the 50-59 category, currently have long COVID, as compared to their counterparts, who are 80 years and older.
Women were also more likely than men to have long COVID-19, with 9.4% of women currently reporting long-haul symptoms, as compared to 5.5% of men.
Nearly 9% of Hispanic adults reported that they currently have long COVID, a percentage that is higher than non-Hispanic white (7.5%), Black (6.8%) and non-Hispanic Asian adults (3.7%).
Bisexual adults and transgender adults were also found to be more likely to suffer long COVID-19 symptoms as compared to adults of other sexual orientations and gender identities. An estimated 15% of transgender adults were reported to have long COVID-19 symptoms, compared to 5% of cisgender male adults and 9% of cisgender female adults.
MORE: COVID-19 nurse reflects on 1 million American virus deaths: ‘We are still mourning losses’
Further explanation as to why some groups may have had higher rates of long COVID-19 was not specified.
Kentucky (12.7%), Alabama (12.1%), Tennessee and South Dakota (11.6%) were found to have the highest percentage of adults who currently have long COVID-19 symptoms.
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images, FILE
(WASHINGTON) — John Wood, a Republican lawyer and former federal prosecutor who has helped lead the House Jan. 6 committee’s investigation, is leaving his role with the panel this week amid calls for him to instead enter the Missouri Senate race as an independent candidate.
Wood, whose last day with the committee is Friday — though hearings will continue into July — is expected to explore a bid for the seat of retiring Republican Sen. Roy Blunt.
Previously a U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri and a chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security in the second Bush administration, Wood also worked as an aide to former Missouri Sen. John Danforth earlier in his career.
The contest to succeed Blunt is attracting notable names, with former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens and state Attorney General Eric Schmitt among the contenders for the Republican nod and Lucas Kunce vying for the Democratic nomination. (Absentee voting in the party primaries is already underway.)
Most recently Wood has led the House select committee’s investigative “gold” team, which zeroed in on the role former President Donald Trump played in the Capitol riot. Alongside Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., Wood questioned witnesses in the panel’s hearing last week focused on the pressure campaign against former Vice President Mike Pence.
Danforth told ABC News that his super PAC planned to support an independent in the Missouri Senate election — and he hoped Wood entered the race.
“I’ve known John for decades and I’ve certainly talked to him about running for Senate,” Danforth said, noting that their last conversation was in the spring and he learned of Wood’s departure from the House committee in the press.
“He has a lot of experience in government,” Danforth said.
Danforth, who said that after the Jan. 6 insurrection he “regrets” backing his former protégé Josh Hawley in the 2018 Senate race against Democrat Claire McCaskill, told ABC News that he believes many Missourians think the country “is too polarized” and that both major parties do not represent them.
Those hoping for a Wood candidacy see him as an antidote.
“We deserve leaders who believe that our democracy must be held together – not torn apart by partisan politics that have divided our country for too long. John Wood embodies this principle,” a spokesman for the John Wood for Missouri Committee said. “We are encouraged by John’s decision to leave the select committee on Friday as an important next step in providing Missourians a principled, common-sense choice this November.”
According to the Missouri Secretary of State’s office, an independent candidate must file a petition with at least 10,000 signatures by Aug. 1 to enter the Senate race.
(UVALDE, Texas) — The embattled police chief of the Texas school district where 19 children and two teachers were killed in a school shooting has been placed on administrative leave, the superintendent announced.
Pete Arredondo, the police chief for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, has been criticized for his handling of the shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 24 that killed 19 third and fourth graders and two teachers, and the decision to delay police entry into the classrooms where the gunman carried out the attack. Arredondo served as the incident commander on the scene of the shooting.
The leave will take effect immediately, the school district said in a statement Wednesday. Lt. Mike Hernandez will assume the duties of the Chief of Police, said Dr. Hal Harrell, superintendent of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District.
“From the beginning of this horrible event, I shared that the district would wait until the investigation was complete before making personnel decisions,” Harrell said. “Today, I am still without details of the investigations being conducted by various agencies. Because of the lack of clarity that remains and the unknown timing of when I will receive the results of the investigations, I have made the decision to place Chief Arredondo on administrative leave effective on this date.”
Arredondo was the lone witness at the hearing on the shooting held during an executive session by the Texas state House of Representatives on Tuesday. Later that night, the Uvalde City Council unanimously denied Arredondo’s request for a leave of absence from future meetings. Arredondo had been sworn in as a city council member at the end of May.
During a state Senate hearing Tuesday on school safety, police training and social media in the wake of the shooting, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw read aloud from a transcript of police radio communications, revealing that nearly an hour after the gunman entered the school, an officer told the police chief, “People are going to ask why we’re taking so long.”
“We’re trying to preserve life,” Arredondo replied, per the transcript.
Parents and community members called for Arredondo’s resignation on Monday, with several arguing that law enforcement should be held partly accountable for the tragedy due to what was described as inadequate decision-making.
Earlier this month, Arredondo told The Texas Tribune he did not consider himself the commanding officer on the scene on the day of the shooting and that no one told him about the 911 calls that came in during the 77 minutes before the gunman was taken down.
“We responded to the information that we had and had to adjust to whatever we faced,” he said. “Our objective was to save as many lives as we could, and the extraction of the students from the classrooms by all that were involved saved over 500 of our Uvalde students and teachers before we gained access to the shooter and eliminated the threat.”
State investigators, according to a preliminary assessment, believe the decision to delay police entry into the classroom was made in order to allow time for protective gear to arrive on scene, an official briefed on a closed-door presentation by the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety told ABC News earlier this month.
However, waiting for protective gear contradicts active shooter protocols that have been adopted by law enforcement agencies across the country in the last 20 years.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky and Bonnie Mclean contributed to this report.
(PACIFIC GROVE, Calif.) — A person was attacked by a shark at a California beach Wednesday, sustaining “significant” injuries from the bite, Pacific Grove police said.
Following the shark attack at Lovers Point Beach, the swimmer was transported to Natividad Hospital, the Pacific Grove Police Department said. The man’s condition is unknown at this time.
Police said people at the beach reported that a shark was in the water around the time of the attack. Several people went into the water to help the person who was attacked, police said.
“We want to express our gratitude and appreciation to the Good Samaritans that took immediate action and personal risk to assist the swimmer,” Pacfic Grove police said. “We thank our partners at the U.S. Coast Guard and the Department of Fish and Wildlife. In addition, we thank our CERT [Community Emergency Response Team] members who responded to help with the beach closures to keep the community safe.”
“We send our prayers and thoughts to the swimmer and their family,” the department added.
Authorities launched a drone to find the shark but did not report additional sightings, police said.
The beach at Lovers Point and Sea Palm turnout has been closed and will reopen on Saturday, police said.
Located about 120 miles south of San Francisco, Pacific Grove is near Monterey and served as one of the filming locations for the hit HBO series “Big Little Lies.”
Philipp von Ditfurth/picture alliance via Getty Images, FILE
(WASHINGTON) — Pfizer’s COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid has been hailed as a breakthrough in the fight against COVID-19. The pills have shown to dramatically reduce the risk of being hospitalized or dying for people who are at high-risk of COVID-19.
But mounting evidence suggests Paxlovid may not benefit everyone equally. The company recently announced the results of a new study that found the drug did not meaningfully benefit people without underlying medical conditions or no previous infection of COVID.
This comes weeks after the Biden administration announced plans to purchase 20 million treatment courses of the drug as it focuses on the Test-to-Treat initiative as part of the National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan.
Some infectious disease experts interviewed by ABC News said the new study could influence the way doctors prescribe the drug, potentially declining to prescribe it to vaccinated, otherwise healthy patients.
But overall, demand for the drug is likely to remain high because 60% of Americans are living with a chronic disease that qualifies them for the drug under its current authorization.
“Paxlovid is something that is targeted towards high-risk individuals, so the fact that it doesn’t have a benefit to low-risk individuals isn’t surprising to me,” Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, told ABC News.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has provided guidance that the drug is recommended for treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19 among people at high risk for severe disease.
“At this stage, the current recommendation under the EUA is for Paxlovid to be given to any high-risk patient who has symptomatic COVID, whether vaccinated or unvaccinated, as long as it is within five days of the onset of symptoms,” Dr. Todd Ellerin, chief of medicine and director of infectious diseases at South Shore Health, told ABC News.
“If you’re older, particularly over age 65, if you have underlying illnesses, if you’re immunocompromised, those groups I think will continue to be targeted for Paxlovid,” Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told ABC News.
While the CDC has published a list of medical conditions that would put someone at high risk for severe illness, some experts argue there may be ambiguity.
“High-risk isn’t necessarily only objective criteria, like age, heart disease, etc. It’s also a situation, like socioeconomic status and some of those disparities that exist. When you add all that up, I think that a large swath of people do qualify for Paxlovid potentially as high-risk,” Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, told ABC News.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said the drug would continue to be an important treatment option.
“With up to 40-50% of people around the world estimated to be high risk, we believe there remains a significant unmet need for treatment options to help combat this disease, and we will continue to prioritize efforts to advance the development of Paxlovid,” Bourla said in a press release.
Experts tried to compare that global context to the United States.
“When you look at the average body mass index (BMI) of men and women in the United States is 26, that puts you at a high-risk category and eligible for Paxlovid. So at least 50% of the country is eligible for Paxlovid that is infected with COVID,” Ellerin said.
The CDC defines overweight people as those with a BMI of 25-30 and obese as those with a BMI over 30.
Doctors said there are serious considerations to weigh before prescribing Paxlovid. Drug-drug interactions may lead to serious or life-threatening drug toxicities, including medications such as cardiovascular agents and anticonvulsants. Meanwhile, Paxlovid carries a low risk of something called “COVID-19 rebound,” where individuals experience a recurrence of symptoms or a new positive viral test after having tested negative, according to the CDC.
“When it comes to Paxlovid, at the individual level, there may not be so much downside, but we don’t want to be inappropriately giving drugs to people where there would be no benefit and potentially some downside,” said Dr. John Brownstein, Chief Innovation Officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News medical contributor.
A recent, small study estimated that less than 1% of patients experience a rebound of symptoms.
Brownstein remains optimistic that further research will clarify guidance on how best to prescribe the drug.
“I think there is a lot that needs to be understood, we have a lot of real-world data and so I think it is reasonable to understand how well it’s working and because it is so widely available, this will not be a hard drug to study like many others. So, we should have a lot of evidence to support a very specific recommendation,” Brownstein said.
Youri Benadjaoud is an MPH candidate at Brown University and a contributor to the ABC Medical Unit.
