(AUSTIN, Texas) — The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has ordered a court to consider new evidence regarding the case of Melissa Lucio and the death of her daughter, Mariah. Lucio is on death row and was scheduled to be executed on April 27.
The execution will be halted as the 138th Judicial District Court of Cameron County considers the evidence.
In a statement following the announcement, Lucio thanked those who have supported her fight for clemency.
“I thank God for my life,” Lucio said. “I am grateful the Court has given me the chance to live and prove my innocence. Mariah is in my heart today and always. I am grateful to have more days to be a mother to my children and a grandmother to my grandchildren.”
Lucio was sentenced in 2008 for the death of her 2-year-old daughter, one of Lucio’s 14 children.
Her lawyers say new evidence shows that the cause of her daughter’s injuries and subsequent death were caused by a fall down a steep staircase outside their apartment in Harlingen, Texas.
They say Lucio was coerced into a false confession after hours of intense police interrogations.
A supplementary filing submitted by Lucio’s attorneys asserts that the conviction was based on a false confession and false or poor testimony from medical examiners and specialists. They are asking the court to withdraw its order setting Lucio’s execution date.
The filing states that there is “overwhelming evidence that the judgment this Court set for execution on April 27, 2022, represents a miscarriage of justice.”
Lucio had said she is “at peace” regardless of the decision, according to a recently released statement.
“Either way I will get my freedom soon,” the statement read. “I will go home to my family or go to heaven. If I get a new trial, I am ready for the fight. I am not the same person I was in that interrogation room. I would stand up for my rights today. I want other survivors of domestic violence and assault to stand up for their rights too.”
In the days leading up to Lucio’s clemency hearing, political and social justice figures held rallies and prayer vigils to protest her death sentence.
State lawmakers including Reps. Joe Moody, Rafael Anchia, Alex Dominguez, Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. and more met with Lucio in early April to join the fight.
“Melissa Lucio checked all the boxes of the ideal culprit, right? She is a little Latina mom with too many children, with a drug addiction,” Sabrina Van Tassel, the director of the documentary “The State of Texas Vs. Melissa,” said at a press conference Sunday.
“After a three-year investigation, I’m here to tell you that she’s not … The world’s not going to be a better place if Melissa Lucio is executed tomorrow,” Van Tessel said.
Lucio’s children have also issued a plea to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to grant their mother clemency.
“She’s more worried about her kids than anything,” Bobby Alvarez, Lucio’s son, said in an interview with ABC station KVUE in Austin, Texas.
On Monday, a petition delivery and prayer vigil will be held outside Abbott’s office at the Texas State Capitol, as protesters await action from the state district attorney, the Texas Board of Pardons & Paroles or Abbott.
Celebrity Kim Kardashian has also spoken out against the planned execution online.
“So heartbreaking to read this letter from Melissa Lucio’s children begging for the state not to kill their mother,” she wrote. “There are so many unresolved questions surrounding this case and the evidence that was used to convict her.”
If Lucio is executed, she would be the first Latina to be put to death by Texas and the first woman to be executed by the state since 2014.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated when Lucio was sentenced. It has been updated.
(NEW YORK) — More than 100 million Americans have received their first COVID-19 vaccine booster dose, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Boosters first became available in August 2021 for immunocompromised Americans before federal officials gradually lowered the age requirement.
Since then, nearly half of those in the U.S. who are eligible — aged 12 and older — have received their first booster as well as two-thirds of people over the age of 65. As of April 18, an average of 85,000 Americans are receiving a booster dose every day, a nearly 9% increase from the 78,000 getting their first booster dose one month ago.
When broken down by state, Vermont has the highest percentage of fully vaccinated residents with a booster at 60.2% followed by Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maine and Michigan, respectively.
CDC data also shows 55 million Americans have received a booster dose from Pfizer-BioNTech and 43 million have received a Moderna booster. Only 1.5 million Americans have gotten a booster from Johnson & Johnson.
The new figures come as COVID-19 cases continue to rise in the U.S. Currently, the seven-day rolling average sits at 44,000 new infections — the highest number seen since March 3, according to the CDC.
Over the past few months, doctors have been stressing the importance of getting an additional shot, particularly as immunity from a primary vaccine series wanes and more infectious variants spread.
Additionally, Pfizer and Moderna have released data in the past showing efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines against infection declines after a few months, but a third dose boosts antibody levels.
About half of Americans eligible for a booster shot — approximately 91 million people — have yet to receive it, the CDC data shows.
“While vaccination milestones deserve celebration, our booster campaign has fallen far short of a success storm,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “Despite targeted public health messaging and wide availability of vaccines, getting to over half the eligible population boosted took many months to achieve.”
He added that experts predict new variants will emerge and without enough people boosted, it “enhances the risk of a significant surge that overwhelms our health systems.”
The CDC does not have data on how many Americans have received a second booster dose.
However, during a meeting last month of the CDC’s advisory committee, it was revealed that only about 4.3 million people over the age of 50 have received a second booster since they were authorized a few weeks ago.
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump has been held in civil contempt for his failure to comply with a subpoena issued by the New York attorney general’s office.
(NEW YORK) — Deadly fires broke out in Philadelphia and New York City on Sunday taking the lives of six people in total.
The first blaze was in Philadelphia, on both floors of a two-story row house. It was reported at 2 a.m. Sunday, and crews were at the scene in two minutes, the fire department said.
Four people, including three children, were killed, while one resident escaped and survived, the fire department said.
There’s no evidence of working smoke alarms, Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel said at a news conference.
Thiel, appearing frustrated, said this blaze brings the city’s total number of fire fatalities for the year to 21.
“I have personally in the past six years witnessed more than 100 people zipped in body bags in this city from fatal fires. And yes, I’m tired,” he said. “It’s too much.”
Hours later, on Sunday afternoon in New York City, firefighter Timothy Klein was fighting a three-alarm fire at a home in Brooklyn when a ceiling collapsed, trapping and killing him, the FDNY said.
One other person was also found dead inside, the FDNY said.
Klein, 31, was a six-year veteran, the FDNY said.
Klein “died risking his life to save others,” Acting Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said. “His family has a rich history of service in the FDNY, and he bravely followed in their footsteps. The hearts of the entire Department are with the Klein family and with the members of Engine Company 257 and Ladder Company 170.”
(HONG KONG) — A new COVID-19 outbreak in Beijing is raising fears that China’s capital could be sent into a hard lockdown, like the one in Shanghai that’s entering a fifth week.
Beijing residents are stocking up and clearing shelves, despite authorities telling residents there are enough supplies to go around.
About 3.5 million residents in Beijing’s affluent Chaoyang district, which includes the central business district, will have to undergo mandatory mass testing three times this week to contain a spike in cases, with 70 infections reported citywide there since Friday.
China’s daily cases rose 4% to 20,194 on Monday, most of them in Shanghai. The city has now recorded 506,000 infections since the start of March.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has put his personal stamp on China’s “Zero Covid” strategy, defended his government’s approach as recently as last Thursday, when he delivered a keynote speech via video to the Boao Forum for Asia, China’s answer to the Davos forum.
“Safety and health are the prerequisite for human development and progress. For humanity to clinch the final victory against the Covid-19 pandemic, more hard efforts are needed,” he said.
The Chinese leader has made it clear before that he wants to keep the capital city COVID-free. A lockdown in Beijing would add political strain to a strategy of which the economic and social costs are growing by the day.
Chinese stocks dropped to the lowest levels in two years Monday over fears of more curbs to the nation’s capital.
Beijing’s Communist Party Secretary Cai Qi was quoted in Beijing Daily newspaper on Sunday as saying, “Important pandemic measures cannot be left waiting till the next day … all at-risk sites and individuals involved in these cases must be checked that day.”
Chinese health official Pang Xinghuo said on Sunday that cases have been spreading undetected in the city for about a week.
Health workers in Shanghai put up green metal barriers this weekend in some areas where cases are detected. In a notice circulated on Chinese social media, the epidemic control office for the Pudong New Area in Shanghai Authorities referred to this method as “hard isolation,” which is meant to provide a physical barrier between areas with different risk factors and keep the roads clear.
Shanghai reported 51 more deaths on Monday, prompting another round of mass testing for residents in the next few days.
Authorities had hoped to ease restrictions once social transmission was significantly reduced, but the measures have remained strict for most residents in the financial hub.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has now launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 25, 9:25 am
Biden announces nominee for ambassador to Ukraine
President Joe Biden is nominating Bridget Brink to serve as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, he announced Monday.
Brink is currently the U.S. ambassador to the Slovak Republic and previously served as senior adviser and deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.
“Brink spent her twenty-five-year career in the Foreign Service focused on advancing U.S. policy in Europe and Eurasia,” Biden’s statement said.
Apr 25, 6:13 am
Blinken says Russia ‘already failed’ to achieve war goals
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday said Russian had “already failed” to achieve its stated goals in Ukraine.
“In terms of Russia’s war aims, Russia has already failed,” Blinken told reporters in Poland, near the Ukrainian border. “And Ukraine has already succeeded because the principal aim that President Putin brought to this, in his own words, was to fully subsume Ukraine, back into Russia to take away its sovereignty and independence. And that has not happened and clearly will not happen.”
Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met on Sunday with Ukrainian officials in Kyiv, the capital, becoming the highest-level U.S. officials to visit the war-torn country since Russia invaded in February.
Topics discussed during their three-hour meeting included defense assistance, further sanctions on Russia and financial support for Ukraine, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy’s office.
“We appreciate the unprecedented assistance of the United States to Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said, according to his office. “I would like to thank President Biden personally and on behalf of the entire Ukrainian people for his leadership in supporting Ukraine, for his personal clear position.”
He added, “To thank all the American people, as well as the Congress for their bicameral and bipartisan support. We see it. We feel it.”
Apr 25, 1:03 am
US to provide $322M in additional aid, diplomats to return to Ukraine, officials tell Zelenskyy
The United States will provide Ukraine with $322 million in new aid and some diplomats will return to the war-torn country, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Sunday.
Blinken told Zelenskyy the U.S. would begin returning its diplomats to Ukraine this week, according to the senior State Dept. official. The U.S. will reopen offices in Lviv in western Ukraine, with diplomats traveling there from Poland each day, with the goal to “have our diplomats return to our embassy in Kyiv as soon as possible.”
President Joe Biden will also formally nominate Bridget Brink, currently serving as U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, according to the senior State Dept. official.
Among the new assistance announced last week, the first of the new Howitzers have arrived in Ukraine, Austin told Zelenskyy, a senior defense official told ABC News.
-ABC News’ Conor Finnegan
Apr 24, 5:23 pm
US secretary of state, defense chief meeting with Zelenskyy in Kyiv
An advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Chief Lloyd Austin are meeting with Ukraine’s leader on Sunday in Kyiv.
The adviser, Oleksii Arestovich, said in an interview on Ukrainian TV late Sunday that the talks are going on “right now.”
-ABC News’ Jason Volack
Apr 24, 5:08 pm
More than 2.9M people have fled Ukraine to Poland
More than 2.9 million people have fled Ukraine and sought refuge in Poland since the Russian invasion began in February, the Polish Border Guard said on Sunday.
In recent days, however, the number of people crossing the border into Poland has fallen, while the number of refugees going back into Ukraine has risen, according to the border guard.
On Saturday, about 21,100 people entered Ukraine from Poland, while 15,100 fled to Poland from Ukraine, the agency said on Twitter.
(NEW YORK) — Wedding season is in full swing and a record number of couples are tying the knot.
An estimated 2.5 million weddings are set to be held this year, according to Shane McMurray, CEO of the Wedding Report — the most the U.S. has seen since 1984. The record total is due in part to many couples having postponed them due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But with the large number of weddings this year, coupled with current supply chain issues and limited labor, the costs of weddings have also increased this year.
‘A perfect storm’
As of March 2022, the annual inflation rate in the U.S. accelerated to 8.5%, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Labor. The largest contributors to the increase were from gasoline, shelter and food. However, the inflation rate has also impacted the cost of weddings in 2022.
“What it boils down to is supply and demand,” McMurray said. “As people put off their wedding, because of the pandemic and weren’t able to get married, all of a sudden you’ve got this flux of people getting married.”
McMurray explained that there’s a huge demand for services, but there’s little capability to supply couples’ needs. Photographers and DJs are always in demand, but prices have been driven up because of the increased weddings in 2022. Top-rated venues and caterers are also upping their prices.
Flowers have also become one of the costlier parts of weddings this year. In 2021, couples spent an average of $2,245 on florals for their weddings, according to a wedding market update from Wedding Report. That number has only increased in 2022.
“The demand has increased so much for flowers that the prices have just gone up and we have to adjust our prices accordingly,” said Ashley Mueller of Ash and Oak Floral in California.
Mueller, who works with business partner Katie Reisman, said in an Instagram post that prices have increased because of inclement weather impacting supply, labor cost increases and supply chain issues.
When the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, Mueller and Reisman said that flowers weren’t planted. In California, where a lot of flowers are grown, a severe drought and wildfires also impacted the supply.
Mueller and Reisman explained that production on items such as vases and glue to make corsages were put on pause during the pandemic.
“It’s kind of a perfect storm of all these factors increasing our prices,” Reisman said.
Keeping up with traditions on a budget
The soaring costs have put a strain on couples. Sravya Vishnubhatla, a Desi bride having a Hindu wedding, which is typically a multiday celebration with hundreds of guests, told GMA that she’s had to drop some of the things on her wedding wishlist to cut down the costs.
“I’m definitely forgoing maybe like a certain type of vision,” said Vishnubhatla, who is getting married in May in Nevada. “I very carefully lifted up the hours [of our photographer and videographer] that they need to be there. Another thing that I am actually compromising on is on the decor for my reception. I’m probably not going to go with like heavy floral decor.”
Over the years, the South Asian wedding industry has grown into a $50 billion business, according to Vogue Business. In the U.S., South Asian couples can easily spend between $225,000 and $285,000 on their wedding if it’s being held in major metro areas including Los Angeles, Chicago and New Jersey, according to wedding planner and event coordinator Marisa Jenkins, author of the blog, Wedding Frontier.
To help curb costs, Vishnubhatla had her dad do some of the wedding shopping for her outfits while on a recent trip to India. Vishnubhatla said it’s typical for South Asian brides to travel to India for wedding elements, but because of COVID-19 she was unsure if she would be able to make the trip.
“I got really lucky because my dad went to India, so he was able to shop. If he hadn’t gone to India, it seemed like we would have had to either buy online from India and ship it or shop somewhere online in the states where it’s overpriced,” she said.
In January, Vishnubhatla took to TikTok to share the reality of the expense of South Asian wedding traditions after other brides weighed in on the cost of their weddings. Vishnubhatla pointed out that certain costs for a Western wedding aren’t the same for Hindu weddings. Since then, she’s brought people along with her wedding journey to shed light on what goes into planning a Hindu wedding and what brides have to include in their budgets.
“I realized that there’s just not many resources in the states, from what we could find, for brides,” Vishnubhatla said. “I felt like it would be useful and helpful for other Indian girls who are getting married.”
Play the patience game and ‘invest in what feels personal to you’
With the cost of weddings on the rise in 2022, McMurray said those planning weddings may see a relief in 2024.
“The influx of weddings you’re seeing this year is all pent-up demand, and there’s not more people getting married [in general]. In fact, there’s less people getting married than there have been in many years,” McMurray said. “So you’ll see this spread out over 2023, maybe it will trickle into 2024, likely not. But after that, it’s probably just going to continue to get back to normal with a continuous decline.”
For now, McMurray advises that couples stay patient as they find vendors for their weddings within their budget. And if their wedding is in 2024, the best thing they could probably do is wait to book things for their wedding until later.
“I know that’s hard to do sometimes, and that’s actually what’s driving up spending right now are costs because people don’t want to be patient,” McMurray said.
Mueller and Reisman also advised couples to beware of repurposing certain items from your ceremony to wedding reception spaces. While many think repurposing flowers or decorations may be a way to cut costs, it can also mean that it will take more labor to move those items and can cost more money in the end.
In addition, be aware of what you see on social media and try not to be influenced by what is trending as certain designs may only feel trendy in the moment and may be beyond your budget. Instead, opt for flowers that are in season and designs that have a classic or timeless feel.
“Invest in what feels personal to you,” Reisman said. “If it doesn’t, don’t spend money on it. If it does, spend money on it.”
(NEW YORK) — While top U.S. health officials are urging some Americans to get yet another coronavirus booster shot, local health departments across the country are grappling with a growing dilemma — how to address a declining demand for vaccines, while minimizing the waste of unused millions of doses currently in state stockpiles and at risk of expiring.
Since the emergency use authorization of the first COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. last winter, federal data shows that states received a staggering 720 million doses, and more than 570 million of those shots have been administered.
However, an ABC News analysis of state-provided data found that millions of those shots have not ended up in arms, largely due to a significant decline in the number of individuals willing to get vaccinated — with many vaccine doses now left unused in refrigerators or discarded in trash cans across the country.
ABC News contacted officials from health departments in all 50 states, and in analyzing state provided data, found that tens of millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses have either gone to waste, remain unused, or will expire in the coming weeks and months.
“It is a tremendous loss of opportunity for these vaccines to not make it into the shoulders of those who need them,” C. Buddy Creech, director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program and associate professor of pediatric infectious diseases, told ABC News. “Not only is it a financial loss for the purchaser of vaccines — the U.S. government — but also a significant health loss for those who are not yet protected from COVID and its complications.”
How some states are working to ensure shots don’t go unused
Although the total number of vaccines at risk of being wasted is not publicly accessible in every state, available data provides insight into some states’ efforts to ensure the shots do not go unused.
“We have worked with local public health to fill orders for vaccine from providers with existing inventory versus ordering new doses, and to redistribute vaccine with soon to expire dates to use up inventory within the state before we order more with longer expiration dates,” Lynn Sutfin, spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Health told ABC News. “Our field reps are moving vaccines across the state to help redistribute as needed to avoid wastage.”
In Michigan, about 1.7 million doses have been wasted since Dec. 2020, and more than 100,000 more doses are set to expire in the next two weeks.
Vaccine dose wastage can result from a variety of issues, including dropped vials and syringes; and improperly prepared, unused, or expiring vaccine doses, various officials reported.
“Most of the wasted or unused doses are reported because a provider punctures a multidose vial in order to give someone a vaccine but does not necessarily have enough people to give the remaining doses before the vial expires,” a representative for the State Joint Information Center in Colorado, where more than 619,000 doses have been unused, told ABC News. “This is aligned with CDC’s best practices that advise providers to not miss any opportunity to vaccinate every eligible person.”
In large states like California, where more than 70% of residents are fully vaccinated, nearly 3.6 million shots are sitting in the state’s stockpile, according to state data.
Similarly, in North Carolina, where 60% of residents have completed their primary vaccination series, 856,000 shots are currently available under state inventory, while 1.7 million shots have been wasted after the doses expired or were improperly opened.
Nearly 760,000 vaccine doses have been designated as non-viable, spoiled, or expired, officials in Oregon reported, but officials told ABC News that such totals are “not unexpected.”
“As demand for vaccines wanes, we expect there to be a similar drop in the number of doses vaccine providers request and, as a result, a decrease in the number of unused doses. Oregon will be left with excess inventory, but we believe that we have done everything we can to minimize waste,” a representative for the Oregon Health Authority told ABC News.
Many states ordered hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses in bulk in order to ensure they had enough shots to meet demand, but in many cases, the need turned out to not be as high as initially expected.
Although the total number of shots wasted in states was high, many state organizers stressed that the overall percentage of wasted doses was relatively low, in comparison to the number of shots provided to residents.
Officials said they continue to work to minimize wastage by controlling the amount of vaccine that is ordered and shipped to the state, and by redistributing vaccine when possible within the state.
55 million eligible Americans still without a shot
Last spring, millions of Americans flocked to COVID-19 vaccination clinics across the country to get their shots. In April of 2021, when every adult became eligible to get vaccinated, more than two million people were getting their first doses every day.
Overall, more than 220 million Americans have received a shot, representing about two-thirds of the U.S. population. Earlier this month, a new study from The Commonwealth Fund found that the U.S. COVID-19 vaccine program is now estimated to have prevented 2.2 million deaths, 17 million hospitalizations and 66.1 million additional infections through March 2022.
Now, a little less than a year later, with those most eager to get the shots now inoculated, vaccination rates have plummeted, federal data shows. A sizable group of more than 55 million eligible Americans remain unvaccinated against the virus.
“The pool of people that are unvaccinated is likely to remain unconvinced of the importance of vaccine-induced protection,” Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, said, adding that convincing those still hesitant to get the shot will be a difficult feat.
In recent weeks, following the introduction of a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose for some older and high-risk populations, there has been a slight uptick in the overall number of doses administered. However, the number of Americans initiating vaccination remains at a near record low of just over 50,000 Americans getting their first dose every day.
“Efforts including incentives, improved convenience, mandates and targeted public health messaging during a surge have all had various successes in increasing vaccination rates. It’s hard to imagine what might influence someone to change their stance especially with cases at low levels and restrictions being lifted,” Brownstein said.
Dr. Stephen Morse, an epidemiologist at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, described the waste of millions of COVID-19 doses in the U.S. as a “tragic combination of events.”
“The vaccine development was both one of the miraculous triumphs and one of the tragedies of the COVID response,” Morse told ABC News, further referencing a combination of factors to blame, including vaccine nationalism, in which wealthy countries, such as the U.S., pre-ordered large quantities of the shots, making less vaccine available for the rest of the world, and persistent issues with vaccine hesitancy.
“We naïvely underestimated the extent of vaccine hesitancy and resistance, some driven by what WHO called the ‘infodemic’ of misinformation and disinformation, which persists to this day,” Morse said.
Vaccine access and wastage a stark reminder of privilege
Some politicians and public health experts have raised concerns over the ethical implications of so many shots going to waste.
“The wastage of millions of doses is a stark reminder of the privilege we have had in accessing vaccines while the majority of the world had to wait months. Extraordinary resources and financial investment will ultimately go to waste,” Brownstein said.
Delaware Sen. Chris Coons warned last week that millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses, which were set to be shipped overseas, could expire, without proper funding from Congress.
“I was so disappointed that we, in Congress, could not come together and deliver critically needed global help to deliver the vaccines that we’ve already invented, developed and purchased, and to make sure that the nearly 3 billion people around the world who haven’t yet had a single vaccine dose get some protection against this pandemic,” Coons told CBS’ Face the Nation.
“We’ll negotiate what we have to in order to secure a chance to move forward and not waste the vital vaccines America has already purchased,” Coons added.
There may be additional ethical concerns about not donating enough shots to ensure that people can receive a full vaccination series.
“There are significant operational and potentially ethical issues around donating vaccines to other countries; is it ethical to donate the first dose when there is no guarantee of a second? What if the vaccine has not yet been approved in that country? Given how rigorously we regulate and authorize vaccines around the world, it is likely no surprise that the process of donating vaccines can become complicated very quickly,” Creech added.
Even if states wanted to donate their stockpiles to other countries in need, with so many doses left unused in the U.S., Brownstein explained that logistically, such donations would be near impossible.
“Once a vaccine ends up at a site, it is administered or thrown out. There is usually no third option of sending it to another site and even lower chance it could go to another state let alone another country,” Brownstein said. “These expired doses are a reminder of our challenged logistical platforms. While we optimized for distribution to vaccination sites, there was very little capacity to shift supply especially across jurisdictions.”
A continued concern for many health experts is vaccinating the rest of the globe, as they say the pandemic will never truly subside until vaccine-use is widespread and equitable.
“Assuming we won’t get immediate supply for most of the world, the best solution might be to retest and determine if we can legitimately extend shelf life,” Morse said, adding that he does not believe donating short-dated doses is realistic.
“We certainly should intensify efforts to provide vaccine now to those who, for some reason, haven’t yet been vaccinated and may now be willing to take it if vaccine is easily available,” Morse said. “Unfortunately, in the U.S., I fear we’ve reached diminishing returns by now. It would have been far better if everyone had gotten two doses early on, which might have slowed the virus down.”
(OTTOWA, Ontario) — Natalie Allport, a 28-year-old CrossFit athlete, stays in shape with an unlikely workout partner, her 84-year-old grandmother.
Allport, of Ottawa, Canada, said she started bringing her grandmother, Juanita Arteaga, to her workouts at a local CrossFit gym when Arteaga moved from Venezuela to Ottawa to be closer to family.
“I like to spend days with her, but my day-to-day is training,” Allport told Good Morning America. “She used to come with me to the gym and watch me weightlift and she’d cheer for me. She said she could see people look at me and see that I was strong, and she got interested.”
Artega began to take exercise classes designed for senior citizens, Allport said, but those classes were soon canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In response, Allport began working out with her grandmother every day via FaceTime.
“It stemmed from me wanting to spend more time with her, that I would get her to do workouts with me, and I knew this would help with her staying moving and her balance,” said Allport. “Especially during the pandemic … she was really stuck at home, she couldn’t do anything and I could see her mood really declining.”
Allport said because she loves to exercise, she saw exercising as a way to help, adding, “I thought the way I could help my family was to spend some time with her every single day through exercise.
For the past two years, Allport and Artega, have exercised together every weekday.
“It’s the same time so she always knows and can remember,” Allport said of their workouts. “She’s always excited when I call.”
Allport said she focuses on doing functional exercises with Artega, like lifting up and putting down weights so that she can pick things up off the floor, and increasing her grandmother’s mobility so she can get up and down off the floor.
“We can do the same workout. I can do squats with more weights and I can do a deadlift while she’s doing a variation, which I think is kind of cool,” said Allport. “She’ll see I’m doing squats fast and will try to beat me. She’s very competitive.”
The grandmother-granddaughter workouts typically last around 30 minutes, followed by 30 minutes on the stationary bike for Artega, according to Allport.
Over time, according to Allport, Artega’s ability to do the exercises has improved, as have some of the health conditions she faces. But Allport noted that not every workout is easy and fun for the duo.
“Some days are frustrating as I’m watching her struggle to do an exercise. It’s always tough to watch someone that we love age,” said Allport. “But we hold each other accountable.”
As pandemic restrictions have loosened, Allport and Artegay, who will turn 85 in May, are able to train together in person again.
“Through shared time together and love, you can really change mindsets,” said Allport. “She didn’t always believe that it’s normal for women to lift weights and be strong. Through spending time with me, she was able to open her mind to the possibilities.”
Explaining what she has learned from her grandmother, Allport added, “It’s not too late to change your mind and change your habits.”
L’Oreal Thompson Payton, left, speaks with Dr. Meggie Smith, a fertility specialist. – ABC News
(NEW YORK) — More than 6 million women of childbearing age in the United States have difficulty getting pregnant or staying pregnant, yet infertility, and specifically the emotional and physical pain that comes with it, is still a taboo topic, even among some women.
L’Oreal Thompson Payton, a 33-year-old from Chicago, said she never heard discussions about infertility and infertility treatments when she was growing up.
Even when Payton, a writer, found herself in her early 30s, married, unable to conceive and turning to in-vitro fertilization, she said she found few people talking honestly about the reality of what she calls “the messy middle” — that time between starting infertility treatments and, if it all goes according to plan, having a baby.
“IVF is a full-time job and it can wreck you physically, emotionally, mentally,” Payton told Good Morning America. “You’re just putting your body under a lot of physical stress and emotional stress as well, because you’re doing this with the hope that you’re going to get the result and the outcome that you want, and as we’ve learned firsthand, that’s not always the case.”
As a Black woman, Payton said she felt a particular stigma around help with getting pregnant, and then opening up about the toll it took on her body. Black women who have never given birth are almost twice as likely than white women to self-report infertility, but they seek medical help for it half as much, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Infertility is defined as the inability to become pregnant after one year of having regular sexual intercourse without the use of birth control, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The time span is shortened to six months without becoming pregnant for women age 35 and older.
“Because of the shame and stigma surrounding [infertility], you don’t hear a lot about it,” said Payton. “And so it does sort of put the onus on the person going through it to share with their network this is what’s happening, and this is what I need, and that requires a lot of vulnerability.”
‘Undergoing IVF is basically surrendering your body’
In IVF, the most well-known treatment for infertility, a woman’s eggs and a man’s sperm are combined in a laboratory to create an embryo, or embryos. The sperm may come from the woman’s partner or a donor.
Five to 10 days after the embryo is created, it is examined by an embryologist to determine its viability. If the embryo is viable, it is transferred into the woman’s uterus through her cervix.
And even before those steps, women have to undergo ultrasounds and blood work and take injectable and oral medications to stimulate the ovaries.
That is the “messy middle” that Payton said she was unprepared for, especially the side effects that took a toll on her body.
“Undergoing IVF is basically surrendering your body to the medication, to the doctors, to the appointments and the protocol,” she said. “You are no longer in control.”
Payton said she experienced scars, bruising and bloating while taking the daily hormone injections, describing it all as an “ugly process.”
“When we were going through our first egg retrieval, I felt super bloated and heavy, like my pants weren’t fitting and leggings were my best friends,” she said. “The symptoms are very similar to pregnancy, and also similar to PMS, so it can really mess with you. Things are sensitive and your hormones are out of whack.”
When undergoing IVF, a woman’s ovaries grow from the size of approximately a walnut to the size of an orange, according to Dr. Meggie Smith, a Nashville, Tennessee-based fertility specialist.
“The injection medications that we give [women] are trying to get at all the eggs that are available that month to grow,” said Smith. “So your ovary, which is normally pretty small, gets much bigger than it normally would be, and your estrogen, which is a hormone, goes so much higher than it normally would.”
“Estrogen causes us to retain water, so that’s one reason why you feel really bloated, and then the size of the ovaries is so much bigger than they normally are,” she said. “A lot of patients describe pelvic pressure feeling bloated and uncomfortable, and that’s why that’s happening.”
Taking multiple shots a day for several weeks, which happens during both the IVF and egg-freezing processes, is a common source of pain for women as well, according to Smith.
“A lot of women also talk about pain where they’ve been giving [the injections],” she said. “[There may be] bruising, depending on how easily you bruise.”
Smith noted that the physical pain women feel during infertility treatments can be made even more difficult by the fact that the pain is not something visible, like a broken arm, for example, or something that all women feel free to talk about.
“Infertility has been a taboo topic for so long,” she said. “Most people don’t view infertility as a disease.”
“There’s still a lot of shame, just because we all think that getting married and having children is something [women] are supposed to do. We’re supposed to bear children,” Smith added. “The idea that may not be a woman’s will at all times is kind of a relatively new concept, and the idea that being able to have children is not easy for everybody is also kind of a new concept that people are starting to wrap their heads around.”
The idea for women that their body is not easily doing what they believe it should be doing, getting pregnant, can also turn infertility into a hidden, emotional struggle for women.
“For so much of our lives, especially in our 20s, and maybe even our 30s, we’re trying to not get pregnant, and then when we flip the switch, it’s a lot harder, I think, than people realize,” said Smith. “I think a lot of time women don’t realize this as a disease, and they think it’s something they’re doing wrong, and for that reason, they don’t want to talk about it as much.”
Infertility is associated with high rates of “clinically significant symptoms of depression and anxiety, suicidal tendencies, and a strong conceptualization of grief,” according to the World Health Organization.
“Therapy has been such a help as well with the mental and emotional side of it,” Payton said of how she’s coped with her still ongoing infertility journey. “I don’t know what I would do without it.”
Smith said she also encourages her patients to speak with therapists and even, more specifically, reproductive psychiatrists and psychologists, as they go through infertility treatments.
“There are so many highs and so many lows and it can even happen within the same day, so it’s a huge emotional roller coaster,” said Smith. “I often say it’s a little bit of a depression induction, because there’s so many expectations that we have, that either are met or not met, and so you’re constantly having to readjust your own expectations to manage all the emotions that come along with trying to have a baby.”
Women who are looking into or undergoing infertility treatments should make sure they have a doctor they feel comfortable with and one with whom they can have open and honest conversations, according to Smith.
Those types of open and honest conversations — among doctors and patients, couples, friends, parents and children — are what will continue to knock down the stigma around infertility, noted Smith.
“I think people such as yourself, who are talking so openly about their stories is one big way that we’re going to do this,” Smith said to Payton, who writes about her infertility journey on her blog and on social media. “The more women hear about other women struggling to have a baby, I think it will open up more conversations where more people feel comfortable sharing.”
“The more we talk about [infertility], that can make a huge difference in normalizing what is so common,” she said.
