(NEW YORK) — Michael Collins, the former chief of staff to the late-Rep. John Lewis, joined ABC’s “Good Morning America” co-anchor Robin Roberts to reflect on the life and legacy of the civil rights icon, chronicled in his new book “Carry On.”
Collins, who worked with Lewis for 21 years, said the inspiration for the book came in the final months of Lewis’ life.
“It was the last months of his life, and we had an opportunity to really think about his legacy, and what he was going to leave. And this was one of the opportunities he wanted to take, and this was to tell a story of just who he was, the simpleness of the man,” Collins said.
“It was difficult because it was during the time that he was sick and he didn’t have a lot of energy. But he made effort to really tell the story. And that’s what’s important. He wanted to always tell the story,” he added.
Collins said “Carry On” will give readers an opportunity to learn more about Lewis’ optimistic spirit.
“He woke up as if it was a brand new day, literally, and he welcomed everybody, he welcomed his thoughts for the day. And he would say, ‘Let’s get ready. Got a new day. Let’s go.’ And it was just an experience that you never forget. And for him, it just allowed him to just keep going on with optimism and fire every day,” Collins said.
Pointing to Lewis’ legacy of advocating for equal rights, Roberts asked Collins how he believed Lewis would respond to the country’s current racial climate.
“He would be disappointed in a lot of ways. The hatred, the racism — it would be very difficult, it will be difficult for him, but he would be optimistic. He would face it head on and he would look at it as it is, but he would be optimistic that there would be a better day,” Collins replied.
He added that, though Lewis was dismayed by the tense racial climate, he found inspiration through the young people at the forefront of the protests.
“He was very sad, but he was inspired by all the young people, all the young people across the country. He didn’t condone the violence, but he’d love to watch the people protest, peacefully, non-violently, because again it reminded him of a time not so long ago when he was young,” Collins explained.
Shifting to the current debate over voting rights, Roberts asked how Lewis would react to the recent DOJ lawsuit brought against Georgia — Lewis’ home state — due to the state legislature’s passing of restrictive voting laws.
“He would champion it. Most definitely. You know, the vote was precious, sacred. And that’s what he would always talk about, and he felt like everybody should have the right to vote. And that was what he fought for his entire life,” Collins said.
Roberts concluded the interview by asking Collins how he was carrying out his own legacy.
“I’m trying to live out his legacy. It’s been a journey, it’s been a journey,” he said. “I’m fortunate enough to now be working for the vice president of the United States. Her leadership is something that I’m looking forward to just embarking on in the world. And this is an extension of the work that I did with him, and I look forward to that tremendously.”
(LOS ANGELES) — Health officials in Los Angeles County are warning that the delta variant’s spread among unvaccinated people is driving a spike in new COVID-19 infections in the county.
On Monday, the health department reported 1,059 new COVID-19 cases, a significant increase since June, when the department was consistently reporting a few hundred new infections each day. Officials are currently investigating 55 ongoing outbreaks, up 25% from the 44 outbreaks they were investigating last month.
Nearly all new cases are among people who haven’t gotten a COVID-19 vaccine, according to officials.
“Over 99% of the COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths we are seeing are among unvaccinated individuals,” Barbara Ferrer, Los Angeles County’s director of public health, said in a statement Monday.
Young people are also contributing to the infection spike, according to Ferrer. “Of the cases reported today, nearly 87% were under 50 years old,” she said.
“The COVID-19 vaccines are the most effective and important tool to reduce COVID-19 transmission and the spread of variants like the highly transmissible delta variant,” she said. “Getting fully vaccinated is the way we protect you, your family and our community from COVID-19 and the delta variant.”
As a state, California’s vaccination rate is better than the national average. As of Monday, 63% of residents had received at least one dose, and 51% were fully vaccinated, compared with 56% of all Americans who’ve gotten at least one shot and 48% who are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Los Angeles County, 70% of residents 16 and older have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the health department. Nationally, 68% of Americans 18 and older have gotten at least one dose.
The delta variant, which was first detected in India and now has made up 51.7% of infections in the United States for the two weeks ending July 3, according to the CDC, is more transmissible than the original version of the virus and is especially dangerous for people who are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, experts say.
In part because of fears over the variant, Los Angeles officials made waves when they reversed their guidance on masks less than a month after Gov. Gavin Newsom lifted COVID-19 restrictions in the state.
According to a statement issued by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health on June 28, the department “strongly recommends everyone, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks indoors in public places as a precautionary measure.” The department acknowledged that “fully vaccinated people appear to be well protected from infections with delta variants.”
(NEW YORK) — With his sentencing hearing just days away, the man convicted of murdering Mollie Tibbetts is asking for a new trial, claiming he was unwittingly framed by the real killer who he claims confessed to the crime.
Attorneys for Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a Mexican national, filed a motion asking that the jury verdict in the case be set aside based on the new evidence they received from prosecutors following the trial.
The 26-year-old Bahena Rivera is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday and is expected to receive a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.
But he claims the real killer confessed to at least two people that he and a sex trafficker fatally stabbed the 20-year-old University of Iowa student.
Bahena Rivera’s attorneys, husband-and-wife team Chad and Jennifer Frese, wrote in a motion filed on Friday that two people, unbeknownst to each other, came forward on May 26 — the day Bahena Rivera testified in his own defense — and identified by name a man they claim confessed to them on separate occasions that he participated in Tibbetts’ 2018 slaying.
“That Mexican shouldn’t be in jail for killing Mollie Tibbett, because I raped her and killed her,” the man, whose name has not been released, allegedly told one of the two witnesses, according to documents filed in the Poweshiek County, Iowa, district court.
Prosecutors from the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, according to the defense motion, informed Bahena Rivera’s attorneys about the alleged confessions after prosecturors received word from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation that an inmate had come to a chaplain and later an assistant warden claiming that another inmate, whose name has not been released, told him he and a 50-year-old sex trafficker killed Tibbetts after her disappearance garnered national attention.
The inmate purportedly claimed he first saw Tibbetts bound and gagged at a sex-trafficking “trap house” owned by his alleged accomplice. He claimed, according to the defense motion, his alleged accomplice grew worried after federal authorities searching for Tibbetts showed up at a house next door to his.
The inmate allegedly claimed his accomplice devised a plan for them to stab Tibbetts and “dump her body near a Hispanic male in order to make it appear that the Hispanic male committed the crime.”
“It was reported that this Department of Corrections inmate was coming forward at this time because he had heard the testimony of Cristhian Bahena Rivera on television, and it was at that point, he realized that the information given him by this other individual was likely true,” the defense’s motion for a new trial reads.
A second individual contacted the Mahaska County, Iowa, Sheriff’s Office with a similar story involving the same inmate who reportedly confessed, but deputies said the witness appeared to be under the influence and dismissed the story as not being credible.
In his testimony during the trial, Bahena Rivera claimed he was kidnapped at his home near Brooklyn, Iowa, by two armed masked men, who ordered him to drive to where Tibbetts was expected to be jogging. He claimed that when they found Tibbetts, one of the men stabbed her to death, put her body in the trunk of Bahena Rivera’s car and made him drive to a cornfield, where the young woman’s badly decomposed remains were discovered a month after she went missing.
Bahena Rivera said that while he placed Tibbetts’ body in the cornfield, he did not kill her.
His stint on the witness stand came after homicide investigators testified that Bahena Rivera confessed to killing Tibbetts after he spotted her jogging and she rebuffed his advances. Prosecutors also presented surveillance video evidence showing Bahena Rivera’s black Chevrolet Malibu circling the area Tibbetts was jogging in around the time she went missing on July 18, 2018.
In his closing argument, prosecutor Scott Brown dismissed Bahena Rivera’s testimony as a “figment of his imagination.”
Bahena Rivera claimed during his testimony that he didn’t tell investigators about the masked men because they threatened to harm his former girlfriend, the mother of his daughter, if he did
The jury in the case deliberated for seven hours over two days before unanimously finding Bahena Rivera guilty of first-degree murder.
A spokesperson for the Iowa Attorney General’s Office declined to comment Tuesday but told ABC News that prosecutors plan to file a response to the defense’s motion for a new trial either Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday.
Bahena Rivera’s defense attorneys also filed court papers asking that an inmate at Iowa’s Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility be brought to the Poweshiek County courthouse on the day of Bahena Rivera’s sentencing hearing. The document does not say if the inmate is one of the people who came forward with the new claims.
(WASHINGTON) — Five members of the same Texas family were arrested Tuesday and charged for their alleged participation in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to newly-unsealed charging documents.
Kristi Munn, Tom Munn, Dawn Munn, Josh Munn and Kayli Munn — described by prosecutors as a nuclear family from Borger, Texas — are now each facing four federal charges over their alleged illegal entry and alleged disorderly conduct in the Capitol, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday afternoon.
A 34-page affidavit for their arrest details their movements while inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, based on surveillance and social media posts.
The affidavit also indicates that the family brought an unidentified minor child into the building with them, who is not being charged.
While there have previously been arrests of family members including fathers and sons, mothers and sons, and husbands and wives, the Munn family is thus far the largest single family unit out of the more than 530 arrests made so far from the Justice Department’s investigation of the Capitol riot.
FBI officials say they first received a tip that Kristi Munn participated in the Capitol riot just three days after the insurrection, from a tipster who captured screenshots of Munn’s Facebook and Snapchat accounts. Investigators then combed through public Facebook posts from Munn’s family members to track their journey from Texas to D.C. as they amplified calls for a march on Congress on Jan. 6.
“We made it to our hotel just outside D.C.,” Tom Munn allegedly wrote in one post on Jan. 5. “1,600 miles in 24 hrs!”
After the riot, investigators found posts from the family where they discussed joining in the insurrection.
“The only damage to the capital building was several windows and sets of doors,” Tom Munn wrote on Facebook. “Nothing inside the capital was damaged. I can tell you, patriots NEVER made it to the chamber. There was no violence in the capital building, the crowd was NOT out of control … they were ANGRY!!!”
Prosecutors have said in recent court filings that the riot caused at least $1.5 million in damage to the U.S. Capitol, including damage from those who made it into the Senate chamber. At least 140 law enforcement officers suffered injuries from the riot and more than 100 people have been charged so far with direct assaults on police, according to the DOJ.
After gathering screenshots showing the five members of the Munn family inside the Capitol, investigators say they further confirmed the family members’ identities through interviews with three people familiar with the family in Texas — including two employees at a local Borger high school “who had taught multiple Munn children,” and an employee at a college who taught two of the Munn children.
None of the members of the family have entered pleas in their case, and attorney information was not immediately available for them as of Tuesday afternoon.
(NEW YORK) — An alleged sexual assault victim who says she was held against her will for months was rescued after she left notes in public restrooms pleading for help, according to authorities.
In one note she wrote, “If I don’t make it tell my family I love them,” according to a criminal complaint.
Police say the first cry for help was found Thursday, stuck to a mirror in the women’s bathroom of a Walmart in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh.
The note was from a woman who said she had been sexually and physically assaulted, and was being held against her will, by 38-year-old Corey Brewer, who was armed with a knife, according to the complaint. The note also gave an address where she was being held and a description of a car, and begged the reader to call 911.
The alleged victim’s ex told police she and Brewer were in a relationship and that she filed a protection from abuse order against Brewer in August 2020, they said. The order expired one month later.
Police went to the address written on the note. Though no one answered the door, according to the complaint, officers said they could hear furniture being moved around inside.
Officers called Brewer’s number and asked to speak to the victim privately, but Brewer allegedly told the officers he wouldn’t take her off speaker phone, the complaint said. In the speaker phone conversation, Brewer told the officers the two were on vacation in New York, and the victim told police she was with her boyfriend.
Two days later, on Saturday, a second note signed by the same victim was found stuck to a mirror in a women’s restroom at the Fallingwater museum and landmark in western Pennsylvania, the complaint said. Police say video surveillance from Fallingwater showed Brewer and the alleged victim there.
The note said she’d been held since May 1 and was not on vacation, and again pleaded with the reader to call 911, the complaint said. The note said “she heard the police knocking at the residence, that the abuse hasn’t stopped, and please don’t give up.”
Police executed a search warrant early Sunday, rescuing the alleged victim and taking Brewer into custody, the complaint said. The woman told police Brewer confiscated her phone and she wasn’t able to escape.
She said Brewer sexually assaulted her, and that he also punched and strangled her numerous times, the complaint said. She claimed Brewer also threatened to kill her and her children if she tried to leave.
The woman also alleged Brewer took nude photos of her against her will and used a knife to cut her foot, according to the complaint.
Brewer was charged with sexual assault, strangulation and unlawful restraint. He did not have an attorney as of Tuesday afternoon and is due in court for a preliminary hearing on July 22.
(WASHINGTON) — Texas Democrats spent Tuesday in Washington pressuring Congress to pass federal voting rights legislation and calling for an exception to the Senate’s filibuster rule blocking Democrats from moving forward with a measure they say would stop GOP-led efforts to restrict voting in Texas and nationwide.
The state lawmakers were expected to meet with a key Democrat who has resisted changing the filibuster rule requiring 60 votes to advance legislation — West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin. He and Arizona Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema are playing a pivotal role in the ongoing congressional negotiations over a national voting rights bill.
It is unclear if the Texas Democrats will hold meetings with Sinema. If both she and Manchin were to agree to an exception to the rule — Senate Democrats with their 50 votes, along with Vice President Kamala Harris — could pass the bill congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden have made a top priority.
Biden was making his case in a high-profile speech in Philadelphia Tuesday afternoon.
“If you can have a carve-out for a right-wing Supreme Court justice, why can’t you have a carve-out to protect the very fundamentals of our democracy?” State Rep. Chris Turner said at a Capitol Hill news conference, referring to making an exception to the filibuster for voting rights.
“If Mitch McConnell did a carve-out for Amy Coney Barrett, then we ought to do a carve-out for the black and brown people that live in Texas, Georgia, Florida, that live in all these states trying to make it harder for our constituents to exercise their right to vote,” State Rep. Marc Veasey added. “Time is of the essence. We cannot wait. States are going to start to ramp up these efforts.”
More than 50 Texas House Democrats fled the state Monday evening, depriving the state legislature of a quorum, and must now remain out of Texas for the duration of the ongoing special legislative session, which ends on August 6.
In their absence from the Austin state capitol on Tuesday, a majority of Republican House lawmakers passed a procedural measure that allows authorities to go out and find the absent Democrat House members.
Texas law authorities may even utilize arrest warrants in their efforts to compel the lawmakers back, if such action is deemed necessary. However, it remains unclear whether this order can affect the Democrats while they are out of state and outside of the jurisdiction of Texas law enforcement.
The state legislators pointed to the spread of what they called former President Donald Trump’s ‘big lie’ that falsely asserts his claim of winning the 2020 election as a partial catalyst for their decision to leave their home state.
“We are not going to buckle to the ‘big lie’ in the state of Texas — the ‘big lie’ that has resulted in anti-democratic legislation throughout the United States,” Mexican American Legislative Caucus Chair Rafael Anchía said.
Texas House Dean Senfronia Thompson further echoed Anchia’s comments and put a spotlight on the impact revisions to voting access in her state would have on people of color.
“I’m not here to take a vacation in Washington, D.C. When I looked at the African American Museum, I thought about the struggle my people fought in this country to get the right to vote. And that right is sacred to my constituents that I represent in Houston, Texas, and I’m up here because I don’t plan to be a sitting person in that legislature,” Thompson said.
Seventeen states had enacted 28 new laws that restrict access to the vote, as of June 21, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. The latest versions of Republican-backed legislation aimed at revising Texas voting and election laws included several provisions that voting rights advocates say would detrimentally affect the abilities of people of color to vote.
Among them are provisions that appear to be aimed at practices utilized by Democrat-leaning Harris County during the 2020 election. Both bills ban 24-hour voting availability, which offered greater ballot access to Houston-area shift workers when implemented in the fall. Each of the proposals coming from the Republican majorities in the Texas House and Senate also aim to end drive-thru voting, another popular voting method in the diverse county.
Additionally, the dual bills included provisions that granted expanded access to partisan poll watchers, which voting rights advocates decried for potentially opening the door to in-person voter intimidation.
On Monday, Texas Democrats did not indicate specific plans for what they aim to do after the special session ends. They also did not directly offer insight into whether they intend to continue breaking quorum going forward, given that GOP Gov. Abbott has the power to call for as many special legislative sessions as he wants.
“We know that’s exactly what he’s going to do, we went in his eyes wide open,” Texas House Democratic Chair Turner told reporters.
“Our intent is to stay out and kill this bill this session, and use the intervening time — I think 24 or 25 days now — before the other session to implore the folks in this building behind us to pass federal voting rights legislation to protect voters in Texas and across the country,” he added.
Vice President Harris will meet sometime this week with the Texas legislators, according to an official in Harris’ office.
(MOSCOW) — Alena Denisavets said she had been looking for her husband for more than a day when she got a text message from a lawyer who she believed was working for Belarus’ feared security services, still known today as the KGB.
Her husband Youras Ziankovich had vanished while on a trip to Moscow in April. She said she learned from the hotel where he was staying that unknown men had taken him. Now, she was hearing from the place she had never wanted him to be.
“I kind of tried to calm down and to understand what happened; why he’s in Minsk, [Belarus], why this person is contacting me from the KGB; [and] who is this person,” Denisavets told ABC News from Texas last week. “I was shocked, I was shaking, I was crying.”
Belarus’ KGB later announced it had taken Ziankovich. The men who took him filmed the abduction and it was later aired on Belarusian state television. As Ziankovich approached his hotel in Moscow, three men grabbed him and forced him into a van.
Ziankovich is a lawyer with U.S. citizenship and a long-time opponent of Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian leader of his native Belarus. For more than a decade, Ziankovich had lived in the United States, where he gained political asylum and then citizenship, and ran a law practice from Texas.
After he was seized in Moscow, he was driven nearly 700 miles across the border to Belarus and placed in a KGB jail in Minsk, according to Belarusian authorities. His wife has not been able to speak with him since, nor have the United States consular staff, despite requests to do so.
Zianokovich was grabbed that day in Moscow along with another Belarusian opponent of Lukashenko, Alexander Feduta, shortly after the two had eaten lunch together. Feduta, who more than a decade ago served as spokesman for Lukashenko, is a literary critic and now a vocal critic of his former boss.
About a week after the men were taken, Lukashenko announced to journalists that Belarusian security forces had thwarted a supposed coup attempt against him and accused Ziankovich and Feduta of planning it.
Belarus’ KGB claimed the two men were part of a U.S.-backed plot to assassinate the Belarusian authoritarian leader and abduct his children.
“We have seized them in Moscow,” Lukashenko told reporters. “They flew from the U.S. His last name is Ziankovich.”
The U.S. State Department responded quickly to Lukashenko’s claim, saying that “any suggestion that the U.S. government was behind or involved in an assassination attempt on Lukashenko is absolutely untrue.”
Denisavets said the coup claims against her husband were ridiculous, invented by the Lukashenko regime to create a justification for repression in the country, where he is currently straining to crush a protest movement that broke out against him last year.
“They need a story, kind of a very loud story,” Denisavets said. “Everyone is a terrorist, a potential terrorist, if he is against the government.”
She accused Belarus and Russia of collaborating to kidnap her husband.
Belarusian state television aired a lengthy report on the supposed coup attempt several days after he was taken. It included hidden camera footage showing Ziankovich and Feduta meeting in a Belarusian-themed restaurant in central Moscow with some unknown men.
The surveillance footage had been released by Russia’s Federal Security Service or FSB, its powerful domestic intelligence agency.
The FSB later said Ziankovich’s seizure had been a joint operation with the KGB. And president Vladimir Putin has since supported Lukashenko’s claim of the coup plot, criticising the West in his annual state of the nation address for not condemning it.
Most outside experts have expressed scepticism about the coup allegations, noting the improbable way in which it was supposedly planned and that those involved have no connections with the military or significant influence.
To back up the claims about the coup, Belarusian state television aired video from a Zoom call, where it alleged Ziankovich and the others were discussing their plans.
But Alexander Perepechko, a political analyst who participated in the Zoom call, said that claim was preposterous and that in reality the call had just been an academic discussion.
“This is the first time in my life that I’ve seen people like us playing quote-un-quote ‘coup d’etat’ using Zoom,” Perepechko, who lives in exile in the U.S., told ABC News. “There was no secrecy, there was no conspiracy. It was an academic conversation.”
Perepechko said the call had been a “war gaming” exercise where the participants had discussed different possibilities for how Belarus’ political crisis might end. Although he and others present were passionate to see the end of Lukashenko’s rule, he said, they had no means or experience for organizing a coup.
“We just became part of a big game,” he said. “And we were just kind of unlucky those people … are in KGB prison in Minsk now because we talked about a sensitive topic.”
Hanna Liubakova, a journalist and Atlantic Council non-resident fellow, said she did not believe the coup allegations were real.
“I don’t really think a coup d’etat might be planned by Zoom,” she said. “I think that’s another kind of fairy tale, another story that the regime tries to show.”
Liubakova said she believed it was possible that Ziankovich and Feduata might have been tricked into going to Moscow on false promises about possible assistance against Lukashenko, but that the idea they might have orchestrated a real coup was not credible.
“It’s all being kind of presented in this way because Lukashenko needs to justify repressions,” she said.
The mass protests that broke out following the contested election in August 2020 came close to toppling Lukashenko at the time. But he has since gradually strangled the protest movement through continuous repression, and in recent months, has gone on the offensive.
This week the regime moved to close down several popular independent media organizations. At the same time, it has aggressively targeted its opponents in exile. In May, Belarus forced down a Ryanair passenger flight with another opposition blogger onboard, Roman Protasevich.
Since then, Protasevich has repeatedly been paraded in front of journalists and publicly recanted his former opposition to Lukashenko under what his family and other opposition figueres say is intense pressure and likely torture.
Ziankovich and Feduata have both been shown appearing to admit guilt in videos aired on state television.
“When you are taken as a prisoner, you say whatever they want you to say to save your life and not to make things worse,” said Perepechko.
The democratic opposition estimates there are at least 500 political prisoners currently in Belarus and thousands have been detained since last August.
It is unclear when Ziankovich might be placed on trial. Aside from the denial of any conspiracy to assassinate the Belarus leader, the U.S. State Department has issued only curt statements on his detention, saying it is aware of it and trying to assist him.
Denisavets says she has written about her husband’s case to President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as her local senator and Congressional representatives. But she said that so far she had only received one response from the office of Sen. Ted Cruz.
Denisavets said she had to keep hoping that he would be freed. She believes the current situation in Belarus cannot last.
“I just want to say to him if he sees me, that I love him. … I wait for him here and I will do whatever is possible to release him, to help him,” she said, holding back tears. “It’s an occupation of the country and it will not last such a long time. The regime will not stay on the blood of people. It will end, and very soon.”
(NEW YORK) — After more than a year, children are emerging from the COVID-19 quarantine.
Family gatherings are back, and so are germs and other viruses. For young children, getting sick is a rite of passage that’s often short-lived and helps build up future immunities.
What is uncommon now is the time of year viruses common in children are finding a foothold.
For children younger than age 2, the most frequent is a lung infection causing temporary inflammation in the airways, called bronchiolitis, which is most often caused by respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.
Cases among kids typically crop up in the fall and winter, when school is back in session and germs are easily shared, but experts said they’re seeing these cases now.
“The number of RSV cases is about the same,” Dr. Allison Bartlett, pediatric infectious disease doctor at the University of Chicago, told ABC News. “It’s the season that’s unusual.”
This period of time in summer is now being called “RSV season” because more than 1 out of 10 tests are positive for the virus, according to Bartlett.
Here’s what parents should know:
How to prevent RSV
For the general population, experts said kids can keep safe from RSV with the same health measures we’ve all been doing for more than a year during the COVID-19 pandemic: Masking, social distancing and following good hygiene.
Teaching kids to practice “respiratory etiquette” and handwashing can help, along with keeping infants away from others who may have a respiratory infection already, according to Bartlett.
“Managing the COVID pandemic has reinforced for everyone the impact that masking, social distancing, school closure and staying home when you’re sick can have,” she said. “All of the actions we took to stop the spread of COVID effectively prevented RSV as well. Now that we have relaxed some of these strategies, RSV is back.”
Symptoms to watch for
Children with RSV may start to wheeze, develop a cough or congestion or spike a fever, the body’s natural response to fighting off a virus.
Parents may also notice their child has less of an appetite than usual, that they’re more tired and more irritable.
As parents and guardians monitor kids’ symptoms that can span several days, experts caution not to be alarmed if a child seems to worsen, even after starting to see mild improvements.
“Days four to seven of illness is really when the infection declares itself,” said Dr. Alisa McQueen, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at the University of Chicago. “It’s common for many of the symptoms to almost resolve, and then suddenly come back.”
What to do if your child is sick
Most cases of bronchiolitis are very mild and can be managed at home with over-the-counter therapies and a little “TLC.”
Experts point out if a child is sick, but not in crisis, keeping them home, rather than seeking emergency medical care, may actually be safer and healthier for them and others. RSV is an extremely contagious virus that, after spreading by saliva and mucous droplets, can linger on surfaces far longer than many other viruses.
A several hours’ wait in the emergency department could expose a child to other, even more harmful pathogens, especially if their immune system is already weakened.
Many fevers will resolve without medication, but fever-reducing medications like acetaminophen or ibuprofen can help.
If a child is having trouble blowing their nose and needs relief, cool mist humidifiers, manual suctioning devices, or thinning out the mucous with nasal saline drops will help o help drain easily from the nose, according to Dr. Tyree Winters, a New Jersey-based pediatrician.
But for a small number of infants and young children, RSV can be dangerous.
Approximately 1% to 2% of children who get RSV end up hospitalized. The virus accounts for around 58,000 hospitalizations each year for children under the age of 5 in the United States, according to the CDC.
If a child struggles with breathing beyond the point of congestion — episodes where they stop breathing, have faster breathing, use extra muscles to breath or start turning blue around the mouth — that’s a sign to seek medical attention.
The extra energy the body is using to fight the infection can often makes children sleepier and less active, but when a child is too tired to even drink, has stopped making diapers or cries without making any tears, these are all early signs of dehydration and might mean a child is too sick to fight this infection alone.
Gauging what level medical attention a child needs can be tricky, especially for an anxious parent, so when in doubt, seek help, experts say.
“If something doesn’t seem right, come in the emergency department and let us take a look,” said McQueen. “We’re here 24 hours a day for exactly this reason.”
In most cases, if a child is admitted to the hospital, the stay will only last a few days. These children are often placed on supplemental oxygen to make sure they are getting enough.
If a child has not been eating for several days already, the hospital can also help by giving them IV fluids until the child feels well enough to start eating and drinking normally again.
For infants at greater risk of severe illness, like those who were born premature, or those with chronic lung or congenital heart disease, a monthly antibody injection is available.
Chidimma J. Acholonu, M.D., MPH, a pediatric resident physician at University of Chicago’s Comer Children’s Hospital, is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — A woman is on the run from the police after driving a car through the lobby of a hotel-turned-homeless shelter in New York City.
The incident occurred just after 11 p.m. Monday in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx in New York City when police say a woman — who may have been a resident of the homeless shelter — drove a car straight through the front lobby of the Ramada by Wyndham on Gerard Avenue after an alleged ongoing dispute with the shelter, according to ABC News’ New York City station WABC-TV.
It is currently unclear what the woman and the homeless shelter had been feuding over but authorities say it boiled over when the woman left and returned by crashing her car into the building, leaving three people with minor injuries in the process. Their conditions are currently unknown.
Authorities said that police have previously been called to the homeless shelter regarding the ongoing dispute, according to WABC.
The aftermath of the crash was chaotic, and the vehicle could be seen deep into the hotel’s lobby and next to the elevators.
“I’m hearing people screaming. I don’t know what’s going on. I heard a big boom and everybody screaming,” eyewitness Ann Marie Parker told WABC following the incident. “I smell gas. I have asthma. So, I go downstairs on the elevator. I get out of the elevator and she’s driving towards me. I backed up, like, oh my God. I almost had a heart attack.”
Police say that the suspect fled the scene of the crime on foot and is still at large following the incident, according to WABC.
The hotel was not evacuated, and the New York City Department of Buildings responded to check out the safety and integrity of the structure.
This incident comes as New York City works to evict thousands of homeless people temporarily housed in hotels during the pandemic, according to WABC. The most recent effort, however, was recently stalled following a motion that was filed by the Legal Aid Society arguing that these evictions violate the rights of people living in the shelters.
(BALTIMORE) — Two Baltimore, Maryland, police officers were shot Tuesday morning in the parking lot of Security Square Mall, according to authorities.
Baltimore County police said the officers’ injuries are non-life-threatening. The suspect, who was also shot, is dead, police said.
Baltimore police said the two officers involved are on the Warrant Apprehension Task Force. They were working with the U.S. Marshals regional fugitive task force at the time of the shooting, according to a law enforcement source.
Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison is heading to the hospital, police said.
Additional information was not immediately available.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
