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Boosters are the best defense against omicron. But that message isn’t getting through.

December 24, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — For weeks now, as public health experts have warned about the COVID-19 omicron variant and its incredible ability to infect people, they’ve followed the bad news with good: booster shots available to every adult in the U.S. drive protection against omicron back up.

One of a few glimmers of scientific optimism in the omicron era is that the variant can be held at bay or kept to a very mild infection when people get a boost. And yet, just four in 10 eligible Americans have gotten a booster shot.

Among the most vulnerable Americans — those over 65 years old — it’s slightly higher, but still low: Just over 60% have gotten their booster shots, according to White House data presented last week.

Despite the demand for other pandemic tools, like at-home rapid tests or new treatment pills from Pfizer and Merck, many experts point to booster shots as the best method to actually prevent sickness — and they’ve been there, widely available, for weeks.

“The booster is exponential. It’s not just a little bit different. It’s a lot different,” said Janet Hamilton, an epidemiologist and the executive director at Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, a group that works closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“I don’t know that we have really communicated that effectively enough for people to say, ‘I really need to get this, this is a big deal,'” she said.

Why are the rates so low?

Public health directives can take a long time to circulate and have historically reached marginalized populations even slower.

But when it comes to boosters, that message was particularly muddled.

“The recommendation for the booster has come out in bits and pieces, and the most recent recommendation for everyone to get a booster is pretty new still,” Hamilton said.

The confusion began after President Joe Biden and his administration called for boosters for everyone eight months after their second dose. But experts at the CDC and Food and Drug Administration didn’t jump onboard, instead spending the summer months debating if there was a need for boosters for the whole population or only the most vulnerable.

By the time boosters were recommended in November — a recommendation that applied to all adults who’d been fully vaccinated for six months — the data was strongly backed by most in public health.

But, as Hamilton noted, “it takes time for people to hear the information.”

Unfortunately, the country didn’t have the luxury of time. It took just a few weeks for omicron to gather steam in the U.S. By Dec. 18, it was nearly 75% of all cases in the U.S., and nearing 90% along the East Coast and Midwest, the CDC found.

And because the variant evades vaccine immunity — whittling down protection from the first shot to somewhere between 30-40%, according to a study out of the U.K. — the booster shot, which brings protection up to nearly 70-80%, became an urgent public health missive.

Among nursing home residents

In nursing home patients, the CDC released data last week that showed the highest COVID cases were among the unvaccinated, but cases were also increasing among fully vaccinated patients without a booster.

Meanwhile, fully vaccinated and boosted nursing home patients had a 10 times lower rate of getting COVID, the CDC found.

“We’re sitting on an enormous vulnerability right now,” said Dr. Ali Khan, a primary care physician and executive medical director at Oak Street Health, a practice in Chicago.

MORE: Fauci says omicron can evade vaccine protection, but boosters help
Khan, who treats patients at nursing homes, said he thinks omicron has shed new light on booster urgency — but only in certain areas.

“I think it’s leading to increases in booster enthusiasm around relatively privileged populations,” he said.

“But we have a lot of work to do in people receiving those messages like nursing home residents, like minority communities that may have had more complex reactions to vaccines in the first place, to really say, ‘Hey, this is super crucial’,” he said.

Disparities in messaging

Dr. Jay Bhatt, an internist also practicing in Chicago, said among his patients on the city’s Southside, largely low-income people of color, the reasons about half have rejected a booster shot is because of “changing messages.”

Patients say they “lost trust in government,” and the different timelines on when to get a booster led to feelings that it was optional.

“They feel like they can wait longer before they get it,” Bhatt said.

But the doctors noted that the same investments the country made in the initial vaccine rollout can be made on boosters, with positive results.

“I’d say most of my patients, if they’ve already been vaccinated and we can reach them, they’re often very willing to do what’s right to protect themselves and get boosted,” said Dr. Atul Nakhasi, a physician and policy advisor with the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

Only a handful of vaccinated patients are hesitant to get a booster, Nakhasi said, and through discussions, he’s able to walk through their concerns — particularly if they’re logistical, like taking off work.

If that effort is not made, Nakhasi warned that disparities that have already manifested will only continue to grow, erasing much of the progress that has been made to close the racial gaps on vaccine uptake.

Outreach is needed

In Los Angeles County, Black and Hispanic people account for 60% of the population, but only 30% of people who have gotten a booster — a much smaller proportion.

“Disparities are again appearing within the data on who is getting the boosters,” Nakhasi said.

And the omicron variant has made it clear that the outreach, especially among communities that already have a shortage of health care, will need to be a long-lasting effort, not a one-and-done.

“I think that goes to the core. We want that closure but unfortunately COVID is not giving it to us,” he said. “So we need to make sure we build long lasting bonds to our communities, because it’s become evident that there’s a need for more than just the initial series.”

Khan, the physician in Chicago, also said outreach has been effective. While more patients have reached out to doctors asking for a booster in light of surging omicron cases, far and away it’s the doctors who are initiating the conversation.

“If we’re prompting them, they’re saying yeah I’ll take it. But only now is that message starting to turn,” Khan said.

“I’m just hoping we’re not too late,” he added.

Kentucky man raises thousands, delivers toys to storm victims for Christmas

December 24, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — While Santa Claus may be busy this time of year, Shawn Triplett is certainly the next best thing.

Nearly two weeks ago, a slew of tornadoes upended the lives of thousands near Triplett’s hometown of Mayfield, Kentucky. Triplett, a retired Marine, said he rushed to town immediately to see how he could help.

“I’ve been deployed three times, and I’ve seen the worst,” Triplett said. “It was just absolute war zone destruction everywhere.”

Triplett said that while he was visiting a storm shelter, he overheard a little boy tell his mother, “I lost my Christmas.”

After that, he put a call out on social media, he said. His goal was to help 20 to 30 kids who were at storm shelters for the holidays.

“I reached out to my social media, friends and family and said, ‘This is what I’m doing. Please trust me that this is going to happen. Let’s get to work,'” said Triplett, whose post went viral.

Since then, he has raised nearly $95,000 from donations all over the world to buy holiday presents for Kentucky storm victims in just over a week.

“It’s really been pretty cool, because I don’t really I don’t speak Japanese or French, so I’ve had to go use Google Translate to reply back to people and just thank them,” Triplett said.

After partnering with a local Walmart, Triplett and his hardworking team of volunteers have wrapped each gift.

“They probably wrapped close to 4,000 toys in three days,” Triplett said. “It was an assembly line of epic proportions, and they were so good at it.”

Once the gifts are tied with a Christmas bow, Triplett puts on his red hat and coat and gets to work. He and his team of volunteers have delivered more than 20,000 toys and counting.

“If we can distract them from that trauma even for just a few hours, it can mean the world to them,” he said. “They can have all this destruction all around them, but still find happiness.”

How NASA’s Webb Telescope works and other facts you need to know

December 24, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — On Christmas Day, NASA is launching into space its biggest, most expensive and most powerful telescope yet.

The James Webb Space Telescope will rocket into the cosmos and orbit nearly 1 million miles away from Earth.

If the launch is successful, the telescope will spend five to 10 years studying the formation of the universe’s earliest galaxies, how they compare to today’s galaxies, how our solar system developed and if there is life on other planets.

ABC News explains how the telescope works, how it compares to its predecessor — the Hubble Telescope — and what needs to happen for the mission to go just right.

The history of the Webb Telescope

The Webb Telescope was jointly developed by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

Development first began in 1996, when it was known as the Next Generation Space Telescope, before it was renamed in September 2002 after James Webb, who was the head of NASA in the 1960s and helped launch the Apollo program that eventually went to the moon.

The project suffered from numerous setbacks and delays, including a redesign into 2005, and ended up costing $10 billion.

Construction was completed in 2016, and the Webb Telescope underwent extensive testing before it was approved for launch.

How does it work?

The Webb Telescope is an infrared telescope, meaning it uses infrared radiation to detect objects in space.

It is able to observe celestial bodies, such as stars, nebulae and planets, that are too cool or too faint to be observed in visible light — what is visible to the human eye.

Infrared radiation is also able to pass through gas and dust, which appear opaque to the human eye, according to NASA.

This is different from the Hubble Telescope, which sees visible light, ultraviolet radiation and near-infrared radiation.

What are the goals of the Webb Telescope?

There are four goals of the Webb Telescope. Firstly, scientists want to study the first stars and galaxies formed right after the Big Bang.

Normally, humans wouldn’t be able to see this because, as light travels through the universe, it gets stretched and becomes infrared, which is invisible to the naked eye.

But an infrared telescope will be able to detect this light, which has been traveling toward Earth for more than 13 billion years, essentially allowing the Webb Big Bang to look back in time.

This leads to the second part of the mission: comparing the galaxies from the past to those of today.

Thirdly, because infrared radiation can pass through astronomical dust, which can’t be viewed on a visible-light telescope — such as Hubble — the Webb Telescope will be able to study how stars and planetary systems, such as our solar system, formed, NASA explained.

Lastly, the telescope will study planets outside of our solar system to see if there are any signs of life or if they have atmospheres capable of sustaining life.

What is needed for the mission to be successful?

According to a report conducted by an independent review board in 2018, there are 344 “single-point failures,” or steps that need to work for the mission to succeed.

The telescope will be tucked inside the nose of an Ariane 5 rocket and will be launched from the European Space Agency’s Spaceport in French Guiana around 7:20 a.m. ET, according to the official countdown.

It will separate from the rocket after the launch and begin unfolding. According to NASA, about 30 minutes after the launch, the solar panels will unfold so the telescope can get power from the sun.

About two hours later, the antenna will deploy, so the telescope can communicate back to Earth.

Three days later, the sunshield, which is 69.5 feet by 46.5 feet — about the size of a tennis court — will deploy.

In order for the instruments aboard to work, they need to be kept at extremely cold temperatures: -370 degrees Fahrenheit or lower. The sunshield protects the telescope from the heat of the sun and keeps the instruments cold.

Next, the mirrors will start unfolding and latching into place so they can reflect light.

Overall, it will take 29 days for the telescope to reach the final stop on its journey and settle into orbit nearly 1 million miles from Earth.

Melting Arctic ice will have catastrophic effects on the world, experts say. Here’s how.

December 24, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — If there is any doubt about climate change, look no further than the coldest regions of the planet for proof that the planet is warming at unprecedented rates, experts say.

The Arctic, is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the world, according to this year’s Arctic Report Card, released last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The phenomenon, known as Arctic amplification, occurs when the sea ice, which is white, thins or disappears, allowing dark ocean or land surfaces to absorb more heat from the sun and release that energy back into the atmosphere.

Widely considered by polar scientists as Earth’s refrigerator due to its role in regulating global temperatures, the mass melting of sea ice, permafrost and ice caps in the Arctic is hard evidence of global warming, according to experts.

“The Arctic is the frontline for climate change,” climate scientist Jessica Moerman, vice president of science and policy at the Evangelical Environmental Network, a faith-based environmental group, told ABC News. “We should be paying careful attention to what is happening in the Arctic. It may seem like it’s far away, but the impacts come knocking on our front door.”

Here is how melting in the Arctic could have detrimental effects around the globe, according to experts:

Coastal communities will eventually need to move inland

The biggest long-term effect of warming in the Arctic will be sea level rise, Oscar Schofield, a professor of biological oceanography at Rutgers University, told ABC News.

Melting from he Arctic — and the Greenland ice sheet in particular — is the largest contributor to sea level rise in the world. Although the contribution from the Greenland ice sheet is less than a millimeter per year of rising sea level, those small increments add up to between 6 inches to a foot since the Industrial Revolution — sea levels that infrastructure near oceans was not built to withstand, Schofield said.

A bit “counterintuitively,” the loss from the Greenland ice sheet will have its greatest impact on places far away from the Arctic, in low latitudes such as South America due to changes in the global ocean currents, Twila Moon, an Arctic scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center and one of the authors of the Arctic Report Card, told ABC News.

Sea level rise from melting and continued climate change will exacerbate coastal erosion, flood areas that had previously never seen flooding and even increase inland flooding as the salty ocean waters change groundwater tables and inundate freshwater resources, Moon said.

“If you look at where humanity lives, a great proportion of humanity lives right at the coastlines around the world,” he said. “And if you look at where most of the big, mega cities are, they’re right along coastlines: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco.”

Global weather systems will shift drastically

The environmental conditions in the Arctic affect weather systems across the world. The North and South poles act as the “freezers of the global system,” helping to circulate ocean waters around the planet in a way that helps to maintain the climates felt on land, Moon said.

“What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic,” Moerman said.

The jet stream, a band of strong winds moving west to east created by cold air meeting warmer air, helps to regulate weather around the globe. In the continental U.S., the jet stream forms where generally colder and drier Arctic air meets warmer and more humid air from the Gulf.

But as temperatures in the Arctic warm, the jet stream, which is fueled by the temperature differences, weakens, Moerman said. Rather than a steady stream of winds, the jet stream has become more “wavy,” allowing very warm temperatures to extend usually far into the Arctic and very cold temperatures further south than usual, Moon said.

“These cold air outbreaks are really severe,” Moerman said.

The variability in the climate in the Arctic, specifically the weakening of the polar vortex, which keeps cold air closer to the poles, likely led to the Texas freeze in February that led to millions without power and hundreds of deaths, a study published in Science in September found.

The study cited an “increasingly frequent number of episodes of extremely cold winter weather over the past four decades” in the U.S., despite temperatures rising overall.

Scientists are also looking into whether the phenomenon of atmospheric blocking, is potentially linked with extreme summer or winter weather that occurs when the jet stream ebbs and causes weather patterns to stagnate over a period of time, Moon said.

That stagnation was likely the cause of the extreme flooding that occurred in 2017 in Houston, when the system from Hurricane Harvey remained over the region for days, dumping more than 50 inches of rain, and the multiple heatwaves that blanketed much of the Pacific Northwest this past summer, Moerman added.

“These have real-world impacts, whenever extreme cold air leaks out of the Arctic, because of that weakening polar vortex,” Moerman said. “And it goes into areas that are not prepared for that extreme weather.”

However, despite the existing evidence, more research needs to be done to further establish the link between the weakening polar vortex and extreme weather, Moerman said.

Shipping lanes will open

Melting sea ice in the Arctic is opening up lanes in the ocean for the global trade route — lanes that were previously blocked.

In the near future, the melting will have a big impacts on major shipping laws, Schofield said.

“They’re no longer going to be sending ships all the way down to the Panama Canal,” he said. “They’re going to go directly through the Arctic. And so it’s going to change commerce, and have very large economic impacts.”

But access has the potential to become a “hotbed for new conflict” as nations fight for control over the newly emerged routes, Moerman said.

“There’s a lot of effort by countries to really try to claim as much territory as they can right now, because there’s likely going to be a huge host of economic incentives to go to this new area and harvest what you can,” Schofield said.

Some national security implications could occur as a result of the warming as well, as ice melts and opens up previously blocked landmasses, Moerman added. The U.S. Department of Defense will likely need to restructure its defense profile in the Arctic when there is no longer an ice cap for much of the year, Schofield said.

The pristine ecosystem will likely be ruined

As the woes from a stalled supply chain continue, the ability for shipping containers to utilize more routes in the absence of ice could appear to be beneficial for the world economy.

But it would spell disaster for the regional environment.

Right now, the ecosystem in the Arctic is pristine and untouched, and there are several unique species and ecosystems that have acclimated to the presence of ice, Schofield said.

But as more ships come in and out of the region, the chances that large-scale environmental degradation will occur is high, Moerman said.

“We’re definitely seeing changes in animal populations,” Moon said. “Certainly animals that depend on sea ice as a primary habitat, as we’ve lost the vast majority of our thicker sea ice.”

The “poster child” for the effects of the loss of sea ice on species is the polar bear, Schofield said. Polar bear populations have dwindled so low, and the habitats have become so fragmented, that the animals are inbreeding, which could have disastrous effects on the survival of the species within generations.

In Alaska, the number of beaver ponds has doubled since 2000, likely due to the warming trend that has resulted in widespread greening in what was previously tundra, the Arctic Report Card found. The rapid acidification of the warming ocean waters is likely affecting the marine food chain, Moon said. And the increased marine traffic for both fishing and shipping is also likely affecting stress levels and behavior of species, including how they communicate, Moon added.

In addition to an increased chance of oil spills from increased commercial activity is the possibility of new oil and gas fields opening up in Russian territory could further amplify global warming as those natural gases are extracted, Moerman said.

“The question is, is can we get those policies and strategies set up now before there’s this massive sort of gold rush on the Arctic Ocean?” Schofield said.

Melting permafrost in the Arctic also poses natural environmental risks, Moon said. The majority of the ground in the Arctic is frozen, and as it thaws, microbes and other living organisms within the organic carbon in the permafrost begin to wake up, releasing carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.

Temperatures need to be below 0 degrees Celsius to grow and maintain ice, Schofield said. But we will likely never regain that ice, as it took thousands of years of snow layers accumulating on top of each other to create the massive ice sheet, which is several miles thick.

“At some point, we’re likely to cross the line where, you know, there’ll be almost no winter to speak up,” Schofield said. “And we see these kinds of effects in these polar regions, like the Arctic and the Antarctic.”

One Afghan woman’s struggle to resettle in America, help her fellow refugees

December 24, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Muzhgan Azizy escaped Kabul just weeks before the swift Taliban takeover and chaotic U.S. evacuation, but adjusting to her new freedom in America has been difficult.

“The resettlement journey for me was not easy. Actually so many challenges. It was a struggle, for sure,” Azizy, 36, told ABC News. “From finding a proper spot to do my grocery shopping, to paying my bill in our apartments’ portal. It’s like the worst — only because the system in the U.S. is completely different from what I used to back home.”

Having worked for the U.S. State Department in Afghanistan for five years, she said she was extraordinarily grateful to obtain a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) for her husband and 13-year-old son after waiting more than three years to get approved.

In July, Azizy and her immediate family went straight from Dulles International Airport in Virginia to an empty apartment she found online while still in Afghanistan, as Taliban fighters closed in on Kabul. “Luckily,” she said, the apartment was carpeted. They lived on that carpet for more than 25 days, she said, until she was able to get furniture and other household items.

The hardest part for Azizy is worrying about her elderly parents, who lived with her in Afghanistan and depend on her financially and emotionally. They weren’t able to come with her because under U.S. law, since she is married, they don’t qualify as “immediate family” under the SIV program.

“So that’s why I couldn’t bring them, but I left them all alone,” she said, trying to hold back tears. “And that’s very difficult for me, and they need my emotional support more than any other support because they are that age where they need their children around. I hope in the future I can find a way to bring them here safely, so that they can live with me here, and they also experience the safety, freedom and security.”

She tries to call them every day. Her father, she said, repeatedly tells her they are happy she’s not in Afghanistan to see how much the people are struggling under the Taliban regime.

“I want to say that we’ve left the whole nation behind,” she said. “People there, they suffer from hunger. They send their children [away] so that someone can feed them. The economy of the country is at its worst. So I really want the world to pay attention to them. They are people who have nothing to do with politics, and they suffer right now.”

Since the Taliban takeover in August, several countries halted aid to Afghanistan as they decide whether to recognize the Taliban government — even as the country nears economic collapse. Nearly 24 million people — more than half of all Afghans — are facing acute hunger, with nine million of them nearing famine, according to the United Nations.

In the U.S., Azizy said her family struggles to adjust to a new culture. Her husband worked as a civil engineer in Afghanistan but is now studying to become a site inspector since his education does not carry over, she said. Her 13-year-old son, enrolled in a public school in Virginia, has struggled with changing classrooms in high school, commonplace in America, but confusing to him, she recalled, since his school in Afghanistan had one room and one teacher.

“But I will say that I am grateful for all the challenges,” Azizy added. “When I first came into the United States like, the safety, the feeling of safety, security and freedom, hit us differently. So, I am grateful.”

Advocacy group hires Afghan refugees to help resettle new arrivals

Azizy’s outlook on life in the U.S. got better, she says, when she started working with Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), the largest national faith-based nonprofit in the U.S. exclusively dedicated to serving immigrants and refugees.

She is now one of 12 Afghans working for LIRS full-time in a paid role from a new office space inside Lutheran Peace Church in Alexandria, Virginia. Azizy’s job as a senior program officer for Afghan placement and assistance is to ensure Afghan refugees resettling in Northern Virginia arrive safely at their final destination, have basic needs met and resources to start a new life.

Azizy praised the significance of having refugees from Afghanistan like herself employed in the office as they faces a “crisis” situation.

“I have a colleague that spent six days in Kabul Airport only to get into a plane. And when she tells me her story, it’s very sad. She says that, like, for six days she had a small bottle of water and she just kept drinking that little by little to stay alive,” Aziziy recalled. “I want to say that it’s not a normal refugee resettlement. It’s a crisis. So no matter how hard everyone works, there are still gaps.”

LIRS says its welcome centers are intended to fill gaps that other institutions can’t by offering mental health screenings, connections to health care providers, legal services, and referrals to community services such as food banks, faith communities and schools.

Zarmina Hamidi, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1988 after her family fled Afghanistan first for Pakistan due to the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, and works as a caseworker at LIRS, said it’s a “blessing” to have Afghans represented in the office, where hundreds of new refugees will soon arrive from U.S. military bases.

“I want to reiterate to them that this is temporary, that life will get better, that they’re in a nation where you can build your way up,” Hamidi told ABC News. “It’s a blessing for me to be offering that help, and I feel like they’re also blessed to have such resettlement agencies that have hired particularly Afghan nationals,” she said, “who speak their language, who are culturally aware, who can offer them that smooth transition.”

Hamidi says her own background as a double refugee, offers a helpful perspective for new refugees she meets, adding that when she started working she was happy but “surprised” to see that “every room I looked into – there were Afghans.”

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah – president and CEO of LIRS, who, as a young child, fled a civil war in Sri Lanka in 1980 with her family and came to the U.S. — said it was personally important to her to hire people who walked in the same steps as their clients.

“They literally are, in some ways, going through this experience,” she said of the refugee hires. “They may be a few months ahead of the clients that they’re serving – but they recently were our clients, and now they’re our staff.”

O’Mara Vignarajah cut the oversized, red ribbon to officially open a new office location last week in Alexandria, where Azizy and Hadidi work. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited on Monday to thank them.

“The physical location is where we can bring them in,” Vignarajah told ABC News at the opening. “We can walk them through the paperwork. We can explain how to enroll in public school. You can have a doctor speak with them. We can create that personal human connection, so they don’t feel like they’re just lost in a system that’s been shuffling them from the Kabul airport to a lily pad to military bases.”

With clients and employees who share a common experience, LIRS offers a special necessity for new arrivals — human beings who understand.

With 30K Afghans on US bases, advocates prepare for resettlement ‘crisis’

With 30,000 Afghans still on U.S. military bases, LIRS expects to welcome 700 Afghans through the new welcome center in the upcoming year and another 1,200 Afghans to existing sites. While LIRS has already resettled nearly 1,400 Afghan refugees in Northern Virginia since the summer, O’Mara Vignarajah said approximately 7,000 Afghans have indicated that they want to resettle in Northern Virginia — where the Afghan community is strong.

The launch of new sites underscores the surge in demand for resettlement services, advocates told ABC News, and illustrates nationwide efforts to rebuild the U.S. refugee program after years of budget cuts under the Trump administration. As demand for their services grows, LIRS recently added 12 new sites to their network this year, making for settlement services in 51 sites in 21 states across the nation.

“We are aggressively rebuilding the refugee resettlement infrastructure that was decimated under the previous administration,” O’Mara Vignarajah said in remarks at last week’s opening. “Over those four years, more than 100 local resettlement offices were forced to close their doors or suspend services as a result of severe cuts in the refugee program. We at Lutheran Immigration Refugee Service were forced to shatter 17 of our sites.”

“But spurred by the arrival of our Afghan allies,” she added, “it is the dawn of a new era of welcome.”

LIRS expects to host a job fair in the Peace Lutheran Church space in the coming months for recent refugees and to lease a warehouse nearby to house donations, where refugees can “shop” for basic items like clothes, diapers, books and toys.

Susan Hilbert, 74, of Annandale, Virginia, who is part of a women’s circle at another church nearby, said her friend group decided to write a $250 check to LIRS and another $250 note to the Peace Lutheran Church because, she said, “We wanted to do something for Afghan refugees, and we were finding lots of big organizations, but we wanted to make a difference locally that we could see.” Hilbert brought with her pots and pans to donate to the welcome site.

O’Mara Vignarajah, while praising volunteers like Hilbert, acknowledged there’s only so much her organization can do — and called on the U.S. government to do more.

“While it’s worth celebrating 75,000 Afghans evacuated this summer, history won’t judge us solely on how many we led to safety but on how many we left behind,” O’Mara Vignarajah said, also calling for the Congress to create a pathway to citizenship for evacuees.

O’Mara Vignarajah lamented that the first question they hear from new refugees almost exclusively is: “‘How can I get my family back in Afghanistan out of harm’s way?'”

“It’s a constant source of sleepless nights for those we serve, knowing their loved ones face Taliban, retribution, economic collapse, and a harsh winter amid humanitarian catastrophe,” she said. “So let’s be clear, while the military evacuation is over, our mission to protect our allies is not.”

Azizy is also calling on the U.S. government to make the process easier for Afghans to bring over at-risk and vulnerable family members, like her parents. Until then, she says she’ll keep calling them each day, as she adjusts to her new life in the U.S. — and helps others adjust, too.

“I knocked on all the possible doors to have an easier way for my parents to bring them here,” she said. “But every time, there is something that looks like a big challenge for me.”

ABC News’ Conor Finnegan contributed to this report.

Omicron surge putting strain on schools to stay open, experts say

December 24, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — COVID-19 has been a major challenge for schools.

From shutting down in March 2020 to reopening and trying to stay open, the task has been varied and in some cases monumental.

This school year — the third since the pandemic began — has presented its own promise and challenges, from vaccines being available to millions of students, to new “test-to-stay” protocols and more transmissible variants. Still, many schools were able to stay open safely with multiple protections in place.

For Elizabeth Stuart, a professor in mental health and health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a multi-pronged mitigation strategy has been key to keeping schools safe.

“I think it has been heartening this fall that, in general, schools have been open,” she told ABC News. “Those that had good sets of protections in place, including masks, teacher vaccinations, some sort of symptoms screening, good ventilation, have been able to open successfully with sometimes without very many disruptions.”

But as the omicron variant COVID-19 surges nationwide, schools are reflecting the high rates of community transmission — forcing officials to reassess their protocols and double down on efforts to keep classrooms open in the new year.

“Community transmission rates are just so high right now, that then the school starts to feel it as well,” she said. “That doesn’t mean the schools are contributing to the spread. But when there’s so much virus in the community, of course, the schools are going to be starting to feel that as well.”

Exactly how much COVID-19 transmission there has been in schools is unclear, but studies based on contact tracing suggest that the community transmission plays a larger role in case levels among students, especially where safety protocols are followed.

There are some areas of concern going forward, including winter sports and the unprecedented surge from the omicron variant, but experts are hopeful that the many tools officials have at their disposal can help mitigate the impact of the virus and continue in-person learning.

Recent spikes in cases

Public data on school COVID-19 cases varies, and there is no national data for this school year. However, several Northeast states with comprehensive dashboards are showing sharp increases in recent weeks, as the region leads the nation in new coronavirus cases per capita.

In New Jersey, for instance, which tracks COVID-19 data from over 60% of K-12 public schools, case rates among students and staff started spiking in early November, reaching their highest levels so far this school year. According to the latest data, more than 44,500 student cases have been reported so far this school year, including over 7,700 the week of Dec. 19 alone.

Connecticut has seen a similar growth; for the week ending Dec. 22, the state reported over 3,000 student cases, compared to under 500 the week ending Nov. 3. About two-thirds of the new cases were in students who were not fully vaccinated, the data shows.

Though not as widespread as last school year, closures have also risen in recent weeks. More than 1,000 schools or districts are virtual or closed this week due to rising COVID-19 cases in students and staff and logistical challenges, according to Burbio, a company that monitors COVID-19 policies in over 80,000 K-12 schools. That number is lower than widespread closures in November during the delta surge, though higher than what was tracked in late August, when that surge began. Recent closures are largely concentrated in the Northeast and Upper Midwest, according to its tracker.

Omicron, which has now been detected in all 50 states and has quickly become the dominant variant of new cases here, brings another level of concern. Growing research indicates it spreads more easily than any other variant identified during the pandemic, though it’s too soon to tell if it causes more mild or severe illness.

“[There’s] high level of concern from schools across the country right now,” Dr. Sara Bode, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on School Health and an author of the AAP’s interim guidance on schools amid the pandemic, told ABC News. “The concern is, as all these students are now back home with their families and in their communities with these high rates of COVID, what’s that gonna mean for the return?”

School vs. community transmission

Outbreaks can and do occur in schools, though multiple studies have shown that transmission in school settings is typically lower than or the same as that of the community when several mitigation measures are in place, such as mask-wearing, testing, ventilation and physical distancing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We know that school is not necessarily the driver of COVID transmission, it’s a reflection of the community rates of COVID,” Bode said. “School is probably one of the safest places kids can be.”

But, she continued, “at some point, do we get to such a high rate that it just makes it really challenging to be able to have in-person learning?”

That’s the question some schools are facing now.

New York City, home to the country’s largest public school system, has seen a rapid increase in school cases in recent days, forcing more than 400 out of approximately 48,000 classrooms districtwide to close, according to the latest city data. At least 11 of some 1,600 schools were also closed as of Thursday night; since the school year started, 17 schools total have temporarily closed.

As the number of new COVID-19 cases reported citywide has reached record levels in recent days, city leaders have said they are intent on keeping classrooms open, and that measures including masking, surveillance testing and mandated staff vaccinations have kept COVID-19 rates low.

The New York City school seven-day average COVID-19 testing positivity rate is also just over 2%, according to city data. The school rate has been “higher than what we’ve seen in previous weeks, but it remains relatively low,” Dr. Dave Chokshi, commissioner of the city’s health department, said during a press briefing earlier this week. Citywide, the seven-day average positivity rate is over 11%.

New York City public schools are supposed to randomly test 10% of their unvaccinated student population weekly, per city Department of Education protocols. Some city officials and the teacher’s union have charged that protocol isn’t widespread enough to provide a clear picture of COVID-19 transmission — a notion Mayor Bill de Blasio has pushed back against.

“We’re testing in every school, every week, the results are extraordinarily consistent and show very low levels of COVID,” he told reporters earlier this week. “You have all those health and safety measures in place, you have every adult vaccinated. This is one of the safest places in the city by definition.”

Los Angeles County, which has widespread school testing, has similarly found low test positivity rates in students and staff. So far this school year, it has remained below 1%, data from the county’s health department shows.

Spotlight on sports

One area that is “particularly problematic” right now in schools is sports, said Bode. “These are winter sports — they’re indoor, lots of contact.” Mask usage may also vary based on local guidelines.

As the medical consultant for the Columbus, Ohio, school district, Bode has seen high school teams needing to postpone or cancel games this season, much like professional sports, due to positive cases. On some teams, as many as one-third of the team has tested positive, she said.

“That is going to be the other consideration in these winter months — how many cases is too many?” she said. “When do we decide just to take a break from athletics for 10 days for a particular team, if it seems like there’s an outbreak?”

“I think those are other considerations schools are going to be grappling with when they return,” she continued.

Some districts are already doing just that. Springfield Public Schools in Springfield, Massachusetts, this week postponed all winter sports amid a rise in COVID-19 cases in the school and community and the new, highly transmissible omicron variant. School and health department officials plan to discuss restarting the season after the holiday break.

Connecticut this week halted guidance that would have allowed fully vaccinated students to compete without wearing masks, following policies already in place in neighboring Massachusetts and Rhode Island, citing the “the rapid rise in COVID-19 community case rates and the emergence of this more contagious variant.”

Post-winter break

Schools are heading into winter break as pediatric cases continue to surge nationwide.

Since the first week of September, there have been nearly 2.3 million child cases — nearly a third of the total pediatric cases reported since the onset of the pandemic — including approximately 170,000 in the last week alone, according to a new report from the AAP and the Children’s Hospital Association released on Monday. Though children tend to have mild infections, there can be acute cases; over the last month, pediatric COVID-19-related hospital admissions also have increased by 33%, according to federal data. Children could also transmit the disease to more vulnerable people.

Public health officials have pointed to a variety of factors that are fueling the latest COVID-19 surge, including more indoor gatherings during colder weather, relaxed protocols, the Thanksgiving holiday, unvaccinated populations and waning immunity against the backdrop of two highly transmissible variants — delta and omicron.

To limit COVID-19 transmission once students return to the classroom this new year, some leaders are boosting testing. On Wednesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that the state will be distributing 6 million free rapid tests to school children — about one or two tests per child — “so that they can get those results back quickly and make sure when they go back in person, they’re doing so safely knowing that they have not contracted the disease over the holidays,” he said.

Similarly, in Washington, D.C., the district health department will be distributing 100,000 rapid tests to schools to test children returning from the winter break, city officials announced this week. D.C. public schools will cancel classes for two days to allow for families to pick up the tests, with instruction resuming on Jan. 5.

Public health experts and school leaders are also stressing vaccination amid the latest surge to help limit transmission among children, protect against severe illness and limit disruptions due to exposure. Those ages 5 and up are eligible to get the COVID-19 vaccine, though less than a third of the pediatric population — those under 18 — is fully vaccinated, according to federal data.

D.C. this week joined a small but growing list of cities and school districts to require COVID-19 vaccination in schools for students. Students eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine that’s been fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration will have to be immunized beginning March 1, following regulations from the D.C. Council, with enforcement beginning in the 2022-2023 school year.

“This adds to the safety of our schools,” D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said at a press briefing Wednesday. “We urge parents right now to make a plan to have their children vaccinated, even before the deadline, because the benefit is you get the extra months and weeks of protection.”

Bode is optimistic that there we won’t see “mass amounts” of school districts going virtual in the new year, though noted that case counts and other issues like staffing shortages may lead to targeted school closures as needed.

“‘I’m hoping that we’ve learned some good lessons over the time of the pandemic to understand that we can do this, we just have to really double down with our mitigation strategies and be vigilant with the data, have frequent testing, have vaccination and have a plan that can be flexible in these smaller situations,” she said. “I think that’s the most effective.”

Stuart is also confident due to the number of mitigation measures, including vaccination and rapid testing, schools now have at their disposal.

“It feels like a scary time,” she said, “But again, we have to remember that we have a lot more tools in our toolbox, and that schools and school districts can use those tools in smart ways to help schools be open safely.”

ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.

Omicron the Grinch hits kids, families days before Christmas

December 24, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Gretchen Lee, a third grader in Washington, D.C., was wrapping up her last week in school ahead of Christmas break when the unexpected happen.

A fully vaccinated 8-year-old, Gretchen tested positive at school for the virus that causes COVID-19 — likely the omicron variant that has whipped around the globe with lightning speed.

Within a matter of hours, a long-planned family trip to Seattle to visit a new baby cousin suddenly evaporated. Her parents’ tickets to the new Spider-Man movie went unused. And Gretchen, whose symptoms are mild, is now mostly isolating until her parents can figure out next steps.

“I didn’t think that they would have to separate me from my sister,” Gretchen said when asked about the worst part of getting COVID just days before Christmas.

It’s the Grinch’s dirtiest trick yet. If 2020 was the year we all stayed home, 2021 was supposed to be the year of joyous family reunions and travel splurges.

Instead, the nation has logged more than 1.1 million new coronavirus cases in the last week alone. And many of the cases are children, with 170,000 kids testing positive last week.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says any person infected with the virus — vaccinated or not — should isolate for 10 days. That means staying alone in a bedroom and, if possible, not sharing a bathroom.

It’s a rule that’s never been practical for families living in small spaces or with very young children.

It’s also one that, during Christmas, seems a particularly cruel twist of fate for conscientious parents and their Santa-loving kids.

“We have done everything that we were supposed to do,” said Gretchen’s mom, Gloria Lee, who, like her husband, is both vaccinated and boosted.

Dr. Mark Kline, an American pediatrician and infectious diseases specialist working as physician-in-chief and chief medical officer at Children’s Hospital New Orleans, said there’s no one good answer for how to handle a COVID case in the family.

In lieu of strict isolation, a family could opt for masks in the house, assuming everyone else is fully vaccinated and low medical risk, he said. Upgrading to surgical masks instead of cloth masks is a good idea too. And moving the celebration outdoors or cracking the windows can make it less likely the virus will spread, Kline said.

“These are difficult questions to answer. There’s the ideal, and then there is the pragmatic approach. And I think we have to be pragmatists on this,” said Kline.

Some doctors and disease experts are questioning whether the 10-day isolation rule still makes sense if people are vaccinated. That’s because while a vaccinated person without symptoms can still spread the virus, they probably aren’t contagious for as long as an unvaccinated person.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins’ Center for Health Security, estimates a vaccinated person’s infectious period is about 40% or 50% shorter than the unvaccinated. So, instead of 10 days isolation, they might only need five or six, he said.

“When people get a breakthrough infection, the period of time that they are contagious is truncated, because the immune system jumps into effect very quickly and slams down the viral load,” Adalja said.

One tactic for families, Adalja said, could be to keep doing a rapid test on the COVID-positive person until they test negative. Whereas a laboratory PCR test might still pick up tiny pieces of the virus, the benefit of a rapid test is that it is most likely to register positive while a person is truly contagious.

The approach isn’t foolproof, and families might need to think twice if anyone has a medical condition that makes them vulnerable to a more serious outcome from COVID. But a truncated isolation period for a vaccinated person is already being pushed by the airlines and some health care workers who say it doesn’t make sense to keep vaccinated personnel at home for the full 10 days.

Late Thursday, the CDC relaxed its quarantine and isolation rules slightly for health care workers out of concern that hospitals might face severe staffing shortages next month following the latest wave of omicron cases.

“We have the technology to (avoid) one-size-fits-all isolation periods for everybody. We can use antigen testing to be able to do this,” Adalja said. “If the NFL can do it, why can’t we?”

As for Gretchen, who is asking in vain for a puppy this Christmas, she isn’t too worried about getting sick because she understands the vaccine will protect her.

But her parents say they wouldn’t mind more up-to-date guidance from federal health officials on whether a 10-day isolation period makes sense for a vaccinated person and how to navigate testing other vaccinated members of the household.

“There are obvious downsides to not making memories and missing out playing and being social. Those are real harms,” said Gretchen’s father, Woo Lee.

“But you know, the other side of that is that she could continue to spread this virus,” he said, adding, “Our decisions could affect other people.”

ABC News’ producer Arielle Mitropoulos and Karen Travers contributed to this report.

Author Joan Didion has died at 87

December 24, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Revered journalist and author Joan Didion died Thursday at her home in New York City due to complications from Parkinson’s disease, her longtime publisher confirmed to ABC News. She was 87-years-old.

Didion was known as one of most incisive writers of her time, penning screenplays, novels and works of nonfiction, including two books about her own personal losses: “The Year of Magical Thinking” and “Blue Nights.”

“Joan was a brilliant observer and listener, a wise and subtle teller of truths about our present and future. She was fierce and fearless in her reporting. Her writing is timeless and powerful, and her prose has influenced millions,” her editor, Shelley Wanger, said in a statement. “She was a close and longtime friend, loved by many, including those of us who worked with her at Knopf. We will mourn her death but celebrate her life, knowing that her work will inspire generations of readers and writers to come.”

Born in Sacramento, Didion was a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and went on to live in New York City, where she launched her career as a journalist, working at Vogue. Her first book, “Run River,” was published in 1963; other novels included “A Book of Common Prayer,” “Democracy” and “The Last Thing He Wanted.”

The next year, Didion married fellow writer John Gregory Dunne, who became her longtime collaborator. Together, they moved to California and worked on screenplays for “The Panic in Needle Park,” “Play It As It Lays,” based on her novel of the same name about Hollywood and depression, and “A Star Is Born,” among others.

In 1967, Didion and Dunne adopted their daughter, Quintana Roo.

Didion documented her time in California in the ’60s, including an unflinching look at the counterculture movement, in an essay collection, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” that became iconic.

“My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does,” she wrote as part of that collection.

Alongside “The White Album,” a later collection of essays, Didion established herself as a storyteller for California in the second half of the 20th century.

Through the last two decades of the 20th century, Didion wrote about the Central Park Five, El Salvador and the Cold War, and plenty on American politics, among many other topics — sometimes as reporting and nonfiction essays, sometimes as novels.

“The narrative is made up of many such understandings, tacit agreements, small and large, to overlook the observable in the interests of obtaining a dramatic story line,” she wrote in a 1988 piece for The New York Review about presidential election campaigns.

Even as she had said “Goodbye to All That,” Didion kept a foot in New York for the rest of her life. Into the 2000s, Didion and Dunne lived in a New York City apartment, where Dunne died in late December 2003 of a sudden heart attack.

She wrote a memoir, “The Year of Magical Thinking,” as a sort of attempt to understand her husband’s death. With her characteristic specificity and thoughtfulness, she reported on her own thoughts in the year after Dunne’s death, a portrait that earned her the National Book Award for Fiction in 2005.

As her husband died, their daughter, Quintana, was in the hospital with pneumonia and septic shock. While Quintana ultimately survived that, she died a year and a half later, in August 2005, shortly before “The Year of Magical Thinking” was published, after a fall. After her daughter’s death, Didion wrote “Blue Nights,” published in 2011, a kaleidoscopic rumination on motherhood, illness and death, and Quintana.

Didion, a 2013 recipient of the National Medal of Arts and Humanities, had her latest essay collection, “Let Me Tell You What I Mean,” published earlier this year.

“All I knew then was what I couldn’t do,” Didion wrote about her college years, in a 1976 piece for the New York Times titled “Why I Write.” “All I knew then was what I wasn’t, and it took me some years to discover what I was.

Which was a writer.”

South Korea pardons former President Park Geun-hye

December 24, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(SEOUL, South Korea) — South Korea’s government will grant a special pardon to former President Park Guen-hye, who was in prison on corruption charges.

“From the perspective of national reconciliation, former President Park Geun-hye, who is serving a long-term prison sentence, will be granted a special pardon,” the Justice Ministry said in a statement Friday.

Park had served almost five years of the 22-year prison sentence since March 2017.

“In the case of former President Park, her deteriorating health condition after serving nearly five years was considered,” President Moon Jae-in said in a statement on the special pardon Friday morning, according to South Korea’s presidential office.

The presidential office statement also said the pardon was a move to overcome the pain of the past and move on to a new era while asking for a deep understanding from those who disagree with the pardon.

There were split views on Moon’s decision to release the 69-year-old former president.

“I see it as an appropriate amnesty in terms of national unity,” Shin Beom-chul, director of the Center for Diplomacy and Security at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, told ABC News. “Conflicts between the ruling and opposition parties are growing too much, which is also an opportunity to resolve and the state needs to come together.”

On the other hand, civil society organization People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy sent out statements opposing the presidential pardon, claiming it is “far from social integration and an amnesty based on political considerations ahead of the presidential election in March.”

Along with Park, a total of 3,094 people will be released from prison on Dec. 31 as part of Moon’s special pardon.

Park was the first female president of South Korea and became the first democratically elected leader to be thrown out of office in 2017. Back then, the Constitutional Court upheld a parliament vote to impeach her over a corruption scandal that also landed the heads of two conglomerates in jail.

14-year-old girl in dressing room killed by stray bullet during police shooting at LA store

December 24, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(LOS ANGELES) — Two people were fatally shot, including a 14-year-old girl struck by a stray bullet that entered her dressing room, after officers opened fire during a confrontation with a suspect at a Los Angeles clothing store, police said.

The incident occurred shortly before noon Thursday at a Burlington store in North Hollywood, where Los Angeles police responded to reports of an assault with a deadly weapon, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

While searching for the suspect, “the officers encountered an individual who was in the process of assaulting another, and an officer-involved shooting occurred,” LAPD Capt. Stacy Spell told reporters during a news briefing.

The suspect, an adult man, was shot by police and declared dead at the scene, LAPD said.

A second person was also shot during the incident, whom LAPD later identified as a 14-year-old girl.

Police believe the teenager was struck by an officer’s bullet fired at the assault suspect that penetrated a wall into her dressing room, LAPD said in an update Thursday evening. She was found during a search for additional suspects and victims and pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

“At this time we believe it was a round coming from an officer,” LAPD Assistant Chief Dominic Choi told reporters Thursday evening.

The identities of the teenager and suspect have not been released.

A third person, a woman, was also injured during the alleged assault, Spell said, and was transported to the hospital. Investigators were still determining the extent and nature of her injuries.

It is also unclear if there was any connection between her and the suspect, Choi said.

Investigators were still determining what prompted the officers to open fire and what the alleged weapon was. Police have not found a gun during the search of the area at this time, Choi said.

“We’re at the very preliminary stages of this investigation,” Spell said. “There’s still a lot of surveillance video to review, there are witnesses to interview.”

Investigators will also be looking at police body-worn camera footage, which was on during the incident, Choi said. The officers involved in the shooting also still need to be interviewed, he said.

A Burlington spokesperson said the company is supporting authorities during the ongoing investigation.

“At Burlington, our hearts are heavy as a result of the tragic incident that occurred today at our North Hollywood, CA store,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Our top priority is always the safety and well-being of our customers and associates.”

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