(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department has announced charges against an Ohio man accused of making threats against a local reproductive health services clinic.
Newly unsealed charging documents allege Carlos Manuel Rodriquez Brime, 25, of making two separate threats via telephone to the Your Choice Healthcare facility in Columbus on April 11.
“My girlfriend is a patient there and I’m going to bring the heat. If she kills my baby, I’m going to kill her,” Brime allegedly said in the first call.
A little over two hours later, Brime called again and made a bomb threat, saying, “My organization will be bringing a bomb to your facility. I suggest you close your doors.”
Brime was charged with one count of violating the FACE Act, which makes it a crime to threaten anyone receiving or providing reproductive health services.
In recent weeks, the Justice Department has vowed aggressive enforcement of the FACE Act in Texas against anyone who levies threats against those seeking abortions or reproductive health clinic workers, after the state’s restrictive law banning most abortions took effect earlier this month.
Brime is also charged with two other counts making threatening statements and making a bomb threat. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, according to the DOJ.
He was arrested Thursday and ordered to remain detained pending further legal proceedings. He has not yet entered a plea in his case and his arraignment is scheduled for next Thursday.
A public defender listed as representing Brime did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
(WASHINGTON) — Federal advisers on Friday voted 18-0 in favor of recommending Pfizer booster shots for anyone over 65 or anyone who is at high risk of severe disease from COVID-19. However, the panel declined to recommend boosters for all Americans as young as 16 who took the Pfizer vaccine more than six months ago.
If the Food and Drug Administrations agrees with the plan, which is likely, it’s possible that booster shots would roll out as early as next week to these populations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would weigh in first though with more specific recommendations on who exactly should take the third shots.
Members of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee scrutinized new data from Israel and questioned whether boosters are really necessary, particularly among younger populations.
The largest sticking point was the lack of data on the effect boosters could have on young people, particularly because 16- and 17-year-olds weren’t included in the trial. Myocarditis, a heart inflammation condition, occurred mostly in young men, though very rarely, after their second mRNA dose, so members wanted to see more data on the effects of a third shot.
While many Americans have already opted for third shots, with doctors allowing them as an “off-label” practice, it’s up to federal regulators to decide how the vaccines are labeled and administered.
The debate has become unusually charged, in part because of White House involvement. President Joe Biden said he would only act on rolling out boosters if the FDA and CDC agreed. But his public pronouncement that the rollout would begin as early as Monday suggested the decision was a foregone conclusion, leading to accusations by some scientists that the Biden administration was pressuring independent regulators.
Following FDA approval, the CDC will determine who exactly should get a booster. After that CDC recommendation is made, booster shots would be available through any of the nation’s 40,000 pharmacies, doctors offices and other sites already offering the Pfizer vaccine.
The CDC has said vaccines still offer extraordinary protection against hospitalization and death, with more than 90% of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 being unvaccinated. At Friday’s FDA briefing, a CDC official said vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization in adults age 75 and older remained at about 88% through July.
But there were other signs that immunity waned with time.
A new Israeli study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found 11.3-fold lower rates of infection and 19.5-fold lower rates of severe COVID-19 among people older than 60 who got a booster dose. Also, an Israel Ministry of Health analysis estimated approximately 10-fold improved protection against infection and severe COVID-19 among people who got a booster.
Sharon Alroy-Preis, head of public health services at Israel’s Health Ministry, said Israel became concerned when it saw cases of fully vaccinated residents infecting other members of their households and – at times — winding up hospitalized.
“We definitely see that cases that are vaccinated — doubly vaccinated — that are no longer fresh” six months from their second dose, Alroy-Preis said. These vaccinated cases “are infecting other people. It’s obviously less than non vaccinated. But we’re seeing that, especially in their household.”
ABC News’ Sony Salzman contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Central Command Gen. Frank McKenzie admitted at a briefing Friday that the Aug. 29 drone strike near Kabul airport was “a mistake.”
Ten people were killed in the strike, which the U.S. believed was targeting a terrorist, but instead killed an aid worker.
“I am now convinced that as many as 10 civilians, including up to seven children were tragically killed in that strike,” said McKenzie. “Moreover, we now assess that it is unlikely that the vehicle and those who died or associated with ISIS Khorasan or were a direct threat to US forces.”
“I offer my profound condolences to the family and friends of those who were killed,” said McKenzie.
He noted that the drone strike was carried out “in the earnest belief that it would prevent and terminate a threat to our forces and the evacuees at the airport, but it was a mistake. And I offer my sincere apology.”
“As a combatant commander,” he added. “I am fully responsible for this strike in this tragic outcome.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
(BUDAPEST, Hungary) — Cryptocurrency enthusiasts unveiled what they say is the world’s first statue of mystery-shrouded Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, at a park in Budapest, Hungary.
The expressionless, ultra-shiny bust is meant to represent “a general human figure, since we do not know the gender, race, age [or] height of the mysterious developer,” the creators of the project wrote on a website set up for the statue’s debut.
The creation of the monument to the digital currency legend was led by Andras Gyofi, the editor of a Hungarian cryptocurrency news site, as well as other key players in the Central European nation’s digital currency space.
The statue features a hoodie-clad figure constructed of bronze, but the face features a special bronze-aluminum composite so “every visitor can see their own face when looking at Satoshi,” the project organizers wrote. The art was the work of two Hungarian sculptors, Gergely Reka and Tamas Gilly, who decided to make the reflective face to represent a concept of “We are all Satoshi.”
A global debate has ensued for years as to who the actual person or persons behind the iconic pseudonym is. Despite many people claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto — and a handful of others being called him by investigative reporters — the actual original author of the whitepaper that launched Bitcoin in 2008 has not been identified.
Given Bitcoin’s meteoric rise over the past decade or so — a single bitcoin worth about $600 five years ago now is worth more than $47,000 — Satoshi Nakamoto may have become a billionaire as cryptocurrency became more mainstream. Earlier this month, El Salvador became the first nation in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.
The mythic nature of the Bitcoin creator only seems to lend to his revered status among crypto evangelists.
A large crowd turned out to view the unveiling of the statue on Thursday in Graphisoft Park, a business park in Hungary’s capital city. The statue is available for public viewing, free of charge.
The sculpture’s creators look at Bitcoin as “much more” than just a cryptocurrency, and said they sought to honor the “very important legacy” of its creator.
“The underlying technology, blockchain that Satoshi Nakamoto introduced to the world, can truly make our life better,” they wrote on their website. “Transparency, fairness, several other values in numerous fields, this is what blockchain truly means.”
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 670,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.6 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 63.5% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Sep 17, 11:56 am
125 employees leave Indiana hospital system after refusing vaccine
Indiana University Health, the state’s largest network of physicians, said 125 employees have left after choosing to not get vaccinated.
All workers were required to be fully vaccinated by Sept. 1. Those who didn’t were given a two-week unpaid suspension ending Sept. 14, and those who still didn’t agree to the shot by that point “left the organization,” according to a statement by IU Health.
Sep 17, 11:21 am
Art exhibit commemorating COVID deaths opens to public
An art exhibit commemorating the Americans who died from COVID-19 is opening to the public on Friday.
The exhibit, which will run until Oct. 3, displays more than 660,000 white flags on the National Mall at the base of the Washington Monument.
This is the largest participatory art installation on the National Mall since the AIDS Memorial Quilt.
Sep 17, 10:56 am
Kentucky school district cancels all classes due to increase in cases
Newport Independent Schools in Kentucky has canceled all classes on Friday due to an increase in the number of sick or quarantined students, the district said.
Classes will be virtual on Monday and Tuesday. The district said it plans to return to in-person learning on Wednesday.
Sep 17, 10:44 am
More than 10,000 new deaths reported in US in 1 week
The U.S. recorded more than 10,100 confirmed COVID-19 related deaths in one week, according to federal data. States with some of the highest death tolls are Texas, Georgia and North Carolina.
The U.S. reported more than 1.02 million cases over the last week. This is a major step back in the fight against COVID-19; in June, the U.S. recorded just 80,000 new cases in one week.
Tennessee and West Virginia currently have the country’s highest case rate, followed by Alaska, Wyoming, South Carolina, Montana and Kentucky, according to federal data.
(MOSCOW) — In St. Petersburg’s municipal elections this week, Boris Vishnevsky is running against himself. But that does not mean he has no challengers. Far from it, in fact.
The veteran anti-Kremlin opposition politician is running against two men who have legally changed their names to be the same as his. They have even altered their appearances on the ballots, adopting beards to resemble him.
It is an update on a long-running tactic in Russian elections, known as “a double,” where authorities try to siphon votes away from an opponent by putting up candidates with the same name in the hope confused voters will put their mark next to the wrong person on their ballot paper.
Vishnevsky filed a complaint to the elections commission but it was rejected. He said had faced similar tactics before, but not at such lengths.
“We’ve simply never had such a thing before,” Vishnevsky told ABC News in an interview last month. “We’ve had situations before where they’ve put up people with the same last names in elections, but before this we’ve never had someone changing their last name and first name.”
The clone candidate ploy — which is being used in multiple races in Moscow too — is just one of a torrent of alleged dirty tricks, manipulation and crude repression being deployed around Russia’s parliamentary elections that are taking place this weekend and that the Kremlin is determined will produce a convincing result for its ruling party. The three-day vote, which starts Friday, decides seats in Russia’s lower house of parliament, as well as in regional and local councils.
Russia’s elections are heavily managed and as usual the outcome is not in doubt: President Vladimir Putin’s ruling party, United Russia, will keep its constitutional majority in Russia’s 450-seat lower house, known as the Duma. A handful of parties, vetted by the Kremlin, make up the rest.
But the environment these elections are happening in is different, coming as Russia has rapidly slid over the past year from authoritarianism to something far closer to a full-fledged dictatorship, where no real political opposition is tolerated.
Authorities have blocked opposition candidates on a broad scale, introducing new procedural and legal barriers or, in some cases, simply jailing or driving them out of the country with the threat of arrest.
This time, anti-Kremlin candidates who once would have been tolerated on the ballot have no place. In June, Dmitry Gudkov, one of the opposition’s best-known politicians, left for exile in Ukraine, saying he and his family had been threatened with jail. Even the traditionally tame opposition parties have come under attack, in particular the Communist Party, which saw one of its top leaders, Pavel Grudinin, barred from running.
“Faster and faster democratic progress is devolving into dictatorship,” said Darya Artamonova, a 19 year-old candidate running in municipal elections in a suburb in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, one of the only opposition candidates permitted on the ballot there. During the campaign she told ABC News her parents were sent a funeral wreath expressing condolences for her death, an obvious threat.
In the past 18 months, the Kremlin has launched a broad campaign of repression larger than anything in Putin’s 20-year rule. Critics and independent analysts say the campaign is aimed at squeezing out organized dissent in the country.
That has included outlawing the movement of Alexey Navalny, Putin’s best-known opponent who authorities jailed in January after he survived a nerve agent poisoning. A new law bans anyone associated with Navalny’s organizations from running for office for five years.
An arsenal of new laws has given authorities broad capabilities to jail or block critics from the vote. Safeguards to prevent ballot stuffing have also been weakened: Authorities have pushed people to vote online, a tactic critics say will facilitate rigging. Holding the vote itself over three days also makes monitoring more difficult. Russia’s election commission this year will also not live-stream CCTV from voting stations.
Moreover, the campaign has targeted independent media. Authorities have designated most of Russia’s leading independent news sites as “foreign agents,” a label that imposes restrictions and opens reporters up to risk of criminal prosecution. A top election monitoring group, Golos, has also received the same designation.
The intense control around the elections, analysts said, reflects the Kremlin’s concerns that the ruling party United Russia is polling at below 30%, a historic low.
In Russia, where the parliament is effectively a tame extension of the Kremlin, the main purpose of elections is about producing a big result for United Russia to validate Putin, according to Andrey Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
“They are not about political representation,” Kolesnikov wrote in an article this week. “What will happen over the three days of September 17–19, 2021, is more of a confidence vote on Putin and his regime.”
To boost the result, authorities have been pressing state employees and military personnel to register to vote, with some state organizations telling staff they must persuade at least two others to do so too. On Friday, long lines appeared at some polling stations in Moscow, a sign critics said of state workers being obliged to go vote. At one station in the central Arbat neighborhood, a man in a line told ABC News many of those waiting were soldiers from a nearby defense ministry headquarters building. Moscow’s elections commission later confirmed the queue was being caused by military personnel voting.
Navalny’s team is seeking to exploit United Russia’s unpopularity. His group has launched a tactical voting campaign known as “Smart Voting.” The campaign calls for people to vote for any candidate with the best chance of beating United Russia’s, regardless of who they are. This week Navalny’s team published a list of candidates — the majority from Russia’s Communist Party — it recommends people should vote for.
The authorities have moved to block the tactical voting campaign, forcing Russian search engines to remove “Smart Voting” from their searches.
On Friday, Apple and Google deleted Navalny’s app from their stores in Russia, under pressure from Russia’s government. In a letter published by Navalny’s team, Apple said it was obliged to because Navalny’s organization is banned as extremist and that authorities allege it illegally enables “election interference.”
(WASHINGTON) — On one small, white rectangle is the name of a 29-year-old engineer, on another the name of a World War II veteran, and on a third, that of a 15-year-old — just three of more than 600,000 flags on the National Mall reflecting the devastating impact COVID-19 has had on American lives and the country.
On the grassy expanse near the Washington Monument, the field of flags is being displayed as a part of a chilling exhibition called “In America: Remember.”
Each represents a life lost to the pandemic, and each sits amid a sea of symbolic grief.
This is the second stunning exhibit based on a project trying to capture, the artist said, the “human dignity” behind the mind-numbing numbers.
Back in the fall of 2020, the first featured a then-unthinkable 200,000 flags near RFK Stadium in Washington.
Since then, the scope of the new project has more than tripled as the death toll continues to rise, coming ever closer to the number estimated to have died during the 1918 influenza pandemic, now at more than 667,000 — or one in every 500 Americans.
The exhibit, being unveiled Friday, will stay on the National Mall until Oct. 3.
Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg, the artist, spoke with ABC News as more and more flags were being placed on Thursday.
“It’s really hard to think about the grief that is just embodied by one flag,” Firstenberg said. “And when as you walk amongst 660,000, it’s unimaginable the pain that people have gone through.”
Visitors can stop at a table and personalize a flag with the name of a loved one lost.
Many now also carry messages from across the country submitted on the project’s website, messages to mothers, fathers, siblings and friends. Firstenberg said she hoped it could be cathartic for families not able to hold large funerals or be with family and other loved ones given pandemic restrictions.
Some are to strangers, but fellow Americans.
She recalled one emergency room doctor who traveled to Washington from New York last fall to add the names of 12 patients he lost to COVID.
He then turned around, she said, heading back to start a new shift.
Firstenberg said she hopes the flags, and the sound of them being pulled in the wind, will give visitors “a moment of pause.”
“This is all of our art,” she said, “because it’s when people personalize flags and a complete stranger comes and meets that flag and feels something, senses the grief that is embodied by just that one flag, they created the art, too.”
(ATLANTA) — Despite the persistent pleas by public health officials to get vaccinated as coronavirus infections continue to surge, a staggeringly low number of pregnant people have been vaccinated against the virus nationwide.
Just 25% of pregnant people in the United States between the ages of 18 and 49 are currently vaccinated with at least one dose, according to data through Sept. 11 compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The decision to not get vaccinated has resulted in a growing number of pregnant people ending up in intensive care wards, many severely ill with COVID-19. This worrisome uptick has been particularly evident in Mississippi, where state health officials have been sounding the alarm not only about the influx of fetal and maternal deaths, but also about several reports of pregnant women being turned away from getting the shot.
“Some of the patients had reported to us that they had gone to be vaccinated, and were turned away because they were pregnant. Those were people who were just sharing their experiences at pharmacies and other areas around the state,” Dr. Michelle Owens, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at University of Mississippi Medical Center, told ABC News.
Owens, alongside other state health officials, reported this week that not all of their patients had been vaccine-hesitant, but instead were turned down after disclosing that they were expecting.
“People are kind of adverse to pregnant patients when they come in. They’re hesitant to give pregnant patients medications, and certainly, vaccinations kind of fall into that,” said Dr. Marty Tucker, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at UMMC, during a press conference on Thursday.
In light of the concerning reports, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs issued a standing order last week for women to receive COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy, “to give the pharmacy some reassurance for the places that it’s OK and recommended for pregnant women to get immunized at any stage in pregnancy.”
Owens added that health officials and physicians were all working together “to help reduce barriers to vaccination for pregnant women, and we just really tried to amplify this information so that wherever a pregnant person goes in order to receive care or to receive a vaccine that they are welcomed with open arms and that they receive that vaccine.”
In Mississippi, 72 patients have experienced late pregnancy loss and 15 pregnant women have succumbed to the virus, more than half of whom have died since the end of July. None of the pregnant women who died was fully vaccinated, and the majority were overweight, according Dobbs.
“There are NICUs all over this country that are filling up with babies who will not get to know their moms, and that’s devastating. There are families who are losing their matriarchs, and then, there are women who have been infected by this virus who won’t ever be the same,” Owens said.
Since the onset of the pandemic, more than 21,000 pregnant people have been hospitalized nationwide, and at least 155 have died as result of COVID-19, according to federal data. Additionally, there have been at least 266 pregnancy losses nationwide, and approximately 10.3% of patients have had to deliver prematurely.
“When we lose a mom, especially something that could be prevented, it is a tragedy. It does not discriminate, we see it in people with and without co-morbidities. We see it in people as young as 23 years old, so it is a bad actor across the board,” Tucker said.
Earlier in the pandemic, pregnant women at UMMC were not becoming as severely ill with COVID-19, but following the spread of the delta variant, Owens said, it became evident patients were becoming severely ill and deteriorating more quickly.
“We are seeing women, who may not have other co-morbid conditions, being affected at an earlier gestational age. Most of the people who we’re seeing now, are affected in the middle of their pregnancy, and they have a much more aggressive form of the disease,” Owens said. “The next thing you know, they end up progressing very quickly to need intubation.”
Pregnant people are at an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19 when compared to non-pregnant people, according to the CDC. In addition, they are also at increased risk for preterm birth and other poor pregnancy outcomes.
The CDC and other leading health organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, have issued guidelines calling on all pregnant people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
“CDC encourages all pregnant people or people who are thinking about becoming pregnant and those breastfeeding to get vaccinated to protect themselves from COVID-19,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement about the updated guidance last month. “The vaccines are safe and effective, and it has never been more urgent to increase vaccinations as we face the highly transmissible Delta variant and see severe outcomes from COVID-19 among unvaccinated pregnant people.”
The updated guidance from the CDC was based on further research that found pregnant people can receive an mRNA vaccine with no increased risk to themselves or their babies.
“[It] is really the most important thing to give pregnant women an opportunity to still be able to live to fight another day,” Owens said. “It’s really imperative that women get the good information to know that the COVID vaccine is safe, approved and recommended, and that it makes a big difference in whether or not a patient has severe disease, or potentially, could die.”
(ANCHORAGE, Alaska) — In January, Alaska had the highest per capita coronavirus vaccination rate in the nation. Now, hospitals are overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, and the state’s largest hospital is rationing care.
Vaccine hesitancy and the delta variant have pushed the state’s fragile and limited hospital system to the breaking point.
Providence Alaska Medical Center, the state’s largest hospital, released a letter to the public Tuesday saying that more than 30% of its patients have COVID-19 and the hospital is rationing treatment.
“While we are doing our utmost, we are no longer able to provide the standard of care to each and every patient who needs our help,” wrote Chief of Staff Kristen Solana Walkinshaw on behalf of the hospital’s Medical Executive Committee. “The acuity and number of patients now exceeds our resources and our ability to staff beds with skilled caregivers, like nurses and respiratory therapists.”
Of Alaska’s 120 ICU beds, 106 were filled as of Thursday — leaving only 14 beds available statewide.
Alaska had a strong initial vaccine rollout, delivering doses to remote areas of the state by helicopters, planes, dog sleds and ferries, with additional support from the Indian Health Service and state tribal health system to vaccinate Alaska Natives. Due to the challenges posed by the state’s vast size, it received vaccine allocations monthly as opposed to weekly, giving it the ability to plan ahead and deliver many doses early on.
But, as in the rest of the country, vaccination rates slowly began dropping off over the summer, stagnating with 56.7% of Alaskans fully vaccinated as of Thursday, according to the state’s coronavirus dashboard.
“In terms of why things went stagnant, it does seem like hesitancy is the main factor behind that,” said Jared Kosin, CEO and president of the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association. “It’s not an access issue. The vaccine’s widely available in Alaska anywhere.”
Gov. Mike Dunleavy ended Alaska’s COVID-19 emergency declaration in the spring, and both the state legislature and Dunleavy’s administration have yet to reinstate one even at the pleading of hospitals and doctors.
In a spring mayoral race, Anchorage voters elected Dave Bronson, who has repeatedly said his administration will not enact citywide mask or vaccine mandates.
Bronson reiterated that commitment on Tuesday after an assembly meeting where hospital workers begged for action.
Cases in Alaska have been sharply increasing since August, and the state shattered its new daily case record with 1,068 infections reported Wednesday. As a result, hospitalizations have skyrocketed, reaching all time highs.
And health care experts warn this is only the beginning of a surge that could last weeks.
“It has brought us to the breaking point, and to be totally direct, in many respects we are broken,” said Kosin. “The situation is extremely bleak.”
Alaska runs on a “hub-and-spoke model” of health care, according to Kosin. “If you’re in a more rural area, you’re going to go to clinics, rural hospitals,” he told ABC News. “The idea is, as you need a higher level of care or (have) more needs, you will transfer in, ultimately, to our biggest hub, which is Anchorage.”
Anchorage, the state’s most populous city, is home to the state’s three largest hospitals — some of which offer the only advanced neurological and cardiovascular care in the state. While many people live in rural and geographically isolated areas, those communities still rely on the specialty medical care that can only be found in the city.
As city hospitals have reached capacity and Anchorage residents are forced to remain in their cars or emergency room waiting areas until they can receive care, health care institutions must refuse transfer patients from rural communities, leaving them without what can be lifesaving treatment, Solana Walkinshaw said.
The nearest next option are hospitals in the contiguous U.S. like Seattle, Washington — an over three-hour flight away. Seattle is also experiencing an influx of COVID-19 patients and is trying to help by taking patients from neighboring states like Idaho, which is coping with its most serious surge in cases since the beginning of the pandemic. That leaves very limited options.
Because city hospitals are inundated with COVID-19 cases, they are struggling to provide routine care and emergency services to patients who do not have the virus.
As of Tuesday night, Providence Alaska Medical Center had only a single available bed with 10 admitted patients in need of one, along with patients in the emergency room also waiting for an opening, Solana Walkinshaw said. Three of those patients needed an ICU bed, but the hospital had none available.
Between 80-85% of COVID-19 patients at the hospital are unvaccinated and the same is true of the COVID-19 patients who die, according to Providence Alaska Medical Center spokesperson Mikal Canfield.
The hospital began rationing care Saturday, leaving health care workers to decide which patients get care and which ones have to wait. The staff is demoralized, Solana Walkinshaw said, with some breaking down in tears, sad and frustrated over the situation they find themselves in.
“People are struggling, working as hard as they can and having to make these decisions is probably some of the hardest things people have done in their careers,” she said.
While rural Alaska has experienced a stark increase in coronavirus cases, with some communities seeing the worst outbreaks on record, rural health providers are not being hit as hard with COVID-19 patients, Kosin said.
That’s due to the smaller populations outside of the city, the fact that the COVID-19 patients in the most serious condition are sent to Anchorage and because some of the villages have very high vaccination rates.
The bigger problem for rural institutions is that they are being tasked with caring for non-COVID-19 patients they would typically transfer to Anchorage.
At Tuesday’s city assembly meeting, a group of health care workers from hospitals across Anchorage pleaded for residents to wear masks and get vaccinated.
Leslie Gonsette, an internal medicine hospitalist at Providence Alaska Medical Center, came to testify at the meeting during her hospital shift. One of her patients, who does not have COVID-19 and is vaccinated, was in critical condition and in need of an ICU bed, she said.
“I called my colleagues in the ICU, and I explained, ‘My patient is going to probably die. I need an ICU bed,'” she said. “And the answer I got was, ‘We are doing our best. We do not have a bed.'”
Bronson’s office released a statement after the meeting.
“My administration has been clear since the beginning that we will not mandate masks or vaccines,” it said. “If someone wants to wear a mask or get a vaccination that’s their personal choice. But we will not violate the privacy and independent health care decisions of our citizens in the process.”
Alaska’s health care providers, however, are left worrying about the kinds of choices they will be left with.
“Rationing care will take on a whole new meaning than it does today,” Kosin said. “I think it’s going to lead to the types of decisions you can’t imagine a person having to make.”
(NEW YORK) — With the FDA gearing up to decide if all Americans need booster shots, some researchers are pointing to preliminary data suggesting that mixing different vaccines could offer an even stronger immune boost.
For now, data is too sparse to support a mix-and-match strategy, experts say. But scientists are learning more about just how strong the immune response can be for someone who has previously been infected with COVID-19 then gets the vaccine — a phenomenon called “hybrid immunity.”
“The best thing we can hope for is that three vaccine doses will emulate the super immune response, found among those previously infected with the virus,” said Dr. Paul Goepfert, an infectious disease physician and director of the Alabama Vaccine Research Clinic. “This [type of immunity] will protect against variants in the future.”
With the nation still slogging through the pandemic and contending with the delta variant’s threat of breakthrough infections, “super immunity” becomes an appealing concept.
In one review recently published in Science, people with that hybrid immunity see an immediate and “striking” improvement in protection — up to a 100-fold increase in their antibody response as compared to what they built up after their COVID-19 infection — Dr. Shane Crotty, review author and virologist at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, said.
Experts are also discovering these hybrid antibodies appear to be more versatile and recognize more variants, including those as distant as the original SARS virus, Crotty said.
One yet to be peer reviewed study of previously COVID-19 positive patients who were then vaccinated at least six months later found participants were able to fight off both variants of concern tested: delta, the most infectious, and beta, the most lethal.
“With prior infection, their antibodies are able to recognize numerous variants, but with the addition of the vaccine, they are able to generate a large number to have a stronger effect against the virus,” Crotty said.
Like an exercise regimen that pairs weight lifting with cardio, Crotty explained that these individuals benefit from the combination of quantity and varied quality of the immune response they build. And that could indicate promising signs for boosters.
Scientists are seeking to replicate that strong protection, but without people having to contract COVID-19, as it’s universally agreed that infection is not an optimal immunization course.
Instead, they’re hoping booster doses of vaccines could convey a similar effect.
But timing is key when it comes to additional doses, whichever vaccine is given. Researchers say that exact right interval when immune response has matured — but before protection begins to wane — is the ideal target.
“Our immune system is built to have repeated exposures to the same antigen,” which will “substantially” enhance immune protection, Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center said.
Experts are still gleaning what exactly is the benefit of this enhanced immunity, though it’s not novel to coronavirus.
Flu vaccines, for example, are “boosted” for children receiving them, while adults receive one dose, yearly.
“This is because of hybrid immunity. Adults have already been exposed to influenza and have primed their immune response,” Goepfert said.
“What we have seen is that waiting six months does mount a better immune response later,” he added. “It seems that our immune system likes to rest and develop antibodies, and then mount a stronger response when it sees the same pathogen again later on.”
There is not enough data yet to say if the mix-and-match approach of priming one vaccine and boosting with another is going to offer better or more durable protection. But while the jury remains out, experts are hopeful.
“The mix-and-match approach in vaccine administration has been studied for decades, but unfortunately not for COVID,” Barouch said. “while larger studies are underway, it is best to stay with the same vaccine for the booster, if approved.”
