(BEXAR COUNTY, Texas) — A Texas court dismissed a lawsuit Thursday against a doctor accused of providing an abortion to a woman despite the state’s strict ban on the procedure.
Dr. Alan Braid performed the abortion for a patient in early September 2021, just five days after S.B.8 went into effect, which bans abortion after six weeks’ gestation. The patient’s pregnancy was further along than six weeks.
However, Bexar County Judge Aaron Haas said he was throwing out the case, dealing a major blow to the Texas law that allows citizens to sue anyone who aids a patient in receiving abortion care, including physicians. Federal courts — including the U.S. Supreme Court — had previously declined to block S.B. 8, saying they were powerless to block the law.
Several overlapping Texas laws ban nearly all abortions, including in cases of rape or incest. The only exception is if the mother’s life or health is in danger.
S.B.8 allows any private citizen to sue anyone who performs an abortion or assists a pregnant person in obtaining the procedure. The law awards a minimum of $10,000 to any citizen who successfully sues an abortion provider, healthcare worker or anyone who helps someone get access to abortion care.
In an op-ed written for The Washington Post last year, Braid said he acted despite the ban because had a “duty to care.”
“I acted because I had a duty of care to this patient, as I do for all patients, and because she has a fundamental right to receive this care,” he wrote.
Braid had three lawsuits filed against him — one by disbarred Illinois attorney Felipe Gomez in Texas, one in Arkansas and a third in Illinois — but only the Texas case was taken up.
On Thursday, the court announced it was dismissing the suit and ruled that Gomez does not have the legal right to sue because he was not been directly affected by the abortion care being provided. A written order is expected to come within a week.
It is the first and only active lawsuit against a provider to be resolved by a court since S.B.8 went into effect.
Additionally, the court said it would make a ruling in the next week about whether the part of the law that allows citizens to sue violates the state’s constitution.
“This is a significant win against S.B. 8’s bounty-hunting scheme because the court rejected the notion that Texas can allow a person with no connection to an abortion to sue,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is co-representing Braid, said in a statement.
“But this dismissal did not provide the opportunity to strike down S.B. 8 overall, and in the wake of the Dobbs decision, Texas is enforcing multiple abortion bans. As a result, pregnant Texans with life-threatening obstetric emergencies are being turned away from hospitals. No one should have to be near death just to get the health care they need,” the statement continued.
In a press call on Thursday, the Center’s senior counsel, Mark Hearron, told reporters that Braid has been forced to close his practices in Texas and Oklahoma and is providing care in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and in Illinois.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse Roe, at least 12 states have ceased nearly all abortion services.
According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, Texans face the longest travel times in the country to get access to abortion care. They are forced to travel over seven hours each way for access.
“When I provided my patient with the care she needed last year, I was doing my duty as a physician,” Braid said in a statement. “It is heartbreaking that Texans still can’t get essential health care in their home state and that providers are left afraid to do their jobs. Though we were forced to close our Texas clinic, I will continue serving patients across the region with the care they deserve at new clinics in Illinois and New Mexico.”
(LOS ANGELES) — Los Angeles County said Thursday it is holding off on issuing an indoor mask mandate amid rising COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.
During a press conference, LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said the county had moved into the “high” COVID-19 community transmission category, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but it would be sticking with its “strong recommendation.”
Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer left the option of a mask mandate on the table, but if and only if 10% of county hospital beds are filled with COVID patients.
Right now that number is only 6.9%, and the rate of increase has slowed in the past week. Ferrer said it’s not a forgone conclusion that the county will reach that critical level during the current surge.
“Being at a high community level does not mean returning to the more restrictive and disruptive measures that we used at earlier times in the pandemic, before we had good access to vaccines, boosters, testing and therapeutics,” she said at the conference.
This is a reversal from previous policy in the county that moving into the CDC’s “high” transmission level would spur a mandate. The changing guidance comes as the health department has dangled the prospect of an impending mask mandate for weeks in a row for the second time this year.
“We do ask that while we are in surge everyone ages two and older wear a mask in indoor public spaces,” Ferrer said.
As of Wednesday, Los Angeles County is recording more than 5,000 daily cases, the highest number recorded since Aug. 1, according to an ABC News analysis of health department data.
It’s also an 80% increase from the 2,805 cases recorded just two weeks ago on Nov. 23, the analysis found.
However, officials have previously stated that the true number of cases is likely much higher due to people testing positive and not reporting their results to the department or not testing at all.
What’s more, a total of 1,293 people are hospitalized with the virus as of Wednesday, a figure not seen since July 18, according to the analysis.
Masks continue to be compulsory indoors at healthcare and congregate-care facilities, at business where required and for anyone who has been exposed to COVID in the last 10 days.
Officials have stressed the importance of being vaccinated and boosted to prevent infection and severe disease, especially as the holiday season approaches.
As of Nov. 27 — the latest date for which health department data is available — 73% of all residents are fully vaccinated but the percentages vary widely by age.
Seniors aged 65 and older have the highest rate with 92% fully vaccinated while children between ages 6 months and 4 years have the lowest rate with just 6% fully vaccinated.
ABC News’ Matthew Fuhrman contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — In celebrating WNBA star Brittney Griner’s release, President Joe Biden made a point on Thursday to say the prisoner swap was “not a choice” between Griner and Paul Whelan, the American former Marine who is still detained in Russia.
“We never forgot about Brittney. We’ve not forgotten about Paul Whelan, who has been unjustly detained in Russia for years. This was not a choice of which American to bring home,” Biden said from the White House. “Sadly, or totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul’s case differently than Brittney’s, and while we have not yet succeeded in securing Paul’s release we are not giving up. We will never give up.”
Elizabeth Whelan, Paul’s sister, on a Zoom interview from Massachusetts in the afternoon, told ABC News the family had expected Griner might return first.
“We’ve always known that the Russians were treating Paul separately, and therefore, we always knew that there was a chance that this would happen, that would Brittney would be released first,” she said.
“We’re upset. We want Paul home,” she added. “We’re angry at Russia for for playing him around like this, for playing all of us around like this, but what we need to do is look forward to the plan to get him home.”
Whelan has spent four years in detention since he was seized in 2018 by Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service, while visiting Moscow for a friend’s wedding. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage charges but the United States and his family say they were fabricated in order to take him as a political bargaining chip.
In a phone interview with CNN on Thursday, Whelan said he was “greatly disappointed” to not also be returning home.
“I have to say I am greatly disappointed that more has not been done to secure my release. Especially as the four-year anniversary of my arrest is coming up. I was arrested for a crime that never occurred,” Whelan said. “I’m happy that Brittney is going home today and that Trevor went home when he did — but I don’t understand why I’m still sitting here,” he added.
He said he hopes officials will do everything they can to bring him home, “regardless of the price they may have to pay at this point.”
“My bags are packed. I’m ready to go home. I just need an airplane to come and get me,” Whelan said.
Some Republicans on Capitol Hill were quick to blast the prisoner swap, including House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy.
“This is a gift to Vladimir Putin, and it endangers American lives,” McCarthy tweeted. “Leaving Paul Whelan behind for this is unconscionable.”
Biden administration officials will remain in close contact with the Whelan family, the president said earlier.
“We’ll keep negotiating in good faith for Paul’s release. I guarantee that. I say that to the family. I guarantee you. I urge Russia to do the same to ensure that Paul’s health and humane treatment are maintained until we are able to bring him home. I don’t want any American to sit wrongfully detained one extra day if we can bring that person home,” he said.
Whelan’s twin brother, David, released a statement just ahead of Biden’s remarks calling the swap for Griner “the right decision.”
“As the family member of a Russian hostage, I can literally only imagine the joy she will have, being reunited with her loved ones, and in time for the holidays. There is no greater success than for a wrongful detainee to be freed and for them to go home. The Biden Administration made the right decision to bring Ms. Griner home, and to make the deal that was possible, rather than waiting for one that wasn’t going to happen,” he said.
He said officials let them know in advance “that Paul would be left behind,” unlike in April, when news broke of former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed’s return.
“This is the event we wish for so much for our own family,” the Whelans said in April, and again on Thursday. “She will be reunited with her family. Brittney is free. And Paul is still a hostage.”
A senior Biden administration official told reporters on a background call that another official had spoken “at length” with Whelan from prison to talk through the news of Griner’s release.
“I want to be very clear: This was not a situation where we had a choice of which American to bring home. It was a choice between bringing home one particular American, Brittney Griner, or bringing home none,” the official said.
Griner will be back in the U.S. within 24 hours, according to officials.
“She’s safe. She’s on a plane. She’s on her way home,” Biden said alongside Brittney’s wife, Cherelle, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Blinken, in a written statement, praised Griner’s release but lamented that Whelan and his family “continue to suffer needlessly.”
“Despite our ceaseless efforts, the Russian Government has not yet been willing to bring a long overdue end to his wrongful detention. I wholeheartedly wish we could have brought Paul home today on the same plane with Brittney,” Blinken said.
Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who for months tried to help negotiate a trade for Griner and Whelan and travelled repeatedly to Moscow for meetings, said his team is thrilled Griner is now free but called for the Biden administration to now make Whelan’s return a priority.
ABC News’ Cindy Smith, Ben Gittleson and Justin Gomez contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice has urged a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to hold former President Trump’s team in contempt of court for failing to comply fully with a May subpoena for all documents with classification markings in his possession, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
DOJ’s urging is part of sealed court proceedings in Washington, where DOJ and Trump lawyers have battled for weeks over compliance with grand jury subpoenas, sources have told ABC News. The Trump team has also not wanted to identify an official custodian of records to attest that all records have been handed over.
What’s apparent is that no one from Trump’s team wants to designate themselves as a custodian of records and potentially make themselves more vulnerable legally.
The Department of Justice declined to comment.
“President Trump and his counsel continue to cooperate and be transparent, despite the unprecedented, illegal, and unwarranted attacks by the weaponized Department of Justice,” said Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump.
MORE: Special counsel subpoenas secretaries of state in Michigan, Arizona
If the judge were to rule in DOJ’s favor, the punishment most likely would be a daily fine.
(MARENGO, Iowa) — Multiple people were injured in an explosion at a plant in Iowa on Thursday, hospital officials said, as crews continue to battle a massive blaze in the incident.
No fatalities were reported following the explosion at the facility in Marengo, located about 25 miles southwest of Cedar Rapids, Iowa State Trooper Bob Conrad confirmed to ABC News. All 30 people who were in the building at the time have also been accounted for, he said.
Ten to 15 people were injured in the incident, with most in the “mild to moderate injury category,” Dr. Theresa Brennan, chief medical officer for University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, told reporters.
Only one of the patients was in what they consider to be the most serious injury category for a mass casualty incident, Brennan said.
Drone footage showed emergency responders battling a large fire with black billowing smoke at the plant, which based on property records is a soybean crushing facility, according to ABC Cedar Rapids affiliate KCRG.
The local sheriff’s office advised anyone who had been evacuated due to the fire to go to the Iowa County Transportation building, or otherwise stay indoors.
“A large fire is being fought,” the Iowa County Sheriff’s Office said on social media. “PLEASE, NO SIGHT SEEING!”
City officials also urged residents to avoid the 800 block of East South Street amid the fire.
Residents in the area reported hearing a loud “boom” Thursday morning.
“I’d seen all the ambulances and stuff going, and the fire trucks, and I’d seen the smoke right away,” Sam Murphy told KCRG. “So I went down to the Big G and got some water and stuff for them.”
Anthony Schropp told KCRG he was among those in the immediate area of the plant ordered to evacuate. He was working three blocks from the plant at the time.
“It shook our building. We heard the explosion,” he told the station. “We thought someone drove into our garage door at the shop.”
Trooper Conrad said Thursday evening that the fire is not yet out, but is “down” from where it was. Once the fire is extinguished, the state fire marshal can begin an investigation into the cause.
ABC News’ Victoria J. Arancio and Matt Foster contributed to this report.
Gerard Bottino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — For the first time since 2019, the northern giant hornet hasn’t been found in Washington State.
The Washington State Department of Agriculture’s (WSDA) Pest Program announced on Wednesday that it hasn’t trapped or confirmed any sightings of the hornets this year.
The hornets, once known as the “murder hornets,” are an invasive species that can ravage honeybee populations.
It’s not known how the killer hornets, native to Asian countries including China and Japan, arrived in the Pacific Northwest — but a plausible theory is that they came in via international cargo.
“While not detecting any hornets this year is promising, the work to ensure they are eradicated is not over yet,” Sven Spichiger, WSDA managing entomologist, said in a press release. “Research to develop a better trap continues and public reports – which account for half of all confirmed detections – remain critical.”
WSDA etymologists discovered and destroyed the first northern giant hornet nest in the U.S. in 2020 in Blaine, Washington, located north of Seattle, near the Canadian border, collecting over 500 hornets.
After eradicating the nest, during which the crew vacuumed out nearly 100 hornets, the entomologists removed the portion of the tree with the nest and opened it the following week to collect any hornets that had remained. The crew had pumped carbon dioxide into the tree during the nest removal to kill or anesthetize any remaining hornets, and many were still alive, officials said at the time. Last year, state officials found and destroyed three additional nests.
Federal guidelines demand three consecutive years without the hornets being detected to declare they’re eliminated, according to WSDA.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
(DALLAS) — The prosecution rested its case late Wednesday, three days into the trial of now-former police officer Aaron Dean in the 2019 fatal shooting of Atatiana Jefferson.
Dean is charged with murder in the death of Jefferson, a Black woman who was allegedly fatally shot by Dean inside her Fort Worth, Texas, home on Oct. 12, 2019.
His trial began on Monday, Dec. 5. Court will resume Monday, Dec. 12.
Opening statements
Prosecutors began their opening statements Monday by telling jurors about who Jefferson was. She was a 28-year-old woman who was living with her mother to take care of her, as well as address her own “severe health issues with her heart,” according to prosecutors. In that house, she helped raise Zion Carr, her then-8-year-old nephew who was present when she was fatally shot by police. She was “helping raise Zion, teaching him the responsibilities, day-to-day chores,” prosecutors said.
On that night, “[Zion] sees his aunt Tay — which is what he calls her — still playing video games and she’s up so, 8-year-old says ‘I want to play too.’ So, he gets up and he starts playing video games with her so they’re laughing, having a good time. Tatianna and Zion had no idea what was coming,” prosecutor Ashlea Deener said.
The defense began Monday’s hearing arguing for a motion to change the venue in which the trial is held because almost all of the potential jurors during jury selection had heard of the case. Judge George Gallagher denied the motion.
During opening statements, the defense focused on the gun in Jefferson’s hand in the moments before she was shot. The prosecution argued that Dean shot Jefferson before Dean could see a gun and before Jefferson could follow his commands.
“As soon as Aaron enters into the backyard, he sees a silhouette at the window,” Dean’s defense attorney Miles Brissette said. “Aaron sees that silhouette in the window and that silhouette has a firearm. That silhouette has a firearm with a green laser mounted on the front rail of that firearm pointed directly at Aaron, closer than me to you to the window.”
“The evidence will support he did not see the gun in her hand,” Deener said. “This is not a justification. This is not a self-defense case. This is murder.”
There were concerns the trial would be delayed after Dean’s lead attorney, Jim Lane, died on Nov. 27, according to Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA, just one day before the jury selection in the case began. Lane had been ill and two other lawyers took over as lead attorneys in May, according to WFAA.
Monday’s court proceedings only lasted half a day because of Lane’s funeral.
Jefferson’s nephew testifies
On the stand, now-11-year-old Zion told the court that he and Jefferson burned the hamburgers they were making that night, which is why they opened the door. They left the screen door open to let the smoke out, according to Zion and prosecutors.
He was the first and only witness to take the stand on the first day of the trial.
Police said they received a call just before 2:30 a.m. to respond to Jefferson’s home on East Allen Avenue after a neighbor called to say the front door was open.
Two officers arrived at the house shortly after and parked near Jefferson’s home, but not in front of the residence, according to officials.
The front door appears open in the body-camera footage, but a screen door looks to be closed in front of it. The officer doesn’t appear to knock.
Officials said the officers walked around the back of the house and that one of the officers observed a person through the rear window of the home and opened fire.
Zion said his aunt heard a noise, asked him about it and went to get a handgun from her purse. She walked toward the window, and then he said he saw her fall to the ground.
“She started crying and then two police officers came and got me,” Zion said.
Zion said his aunt did not raise her gun when she approached the window, however the defense attorney kept asking Zion questions about his recollection of an interview he did the night after his aunt was shot.
Zion had allegedly said during that interview that Jefferson had at one point raised the gun from her side, but Zion said he didn’t remember the details of what he did or said during the interview in response to the questions, visibly frustrated on the stand.
Other officer on the scene testifies
Officer Carol Darch, Dean’s former partner in the Fort Worth Police Department, took the stand Tuesday for cross-examination.
In her testimony, Darch said messiness inside the home made it look like there had been a home invasion of some sort, “like someone had methodically gone through that house looking for something.”
She said she and Dean didn’t announce themselves because of their own safety, as well as based on “open structure” procedure that trains officers to reduce the possibility that they might give an intruder into the home a chance to escape by alerting them of their presence.
Darch described the call as an “open structure” call, which refers to a call about a structure with an open door or window.
She later was asked to describe the “pyramid” style “Use-of-Force Continuum,” which calls for deadly force to be the last resort in addressing a threat. However, training does not require officers to take all steps before using deadly force if met with a deadly force.
“Deadly force is always met with deadly force,” Darch said. “We’re trained to stop the threat.”
Darch told the jury that she never saw Jefferson’s gun on the scene and never heard Dean announce that he saw a gun on Jefferson himself.
“I heard him give commands, I started turning. I was halfway through my turn and I heard the shot,” Darch said.
She later added, “The only thing I could see [through the window] was eyes, really. I couldn’t make out if it was a male or a female. I just saw someone in the window and I saw their eyes — as big as saucers.”
Darch got emotional on the stand when Zion came up in questioning. She said she was concerned about his well-being, as she said she tended to Zion’s care following the shooting.
Body camera footage released by the department shows the officer approaching a rear window of the home with his gun drawn. The officer shouts, “Put your hands up, show me your hands,” and fires one shot through the window.
The video seems to confirm the officer never identified himself as police before he opened fire.
Police officials said Jefferson was within her rights to protect herself and her nephew when she heard noises in her backyard and went to the window to investigate.
The 911 call
Abriel Talbert, the call center employee who took the 911 call from Jefferson’s neighbor, told the jury that she included details about the house for police answering the call.
In her description to police, she included information that the caller shared that “both neighbors’ vehicles are in the driveway … and neighbors are usually home but never have a door open.”
She included those details “so the officer knows what’s supposed to be at the address, nothing out of the ordinary, other than the open door.”
She classified the call as an open structure call because of the open doors.
James Smith, who made the call to the city’s non-emergency line, had asked responders for a “welfare check” on Jefferson’s home because he was concerned about his neighbors with whom he’s friends with. However, they responded to the call instead as an open structure call.
3rd day of testimony
Richard Fries, the deputy medical examiner in Tarrant County, took the stand to describe the process of examining Jefferson’s body at the scene. He described the gunshot wound to her chest and the glass fragments that had embedded in her skin from the window she was shot through.
He said the bullet pierced Jefferson’s heart and that he would not “expect somebody to survive” her wounds.
On the third day of witness testimony, jurors also heard from Fort Worth officer James Van Gorkom, Fort Worth major case unit detective Doug Rohloff and another Fort Worth police officer to describe the aftermath of the shooting and their analysis of the scene.
(NEW YORK) — “I’m very disgusted,” Derek Maltz, who oversaw the Drug Enforcement Administration’s investigation of Viktor Bout, told ABC News after Bout was traded for Brittney Griner. “It’s really upsetting to me.”
On Thursday, the WNBA star was swapped for Bout — a Russian convicted arms dealer who spend 15 years in U.S. prison — in an international prisoner exchange. Griner was serving a nine-year sentence in a Russian prison for possession of vaping cartridges containing hashish oil, which is illegal in Russia, before the exchange.
Maltz, in 2008, was the special agent in charge of the DEA’s special operations division which took down Bout in a sting operation in Thailand.
“DEA was asked to help take this guy down because he was such a national security threat,” Maltz said. “We at the DEA were just trying to step up to the plate and do the right thing for national security.”
In November 2007, Bout agreed to sell DEA informants posing as FARC rebels in Colombia millions of dollars in weapons, including: 800 surface-to air-missiles; 30,000 AK-47s; 10 million rounds of ammunition; 5 tons of C4 plastic explosives; and ultra light airplanes outfitted with grenade launchers to attack U.S. helicopters in Columbia, according to Maltz.
“Viktor Bout was ready to sell a weapons arsenal that would be the envy of any small country,” Maltz said.
Maltz said he has no issue with bringing home Americans and called this “a great day for Brittney Griner and for America” but he said the exchange for Bout would make things less safe for Americans traveling internationally.
“To make that exchange, all Americans are at greater risk with international travel,” Maltz said, fearing it would promote taking American citizens captive.
(WASHINGTON) — The White House on Thursday disclosed additional details about how President Joe Biden and administration officials were able to secure WNBA star Brittney Griner’s release and return from Russia.
White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that the deal “really came to fruition in the last week or so.”
Biden made the call to go ahead with the swap “last week,” he said.
But the deal was the product of months and months of a painstaking negotiation effort from across the U.S. government, including officials at the highest levels engaging directly with Russia.
Here’s the inside story of how it happened:
When was Griner released?
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said over the summer that the U.S. had made a “substantial offer” to Russia for the release of Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, but that Russia rejected that offer.
Both sides finally reached an agreement in recent days, according to the White House, and Biden made the difficult decision to accept a deal with no Whelan exchange in order to get Griner home.
A senior administration official said on Thursday morning that the release came together within the last 48 hours.
“In recent days, we were able to reach agreement on an option to secure Brittany’s release. And the president, President Biden, made the difficult decision to accept that option because it resulted in a safe return home of an American,” the official told reporters. “Through multiple, multiple engagements, the Russians made clear that the only route to securing Britney’s return was a release of a Russian national, Viktor Bout.”
Bout, a Russian arms dealer, was extradited to the U.S. and convicted in 2011 of conspiring to supply weapons that could be used to kill Americans. As the exchange neared, Griner was moved from a penal colony to Moscow and then to the United Arab Emirates.
“In the last 48 hours, as this had all come together, Brittney was moved from the penal colony where she was being held to Moscow, and this morning, she was brought to the United Arab Emirates, where she was met by U.S. officials,” the official said.
Roger Carstens, the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, greeted Griner on the tarmac upon her release, specifically to let her know that he was there to bring her home and was there on behalf of the president and Secretary Blinken, an official said. They described Griner as “in an extremely upbeat mood, all smiles and extremely grateful.”
From the tarmac, Griner spoke on the phone with Biden and wife, Cherelle Griner.
Who was involved in the exchange?
The Saudi government on Thursday issued a joint statement with the UAE about their alleged role in the Griner prisoner swap, claiming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman led a mediation on the successful exchange, but U.S. officials have categorically denied the claim.
“This was a deal done by the U.S. government,” Kirby repeated several times to White House reporters. “We spoke with many different interlocutors to involve some foreign governments who had ideas and concepts and thoughts… but this deal was brokered by the United States government,” he added.
A senior administration official, on an earlier call with reporters, thanked former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who for months tried to help negotiate a trade for Griner and Whelan, but the extent of his involvement in Griner’s ultimate agreement was not clear.
“I also want to thank those outside government who have engaged with us constructively and worked to improve Griner’s conditions while detained and to support government efforts to reach this result, including Governor Bill Richardson, as well as a number of others who have shown a great deal of care and concern about this case,” a senior administration official said. “There is gratitude from the government to outside advocates who raised their voices in support of Brittney, like Governor Richardson, who tried to be constructive in keeping us informed as to how they were thinking about the matter.”
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — An ongoing measles outbreak in central Ohio has ballooned to 63 cases as of Thursday. Twenty-five children have been hospitalized.
The state’s health system is also fighting the surge in respiratory illness — flu, RSV and COVID-19. The high rates of those illnesses are making it harder for doctors to flag measles cases, Mysheika Roberts, the health commissioner in Columbus, Ohio, told ABC News.
“Measles can present an issue like a cold, like a mild RSV, or mild flu. And it’s not until that rash appears that most providers and parents say, oh, this is different,” she said. “By that point, the case has already exposed other individuals, whether it’s at day care, at home, at church.”
Three of the 63 children have received one dose of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, a highly effective vaccine that protects against the three diseases. The remaining 60 children are unvaccinated. The majority of the children are under 5 years old.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all children get two doses of the MMR vaccine — the first when they’re 12 to 15 months old and the second when they’re 4 to 6 years old. One dose is 93% effective against measles and two doses are 97% effective.
The vaccine’s effectiveness helped the United States officially eliminate measles in 2020, a designation that means the virus is no longer continuously circulating in the country. But there can still be periodic outbreaks if the virus is brought into a community where many people are unvaccinated. Rises in vaccine hesitancy over the past decade eroded MMR vaccination rates in some areas, which creates pockets in the U.S. particularly susceptible to measles spread.
For example, research showed that low vaccination rates were responsible for the 2015 Disneyland outbreak, which spread to over 125 people.
Roberts said that the children affected by the Ohio outbreak appear to be unvaccinated because their families rejected the vaccine, not because they had delays in their vaccinations as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Columbus health department offers the vaccine at its clinic but the department hasn’t seen any uptick in the number of people seeking out the MMR vaccine in response to the outbreak, officials said.
It’s still not clear how large this outbreak could become. The health department doesn’t have good visibility into the percentage of people who are vaccinated against measles in the state of Ohio, Roberts said. Her team is working with the CDC, insurance providers and medical providers to get a better estimate of that number.
“Once we get that information about the population here in central Ohio, the CDC is optimistic they’ll be able to get us an estimate of how large this outbreak could get,” she noted. “But at this point, just looking at past outbreaks in other communities, we’re just hoping that we don’t get as large as some of those.”
