(NEW YORK) — In the wake of the tragic milestone of 1 million official COVID-19 deaths in the United States, a new analysis found that without vaccines, the virus would have likely claimed more than 100,000 additional lives in 2021.
The analysis, sponsored by Pfizer, estimated that the Pfizer vaccine alone likely saved more than 110,000 lives in 2021, the first year of the vaccination campaign.
Though Pfizer sponsored the analysis, experts interviewed by ABC agreed it was reasonable, echoing prior estimates that the death toll would have been more than three times in 2021 in the absence of effective vaccines.
“With this model, I don’t see the numbers falling out of range and I do suspect that they are a reasonable representation of what could’ve happened in the absence of COVID-19 vaccines,” Dr. Amesh Adalja, FIDSA, infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, told ABC News.
The analysis did not include an estimate of lives saved from vaccines from Moderna or Johnson & Johnson.
“In some ways, it could even be a potential undercount,” John Brownstein, Ph.D., epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital, and ABC contributor, said.
The analysis is significant, experts said, because it’s essential for everyday Americans to understand that vaccines save lives — especially in the face of ongoing vaccine skepticism and misinformation.
“We’ve seen in real-world analysis or modeling studies like this one that have shown the role that vaccines have played … and hopefully, this is one more additional data point to help reaffirm how these vaccines play such a pivotal role in changing the course of this pandemic,” Brownstein said.
The new Pfizer vaccine analysis estimates the company’s vaccine prevented 8.7 million symptomatic cases, 690,000 hospitalizations and 110,000 deaths in 2021. Included in these projections, are approximately $30.4 billion saved in health care costs.
The Pfizer vaccine is the most-utilized vaccine in the U.S., with more than 120 million Americans choosing Pfizer for their initial two-shot series, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
When modeling the potential outcomes, researchers used data on projected infection rates, average times lost at work due to infection, vaccine efficacy, vaccination rates, and risks of being infected or hospitalized.
Although hundreds of Americans still die of COVID-19 every day, doctors on the frontlines said there is a marked difference in the pre-and post-vaccine era.
“I worked in the ICU in May 2020 and it was staggering the amount of patients — I only had three patients that made it out alive,” Dr. Katie Adib, internal medicine resident physician at The Ohio State University, told ABC News.
“Now there are nowhere near the amount of people,” Adib said. “Those in the ICU who have been vaccinated tend to make it out.”
The CDC recommends that everyone ages 5 and older get vaccinated against COVID-19, and those who are eligible to also seek booster shots for further protection.
“I 100% think the vaccines have saved lives,” Adib said.
Rebecca Fujimura is a Family Medicine resident physician at MedStar Health/ Georgetown-Washington Hospital Center and is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.
(AVON, Ind.) — An Indiana women who suffered a heart attack at age 14 is now celebrating a new start in her life after undergoing a heart transplant.
Jaelyn Kinchelow, of Avon, Indiana, was running at her middle school track practice nearly a decade ago when she said she felt a tightness in her chest.
“All I could remember was myself slowing down because I just couldn’t keep up,” Kinchelow told Good Morning America. “Shortly after that, my legs gave out and I fell to the ground.”
Kinchelow was transported by ambulance to a local hospital, where she was diagnosed with a heart attack and quickly underwent open-heart surgery.
Surgeons repaired a torn coronary artery wall using a vein from Kinchelow’s leg, but permanent damage to her heart remained.
“After surgery my heart was only functioning at about 5%. They put me on an ECMO machine,” Kinchelow said, referring to an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine, which removes carbon dioxide from the blood and sends back blood with oxygen to the body, giving the heart and lungs time to heal in critical care situations. “They didn’t think I was going to make it so they had to do all they could to keep me alive.”
After spending nearly one month in the hospital, including eight days in a coma, Kinchelow was able to go home.
She went on to high school, participating in show choir and roller skating, and earned her bachelor’s degree, with a dream of becoming a nurse, like the ones who had helped save her life.
At the start of her last semester of nursing school, in January, Kinchelow said she again began to feel a shortness of breath.
“I couldn’t do my daily activities. I was too tired to talk upstairs,” she said. “I went to the hospital and spent three weeks in the hospital in January and they decided I needed to be on the transplant list.”
Kinchelow was admitted to the hospital in mid-January and spent the next two months there, waiting for the right heart to become available.
“The call is the thing you look forward to when you’re waiting. You just never know when it’s going to come,” she said. “They were saying that with my blood type, it’s like one of the longest waits. That was one of the things I was just scared of.”
On March 27, Kinchelow got the call she had been waiting for from a woman named Debbie, who was Kinchelow’s transplant coordinator at the hospital.
“They handed me the phone and she said, ‘I have some good news for you,’ and I said, ‘Debbie, if you’re not calling about a heart I don’t want to hear it,'” recalled Kinchelow. “I just lost it after that.”
The next day, Kinchelow underwent a 12-hour surgery to receive her new heart. Her old heart was so enlarged she said doctors took around six hours to remove it.
“Her story is pretty unique,” said Dr. Robert K. Darragh, Kinchelow’s pediatric cardiologist at Riley Children’s Health and an associate professor of clinical pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine. “There are some questions medically that we still don’t have perfect answers for her about how she got to the point of needing a transplant.”
As Kinchelow recovered from the transplant, she said she received a letter from the family of her heart donor, something she said was surprised to receive since typically it takes over a year for a connection to be made.
“They said the family jumped through hoops to make sure they got a letter to me,” she said. “That was a huge surprise and so emotional for me.”
Kinchelow said she is now sharing her story to raise awareness about both organ donation and the risks of heart disease among women.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for Black women in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Across all races, heart disease causes about one in every five female deaths each year, while only about half of women know that heart disease is their No. 1 cause of death, according to the CDC.
And in the U.S. alone, more than 100,000 adults and children are currently on the national transplant waiting list, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
“If more people were donors, there wouldn’t be a waiting list, and some people don’t make it because there aren’t enough donors,” said Kinchelow. “I want to put it out there, just think about it and do your research.”
Kinchelow was discharged from the hospital in May, five months after she was first admitted and put on the transplant list.
She said she plans to “pick up where she left off” and finish her nursing degree and then begin her career helping to save other people’s lives.
“I would say to anybody, don’t take your health lightly,” said Kinchelow. “Although I was 14, I knew something was not right. It’s important to pay attention to anything that feels different.”
(NEW YORK) — Pennsylvania’s Lt. Gov John Fetterman, the leading Democratic candidate in the Pennsylvania Senate race, said Sunday that he suffered a stroke on Friday.
“I had a stroke that was caused by a clot from my heart being in an A-fib rhythm for too long,” Fetterman said in a statement released Sunday afternoon.
“The good news is I’m feeling much better, and the doctors tell me I didn’t suffer any cognitive damage. I’m well on my way to a full recovery. So I have a lot to be thankful for. They’re keeping me here for now for observation, but I should be out of here sometime soon. The doctors have assured me that I’ll be able to get back on the trail, but first I need to take a minute, get some rest, and recover,” he added.
Fetterman and his wife, who he credited for catching his stroke symptoms, also posted a video from a hospital. Giselle Fetterman poked fun at her husband.
“I made you get checked out, ’cause I was right, as always,” she said in the video.
It is unclear when Fetterman will return to the trail ahead of Tuesday’s primary election.
Dave McCormick, a businessman who is running for Senate in the Republican primary election, sent well wishes to John Fetterman later on Sunday. “Glad to hear you’re doing well, John. Wishing you a fast recovery,” McCormick tweeted.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, a former talk show host who has former President Donald Trump’s endorsement in the Republican Senate primary, also tweeted, “I have cared for atrial fibrillation patients and witnessed the miracles of modern medicine in the treatment of strokes, so I am thankful that you received care so quickly. My whole family is praying for your speedy recovery.”
Fetterman, who has served as Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor since 2019, has staked out progressive positions during his primary campaign. Among other Democrats, he faces fellow progressive state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta and centrist Rep. Conor Lamb in Tuesday’s primary.
Lamb, who is trailing Fetterman, sent well wishes via tweet:
“I just found out on live TV that Lieutenant Governor Fetterman suffered a stroke. Hayley and I are keeping John and his family in our prayers and wishing him a full and speedy recovery,” Lamb said.
State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, who is behind Fetterman and Lamb respectively in recent polling, also weighed in.
“As I said at the first debate, John Fetterman is an incredible family man. My prayers are with him and his family as he recovers from this stroke. I look forward to seeing him back on the campaign trail soon,” he said.
Fetterman’s revelation comes as the U.S. marks National Stroke Awareness month in May. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., who suffered a stroke in January, told ABC News earlier this month that when he was feeling the symptoms of a stroke, “I never thought it was a stroke. Even as I was going to the hospital, I just thought I wasn’t feeling well. And a stroke hitting me, that wasn’t on my mind at all.”
Libby March for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — Ten people were killed and another three wounded when a mass shooting erupted at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that authorities allege was a “racially motivated hate crime” carried out by heavily armed white teenager who fired a barrage of 50 shots outside and inside the market.
An 18-year-old male suspect is in custody, police said. The shooter livestreamed the Saturday afternoon attack on social media, authorities said.
The gunman, wearing military fatigues, body armor and a tactical helmet, shot four people in the parking lot of a Tops supermarket around 2:30 p.m., three fatally. He proceeded inside the store where he was confronted by a retired Buffalo police officer working security, police said.
The guard shot and struck the suspect but without effect due to the body armor, police said.
The gunman then proceeded to shoot nine more people inside the store, police said.
Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told ABC News on Sunday that police officers arrived at the store within one minute of getting the first report of the shooting in progress and raced toward the gunfire to confront the suspect.
Gramaglia said that upon seeing the officers, the assailant placed the barrel of an assault-type rifle up to his neck and threatened to shoot himself. He said officers were able to de-escalate the situation and talked the suspect into dropping the weapon.
“He had dropped down to his knees and began taking off his tactical gear and they immediately took them into custody,” Gramagilia said.
Among the 13 victims shot, 11 were Black and two were white, authorities said.
Four of the shooting victims were store employees while the rest were customers, authorities said.
The Buffalo police officer working security was among those killed, according to a law enforcement official. He was identified as Aaron Salter Jr. by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown.
“He’s a true hero,” Gramagilia said of Salter. “He went down fighting. He went towards the gunfire.”
Gramagilia said the suspect fired 50 shots during the attack and has several more loaded ammunition magazines when he was taken into custody.
Three victims suffered non-life-threatening gunshot wounds, authorities said.
Brown ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff at city facilities, including police stations, fire stations and Niagara Square in the heart of Buffalo.
No other suspects are outstanding, a law enforcement official said.
The suspect — identified as Payton Gendron of Conklin, New York — was arraigned Saturday on one count of first-degree murder and ordered held without bail, according to Erie County District Attorney John Flynn. His office is also investigating terrorism charges, he said.
The suspect traveled from a New York county several hours away to the Buffalo store, authorities said.
Gramagilia said investigators believe the suspect arrived in Buffalo on Friday.
“It seems that he had come here to scope out the area, to do a little reconnaissance work on the area, before he carried out his just evil, sickening act,” Gramagilia said. During a news conference Saturday, Mayor Brown described the shooting as “the worst nightmare any community can face.”
Gendron legally purchased the AR-15 assault-style rifle used in the Buffalo supermarket shooting at a gun store in his home county of Broome, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul confirmed during an interview with ABC New York City station WABC.
The rifle was modified by what Hochul called an “enhanced magazine,” which is illegal in New York, Hochul said.
The FBI is separately investigating the attack as a hate crime and as racially motivated violent extremism.
Early indications are the shooter may have possessed extremist beliefs cultivated online, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
A 180-page document believed to have been posted on the internet by Gendron before he allegedly committed the massacre is a hate-filled screed fixated on the notion of “replacement theory,” a white supremacist belief that non-whites will eventually replace white people because they have higher birth rates, according to a copy viewed by ABC News.
Gendron, the purported author of the document, embraces racist and anti-Semitic tropes throughout the document. He also included photos of himself and described why he decided to carry out the attack, largely focused on replacement theory.
Investigators are looking at multiple online postings that may be associated with the shooter that include praise for South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof and the New Zealand mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant, according to the document.
The document also includes a detailed plan for his alleged attack, stating time, place and manner. He allegedly even mapped out his planned route through the store and allegedly wrote that he targeted the Buffalo Tops market because it is a predominantly Black neighborhood, according to the document.
Gendron allegedly wrote that he understood he could be killed, but if he survived and goes to trial, he said he intends to plead guilty.
“This was pure evil,” Erie County Sheriff John Garcia told reporters. “It was a straight-up racially motivated hate crime from somebody outside of our community … coming into our community and trying to inflict evil upon us.”
During an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos, Hochul said investigators probing Gendron’s background have found other disturbing documents he wrote as a high school student and that he was under observation of medial authorities.
“I want to know what people knew and when they knew it and calling upon law enforcement as well as our social media platforms,” Hochul said.
She added that depraved ideas fermenting on social media are “spreading like a virus” and need to be monitored and shut down.
“It has to stop, because otherwise, there’s no stopping it,” Hochul said.
Hochul said she has directed the New York State Police’s Hate Crimes Task Force to assist in the investigation.
A home linked to the suspect in Conklin, a town near Binghamton in Broome County, was searched by the FBI and New York State Police Saturday evening, according to law enforcement officials and eyewitnesses. Hochul confirmed during a news briefing that a home in Broome County was searched Saturday.
Authorities did not specify which social media platform the suspect used to allegedly livestream the shooting. But following the attack, the livestreaming platform Twitch said it had indefinitely suspended a user over the shooting in Buffalo.
“Twitch has a zero-tolerance policy against violence of any kind and works swiftly to respond to all incidents,” a Twitch spokesperson said in a statement. “The user has been indefinitely suspended from our service, and we are taking all appropriate action, including monitoring for any accounts rebroadcasting this content.”
The company said it removed the stream within two minutes of the violence starting and is monitoring Twitch for any re-streams of the content or related content.
“A horrible day in the history [of] our community,” Eri County Executive Mark Poloncarz said in a statement posted on Twitter. “Like too many communities in our nation, we’ve been impacted by the horror [of] a mass shooting. My thoughts are about the deceased and with their families at this terrible time.”
President Joe Biden has been briefed on the shooting, his press secretary said.
“He will continue to receive updates throughout the evening and tomorrow as further information develops,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. “The president and the first lady are praying for those who have been lost and for their loved ones.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland was also made aware of the incident.
“The Justice Department is investigating this matter as a hate crime and an act of racially-motivated violent extremism. The Justice Department is committed to conducting a thorough and expeditious investigation into this shooting and to seeking justice for these innocent victims,” the statement from the department read.
Tops Friendly Markets said in a statement it was “shocked and saddened” by the shooting and offered condolences to the victims and their families.
“We appreciate the quick response of local law enforcement and are providing all available resources to assist authorities in the ongoing investigation,” the Amherst, New York-based supermarket chain said.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson called the organization was “shattered” and “extremely angered” by the incident.
“This is absolutely devastating. Our hearts are with the community and all who have been impacted by this terrible tragedy,” Johnson said. “Hate and racism have no place in America.”
The Buffalo shooting prompted the New York Police Department to provide increased security at Black churches around New York City “in the event of any copycat,” the NYPD said in a statement.
“While we assess there is no threat to New York City stemming from this incident,” the NYPD said in its statement, “out of an abundance of caution, we have shifted counterterrorism and patrol resources to give special attention to a number of locations and areas including major houses of worship in communities of color.”
ABC News’ Matt Foster and Luke Barr contributed to this report.
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — A retired police officer is being praised for the valiant actions he took to protect others when a gunman opened fire on a supermarket, killing 10 people in an alleged hate crime.
Aaron Salter was working as a security guard for the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York, when a gunman shot four people in the parking lot, according to the Buffalo Police Department.
Once the shooter, outfitted in military fatigues, body armor and a tactical helmet, proceeded inside the store, Salter confronted him, shooting and striking the man, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph A. Gramaglia told ABC News Sunday.
But those bullets had no effect due to body armor the suspect wore, and the gunman returned fire, striking Salter, Gramaglia said.
The gunman shot nine people inside the store, livestreaming the entire massacre on social media. Salter was one of 10 people killed in the mass shooting.
Four of the shooting victims were store employees while the rest were customers, authorities said.
While it is not clear how many more victims were saved due to Salter’s actions, Gramaglia said, “We’re sure he saved lives yesterday,”
“He went down fighting,” Gramaglia said, describing him as a true hero. “He came in, he went towards the gunfire. He went towards the fight.”
Salter retired from the police department several years ago and had been a “beloved” member of Tops as a security guard, Gramaglia said.
“He took on a responsibility to protect the customers and the employees in the store,” Gramaglia said. “And he did exactly what he signed up for.”
One Tops employee, a mother of seven, told ABC News Sunday that if it hadn’t been for Salter, she and her 20-year-old daughter, who was working at the register, would not have known the gunman was headed in their direction.
When she saw Salter pull out his weapon, they knew they had to run, and they both made it out alive, she said.
Buffalo police officers responded to the scene “within one minute” of Salter being shot and encountered the gunman, Gramaglia said.
The gunman then pointed the assault rifle to his neck in a threat to kill himself, but officers were able to deescalate the situation and talk him into dropping the weapon, Gramaglia said. The suspect then dropped to his knees and began taking off his tactical gear, and officers took him into custody, Gramaglia said.
Investigators from the FBI, New York State Police and other agencies revealed that the gunman — identified as Payton Gendron of Conklin, New York — was in the Buffalo area at least a day before the shooting to prepare for the attack.
“It seems that he had come here to scope out the area to do a little reconnaissance work on the area before he carried out his just evil, sickening act,” Gramaglia said.
Gendron had legally purchased the AR-15 assault-style rifle allegedly used in the Buffalo supermarket shooting at a gun store in his home county of Broome, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul confirmed during an interview with ABC New York City station WABC on Saturday.
The gun had been modified with an “enhanced magazine,” which is illegal in New York, Hochul said.
The FBI is separately investigating the attack as a hate crime and as racially motivated violent extremism. Early indications are the shooter may have possessed extremist beliefs cultivated online, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Among the 13 victims shot, 11 were Black and two were white, authorities said.
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff at city facilities, including police stations, fire stations and Niagara Square in the heart of Buffalo.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso and Matt Foster contributed to this report.
(BUFFALO, N.Y) — The 18-year-old suspect who allegedly shot and killed ten people at a supermarket on Saturday afternoon in the heart of a Black community in Buffalo, appears to have been motivated by extremist beliefs and has a history of making violent threats, according to authorities.
Payton S. Gendron allegedly traveled more than three hours from Conklin, New York, to the Tops Friendly Market, according to law enforcement, to carry out the attack in a predominantly Black community.
He was wearing military fatigues, body armor and a tactical helmet when he shot four people in the parking lot of the Tops supermarket around 2:30 p.m. and then allegedly shot nine people inside before surrendering to authorities.
He was confronted by a retired Buffalo police officer working security who shot the suspect but without effect due to the suspect’s body armor, police said.
Grendon was arraigned on one count of first-degree murder to which he pleaded not guilty. He has been ordered to be held without bail, according to the Eric County District Attorney’s office.
Online writings
Law enforcement sources told ABC News the alleged shooter’s extremist beliefs may have been cultivated online and he appears to have expressed racially motivated extremist views in his online postings.
A 180-page document believed to have been posted on the internet by the suspect, is a hate-filled screed fixated on the notion of “replacement theory,” a white supremacist belief that non-whites will eventually replace white people because they have higher birth rates, authorities said.
Gendron, the purported author of the document, espouses racist and anti-Semitic tropes throughout the document, which he appears to have posted before he carried out the alleged attack, according to authorities.
Among the posts that investigators are looking at include online writings in which the suspect praises other mass shooters who were also motivated by racist ideology, including South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof, the New Zealand mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant and the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooter Robert Gregory Bowers.
In the document, the suspect also appears to outline a plan for his alleged attack, including time and place, and writes that he chose this location because there is a high concentration of Black people in the area.
Suspect’s history
Neighbors of the Gendron family told ABC News that the suspect is a former student at Broome Community College, part of the State University of New York college system — a detail confirmed by a spokesperson for the school.
Police in Broome County, New York, were called by a local high school in June 2021 after they reported that Gendron threatened a shooting at graduation or during that time, law enforcement sources familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News. Following a police investigation, no charges were filed against Gendron, who received a mental health evaluation and counseling after the incident.
A home associated with Gendron was searched by the FBI and New York state police, law enforcement officials and eyewitnesses confirmed to ABC News.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told ABC station in New York, WABC, that Gendron legally purchased the AR-15 assault-style rifle that was allegedly used in the supermarket shooting at a gun store in his home county of Broome.
But the “legally obtained weapon” was modified and became “illegal,” Hochul said.
“It’s mostly the illegal guns and magazine capacity enhancements that are causing a lot of problems in New York City and all the way here to Buffalo,” she added.
What’s next
Gendron was arraigned on Saturday evening before the Buffalo City Court on one count of first-degree murder, according to a statement from the Erie County District Attorney’s office.
The suspect entered a plea of not guilty. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to the DA’s office.
But according to Erie County District Attorney John Flynn, further charges against Gendron are possible.
“My office is working closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and our partners in law enforcement into potential terrorism and hate crimes. This is an active investigation and additional charges may be filed,” Flynn said in a statement.
The U.S. Department of Justice is also investigating the shooting as “a hate crime and an act of racially motivated violent extremism,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
“The Justice Department is committed to conducting a thorough and expeditious investigation into this shooting and to seeking justice for these innocent victims,” Garland said.
Gendron’s next court hearing is set for May 19 and will remain in custody, where he is ordered to be held without bail, according to the DA’s office.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky, Bill Hutchison, John Santucci, Laura Romero and Olivia Rubin contributed to this report.
Libby March for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — Fragrance Harris Stanfield, a mother of seven, was at work at a Tops grocery store in Buffalo, New York, when she heard gunshots.
“We all looked toward the front door. We saw the security guard backing up, reaching for his weapon. And we ran,” she said.
One of Stanfield’s children — her 20-year-old daughter — was also working at the store, at register 6.
In the commotion, Stanfield said she realized she was separated from her daughter.
“I didn’t know where she was. And I just thought, if she’s gone, I gotta get out of here. She’s got babies — she has a newborn, and she has a 3-year-old, so I still had to get out. If I went back for her and she was gone, I would be gone, too. And then they’ll have nobody,” Stanfield said, overcome with emotion. “So I still ran and ran out the back.”
Stanfield later learned her daughter was crouched down by a register during the gunfire and witnessed two people get shot.
Stanfield said her daughter “covered her face” when the gunman walked by so he “wouldn’t hear her breathing.”
“By the grace of God we got out,” she said.
Stanfield and her daughter were among those who escaped alive on Saturday when a gunman killed 10 people — all of whom were Black — at a Buffalo supermarket. Authorities are calling the massacre a “racially-motivated hate crime.” The 18-year-old suspected gunman is in custody.
Annette Parker and her 9-year-old daughter were walking out of a Family Dollar store, just a few feet away from the grocery store, when they heard gunshots.
Parker picked up her daughter and started running, she told ABC News.
“My mother lives down the street … so I ran towards her house,” she said.
Parker said her daughter is terrified, and they’re staying with family.
But Parker, with tears in her eyes, said hate won’t stop her from going back.
“That’s not gonna stop me or my daughter. This is my community,” she said.
ABC News’ Stephanie Ramos, Katie O’Brien and Matt Foster contributed to this report.
Libby March for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — At least 10 people are dead and another three wounded after a mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that authorities said was a “racially motivated hate crime.”
An 18-year-old white, male suspect is in custody, police said. The shooter live-streamed the attack on social media, authorities said.
The gunman, wearing military fatigues, body armor and a tactical helmet, shot four people in the parking lot of a Tops supermarket around 2:30 p.m., three fatally. He proceeded inside the store where he was confronted by a retired Buffalo police officer working security, police said.
The guard shot and struck the suspect, but without effect due to the body armor, police said.
The gunman then proceeded to shoot nine more people inside the store, police said. He threatened to shoot himself before dropping his gun and surrendering to police, authorities said.
Among the 13 victims shot, 11 were African American and two were white, authorities said.
Four of the shooting victims were store employees, while the rest were customers, authorities said. The Buffalo police officer working security was among those killed, according to a law enforcement official.
Three victims suffered non-life-threatening gunshot wounds, authorities said.
The scene is no longer active and no other suspects are outstanding, a law enforcement official said.
The gun was legally obtained but modified with illegal magazines, according to Gov. Kathy Hochul.
“There is no depth to the outrage I’m feeling right now,” she said during a briefing Saturday.
The suspect — identified as Payton Gendron of Conklin, New York — was arraigned on one count of first-degree murder and ordered held without bail Saturday evening, according to Erie County District Attorney John Flynn. His office is also investigating terrorism charges, he said.
The suspect traveled from a New York county several hours away to the Buffalo store, authorities said.
“This is the worst nightmare any community can face,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said at a press briefing Saturday.
The FBI is separately investigating the attack as a hate crime and as racially motivated violent extremism.
Early indications are the shooter may have possessed extremist beliefs cultivated online, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Investigators are looking at multiple online postings that may be associated with the shooter that include praise for South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof and the New Zealand mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant, according to the sources.
“This was pure evil,” Erie County Sheriff John Garcia told reporters. “It was a straight-up racially motivated hate crime from somebody outside of our community…coming into our community and trying to inflict evil upon us.”
Flynn said there are pieces of evidence that “indicate some racial animosity,” but would not elaborate more at this point in the investigation.
Hochul said she has directed the New York State Police’s Hate Crimes Task Force to assist in the investigation.
A home associated with the suspect in Conklin, a town near Binghamton in Broome County, was being searched by the FBI and New York State Police Saturday evening, according to law enforcement officials and eyewitnesses. Hochul confirmed during a news briefing that a home in Broome County was being searched Saturday.
Authorities did not specify which social media platform the suspect used to allegedly livestream the shooting. But following the attack, the video game live streaming platform Twitch said it had indefinitely suspended a user over the shooting in Buffalo.
“Twitch has a zero-tolerance policy against violence of any kind and works swiftly to respond to all incidents,” a Twitch spokesperson said in a statement. “The user has been indefinitely suspended from our service, and we are taking all appropriate action, including monitoring for any accounts rebroadcasting this content.”
The company said it removed the stream within two minutes of the violence starting and is monitoring Twitch for any restreams of the content or related content.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz also tweeted Saturday afternoon that he had been “advised of an active multiple shooting event” at the supermarket.
“A horrible day in the history [of] our community,” Poloncarz said in a statement. “Like too many communities in our nation, we’ve been impacted by the horror [of] a mass shooting. My thoughts are about the deceased and with their families at this terrible time.”
President Joe Biden has been briefed on the shooting, his press secretary said.
“He will continue to receive updates throughout the evening and tomorrow as further information develops,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. “The President and the First Lady are praying for those who have been lost and for their loved ones.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland was also made aware of the incident.
“The Justice Department is investigating this matter as a hate crime and an act of racially-motivated violent extremism. The Justice Department is committed to conducting a thorough and expeditious investigation into this shooting and to seeking justice for these innocent victims,” the statement read.
Tops Friendly Markets said in a statement it was “shocked and saddened” by the shooting and offered condolences to the victims and their families.
“We appreciate the quick response of local law enforcement and are providing all available resources to assist authorities in the ongoing investigation,” the Amherst, New York-based supermarket chain said.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson called the organization was “shattered” and “extremely angered” by the incident.
“This is absolutely devastating. Our hearts are with the community and all who have been impacted by this terrible tragedy,” Johnson said. “Hate and racism have no place in America.”
ABC News’ Matt Foster and Luke Barr contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The United States has hit a grim milestone: 1 million COVID-19 deaths. During the past two years the virus has posed a deadly risk, but it hasn’t affected every person the same way. The pandemic has highlighted inequalities that have already existed — and exposed new disparities between age, race and political affiliation.
Jino Cabrera of Sherman Oaks, California, lost his brother to COVID-19 in January 2022.
Although Christian Cabrera was healthy, with no-pre-existing conditions, and his hospitalization was unexpected, he had been the only sibling in his Filipino family who had been against the vaccine.
“My other brother is somewhat of a conspiracy theorist,” said Jino Cabrera, who added that Christian had promised to get vaccinated after the holidays, but by that time it had been too late.
Christian Cabrera left behind a 17-year-old son, a 4-year-old son and his fiancée. In his final moments, Jino Cabrera said his brother regretted the decision to not get vaccinated.
“He [Christian] sent me a text message, um, and he had, uh, told me that he can’t breathe. Um, ‘I wish that I had gotten vaccinated. If I had, if I could do all again, I will, um, do it in a heartbeat to save my life,'” Jino Cabrera told ABC News Audio about his brother’s text.
According to December 2021 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an unvaccinated person was 53 times more likely to die of a COVID-19-associated illness compared to a fully vaccinated person with a booster dose.
Dr. Richina Bicette-McCain is an emergency medicine physician and medical director of the McNair Emergency Department in Houston, Texas. Despite working the span of the pandemic, she said it never gets easier watching young patients fight for their lives.
“I had a young, Hispanic patient. I believe he was in his 40s,” said Bicette-McCain. “He initially came in with just a little bit of shortness of breath and within an hour of me arriving to my shift and seeing him, he had coded and died and we were not able to get this man back… and he was young and healthy.”
While age remains a factor, recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed a major difference in the risk of infection, hospitalization and death by race.
Native Americans are over 2.5 times more likely to die of COVID compared to white Americans, according to the CDC data, which also showed that African-Americans are more than 1.5 times more likely, and Hispanic Americans 1.1 times more likely.
Some of this is due to vaccine hesitancy among certain communities that have been historically wronged by medicine before, according to Bicette-McCain, who cited the Tuskegee Syphilis Study as an example.
“So many instances in medicine where Black bodies were used for experimentation, where Black people were not treated justly and were left to suffer and were left to die from diseases that were curable,” said Bicette-McCain. ”Not just with COVID and not just with vaccines, but there is a deep sense of unsureness when it comes to medical providers and the entire establishment.”
Bicette-McCain said that’s why it is so important to be vocal about the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine to diverse communities beyond health care professionals.
“If the message is coming from someone who looks like you, it makes it a little bit more relatable,” said Bicette-McCain.
In New Jersey, Bergen County health officials pushed education campaigns to spread the word on the use of masks, washing hands and getting vaccinated.
Judah Zeigler is the Mayor of Leonia, a diverse town in Bergen County. She said communication is not a one-size-fits-all issue.
“We’re about 35% Asian and of that is predominantly Korean [and] we’re about 22% LatinX,” said Zeigler. “Every message that went out about the pandemic was sent out in Korean, English and Spanish.”
Gervonn Romney-Rice is a councilwoman for the Township of Teaneck of Bergen County. She said the COVID-19 pandemic hit close to home.
“In my church, I lost two members of my church who happened to also be a part of my community,” said Romney-Rice.
While Teaneck is very diverse, Romney-Rice said vaccination centers were not reflecting the town’s demographic.
“I would notice that there weren’t a lot of people of color in lines,” said Romney-Rice, who added that it wasn’t just a vaccine hesitancy problem.”[But also] an access issue in terms of the system, everything was done online.”
Lynn Algrat is the vice president of planning, development and communication at Greater Bergen Community Action. She said that her COVID-19 Equity team has pivoted to focus on access, including working with websites to reserve a block of appointments for the most vulnerable.
“We were filling those appointments through our grassroots network,” said Algrant. “All of them African-American, the Korean-American population, child care workers.”
Volunteers on the team would provide access to computers and even would create email addresses for residents so that they could sign-up for online appointments.
While some Americans were able to work remotely during the pandemic, Bicette-McCain said that not everyone had the luxury of doing their job from home.
“If you look early on in the pandemic, Black and Brown people may not have had jobs where they could have worked remotely, or may have been the sole breadwinner for their family and were feeling they were required to go back to work early thus exposing themselves and putting themselves at higher risk,” said Bicette-McCain.
She added that in-person jobs compounded with other risk factors like pre-existing conditions contributed to the COVID-19 death disparities among the U.S. population.
“Higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, certain types of cancers, all of those things put you at increased risk of succumbing to COVID-19 if you’re diagnosed with an infection,” said Bicette-McCain.
Polling showed that the emergence of the virus in 2020 exacerbated political polarization and has pushed Americans further apart on key response efforts.
An ABC News analysis of federal data found that, on average, the death rates in states that voted for Trump were more than 38% higher than in states that voted for Biden, even after vaccines were widely available.
Experts said other issues, including access to health care, misinformation and COVID-19 mitigation measures also played a role.
“We turned something that should have been a public health crisis into a political crisis and pitted our communities against each other,” said Bicette-McCain.
Moving forward, Bicette-McCain urges the U.S. to acknowledge the past to ensure equity is a pillar of response efforts in the future.
Back in California, Jino Cabrera lives on without his brother, wishing he could turn back time. “The unimaginable pain and suffering that we are going through right now could have been prevented,” he said. “Had our brother gotten vaccinated.”
(NEW YORK) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that social media companies have to address and track down extremism on their platforms, after a gunman who reportedly espoused white supremacist ideology opened fire at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket on Saturday, killing at least 10.
Among the 13 victims shot, 11 were African American and two were white, authorities said.
“There has to be vigilance,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said on ABC’s “This Week.” “People have to alert other authorities if they think that someone is on a path to domestic terrorism, to violence of any kind.”
Investigators are looking at multiple online postings that may be associated with the shooter, 18-year-old Payton Gendron, that include praise for South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof and the New Zealand mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant, sources told ABC News.
“Obviously you have to balance the free speech issues,” Pelosi said. “Freedom is so important to us but that freedom also carries public safety with it and we have to balance that.”
The California Democrat said her party in Congress is “of course trying to do something about gun violence” but noted that efforts to address mass shootings on Capitol Hill have fallen short in the Senate, where Republicans have opposed gun control measures, making it impossible for Democrats to advance legislation over the 60-vote threshold in the chamber.
