Alex Chan Tsz Yuk/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(LONDON) — The cost of direct damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure amid Russia’s ongoing invasion has reached almost an estimated $63 billion, according to an analysis by the Kyiv School of Economics.
Shocking images and videos have emerged in recent weeks showing just some of the devastation across Ukraine since Russian forces attacked on Feb. 24. Where businesses, homes, hospitals, schools and other infrastructure once stood, there are now massive piles of unrecognizable rubble and crumbling shells of concrete.
The KSE Institute, an analytical unit of the Kyiv School of Economics in Ukraine’s capital, has been collecting and analyzing data from the “Russia Will Pay” project, launched in collaboration with the Ukrainian president’s office and the Ukrainian Ministry of Economy.
Through the resource, Ukrainian citizens, government officials and local authorities can confidentially submit reports on the loss of or damage to physical infrastructure across the country as a result of the war, including roads, residential buildings, businesses and other facilities. Analysts at the KSE Institute then assess those reported damages and estimate the financial value.
“It is aimed at collecting information about all the facilities destroyed as a result of the war that Russia waged against Ukraine,” the KSE Institute said in a recent statement about the “Russia Will Pay” resource. “The Ukrainian government will use this data as evidence in international courts for Russia to compensate for the intended damages.”
The latest analysis shows that, as of March 24, at least 4,431 residential buildings, 92 factories and warehouses, 378 institutions of secondary and higher education, 138 health care institutions, 12 airports, seven thermal power plants and hydroelectric power plants have been damaged, destroyed or seized in Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24 — totaling an estimated $62,889,000. Compared to the previous estimate published on March 17, net growth amounted to $3.5 billion, according to the KSE Institute.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s overall economic losses due to the war — taking into account both direct losses calculated from the project as well as indirect losses, like GDP decline — range from $543 billion to $600 billion, according to an estimate by the KSE Institute and the Ukrainian Ministry of Economy.
Before updating its calculations, the KSE Institute said it received “detailed data” from the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure on the destruction of its facilities, which allowed analysts to clarify and, in some cases, reduce the assessment of losses.
The KSE Institute said it has improved the methodology of assessing losses from the destruction of residential real estate “based on the World Bank’s experience in analyzing losses in Syria and Iraq, as well as the recommendations of the leading Ukrainian investment company Dragon Capital.”
“These calculations are based on the analysis of several thousands of public notifications from Ukrainian citizens, the government, local authorities about losses and damages throughout the country, as well as indirect assessment methods such as calculating the estimated area of the war-damaged property in the most affected cities,” the KSE Institute said. “These estimates are not exhaustive: information on numerous damages and destruction may be missing due to the inability of citizens, local and state authorities to promptly record the damage in each city and town.”
(NEW YORK) — The silence of the Polish countryside is shattered by the piercing rattle of heavy artillery fire.
A smokescreen obscures the horizon, and suddenly, the soldiers swarm. Moving in on armored vehicles, in helicopters, and atop assault watercraft, more than 2,000 soldiers combine to form a united front on the battlefield against an imagined enemy.
This is a NATO exercise — preparation in case these troops are called upon to defend the alliance’s territory. While it’s a scenario that once seemed unthinkable, here, just 10 miles from the Belarusian border and against a geopolitical backdrop dominated by rapacious Russian aggression, this is more than just a drill.
“It’s a show of force,” Lt. Karol Frankowski of Poland told ABC News, adding that Belarus, Russia’s staunchest ally, is likely watching over them via aircraft or drone.
Soldiers from Poland, Croatia, Romania, the U.K. and U.S. make up the battle group, one of four that received a surge of manpower to defend the eastern front in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Their American commander, Lt. Col. Trevor Phillips, said today’s practice feels “absolutely” different, colored by the crisis.
“It’s difficult to watch and not be able to do anything about it. We’re direct action type people. Our whole motto while we are here is ‘stronger together,'” Frankowski said. “No nation should stand alone. That’s why this is so important to us.”
Even the objective of the practice is shaped by the warfare in Ukraine. The scenario — troops facing off against rival forces who attempt to barricade a bridge — recreates the challenges of modern warfare, officials said.
“The idea is to destroy the enemy and make free passage for the troops,” Col. Piotr Fajkowsli, the leader of the Polish brigade, told ABC News.
ABC News’ Martha Raddatz asked Fajkowsli if he believed Russia would ever strike inside his homeland’s boundaries.
“Anything can happen,” said Fajkowsli, saying that not long ago, the thought of Russia descending on Ukraine with such brute force would have been considered by most to be “impossible in the 21st century.”
“Now we can see destroyed towns burning. It is crazy,” he said.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said during Friday’s press briefing it’s an assessment the president and the White House believe as well.
“We do believe Russian aggression in Ukraine shows a willingness by the Russians to disregard international borders and to disregard the basic rules of the road of the international community that have been built in sustained over the course of seven decades,” he said.
Fajkowsli said they are ready to face anything the opposition throws at them. The people he is sworn to protect are a different story.
“We as soldiers are ready to fight against chemical weapons. We have protective gear. The civilians, they don’t,” he said. “This is the danger.”
After the bridge is won, the troops break. With the day’s mission completed, they stand temporarily at ease. They will convene again tomorrow to once again play out these war games that now seem all too real.
Phillips hopes the conflict doesn’t spill over NATO’s borders.
Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — As many Americans resume some sense of normalcy in daily life, a large sector of the population hit hard by the pandemic requires more assistance than ever and nonprofit groups are working tirelessly to deliver essential help for the increasing number of seniors in need.
Hundreds of thousands of older adults across the country struggled with hunger and isolation before COVID-19, and Meals on Wheels said it has doubled down its efforts to meet growing demand even as compounding issues of inflation, food costs and gas prices rock its channels of support and funds.
The Older Americans Act (OAA) Nutrition Programs, which celebrated 50 years this month, provides grants to states to help support nutrition services for people over the age of 60 throughout the country. Meals on Wheels President and CEO Ellie Hollander called it “foundational financial federal support” for its more than 5,000 community programs, but told Good Morning America why especially in the wake of the pandemic and up against new hurdles, it’s not enough.
“What people may not know is that Meals on Wheels is a public-private partnership, so the federal government provides approximately 40% of the seed funding — but we need individuals, we need corporations and foundations to step up to the plate to help fill that gap,” Hollander said. “Quite frankly, the funding has never been adequate to meet the growing demand, the increase in the senior population, not to mention inflation and, most recently, the cost of food and gasoline. Being that we do deliver the price of gas really does impact our operations.”
Hollander noted that Congress stepped up in the short term and delivered emergency funding to ensure seniors were not left behind during the pandemic, but said “the last amount of funding we got was a year ago in March 2021.”
“Congress finally passed the appropriations bills for 2022 and we were expecting, given the huge surge in need and more meals being served to more seniors, that both the House and Senate would approve a large increase in spending,” she explained. “However, Congress only approved a 1.5% increase — which is completely inadequate and we’re very concerned about a services cliff nationwide.”
As of 2022, eight out of 10 of the organization’s more than 5,000 local programs serve more home-delivered meals than they did prior to March 2020, Meals on Wheels reported in a recent fact sheet.
“The pandemic, I think, really created a lot of hardships for seniors and threw a whole new pipeline of older adults into homebound status,” Hollander said. “Our programs at the local level have been stepping up building capacity on a regular basis, not really knowing where the funding is coming from, but wanting to be sure that no senior is left behind.”
Logistics amid pandemic, inflation, rising fuel costs and disruptions in food supply
Holly Hagler’s program in Orange County served 10,000 people a year prior to the pandemic — 90% of whom live below the senior poverty level — with a million home delivered meals and hot lunches for group settings in senior centers annually.
“We went from serving about 5,000 hot meals per week to serving 30,000 frozen meals, a week,” Hagler told GMA of the surge when the program converted to grab-and-go. “It’s a 600% increase so the cost of it all has just been huge. We were spending about $3 million annually on just the raw food costs and on packaging supplies for the food. And as a combination of both the increase in volume and inflation, we’re serving more than 5 million meals annually. For us, a 10% increase in food costs equals, an average impact of $400,000 or more a year. That equates to about 75,000 fewer meals that we can serve.”
“Older adults have been hit the hardest by COVID and now they are really getting hit extra hard,” she said, adding that “a lot of them can’t afford to come to the senior center everyday anymore to get a hot meal because they’re living on fixed income with health care costs, gasoline and food prices, and they’re concerned.”
She said her program’s fleet of trucks that hit the road daily have been slammed by the soaring gas prices in just the past few months.
“Our gasoline bill in January was $9,500 and now we’re expecting it to be $12,500 this month, maybe pushing $13,000,” Hagler said. “For us that annual impact is 9,000 meals. So everything boils down to how many fewer meals can we serve because of these rising prices.”
San Antonio Meals on Wheels CEO Vinsen Faris, who has been involved with the organization since 1988, told GMA that “optimism was growing coming into the spring after the very, very tough two years we’ve had. However, with rising gas prices suddenly everything is getting turned on its head again.”
“When you have an organization like this that relies on so many volunteers — to deliver meals using their own vehicles and their own fuel to see those prices going up at the pumps — we started hearing from volunteers and they’re concerned,” he said. “I had a lady this week in a Prius of all things, when I was greeting her in the pickup line and she said ‘I just don’t know about these prices.’ So it’s been tough. Now with the fuel costs rising we’re going to see additional cost pressure on the food products themselves, plus our cost of fuel here just in the delivery of meals that we undertake.”
Another large hurdle currently facing Hagler’s program is that “people working from home that volunteered have returned to the office.”
“A lot of cities stepped up huge in our area and put their recreation staff in vehicles delivering the meals that we provide. But they’re opening back up and called back into regular jobs, so we’re really at a critical point here because of inflation and challenges with staffing — I’ve never seen turnover like this in my entire career of 35 plus years.”
Another critical challenge Faris has faced in San Antonio amid the pandemic “has been the wonkiness of the food supply chain.”
“That has impacted the food products that we could get in here to prepare because sometimes it was just, ‘surprise that’s not coming in’ and we’re not going to get it,” he said. “The biggest problem has been the cost increase. Since the start of the pandemic our actual meal cost of increased about 20%,” he said of their program that operates its own kitchen and is in the process of completing a new 44,000 square foot facility slated to open in October. “We’re producing 50,000 meals a week — so it’s really high volume but the cost has put a strain on it.”
Bigger than food deliveries
One silver lining Faris has found from all of this is the spotlight the pandemic has put on isolation and the need to look out for seniors.
“We’ve actually increased the number of clients that we were serving pre pandemic by almost 80% and it’s that public support that has allowed us to do that,” he said of the now 4,500 meals served daily compared to 2,500 before the pandemic. “We are just now getting back to pre-pandemic levels of volunteers … we have more meals delivered here in San Antonio, Texas, by individual volunteers than we have ever had in our 40 plus year history.”
“With older adults it’s not just income, it’s isolation, which is probably the single greatest risk factor they have because they’re not connected to resources. It is lack of capacity, whether it’s their mobility, declining cognitive capacity or just losing interest in cooking,” Hagler explained. “We really need people to stand up for seniors.”
Faris echoed a similar sentiment adding that “the more we can shine the light on our older adults who are having challenges — I believe that the public is going to respond and do the right thing.”
“We have to pay it back, these are the people who made it possible for all of us to be here today. They were our teachers in school, they were our firemen. Whoever they were, doing whatever in the community, they made it all possible for us, so we need to be taking care of them,” he said.
How Americans can take action
Hollander said there are three main ways to support The Meals on Wheels America organization.
First, donations to a local program. “A little goes a long way. This is when individuals can truly be heroes too,” she said.
Second, offer to volunteer. “It doesn’t mean that you need to be delivering meals, it can be skilled volunteering. Making phone calls or writing cards to let seniors know that someone’s thinking of them. That made a big difference during the pandemic.”
Third, advocate. “Particularly with federal funding not keeping pace with need and the gap growing further between those in need and not being served it’s very important for people to step up and advocate for more funding for this critically important 50-year proven program.”
Hollander, who has been in her role for more than nine years shared what she calls “the best fact that says it all: we can provide a senior with Meals on Wheels for an entire year for the same cost as being in the hospital for one day or a nursing home for 10.”
(NEW YORK) — Political polarization in the U.S. was evident and intensifying long before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, two years ago.
Americans were already deeply divided about a multitude of issues, with differing opinions concerning healthcare, immigration, voting rights, gun reform and climate change, often leaving little room for collaboration across the aisle.
Polling shows that the emergence of the novel coronavirus in 2020 exacerbated the rift, pushing Americans further apart on key pandemic response efforts.
Surveys from Pew Research Center, last year, found that in the early months of the pandemic, about 6 in 10 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents believed the virus was a major threat to the health of the U.S. population, compared to only a third of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents. That 26-point gap would ultimately grow to approximately 40 points by the fall, researchers found.
Over the last two years, few issues have been more divisive than the pandemic and related policies — from the raging debate over mask use, to the ongoing push to get Americans vaccinated.
Among all factors in the prevention of severe COVID-19 and death, vaccination has been key, experts say.
Unvaccinated Americans are several times more likely to be hospitalized and die and those living in rural areas, as well as conservatives and Republicans, were among the most hesitant to be vaccinated, according to a September 2021 ABC News/Washington Post poll. For unvaccinated Americans, the decision to not wear a mask or follow other restrictions, ultimately caused increased transmission, which in turn, resulted in more severe outcomes, experts suggest.
The end result is a gulf in COVID-19 death rates between red and blue states, one that is particularly amplified when examining the most and least vaccinated states.
“In the United States, COVID-19 has become a political issue, and people’s political beliefs strongly influence their behavior,” David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News. “Political divides in our thinking about COVID are much stronger than in many other countries.”
Though politicization of the virus likely played a significant role in the differing death rates, due to varying approaches to restrictions and vaccination efforts, experts say, a myriad of other issues also contributed, including access to adequate healthcare, and the disproportionate impact of the virus on communities of color.
Vaccination rates and receptivity to mitigation measures have also been influenced by factors including misinformation.
Cumulative death rates in red states 30% higher
It has been nearly a year since the COVID-19 vaccines became available to every American adult last April, after initially being offered to health workers and older populations, when supplies were still limited.
However, vaccination rates differ markedly between states that voted for former President Donald Trump, compared to those that voted for President Joe Biden, paralleling the partisan lines that have divided the country.
Data sourced from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the 10 states with the highest vaccination rates all voted for Biden in 2020, while nine of the 10 states with the lowest vaccination rates voted for Trump. The lone exception was Georgia, which narrowly went for Biden by less than a quarter of a percentage point.
Further, cumulative death data from the C.D.C., from over the last 10 months, illustrates the implications of political polarization of the COVID-19 vaccines.
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, post widespread vaccine availability.
In addition, in the 10 states with the lowest percentage of full vaccinations, death rates were almost twice as high as that of states with the highest vaccination rates, the analysis found.
Over the span of the last 10 months, in the 10 states with the lowest vaccination rates, where between 50 and 54.5% of the total population had been fully vaccinated, there was an average of 153 COVID-19-related deaths per 100,000 residents.
In contrast, during the same time period, the 10 states and jurisdictions with the highest vaccination rates, which all voted for Biden, there was an average of about 82.2 related deaths per 100,000 residents. In all 10 states, about 75% of residents had been fully vaccinated.
Vaccination and mitigation ‘have become heavily partisan’
“There are a few reasons why we’re seeing such differences in death and vaccination rates. The obvious one is that both vaccinations and other forms of COVID-19 mitigation have become heavily partisan,” Seth Masket, a professor of political science and director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver, told ABC News.
According to experts, political polarization has led to different responses and attitudes with respect to the pandemic.
While in the early months of the pandemic, many Democratic governors strongly promoted stay-at-home orders, masking initiatives and other mitigation measures, Trump, and some Republican governors, sought to deemphasize the seriousness of the threat of the virus, prioritizing instead the economy and the value of independence, Dowdy argued.
“It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear,” Trump said in late February 2020. “The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”
Trump later admitted to veteran journalist Bob Woodward that he had indeed tried to downplay the severity of the virus because he did not want to create panic.
“From early in the pandemic, following the rhetoric of then-President Trump, Republicans have consistently not been as concerned about the dangers of COVID-19, and they have been more skeptical of medical advice about preventing its spread,” Masket said. “Democratic leaders have consistently expressed more concern about the disease and Democratic voters have largely followed suit.”
Last fall, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that the increase in infections caused by the delta variant surge resulted in a jump in perceived risk of catching the virus, from 29% in late June to 47% in September. However, only 39% expressed worries about the consequences of infection.
Political partisanship influenced pandemic-related health decisions, beliefs and behavior, including “one’s attitude towards public health measures — like masking — became a signifier of political and cultural identity,” Adrian Bardon, a professor of philosophy at Wake Forest University explained.
While most states imposed restrictions on gatherings and businesses, issuing stay-at-home orders and masking mandates, in an effort to curb the spread of infections, a number of states moved to ease restrictions and masking requirements soon after the first wave abated in 2020.
Eleven states — all of which are led by Republican governors — never issued a statewide masking mandate.
These restrictions, along with the masks and vaccine mandates, had made a significant difference in protecting people from infections, Peter Jacobson, professor emeritus of health law and policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, told ABC News.
“In easing these restrictions earlier, more people were going to be exposed,” Jacobson said. “The blue states took this entire outbreak more seriously… You can’t underestimate the messages that were being sent to the public.”
Tens of millions of Americans remain unvaccinated
A November 2021 study published in the National Institute of Medicine’s National Library of Medicine, found that “politicization has undoubtedly contributed to hesitancy toward uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine.”
The red and blue gap in COVID-19 vaccination totals was preceded and predicted by a red and blue gap in belief in the seriousness of the incipient pandemic, Bardon said.
Since the introduction of the vaccine drive, over 250 million Americans have received a shot — representing about 76.8% of the total population, according to federal data. However, despite concerted efforts to convince those most hesitant, 57 million eligible Americans over the age of five remain completely unvaccinated.
Despite the fact that the former President Trump created Operation Warp Speed, which developed COVID-19 vaccines at a record pace, and endorsed the use of the vaccine, alongside Republican allies like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a large swath of Americans have still refused the shots.
“The irony of course, is that the Trump administration was responsible for fighting for this pandemic funding, in fast-tracking the vaccine process that has really saved a lot of lives,” Jacobson said.
However, while Trump and some of his allies have encouraged vaccination, many still decried mandates.
According to polling from KFF, as of February 2022, just 56% of Republicans are vaccinated, as compared to 70% of Independents, and 92% of Democrats. In addition, a third of Republicans reported that they definitely would not get vaccinated.
Experts have stressed repeatedly that the global and domestic vaccination drive ultimately saved the lives of millions of people.
In the absence of a vaccination program, an analysis from the Commonwealth Fund found that there would have been approximately 1.1 million additional COVID-19 deaths and more than 10.3 million additional COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. by November 2021.
Federal data also shows that in January, unvaccinated adults were nine times more likely to die of COVID-19, compared to vaccinated individuals, and six times more likely to require hospitalization.
Additionally, unvaccinated adults were about 21 times more likely to die of COVID-19 in January, and 12 times more likely to require hospitalization, compared to fully vaccinated and boosted adults.
Access and disparities also a persistent issue
Experts stress the importance of other factors at play, besides politics, to also explain the higher COVID-19 death toll in red states as compared to blue states.
“Democrats and Republicans tend to live in different kinds of areas. Republicans are more likely to live in more sparsely populated areas, where diseases may not spread as easily, but health facilities also tend to be farther away,” Masket said.
Lack of access to transportation, proper to pharmacies, all have major consequences for public health, Jacobson added.
“All relevant problems begin with access: access to treatment, access to pharmaceuticals. These issues were exacerbated in the pandemic,” Jacobson said. “People in some communities don’t even have transportation to [healthcare] facilities.”
According to ABC News’ analysis last summer of pharmacy locations across the country, there are 150 counties where there is no pharmacy, and nearly 4.8 million people live in a county where there’s only one pharmacy for every 10,000 residents or more.
Based on Census data, there are far fewer pharmacies per person — especially chain pharmacies — in rural parts of the country compared to urban areas.
In addition, the inequities, with respect to access, underscore the racial gap prevalent throughout the country, in both rural and urban areas, with more pharmacies in whiter and wealthier neighborhoods per person than in poorer, predominantly nonwhite neighborhoods.
Persisting disparities throughout the pandemic have also resulted in a higher likelihood of death from COVID-19 for Black and brown Americans.
According to federal data, adjusted for age and population, the likelihood of death because of COVID-19, for Black, Asian, Latino and Native American people is about one to two times higher, compared to White Americans.
Although some minority communities initially lagged behind in the nation’s vaccination efforts, the rates of Black and Brown Americans have significantly caught up proportionally to their respective populations.
However, Black and brown Americans are still behind in the national booster drive, with only 40.3% of eligible Hispanic/Latino Americans boosted, and 43.6% of eligible Black Americans boosted.
Comparatively, about 54.4% of White Americans have received their booster, while Asian Americans lead every race/ethnicity group, with 60% of the eligible population boosted.
Misinformation and distrust of science and government exacerbated by the pandemic
The pandemic has exacerbated an already deteriorating public trust in the scientific community, experts say.
“Science has unfortunately, always been politicized in the United States,” Dowdy said. “Many view scientists as being alarmist rather than rational. When scientists in the U.S. push for things like COVID-19 vaccination, this has also become a political — rather than objective — statement.”
In addition, confusion over inconsistent and shifting messages from the federal government further eroded trust in the management of the pandemic by health agencies, intensifying the divide.
“It’s concerning that the pandemic seemed to deepen the pre-existing gaps in confidence between Republicans and Democrats in our national health agencies,” said Thomas Wood, assistant professor of political science at The Ohio State University.
The C.D.C. has repeatedly defended itself against accusations of flip-flopping, as they updated their public health guidelines, throughout the pandemic.
The reality has been that the science behind COVID-19 is not black and white, but more often, gray, C.D.C. Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” earlier this month.
“Since my getting here what I said is, ‘we’re gonna lead with the science.’ The implication was that science was black and white, and in fact, in an ever-evolving virus, and a two-year-long pandemic, the science isn’t always black and white. It’s — it’s oftentimes shades of gray,” Walensky said.
Further, the barrage of misinformation, particularly in the first few months of the pandemic, and of denialism, added Jacobson, played a big role in abetting this lack of trust in science, as well as in government, in public institutions, and ultimately costs lives.
“A clear problem was people’s unwillingness to take precautions — the feeling that COVID-19 doesn’t exist,” Jacobson said.
A key question for officials to address will be how to repair the damage that has been done to public health, to the sciences, given the politicization of the pandemic, Jacobson explained.
The long-term implications for public health are, if not dire, certainly troublesome, he added.
“We are not going to be prepared for [the next pandemic], because the public isn’t prepared,” Jacobson concluded.
(WASHINGTON) — As soon as Tuesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could authorize COVID-19 booster shots for Americans over 50 years old, two officials familiar with the matter told ABC News, though the fourth shots are likely to be only offered and not formally recommended.
The officials stressed that the details are still under discussion and could change in the next few days.
After FDA’s expected authorization early this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will give guidance on how to implement it in pharmacies and doctors offices around the country, as the process has gone throughout the pandemic.
The language from CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is expected to be that people over 50 may get a second booster shot, rather than should get a second booster shot, officials said.
In other words, the shots would be available for people to make individual decisions based on their health, risk tolerance and age. In the past, the CDC has used similar language to open up booster shots first to the most vulnerable and then to the general population.
FDA’s panel of experts will convene on April 6 to discuss the broader population and what population will need booster shots next, as well as the need for a variant-specific booster.
Officials weighing the decision are also considering that anyone who gets a booster this spring would likely get boosted again when they are recommended for the broader public later this year, potentially in the fall, according to another person familiar with the matter.
Pfizer and Moderna asked the FDA last week to authorize another booster dose — especially for elderly Americans, a group that tends to have weaker immune protection.
Pfizer asked the FDA to authorize fourth doses for people older than 65, while Moderna asked for authorization for everyone 18 and older.
ABC News’ Sony Salzman contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Russian forces are continuing their attempted push through Ukraine from multiple directions, while Ukrainians, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are putting up “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The attack began Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation.”
Russian forces moving from neighboring Belarus toward Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, have advanced closer to the city center in recent days despite the resistance. Heavy shelling and missile attacks, many on civilian buildings, continue in Kyiv, as well as major cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol. Russia also bombed western cities for the first time last week, targeting Lviv and a military base near the Poland border.
Russia has been met by sanctions from the United States, Canada and countries throughout Europe, targeting the Russian economy as well as Putin himself.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Mar 28, 7:00 am
Russian forces attempt to seize key highways, settlements
Russian forces on Monday morning were attempting to breach defenses from the northwest and east of Ukraine to seize key highways and settlements, which are held by Ukrainian troops, according to Ukrainian officials.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said that hypersonic missiles for the Russian military’s Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile system were being delivered to the Belarusian town of Kalinkovichi. Two of the latest strikes to hit Lutsk, a city in northwestern Ukraine, were launched from neighboring Belarus, according to Ukrainian officials.
Mar 28, 6:20 am
New round of talks could start Monday in Turkey
Ukraine and Russia have both said that a new round of peace negotiations with be held in person in Turkey at the start of this week, but it remains unclear whether the talks begin Monday or Tuesday.
One of the Ukrainian negotiators, David Arakhamia, has said the talks would be held Monday through Wednesday.
Russia’s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, has said the talks would start Tuesday.
Arakhamia said the decision to hold the negotiations in person was reached during the latest round of talks via video link, which are taking place everyday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told Russian journalists that his country is ready to compromise on Moscow’s demand for neutral status, but wants meaningful security guarantees from Western countries. He said any peace deal is only possible if Russia withdraws all of its troops to areas occupied before the war began.
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Mar 28, 6:16 am
Ukraine intel chief says Russia plans a ‘Korean scenario’
Russian President Vladimir Putin may be seeking to split Ukraine in two after failing to seize the capital, Kyiv, according to the head of Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency.
Brig. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov said in a statement Sunday that Putin may now be pursuing a “Korean scenario” that would see Russian forces try to occupy the east and south of Ukraine since they no longer have the strength to “swallow the whole state.”
“After the failures near Kyiv and the impossibility to overthrow the central government in Ukraine, Putin is already changing his main direction of operations — to the south and east,” Budanov said. “There are grounds to suggest that he is considering the Korean scenario for Ukraine. That is to attempt to lay down a new line of contact between the non-occupied and occupied regions of our country. In fact, it’s an attempt to create in Ukraine a North and South Korea. Indeed, he definitely doesn’t have the strength to swallow the whole state.”
Budanov said he believes Putin still wants to open a land corridor between the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula and the other Russian-controlled regions in eastern Ukraine, which would mean the occupation of besieged Mariupol, a strategic port city in the southeast that has been under heavy Russian bombardment. But he said Ukraine’s continued counterattacks as well as resistance by local people in the occupied areas were disrupting Putin’s plans.
Budanov also predicted the start of guerrilla warfare that would make it impossible for Russia to hold territory.
“Soon the season of the total Ukrainian partisan safari will start,” he said. “Then for the Russians will remain only one relevant scenario — how to survive.”
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Mar 28, 5:07 am
Ukraine says no humanitarian corridors for Monday
Ukraine’s government announced for the first time in nearly three weeks that no humanitarian corridors for evacuating civilians will be open on Monday due to concerns about possible “provocations” from Russian forces.
“Our intelligence has informed us of possible provocations from the side of the occupiers on the routes of the humanitarian corridors,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a statement on her official Telegram channel. “And so in interest of citizens’ safety today we are not opening humanitarian corridors.”
The Ukrainian government has been evacuating hundreds of thousands of civilians from cities and towns in the north, east and south of the country through established corridors. Officials have previously accused Russian forces of shelling some of the evacuation routes, despite agreeing to cease-fires.
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Mar 27, 5:17 pm
Zelenskyy outlines goals for peace agreement to Russian journalists
In his first interview with Russian journalists since his country was invaded, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described some of Ukraine’s positions for ending the war.
During an interview with popular Russian independent news sites TV Rain and Meduza, Zelenskyy said any peace deal is only possible if Russia withdraws its troops to the territory occupied before the start of the invasion, meaning Crimea and the separatist-held areas of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said his main goals are “to maximally reduce the number of casualties (and) to shorten the length of this war.”
“The withdrawal of Russia to compromise territories — but that is everything (that) was before 24 February, before the assault. Let them return there,” Zelenskyy said. “I understand that to force Russia to completely liberate territory is impossible. That will lead to a third world war. I totally understand all that. And I say it: compromise. Return to where all this started and there we will try to resolve the question of Donbas, the difficult question of Donbas.”
Zelenskyy also said that Ukraine is ready to discuss taking a position of “neutrality” and “non-nuclear status” with Russia, but wants security guarantees for his country in return.
He again said he would put the issue to a referendum in Ukraine and that any treaty would need to be ratified by “guarantor countries” — which other officials have suggested must include the United States.
Zelenskyy reiterated that no guarantor countries, such as the United Kingdom and Turkey, will sign any agreement while Russian troops remain on Ukrainian soil.
(NEW YORK) — Russian forces are continuing their attempted push through Ukraine from multiple directions, while Ukrainians, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are putting up “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The attack began Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation.”
Russian forces moving from neighboring Belarus toward Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, have advanced closer to the city center in recent days despite the resistance. Heavy shelling and missile attacks, many on civilian buildings, continue in Kyiv, as well as major cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol. Russia also bombed western cities for the first time last week, targeting Lviv and a military base near the Poland border.
Russia has been met by sanctions from the United States, Canada and countries throughout Europe, targeting the Russian economy as well as Putin himself.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Mar 28, 7:33 am
Nightly curfew in Kyiv shifts back, shortens an hour
The nightly citywide curfew in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, has been shifted back and shortened by an hour.
Starting Monday night, the curfew will be from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. local time.
There has been a curfew in Kyiv every day since the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24. The previous time frame was from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. local time.
-ABC News’ Julia Drozd and Patrick Reevell
Mar 28, 7:00 am
Russian forces attempt to seize key highways, settlements
Russian forces on Monday morning were attempting to breach defenses from the northwest and east of Ukraine to seize key highways and settlements, which are held by Ukrainian troops, according to Ukrainian officials.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said that hypersonic missiles for the Russian military’s Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile system were being delivered to the Belarusian town of Kalinkovichi. Two of the latest strikes to hit Lutsk, a city in northwestern Ukraine, were launched from neighboring Belarus, according to Ukrainian officials.
Mar 28, 6:20 am
New round of talks could start Monday in Turkey
Ukraine and Russia have both said that a new round of peace negotiations with be held in person in Turkey at the start of this week, but it remains unclear whether the talks begin Monday or Tuesday.
One of the Ukrainian negotiators, David Arakhamia, has said the talks would be held Monday through Wednesday.
Russia’s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, has said the talks would start Tuesday.
Arakhamia said the decision to hold the negotiations in person was reached during the latest round of talks via video link, which are taking place everyday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told Russian journalists that his country is ready to compromise on Moscow’s demand for neutral status, but wants meaningful security guarantees from Western countries. He said any peace deal is only possible if Russia withdraws all of its troops to areas occupied before the war began.
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Mar 28, 6:16 am
Ukraine intel chief says Russia plans a ‘Korean scenario’
Russian President Vladimir Putin may be seeking to split Ukraine in two after failing to seize the capital, Kyiv, according to the head of Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency.
Brig. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov said in a statement Sunday that Putin may now be pursuing a “Korean scenario” that would see Russian forces try to occupy the east and south of Ukraine since they no longer have the strength to “swallow the whole state.”
“After the failures near Kyiv and the impossibility to overthrow the central government in Ukraine, Putin is already changing his main direction of operations — to the south and east,” Budanov said. “There are grounds to suggest that he is considering the Korean scenario for Ukraine. That is to attempt to lay down a new line of contact between the non-occupied and occupied regions of our country. In fact, it’s an attempt to create in Ukraine a North and South Korea. Indeed, he definitely doesn’t have the strength to swallow the whole state.”
Budanov said he believes Putin still wants to open a land corridor between the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula and the other Russian-controlled regions in eastern Ukraine, which would mean the occupation of besieged Mariupol, a strategic port city in the southeast that has been under heavy Russian bombardment. But he said Ukraine’s continued counterattacks as well as resistance by local people in the occupied areas were disrupting Putin’s plans.
Budanov also predicted the start of guerrilla warfare that would make it impossible for Russia to hold territory.
“Soon the season of the total Ukrainian partisan safari will start,” he said. “Then for the Russians will remain only one relevant scenario — how to survive.”
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Mar 28, 5:07 am
Ukraine says no humanitarian corridors for Monday
Ukraine’s government announced for the first time in nearly three weeks that no humanitarian corridors for evacuating civilians will be open on Monday due to concerns about possible “provocations” from Russian forces.
“Our intelligence has informed us of possible provocations from the side of the occupiers on the routes of the humanitarian corridors,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a statement on her official Telegram channel. “And so in interest of citizens’ safety today we are not opening humanitarian corridors.”
The Ukrainian government has been evacuating hundreds of thousands of civilians from cities and towns in the north, east and south of the country through established corridors. Officials have previously accused Russian forces of shelling some of the evacuation routes, despite agreeing to cease-fires.
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Mar 27, 5:17 pm
Zelenskyy outlines goals for peace agreement to Russian journalists
In his first interview with Russian journalists since his country was invaded, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described some of Ukraine’s positions for ending the war.
During an interview with popular Russian independent news sites TV Rain and Meduza, Zelenskyy said any peace deal is only possible if Russia withdraws its troops to the territory occupied before the start of the invasion, meaning Crimea and the separatist-held areas of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said his main goals are “to maximally reduce the number of casualties (and) to shorten the length of this war.”
“The withdrawal of Russia to compromise territories — but that is everything (that) was before 24 February, before the assault. Let them return there,” Zelenskyy said. “I understand that to force Russia to completely liberate territory is impossible. That will lead to a third world war. I totally understand all that. And I say it: compromise. Return to where all this started and there we will try to resolve the question of Donbas, the difficult question of Donbas.”
Zelenskyy also said that Ukraine is ready to discuss taking a position of “neutrality” and “non-nuclear status” with Russia, but wants security guarantees for his country in return.
He again said he would put the issue to a referendum in Ukraine and that any treaty would need to be ratified by “guarantor countries” — which other officials have suggested must include the United States.
Zelenskyy reiterated that no guarantor countries, such as the United Kingdom and Turkey, will sign any agreement while Russian troops remain on Ukrainian soil.
(INDIANAPOLIS) — For the first time in his life, 15-month-old Kendall Jurnakins is home.
The baby boy spent the first year of his life in the neonatal intensive care unit at Ascension St. Vincent Women’s Hospital in Indianapolis before being cleared for discharge on March 16.
Hospital staff gave the boy a joyous send-off, lining up for a cheer parade and applauding Kendall as he made his way home with his parents, Sparkle and Keith Jurnakins.
It was a long time coming for the boy and his mother, who were both so sick at one point that doctors worried they both might not make it.
Sparkle Jurnakins, 41, a mom of three, had to get an emergency cesarean section due to high blood pressure complicated by the fact that she also has diabetes and only one kidney.
So, on Dec. 11, 2020, Kendall Jurnakins was born at 25 weeks. He weighed just 15 ounces. His doctor estimated his chance of surviving at the time was close to 50-50.
“When he was born at 25 weeks and based on his weight, national data and international [data], his chance to survive was around like 50 to 60% … this is only survival, not survival with complication or long-term problems, but he actually beat some odds,” neonatologist Dr. Taha Ben Saad, who cared for Kendall, explained to Good Morning America.
Jurnakins told GMA she feared for her baby’s life at the time. “I just was scared my baby wasn’t gonna make it because they said at that small, he probably wasn’t gonna make it,” she recalled.
At 25 weeks, Kendall had various complications from his prematurity. He had respiratory distress syndrome and chronic lung disease and later had problems eating, too.
“I was going to visit him every day. He was really sick in the beginning,” Jurnakins said. “We couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t get his lungs together. So we had to, they told me that his lungs wasn’t really fully developed like they should. They was gonna have to trach it. So we ended up having to have that big surgery, a trach put in for him to be healthy.”
Kendall received a tracheostomy and was placed on a ventilator to help him breathe. He later had to get a gastrostomy tube as well for feeding.
Eight months into Kendall’s treatment, a major complication occurred — Jurnakins contracted COVID-19 and checked herself into the same hospital.
“I remember going into the hospital saying I couldn’t breathe. That was the only thing I remember,” Jurnakins recalled.
Like her son, Jurnakins had to be placed on a ventilator and get a tracheostomy. She spent two months in the intensive care unit.
“COVID almost took me out. … From August to October, I was in a coma. And then in the hospital till almost December,” Jurnakins said.
“It was very emotional when his mom got sick in the hospital,” Ben Saad said. “We thought she’s not gonna survive and then all his nurses were really worried.”
Along with her doctors and nurses, Jurnakins also credits her husband for her own survival. “Him being by my side through everything, I mean, it was so scary. Everything was scary,” she said. “From me almost dying, to my son going through what he was going through, where they were just like, ‘Oh, he’s not gaining weight. He’s not doing this.’ It was just all these ups and downs, where we were just very worried that Kendall wasn’t gonna come out of the hospital as a regular child.”
Against the odds, Jurnakins recovered and she was able to reunite with her baby boy in early December 2021.
“I thought he was not gonna remember me because he was so tiny when I went in the hospital,” Jurnakins said. “Soon as I got there, he just laid on me and looked at me the whole time. It was the best feeling in the world.”
Throughout his 460-day stay in the NICU, Kendall reached a lot of firsts — everything from his very first tooth to learning how to sit and crawl.
Today, Jurnakins said her youngest son is “a bundle of fun” and has a delightful and strong personality. “He’s Mr. Personality. If you ever meet him, you will always remember him. He’s funny, he likes attention,” she said.
When he was discharged, Jurnakins said it “was the best day of my life.”
“I couldn’t believe it. I was just like, ‘Oh, my baby really made it. Oh, we’re coming home. Oh, Lord. Thank you,” she said. “I prayed. I cried. I was happy. I was sad. I was everything but I was ready for my baby to come home.”
As she reflected on their extraordinary journey over the last 15 months, Jurnakins said she had a message for her little boy.
“I want to say, his mother fought for him like he’s a fighter,” she said. “He was a fighter forever and I fought for him.”
(SDE BOKER, Israel) — Out here in the Negev desert, the Israeli government says, history is being made.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid is hosting for the first time on Israeli soil the foreign ministers of four Arab countries that now have close ties with the Jewish state — a new reality for a region realigned in recent years, especially by the threat from Iran.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will join them for what Israel calls the Negev summit, but only after an evening of meetings with Palestinian leadership, including President Mahmoud Abbas, and civil society Sunday. While these new Arab-Israeli ties have been heralded for bringing peace and stability, they have left the Palestinians behind and done little to address the decades-old tensions there.
The Biden administration is trying to patch up ties with the Palestinians after frosty Trump years — especially with the specter of violence hanging over next month. Passover and Ramadan coincide, setting the stage for potential sparks like last spring’s deadly fighting.
Even so, Biden’s team has also embraced Trump’s Abraham Accords, the deals that established ties between Israel and several Arab neighbors — a rare piece of continuity between the two administration’s foreign policies.
Monday’s meeting brings together Israel and the U.S. with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco — all members of the new accords. Egypt, which established ties with Israel over 40 years ago in a U.S.-brokered deal, will also attend, although Jordan, which established ties in a 1994 U.S. deal, is not attending. Sudan, which was part of the accords, will not either, after a military coup last fall derailed its transition to a civilian-led democracy.
“The Middle East is changing, and it’s changing for the better. We’re cultivating old ties and building new bridges. We’re rejuvenating old peace and charging it with the new energy of the Abraham Accords,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said alongside Blinken Sunday in Jerusalem.
Blinken sang from the same sheet music Sunday, with he and other U.S. officials saying they believe deepening ties will help anchor peace across the region.
“What we’re seeing is normalization become the new normal for this region,” he said during a photo op with Israeli President Isaac Herzog — a line he deployed repeatedly during his visit. “The United States is very proud to be a part of that — to support the efforts to deepen the partnerships with countries that have already normalized with Israel and to help seek new partners.”
So far, Biden has had no luck with that effort — with Saudi Arabia in particular remaining the key holdout — and it’s unclear what, if any, announcements will come from the meeting Monday.
But still, the symbolism of Israel hosting these Arab countries, with their U.S. backer, is a powerful one – a “dramatic signal of American alignment with Israel and moderate Arab states in the double shadow of the Ukraine crisis … and the likely return to the JCPOA Iranian nuclear agreement,” according to Jim Jeffrey, a veteran U.S. diplomat and now the chair of the middle east program at the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank.
Those two security challenges are where ties have frayed between the U.S. and its Mideast allies and partners under Biden. In recent weeks, the U.S. has urged Israel, the UAE, and others to do more to punish Russia and support Ukraine — although in Jerusalem Sunday, Blinken praised Israeli commitments to enforce sanctions and provide humanitarian support, including a field hospital deployed to western Ukraine.
In addition, as the State Department’s team nears a renewed nuclear deal with Iran, Israel and Arab neighbors worry it will leave Iran flush with cash from sanctions relief — ready to boost arms and funds to its proxies and expand its ballistic missile program. Several of these countries face near daily threats from Tehran and those proxies — Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria for Israel, and the Houthis for UAE and Saudi Arabia, which are particularly adamant that Biden’s administration has not done enough to support them.
That make Monday’s meetings a delicate dance for Blinken — seeking to embrace the peaceful face of the Abraham Accords, while tempering the growing anti-Iran alliance as his team tries to complete a renewed Iran nuclear deal. In Jerusalem, Blinken papered over any differences, particularly with Israel, saying the two countries “are united in addressing the challenges posed by Iran, including its nuclear program.”
But what the burgeoning Arab-Israeli ties don’t address is the decades-old tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.
The Biden administration was seized in one of its first foreign policy challenges by some of the worst violence in years between the Israeli military and Hamas, the U.S.-designated terror group that runs the Gaza Strip. Fighting lasted 11 days last May and killed over 250 people, the vast majority Palestinians.
But the risk of violence looms large again next month, with Judaism, Islam and Christianity’s holy days virtually overlapping in April — Passover, Ramadan, and Easter. The violence last spring erupted after Israeli restrictions on the Temple Mount during Ramadan and prospective evictions of Palestinians from their homes in east Jerusalem.
During meetings in Jerusalem and Ramallah, Blinken reiterated a constant U.S. message — that both sides refrain from steps that could provoke the other.
Beyond that low bar, it seems Biden and Blinken have little interest in deep engagement on the issue. This is only Blinken’s second trip to Israel and the West Bank in over a year in office, as the administration tries to focus attention on China and is consumed by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Palestinians and Israelis alike deserve to live with equal measures of freedom, of opportunity, security, of dignity, and we believe that the most effective way, ultimately, to give expression to that basic principle is through two states,” Blinken said Sunday with President Abbas.
But he added, “Of course, the two sides are very far apart, so we’ll continue our work, step by step, to try to bring them closer.”
One key question in that work is whether the U.S. will reopen its consulate general in East Jerusalem, which traditionally served as a consular operation for Palestinians. As part of its tense ties with Palestinian leaders, the Trump administration shuttered the facility when it moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
Blinken has promised to reopen the consulate, but Israeli officials are fiercely opposed to doing so, saying a U.S. consulate for Palestinians should be in what they consider Palestinian territory, not Jerusalem — which both sides claim as their capital.
During remarks after their meeting, Abbas again welcomed the U.S. reopening the consulate — which earned a head nod from Blinken.
But Blinken made no mention of it throughout his trip in Israel, including when Lapid was asked about it during a joint press conference Sunday.
“It’s not even our place to say anything,” Lapid said. “We just don’t think Jerusalem is the right place for this because Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and Israel alone.”
With that, Blinken and Lapid exited the room with a “thank you” to the press.
(NEW YORK) — As gas prices continue to soar across the country, three states have opted to temporarily waive their gas tax to provide relief for motorists. Other states are mulling similar plans.
Last week, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan signed legislation that suspended their states’ gas taxes for a limited period. On Thursday, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont signed a legislative package that included a tax holiday on the state’s gas tax during the spring.
While the move may save drivers around 30 cents per gallon at the pump, economic and policy experts warn that it is only a stop-gap solution.
“They may not lower [gas] consumption and they might increase it,” Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at gas price app GasBuddy, told ABC News of the tax holidays. “I would love to pay less at the pump too, but this is a Band-Aid solution.”
The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline is $4.24 as of March 25, according to AAA. Some states, particularly those on the West Coast, are seeing average prices of over $5 a gallon, AAA’s data shows.
Last month, the national average price was $3.57 a gallon and a year ago, it was $2.87, according to the association.
Georgia’s effort suspends its tax of 29 cents a gallon until the end of May, Maryland’s rule suspends its tax of 36.1 cents per gallon until mid-April and Connecticut’s rule suspends the state’s tax of 25 cents per gallon until June 30.
The governors of the three states said drivers were feeling the pinch every week at the pump and they needed to take immediate action.
“We will continue to use every tool at our disposal to provide relief for Marylanders,” Hogan said in a statement last week after signing his state’s legislation.
The leaders also said their state budgets have the money from surpluses and the federal relief package to offset the lost tax revenue.
“Connecticut is in a stronger fiscal position than ever before, and I am determined to use every tool available to provide relief for our residents,” Lamont said in a statement.
Other state leaders have said they are considering similar gas tax holidays, including ones in Michigan and California.
Giacomo Santangelo, senior lecturer of economics at Fordham University, told ABC News the nation’s rising gas prices are caused by a number of factors outside of the control of the states, including the global supply chain problems and the ongoing Ukraine-Russian conflict.
Political pressure and desperation from commuters, businesses and other motorists have forced state leaders to think outside of the box, he said.
“The bottom line is gas prices aren’t going to go down anytime soon and people do need help,” Santangelo told ABC News.
Santangelo, however, said that those leaders are taking a big risk by implementing a temporary gas tax holiday. There is no indication that gas prices will return to under $4 a gallon in the coming weeks, he noted.
“If what they are doing is they are giving a 25-cent break on their gas, then what happens when gas goes up 25 cents in a few weeks anyway? You’re now back in the same situation and the government is in a worse place. There are a lot of unknowns,” Santangelo said.
De Haan said there is a potential longer-term problem by creating a gas tax holiday — increased demand for gas when supply is still low. He said temporary tax suspension will spur some drivers to take trips that may not have been necessary, and they will gas up when they won’t need to.
“The right way to handle this situation is not to reduce the price, it’s to tell motorists to reduce consumption,” he said.
Santangelo said that lowering the price through a gas tax suspension does set up expected demand from motorists. He noted that this isn’t the first time the country has experienced surging gas prices and it won’t be the last time and a gas tax holiday may not work, especially if supply doesn’t change.
“Demand was going to go up anyway, because we’re heading into the summer season. The question we have to ask is, ‘Do we want to have demand so high and risk shortages?'” he said.
Santangelo cautioned that solutions involving rebates or cash incentives could also create this demand.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a program last week that would provide $400 per vehicle to offset rising gas prices, for up to two vehicles per resident. The money would be funded with the state’s budget surplus.
“It could turn into is something that the government keeps getting sucked into,” Santangelo said. “You’re able to give $400 now but would you be able to sustain that if prices don’t go down?”
Representatives for Kemp, Hogan and Lamont told ABC News that their gas tax suspension proposals were planned out with the intention of helping their state’s motorists while at the same time avoiding any long-term economic problems.
They also stated their individual state surpluses would cover the lost revenue generated from the taxes, which generally pay for road repairs and other transportation costs.
“At this point, we have seen no issues related to supply and demand,” Michael Ricci, a spokesman for Hogan’s office, said in a statement to ABC News on Friday.
A spokeswoman for Kemp’s office also said Georgia isn’t seeing any increases in gas demand since the gas tax holiday went into effect. Kemp tweeted Friday that the state’s average gas price dropped by 24 cents a gallon.
“We’re going to keep working to get Georgians relief from sky-high prices & inflation!” he tweeted.
Max Reiss, a spokesman for Lamont, told ABC News that the state’s gas tax suspension is part of an overall $100 million package to help residents, and included a one-week clothing sales tax suspension and free bus rides for a month.
“What our residents are looking for is that their government is listening to their concerns. We are trying to do something in our power to do something,” Reiss told ABC News.
Reiss added that the state continues to push residents to lower their demand for gasoline with programs such as tax incentives for electric car purchases.
The economic experts warned that there is no way to determine when gas prices will come down, especially if the Ukraine-Russia conflict continues into the summer. More importantly, they warned that gas prices will likely decrease at a far slower rate compared to the rate they have jumped in recent weeks.
De Haan said it is imperative that states not rely on the gas tax holidays as their only solution during the gas crisis and that they need to encourage motorists to curb their driving plans as best they can.
“There’s not going to be a quick shift to lower prices and we all need to be ready for that,” he said.
