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Immunocompromised at higher risk of COVID breakthrough infection: Study

December 28, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A new study suggests immunocompromised Americans people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 are more likely to have breakthrough infections than people without weakened immune systems, but found full vaccination still adds more protection than being partially vaccinated.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Washington found people with so-called immune dysfunction, including immunocompromised people like those with HIV or on immunosuppressant medications, had rates of breakthrough cases up to twice as high as those with normally-functioning immune systems.

“People with immune dysfunction conditions have a higher risk for COVID-19 breakthrough infection than those without such a condition, suggesting continued use of nonpharmaceutical interventions (mask-wearing, social distancing, avoid crowd gathering and travel, etc.) and alternative vaccine strategies (additional doses or immunogenicity testing) should be recommended even after full vaccination.” Dr. Jing Sun, corresponding author of the study and an assistant scientist in the department of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News.

For the study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine Tuesday, the team looked at data from the National COVID Cohort Collaborative, which is a central database of COVID-19 data from academic medical centers across the country.

More than 664,000 people were included in the study between December 2020 and September 2021.

Patients were broken into two groups: with and without immune dysfunction. Those with compromised immune systems were broken down even further into patients with diagnoses such as HIV, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis as well as people who had undergone organ transplants and bone marrow transplants.

A breakthrough infection was defined as someone who contracted COVID on or after the 14th day following vaccination.

Compared with only being partially vaccinated against COVID-19, being fully vaccinated was linked to a 28% reduced risk of breakthrough infection, regardless of immune system status.

However, those with weakened immune systems were at higher risk for breakthrough infection.

Throughout the study period, patients without immune dysfunction had a breakthrough infection rate of 7.1 per 1,000 person-months.

By comparison, those who had undergone bone marrow transplants had a breakthrough case rate of 8.6 per 1,000 person-months and multiple sclerosis patients had a rate of 8.9 per 1,000 person-months.

HIV patients had a rate of 9.1 per 1,000 person-months and rheumatoid arthritis patients had a rate of 9.3 per 1,000 person-months.

The highest breakthrough case rate was seen among organ transplant patients at 15.7 per 1,000 person-months — twice as high as those who are not immunocompromised.

Researchers believe this is because transplant patients must be on immunosuppressants for the rest of their lives so their bodies don’t reject their new organs. However, this also weakens their immune systems and makes them more susceptible to infection such as COVID-19.

The team said the findings provide further evidence that immunocompromised people may be at higher risk for breakthrough infection and that these Americans — which make up an estimated 3% of the population — should continue to wear masks even after being vaccinated and also should receive a third dose.

The findings have three caveats, with the first being that the study was conducted during the delta wave, before the omicron variant — which appears to be more transmissible — became dominant in the U.S.

Secondly, researchers only looked at the risk of breakthrough infection after a first and second dose of the vaccine and did not study the risk after a booster shot.

Finally, they only looked at certain immunocompromising conditions but not all, like cancers.

Booster shots were approved by the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for immunocompromised people in August and have been shown to boost antibody levels in immunocompromised people after being fully vaccinated.

Judge in Ghislaine Maxwell case extends jury deliberations due to omicron concerns

December 28, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Citing the “astronomical” spread of the omicron variant and the potential risk the coronavirus poses to derail proceedings, the judge overseeing the sex trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell wants the jury to deliberate later into the evening and without a holiday interruption.

As the jury began its fourth full day of deliberations Tuesday, Judge Alison Nathan expressed concern about the “high and escalating risk that jurors or trial participants may need to quarantine” if they contract the virus, “putting at risk our ability to complete this trial.”

On Monday, Nathan asked jurors to deliberate until 6 p.m. from that day forward. She offered to take back the request if any jurors found the extra hour to be a hardship, but said on Tuesday that none have so far.

“We are seeing an astronomical spike in the number of COVID-positive cases in New York City,” Nathan said. “We are very simply at a different place regarding the pandemic than we were only one week ago.”

In addition to the extra daily hour, the judge said she would ask jurors to deliberate without a break over the New Year’s holiday on Thursday and Friday.

“In light of the variant, my concern about the interruption of the trial, given the increasing daily risk of exposure to either a juror or trial participant requiring quarantine — it is time to think about having the jury make plans to deliberate until a verdict is reached,” Nathan said.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, Maxwell’s attorneys asked the judge to clarify her response to the jury’s question late Monday regarding Maxwell’s alleged involvement in the transportation of one of her accusers, known as “Jane,” for which Maxwell is facing a count of Transportation of an Individual Under the Age of 17 with Intent to Engage in Illegal Sexual Activity.

“Under count four, if the defendant aided in the transportation of Jane’s return flight, but not the flight to New Mexico, where/if the intent was for Jane to engage in sexual activity, can she be found guilty under the second element?” the jury asked.

The charge is a violation of New York state law, and the defense — concerned that the jury could convict Maxwell based on something that happened in New Mexico — sent a letter to the judge asking for “additional instructions to correct apparent errors in the jury’s understanding” of the charge. Judge Nathan had referred the jury to her instructions, but the defense argued that was insufficient.

“They are looking at the instructions that they have been given thus far … and they are unclear,” defense attorney Christian Everdell said. “They are confused by those instructions.”
MORE: Defense rests after Ghislaine Maxwell says there is ‘no need’ for her to testify in her own defense

Prosecutors opposed the defense’s request for additional clarification.

“It was a correct legal instruction when the court referred the jury to it yesterday afternoon,” prosecutor Alison Moe said. “No relief is appropriate here.”

The judge agreed with the government and declined to tell the jury anything more.

“The proposal made by the defense is wrong,” Nathan said. “I continue to not know how to parse the jury’s question.”

Maxwell is the longtime associate of serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced millionaire who died by suicide in jail in 2019. She is facing charges related to the alleged abuse and trafficking of underage girls between 1994 and 2004, and has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Cross-country storms bring extreme weather from California to Maine

December 28, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(LOS ANGELES) — Twenty-four states, from California to Maine, are on alert for extreme cold, freezing rain, heavy snow and avalanche danger on Tuesday.

Western storms, which brought snow to parts of California and the West are headed east, bringing an icy mix, severe weather and a tornado threat to the South and Northeast.

A few more storms will move through the West over the next few days, bringing more heavy snow for the mountains where an avalanche warning has been issued from California to Colorado. Locally, there could be an additional 2 to 4 inches of snow.

In southern California, 2 to 3 additional inches of rain are possible, which could cause minor flooding.

In the Northeast, as one storm move out, another will move in, with more icy roads forecast Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.

Blizzard conditions raged the Midwest on Monday from the Dakotas into Minnesota, where winds gusted near 50 miles per hour and almost 2 feet of snow fell.

Between 3 to 6 inches of snow are expected in the Midwest, with up to 4 inches possible in the Northeast over the next few days.

From Chicago to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and the Twin Cities, a winter weather advisory has been issued where a mix of freezing rain and snow is expected on Tuesday. Roads could become very slick.

In the South, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee are under a threat for severe thunderstorms with damaging winds and a few tornadoes on Wednesday.

The northern half of the country is expecting an arctic outbreak, with some of the coldest arctic air so far this season. The air will move from the northern Rockies into the Upper Midwest.

Wind chills in parts of Montana and the Dakotas have dropped close to 30 to 50 degrees below zero. This air mass will move east into the western Great Lakes and the upper Midwest. The actual temperature is forecast to be well below zero for places like Minneapolis.

As the new year begins, afternoon temperatures will be well below zero in Fargo, North Dakota, and minus 2 in Minneapolis. Temperatures in Denver and Kansas City, Missouri, will also be below freezing.

Truck driver’s mother vows to keep fighting as judge reconsiders her son’s controversial 110-year sentence

December 28, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — As a judge reconsiders the controversial 110-year sentence of Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, his mother said that she wouldn’t stop fighting until her son is back home with his family.

“I feel very sad for the people who lost their lives,” Oslaida Mederos told “Nightline” on Monday in an exclusive interview. “And my son is suffering from it, as well as I am. We are Christians, we believe in God and we pray for them. He is a good boy.”

Mederos was sentenced on Dec. 13 to 110 years in prison for a 2019 fatal crash on I-70, outside Denver, that killed four people and injured several others – a sentence that the judge in the case said he wouldn’t have chosen if he had the discretion.

Amid public outcry over the case, Jefferson County District Attorney Alexis King – the prosecutor in this case – filed a motion earlier this month asking the court to reduce Mederos’ sentence, suggesting a 20-30 year sentencing range instead.

Judge A. Bruce Jones, who was the judge in this case, responded to the motion in a hearing on Monday and scheduled a hearing to reconsider the sentence for Jan. 13, 2022.

“We want our client home and with his family,” family attorney Leonard Martinez told “Nightline” on Monday. “I’m not sure we’ll get there with the judge, obviously. And not sure we’ll get there with the governor, but we’re going to try. We’re going to continue to try to get him home as soon as possible.”

Mederos was charged with 42 counts and was found guilty by a Jefferson County jury of 27 counts — the most serious was first-degree assault, a class-three felony.

The number of the charges, mandatory minimum laws and a classification that mandates some sentences to be served consecutively resulted in the lengthy sentence.

‘Accident’ or ‘crime’

At the heart of the case is the debate over whether the crash was an “accident,” as the defense has argued, or a “crime” – an argument made by prosecutors during the trial and supported by some of the family members of those who died.

“As the jury found, Mr. Aguilera-Mederos knowingly made multiple active choices that resulted in the death of four people, serious injuries to others, and mass destruction,” King said in a statement, adding that the 20-30 year sentencing range “reflects an appropriate outcome for that conduct, which was not an accident.”

A group of crash survivors and family members of the victims spoke exclusively with ABC News last week, describing the trauma that the crash caused their families and said that Mederos should still serve time in prison, even if his sentence is reduced.

“I think we all can agree that [110 years] is excessive,” Duane Bailey, the brother of William Bailey who died in the crash, told “GMA” but added that the jury “came to the correct decision to convict [Mederos].”

Crash victims speak out amid push for governor to commute truck driver’s 110-year sentence

Mederos testified that his brakes failed – a point not contested by prosecutors. In this case, some of the points of contention appear to be decisions Mederos allegedly made before the crash took place and once he found out that he was having brake problems.

Police said Mederos was driving at least 85 mph before the crash on a stretch of the highway with a 45 mph speed limit for commercial vehicles.

After his brakes failed, Mederos drove past a runaway truck ramp and crashed into stopped traffic, police said.

A runaway truck ramp is essentially an escape lane or exit that allows a vehicle experiencing brake problems to stop safely.

Prosecutors argued that after the brakes failed, Mederos intentionally passed the ramp — one of the reasons that some crash victims and families of those who died argued Mederos should serve time in prison.

“Firstly, he had the choice to pick that ramp. He didn’t. Whatever his real reason was, we’ll never know. But that was a choice by him,” Bailey said.

Attorney James Colgan, who represented Mederos during the trial, told ABC News on Monday that Mederos’ defense team “never agreed with prosecutors that he intentionally avoided the ramp” during the trial.

“By the time he realized it was there, he was past it,” Colgan said, adding that Mederos was “under a lot of stress” at the time.

Mederos, who police said was not intoxicated during the crash, testified that after his brakes failed, he crashed into vehicles that had stopped on the highway due to backed up traffic as a result of another crash on the highway and another truck parked on the shoulder of the road.

“I know that Rogel’s intention when he woke up that morning, was [to strap] his work boots on, get in a truck and work and provide for his family. There was no [malicious] intent on his part when he went to work,” Martinez said. “That’s why it should be called an accident.”

What’s next?

As the judge reconsiders the sentence, there are other legal avenues that Mederos’ team can pursue.

Mederos’ attorneys filed an application for clemency last week, urging Colorado Gov. Jared Polis to commute the sentence.

The League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the largest Latino civil rights groups in the U.S., met with Polis last week to advocate for Mederos.

“It should be about justice, not vengeance,” LULAC President Domingo Garcia told “Nightline.”

“I sympathize with those family members who lost a loved one; I cannot imagine how difficult the pain must be,” he added.
Prosecutor seeks reduced sentence for truck driver who got 110 years for fatal crash

The deadline for Mederos and his legal team to appeal is 49 days following sentencing, which would be Jan. 31, 2022. Mederos also has up to a year from the Dec. 13 sentencing to file a motion under Rule 35b for the judge to reconsider his sentence.

During the sentencing, Mederos expressed remorse for those killed and injured in the crash and said that the accident was unintentional and he is “not a criminal.”

“I want to say sorry. Sorry for the loss, for the people injured,” he said. “I know they have trauma, I know, I feel that.”

ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin, Knez Walker, Marjorie Mcafee, Candace Smith and Michelle Mendez contributed to this report.

Search continues for hit-and-run driver who killed 2 kids, injured 4

December 28, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(ORLANDO) — Police in Florida are on the hunt for a fugitive driver involved in a hit-and-run crash that killed two children and sent four others to the hospital.

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday they located the 2009 Honda Accord involved in the incident in Wilton Manors, Florida, the previous afternoon.

Investigators said the car’s male driver veered around a school bus that was trying to merge onto the road, drove off the roadway onto the sidewalk and struck multiple children.

The driver then allegedly fled the scene, according to investigators.

The victims’ ages ranged from 2 to 10 years old, according to police.

Andrea Fleming, 6, and Kylie Jones, 5, were killed at the scene.

Draya Fleming, 9, Johnathan Carter, 10, Laziyah Stokes, 9, and Audre Fleming, 2, were rushed to Broward Health Medical Center, police said.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the suspect has not been identified and his whereabouts were unknown, the police said.

Anyone with information is urged to call (954) 493-TIPS (8477).

2021 was pivotal year for abortion laws in America

December 28, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — For half a century, American women have had the right to choose to end a pregnancy at any point before a fetus is viable outside the womb. If 2021 saw that freedom start to crumble, 2022 could see it more widely wiped away.

“I think this is the time,” said an anti-abortion rights activist from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who declined to share her name this fall while outside the state’s only remaining abortion clinic in Jackson.

Mississippi, which has asked the Supreme Court to end constitutional protection for abortion, appears likely to at least win affirmation of its 15-week ban on the procedure — more than two months earlier than the current standard allows.

Texas, which now forbids abortions after six weeks, has become the first state to effectively eliminate most procedures statewide since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. SB8, which has been in effect for nearly four months, has defied repeated legal challenges with its novel enforcement mechanism that pits citizen against citizen.

Other Republican-led states are racing to follow suit. A record number of states have enacted more than 100 stringent new restrictions on abortion access in the last year alone, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights research organization.

In the months ahead, the nation’s highest court could give states a green light to go even further, potentially scrapping the viability line for abortion bans and shredding decades of precedent.

“The Supreme Court is in dialogue with social movements, with political institutions, with health care providers, and that’s what brought us to this moment,” said Florida State University Law professor Mary Ziegler, a leading abortion law historian.

The moment is especially pivotal for social conservatives who have spent decades laying legal and political groundwork to roll back abortion access despite broad public support for Roe.

“Could the days of the Court’s ‘abortion distortion’ jurisprudence finally be behind us? I’m optimistic,” said Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative legal advocacy group that has advocated for the reversal of Roe.

A dozen states have so-called trigger laws set to ban all or nearly all abortions the moment the Supreme Court delivers a favorable decision. Ten more have similar laws that could quickly follow suit.

The anti-abortion movement is “well-organized, well-funded, and they stick together,” said Derenda Hancock, co-founder of the Pink House Defenders, a volunteer patient escort group at Jackson Women’s Health in Mississippi. “In the meantime, the pro-choice movement has a lot of inner fighting, inner stress.”

To counter the momentum, abortion providers and women’s health advocates have been scrambling to advance new initiatives.

Whole Woman’s Health, a leading abortion care provider in Texas, is now providing the procedure for free before six weeks of pregnancy, in accordance with state law.

The Biden administration announced this month that the abortion pill mifepristone can now be distributed by mail or at commercial pharmacies if authorized by a physician, rather than in-person at a hospital, clinic or medical office.

It “did not come a moment too soon,” ACLU attorney Julia Kaye said.

But the moves to shore up abortion access so far only have a limited impact.

Nineteen states have laws banning distribution of mifepristone by mail: 13 are in the South, and six in the Midwest, according to Guttmacher.

Only 15 states and the District of Columbia have laws that protect the right to abortion.

The House of Representatives for the first time passed a bill to protect abortion rights, but it faces long odds in a narrowly divided Senate.

If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, the battle over abortion rights in 2022 would shift to state legislatures, legal analysts said.

“At least in the short term, this would mean it would be a state-by-state issue, and even more than is already the case,” Ziegler said. “Your ability to get an abortion would depend on where you live.”

There would likely be renewed attempts to enshrine abortion protections into either state law or state constitutions, as well as emboldened efforts by abortion opponents to legislate rights for a fetus.

“I think that the end game for many opponents of abortion is actually enshrining in the law a constitutional protection for the fetus,” said Cardozo Law professor and ABC News Supreme Court contributor Kate Shaw.

The Supreme Court is expected to deliver its decision in June, just months before the midterm elections.

“The trend around the globe is toward liberalization of abortion,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said. “If the U.S. takes this step back, we’re just going to have to go forward.”

Experts troubled by TikTok trend that can have teens believing they have serious mental disorders

December 28, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A new trend on TikTok could lead some teens to believe they have a serious mental disorder, according to some experts.

The app, which has become a community for users to connect and for teens to show off dance moves and share other fun videos, has recently had some trending videos of young people claiming to have a borderline personality, bipolar or dissociative identity disorder, which is spreading like wildfire on the platform.

Posts with the hashtags, “dissociative identity disorder” and “borderline personality disorder” have been viewed hundreds of millions of times. And some of those videos list possible signs to look out for and encourage viewers to self-evaluate.

Samantha Fridley, 18, said these videos influenced her to believe that she was suffering from a mental disorder.

“I remember seeing these videos on my ‘For You’ page of people saying, like, ‘These are signs that you have this disorder,’ bipolar or borderline and all these other weird disorders that I’ve never even heard of before,” Fridley told GMA. “My mind would be like, ‘Maybe I don’t have just depression and anxiety, maybe I have something else.'”

“After working with a therapist for a long time, I started realizing that I don’t have borderline personality, I don’t have disassociated identity, I don’t have bipolar. I just have what I’ve always had, which is depression and anxiety,” she added.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, borderline personality disorder is extremely rare — only 1.4% of the U.S. adult population is estimated to have this condition and it is rarely diagnosed in adolescents.

Mental health professionals say these videos may pose an alarming risk to a potentially vulnerable population.

“If you spend 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes viewing people talk about these disorders over and over again, that can make it seem like these conditions are a lot more prevalent than they actually are in the world,” said psychologist Ethan Kross, the author of Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It.

To help teens on TikTok, experts are urging parents to maintain an open line of communication with their kids about mental health.

“Take the time to empathetically hear them out,” Kross said. “How intense are these symptoms? How long are they lasting? Does it seem like they’re interfering with your child’s ability to live the life that they want to live? Again, if the answer to those questions is yes, that’s a cue to then take the next steps to get a formal diagnosis.”

In a statement to ABC News, TikTok said, “We care deeply about the well-being of our community, which is why we continue to invest in digital literacy education aimed at helping people evaluate and understand content they engage with online. We strongly encourage individuals to seek professional medical advice if they are in need of support.”

‘High risk’ of armed conflict over Ukraine, Russian defense ministry warns

December 28, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(MOSCOW) — Russia’s deputy defense minister warned foreign ambassadors of a “high risk” of conflict between the country and its neighbor Ukraine — one day after President Vladimir Putin threatened “diverse” military and technical responses if the West doesn’t address his stated concerns.

These latest messages from Moscow are the kind that have had U.S. and other western officials on edge that Putin will launch an assault on Ukraine, even after President Joe Biden warned him doing so would bring massive penalties.

The Biden administration has repeatedly called for diplomacy with Russia to de-escalate tensions and end the war in Ukraine’s eastern provinces, nearly eight years after Russian troops armed separatist forces in a conflict that continues to simmer and claim lives.

But Russia’s demands for security guarantees, including that Ukraine be barred from joining NATO, have been called “unacceptable” by U.S. officials — possibly purposefully so, so that Russia can later claim to have given diplomacy a shot.

Russia has said it has no plans to invade but demanded the U.S., NATO, and Ukraine take seriously its concerns.

“We didn’t make the proposals just to see them blocked in terms of the diplomatic process, but for the purpose of reaching a negotiated diplomatic result that would be fixed in legally binding documents. We will aim at this,” Putin said Sunday.

His Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin blamed NATO again Monday for provoking conflict by sending warships and reconnaissance planes to back Ukraine. That echoes a statement last week by his boss, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who claimed Ukraine, with U.S. mercenary help, is preparing a chemical weapons attack.

“The alliance has recently switched to the practice of direct provocations accompanied by the high risk of turning into armed confrontation,” Fomin said during a meeting that included envoys from 14 NATO countries.

It’s the kind of false pretext for an invasion that U.S. officials and analysts have warned Russia may create to justify an invasion.

“Russia is ostensibly outraged by a crisis of their own making,” said Mick Mulroy, a senior Trump administration Pentagon official and ABC News national security analyst. “It was Russia that put around 175,000 troops on the border and threatened to invade again if its demands were not met — ‘Do what I ask, or I will attack and occupy a sovereign country against all international norms.'”

The estimated number of Russian troops near Ukraine have ranged from 60,000 to over 100,000, with one leaked U.S. intelligence document warning Russia could be prepared to swiftly deploy as many as 175,000. U.S. officials have cited those troop movements, along with Russian propaganda attacks on Ukraine, which they say have increased tenfold, and bellicose rhetoric as evidence of a possible invasion.

But diplomacy could stave off war. The U.S. and Russia have agreed to hold talks in January to address each side’s concerns, along with talks between NATO and Russia and meetings at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, according to U.S. officials. The OSCE, a key security forum, has deployed a war monitor in eastern Ukraine for years as the conflict has taken some 14,000 lives.

After coordinating a meeting between the Ukrainian government and the Russian-controlled separatists last week, the OSCE declared Thursday that both sides showed a “strong determination to fully adhere” to a July 2020 ceasefire agreement. The statement was heralded by Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and the State Department, whose spokesperson said, “We hope the resultant peace will create the diplomatic space necessary to de-escalate regional tensions and provide a positive atmosphere for further discussion.”

There has been no “resultant peace.” Three Ukrainian soldiers were wounded in shelling that last for hours on Sunday. There had been five times more ceasefire violations this month than last December, according to the OSCE.

But there was some notable Russian troop movements, according to state-run Interfax news agency, which reported that more than 10,000 troops pulled back from near Ukraine’s borders after military drills. The Kremlin also said Monday that it made sense to engage NATO directly about its security concerns, in addition to the U.S.

Whether that is yet a sign for hope that war can be avoided is unclear. U.S. officials have said it’s still unknown whether Putin has decided to invade, with tens of thousands of troops still in the area, including in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula Russia invaded and seized in 2014.

Holiday travel nightmare continues with COVID-related flight cancellations

December 28, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The omicron variant continues to wreak havoc on holiday travel from coast to coast.

Over the weekend, airlines reported more than 3,000 flight cancellations with at least one stop in the U.S, according to FlightAware, and the travel troubles don’t seem to be letting up anytime soon. As of 11:30 a.m. Monday morning, nearly 1,000 flights had already been canceled, and the number was steadily creeping up by the hour.

United, Delta, JetBlue, American and Alaska cited the recent COVID-19 surge as one of the reasons for the cancellations because it has left them with crew shortages. In an effort to avoid more disruptions, JetBlue and Alaska have even resorted to offering extra pay to healthy employees who can pick up additional shifts.

Winter weather in the western part of the country didn’t help — slamming airports in Seattle, Los Angeles and Denver. Those three airports accounted for more than 600 flight cancellations on Sunday alone.

“COVID delivered this disruption,” Spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association Capt. Dennis Tajer said. “And it just shows you how tight the buffer is in the airline business right now, where they’re trying to fly as many flights as possible with just a handful of folks. So this is a little bit of a, you can’t plan for something like this, but you certainly should have a little bit better of a buffer, especially in this important travel period where folks are trying to get to their families.”

A majority of the flight cancellations luckily landed on traditionally slow travel days — Christmas Eve and Christmas — but there are still an estimated 16.5 million more fliers before the end of the holiday travel rush, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

“Omicron places airlines in a very tough position,” aviation expert Henry Harteveldt told ABC News. “Still reeling from major financial losses in 2020, airlines don’t want to forfeit any opportunity to generate revenue and, possibly, profits. Plus, no airline wants to cancel fully booked flights at any time — especially at Christmas. Given the random nature of how omicron strikes people, it’s also impossible for airlines to know who will get sick.”

He says that for now there is no end in sight to the travel chaos.

“It’s impossible to predict an end date for the omicron-related cancellations,” Harteveldt said. “Unlike when an airline suffers a disruption caused by weather, this virus is random. The best way to estimate its impact on airlines and other industries is to look at the broader trend.”

Airlines for America, the group that lobbies on behalf of all major U.S. airlines, has been calling on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to shorten the quarantine time for fully vaccinated individuals in attempt to minimize disruptions from the omicron surge.

“The omicron surge may exacerbate personnel shortages and create significant disruptions to our workforce and operations,” Nick Calio, A4A’s CEO, said in a letter on Thursday to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky.

Calio proposed the isolation period to be shortened to five days from symptom onset for breakthrough infections.

“In turn, those individuals would be able to end isolation with an appropriate testing protocol,” Calio wrote.

The letter comes after Delta Air Lines and JetBlue Airways, both A4A members, also asked for isolation periods for fully vaccinated individuals to be shortened.

ABC News’ Joanne Aran and Erielle Reshef contributed to this report.

Five dead, officer injured in ‘killing spree’ across Denver, police say

December 28, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(DENVER) — A shooter allegedly went on a “killing spree” across the Denver area, killing four and wounding three, including a police officer, officials said on Monday.

The violence unfolded in Denver, with gunshots reported in at least four locations, and ended more than an hour later in neighboring Lakewood, where the suspect died, officials said. Authorities did not publicly identify the suspect.

“We believe that this individual was responsible for this very violent series of events that took place in the Denver metro area,” Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen said in a press conference.

The incident began at about 5 p.m. on Monday in downtown Denver, where the suspect shot three people, Pazen said. Two women were killed and a man was injured, he said.

Police received a call moments later about a second shooting nearby, where one man was killed, Pazen said. Gunshots were then reported at a third location, but no injuries were reported, he said.

“Denver police officers identified a vehicle associated with this incident. There was a pursuit that ensued,” Pazen said. “There was an exchange of gunfire between the individual, the suspect, here, and our officers.”

There were no injuries in that exchange, Pazan said, but the suspect disabled a police vehicle and fled into neighboring Lakewood.

Lakewood Police then responded to a report of a shooting at about 6 p.m., said John Romero, the department’s public information office. One person was killed in that incident, he said.

Lakewood police then located the suspect’s vehicle at a shopping center, Romero said. The suspect shot at officers, before fleeing on foot to a nearby store and then a Hyatt Place hotel, he said. The suspect shot a clerk at the hotel, Romero said.

The suspect shot and injured a Lakewood officer while fleeing the hotel, Romero said. That officer was in surgery, Romero said during the press conference.

The suspect and officers then exchanged gun fire, and the suspect was shot and killed, Romero said.

“This is the holiday season. To have this type of spree take place is not normal for our community,” Pazen said. “We cannot lose sight of the victims in this, the people who are still fighting for their lives, including a Lakewood agent.”

An investigation is ongoing, officials said. Neither the FBI nor the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are currently involved in the investigation, spokespeople for each said.

This is a developing story, please check back for updates.

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