(NEW YORK) — A festival in New Orleans. Concerts in Nashville, Tennessee. A comic book convention in Atlanta. As the delta variant surges across the country, states with low COVID vaccination rates are reeling from a loss in tourism dollars due to large-event cancellations and postponements.
Of the 11 states with vaccination rates under 50%, Louisiana, Tennessee and Georgia have cancelled staple events, costing an estimated hundreds of millions of dollars for local and state economies, according to officials.
On Aug. 9, organizers of New Orleans’ Jazz and Heritage Festival announced that the annual festival would be canceled for the second consecutive year, citing “the current exponential growth of new COVID cases in New Orleans and the region.”
The Louisiana Department of Health seconded this concern in a recent interview with ABC News.
“Down here in Louisiana, we are in our fourth and most dangerous surge to date, fueled by our insufficient vaccination rate and the highly transmissible Delta variant. Our hospitals are overwhelmed,” a Louisiana Department of Health spokesperson said.
As of Aug. 20, less than 39% of the state’s population is fully vaccinated.
In an emailed statement to ABC News, Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser estimated that the cancellation of the festival will cost the region more than $300 million compounding the $5 billion the state has lost in tourism revenue over the course of the pandemic.
“The second postponement of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival will have a long-lasting negative impact on tourism, not only the $300 million in direct economic impact but also for events leading up to and during the two week event,” Nungesser wrote.
“It means bands and musicians who perform in the evening at local hot spots and ‘mom and pop’ businesses that rely on Jazz Fest for a large amount of their annual income for the year, will not have the opportunity to earn that money again this year,” he added.
In Tennessee, the urban economies of Nashville and Memphis continue to dampen due to the decline of conventions, business and international travel, and concerts, according to the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development.
In the past year, Tennessee’s tourism revenue decreased by 26%, resulting in the loss of over $4.1 billion in the leisure and hospitality industry, according to the Tennessee Department of Revenue and Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
“Lodging was the most-impacted category, followed by recreation. Lodging of course relies on group travel in our larger metro areas, so the big cities felt that impact much more than our areas that rely on leisure travel,” a Tennessee Tourist Department spokesperson said.
Earlier this year, large indoor events like the annual Country Music Awards were canceled in Tennessee but large outdoor events like Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival will carry on with special precautions in place, such as proof of vaccination or a negative test 72 hours before the event.
In Georgia, organizers of Fandemic Dead — a comic book convention for fans of television series, “The Walking Dead” — announced on Aug. 13 that the convention will be postponed to March 2022 due to concerns about the delta variant.
“While this decision was not made lightly, it was made in an effort to help keep our community safe,” the organizers explained in a press statement. “The health and safety of fans, panelists, exhibitors, artists and staff is our top priority.”
In an emailed statement to ABC News, the Georgia Department of Economic Development said the state’s tourism industry was “devastated” by COVID-19, leaving travel-generated state and local tax revenues down by more than $640 million over the course of the pandemic.
Despite these losses, Georgia Department of Economic Development tourism Deputy Commissioner Mark Jaronski praised the support Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has shown to the tourism industry.
“The leadership of Governor Brian Kemp and our General Assembly has given our tourism industry the license to operate,” Jaronski said. “We’re not immune to the challenges faced by destinations across the globe, but we have been successful in maximizing the travel business that does exist and leveraging it to grow Georgia’s share of domestic travel and economic position.”
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 625,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.4 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 59.9% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
Aug 21, 7:47 pm
Jesse Jackson hospitalized with COVID
Civil rights pioneer Jesse Jackson Sr. and his wife have been hospitalized after testing positive for COVID-19.
The 79-year-old and his wife, 77-year-old Jacqueline Jackson, are both being treated at Northwestern Hospital in Chicago, according to a statement from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the nonprofit he founded in 1996. The statement said doctors were “monitoring the condition of both,” but provided no further details.
The former Washington, D.C., shadow senator has been a prominent civil rights activist for 60 years, first joining forces with Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s and working with King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
The activist was arrested earlier this month as part of a group in Washington, D.C., protesting restrictive voting rights being implemented in many states, including Georgia and Texas. One week earlier, he’d been arrested as part of a large group during a sit-in at Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s office.
Aug 21, 11:21 am
US sees 3rd straight day of 1M doses
The U.S. reported over 1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered for the third straight day, according to a White House official.
There were more than 1.05 million doses administered Friday, including 526,000 newly vaccinated, White House COVID-19 data director Cyrus Shahpar said on Twitter.
Nationwide, 60% of people ages 12 and up are now fully vaccinated, he said.
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — As Western diplomats scrambled to Kabul airport while the Taliban overran the city last weekend, Russia’s embassy there remained demonstratively open and announced its diplomats would work as normal.
It was a sign of how, although seemingly surprised by the speed of the Taliban’s takeover as the rest of the world, Russia is now trying to smoothly transition to working with the militants in power.
Russian officials have so far spoken positively of the Taliban, praising them for maintaining order in the capital. Although Russia has said it will not rush to recognize the group as Afghanistan’s government, it has signaled it is ready to engage with them.
“The Taliban movement currently controls virtually the entire territory of the country, including its capital. These are realities,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a press conference with Germany’s leader Angela Merkel on Friday. “And we should act based on these very realities, not allowing the Afghan state’s breakup.”
Russian officials have castigated the fallen American-backed government of Ashraf Ghani and this week Russia’s top envoy overseeing its Afghanistan policy, the veteran diplomat Zamir Kabulov, compared the Taliban favorably to the former government.
“If you compare the capacity to make agreements of colleagues and partners, then the Taliban have long seemed to me far more capable than the Kabul puppet government,” Kabulov told Russian state television.
Russia has built solid contacts with the Taliban in the past few years as a U.S. withdrawal appeared increasingly likely. It has hosted several rounds of inter-Afghan talks in Moscow that have included the Taliban. In July, a high-level Taliban delegation met with Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, even though Russia still formally designates the group a terrorist organization, as does the U.S.
Three decades after the Soviet Union’s own disastrous intervention into Afghanistan, Russia’s overriding concern is that instability in Afghanistan not spread to its Central Asian neighbors Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and that it not again become a base for international terrorist groups to launch attacks.
The Russian government’s priority, analysts said, is to ensure an understanding with the Taliban that Moscow is content to engage with them as rulers provided they give security guarantees for Central Asia and pledge to prevent terrorist attacks from its territory.
“It is absolutely clear that Russia will try to have as working relationship with Taliban as possible,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, a foreign policy expert and chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy which sometimes independently advises the Russian government.
“As for the domestic situation in Afghanistan, Russia fortunately has no interests there. There are no stakes inside Afghanistan this time and Russia can relax and limit its reactions to the security interests of the region,” he said by phone.
A stable Taliban takeover is also preferable to the Kremlin than a chaotic civil war, even if that means a return to the group’s deeply repressive rule, Lukyanov said. But he said he expected Russia would not hurry to formally recognize the Taliban since it would weaken its leverage with the group.
Kabulov told Russian state television this week that so far, the Taliban was observing their agreements with Russia on security for Central Asia.
“It’s a hopeful sign,” he said. “But we are trusting people of course, but not to that degree. We will carefully follow next steps.”
In recent weeks Russia has moved rapidly to bolster Tajikistan, where it has a military base, sending money, weapons and reinforcing border posts. Russia held military exercises this month with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan close to the Afghan border.
The Kremlin is also glad to see an end to American forces in Central Asia, a long-time goal.
The problem, though, some analysts said, is whether the Taliban will have enough control in Afghanistan to continue to enforce the security guarantees sought by Moscow.
“So far we have a propaganda coup to enjoy, but that may not last,” said Vladimir Frolov, a former Russian diplomat and now foreign affairs commentator.
Russia’s ideal scenario is that the Taliban now form an inclusive government with other Afghan political groups, but that is viewed as unlikely by many analysts in Moscow. Instead, “drug trafficking and religious extremism will mushroom,” journalist, Kirill Krivosheev, wrote in an article for the Carnegie Moscow Center.
That uncertainty means that Russia’s foreign ministry risks getting ahead of itself with its public friendliness toward the Taliban, Frolov said.
“I think we made a risky bet on Taliban promises to stabilize the country under their control and not engage in cross-border jihad,” said Frolov.
The foreign ministry “will have to prove their bet worked out as promised,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 625,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.4 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 59.9% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
Aug 21, 11:21 am
US sees 3rd straight day of 1M doses
The U.S. reported over 1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered for the third straight day, according to a White House official.
There were more than 1.05 million doses administered Friday, including 526,000 newly vaccinated, White House COVID-19 data director Cyrus Shahpar said on Twitter.
Nationwide, 60% of people ages 12 and up are now fully vaccinated, he said.
(NEW YORK) — Bees — whether wild or managed –are integral to the production of the world’s food supply. But as populations continue their steep decline, the crops that rely on pollination could become more scarce and even cease to exist in the future, according to scientists.
There are more than 4,000 species of bees in America, a large proportion of which are experiencing widespread decline, Scott McArt, assistant professor of pollinator health at Cornell University, told ABC News. In New York, 53 species, about 13%, are either experiencing population declines or range contractions over the past three or four decades, McArt said.
The honey bee population decreased 40% in the winter of 2018 to 2019 alone, and the annual rate loss for the 2019 to 2020 winter was also 40%, declines that experts described as “unsustainable.”
The situation “isn’t good,” and most likely is even worse than researchers are estimating, he added.
“It’s likely an underestimate of the true scope of population declines, simply because we don’t have great historical records on a lot of these species,” McArt said.
The production of crops that depend on pollinators generates more than $50 billion a year in the U.S., researchers say. Managed bee populations, which involve a beekeeper arriving to put down hives just as the crops are flowering, alone contribute to about $20 billion worth of U.S. agricultural production, Matthew Mulica, senior project manager at the Keystone Policy Center, a consulting company that works with the Honey Bee Health Coalition, told ABC News.
A “large proportion of what we eat” relies to some extent on pollinators, McArt said. An estimated 87% of angiosperms, or flowering plants, are reliant on pollinators, while around 75% of those are crops that rely on pollination, he added. The commercial production of more than 90 crops relies on about 3,600 bee species, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Some of the crops that rely most on pollinators include almonds, blueberries, pears, apples, cherries, peppers, cucumbers and broccoli, Mulica said.
The bees also oil seeds in other crops, such as corn and soybean, Mulica said.
“It’s an amazing service that honey bees and beekeepers provide for for agriculture,” Mulica said.
Conservationists and scientists who study food security alike are concerned about how the downward trend of bee populations will affect food supply going forward, McArt said.
In the short term, food prices could rise if the number of bees pollinating crops continue to die off.
In the future, the crops could disappear forever, experts say.
“Imagine walking into your grocery store and seeing a third of your fruits and vegetables missing, and you can really see the impact the [bee] health decline has on produce,” Mulica said.
There is already “good evidence” of pollination shortfalls in the U.S., McArt said. A study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences last year found that crop yields for apples, cherries and blueberries across the U.S. are being reduced by a lack of pollinators.
And while the production rate for other crops the researchers looked at — watermelon, pumpkin and almonds — haven’t slowed, “that does not mean that that won’t occur in the future,” McArt said.
“While it might not be occurring right now, it’s predicted to occur in the future,” he said.
How to mitigate pollinator declines
The top stressor on pollinators is the lack of habitat and floral resources, McArt said. Bees are actually thriving in agricultural and natural areas, McArt said, adding that it’s the suburban and urban areas where they’re not doing well.
“That happens to be where most of us live,” he said.
McArt encouraged anyone with a plot of land or even an apartment balcony to plant a pollinator-friendly garden. He also suggested that homeowners hold off on mowing their lawns too often to encourage wildflowers to grow.
In addition, it will be necessary in the future to reduce the use of pesticides and mitigate climate change, which can cause plant pathogens to infect crops at higher rates, McArt said.
Lastly, beekeepers need to meticulously manage their hives, which can spread disease to wild bees if not monitored correctly, McArt said.
“That requires a lot of management by the beekeepers — a lot more splitting of hives and re-cleaning,” Mulica said.
(WASHINGTON) — The $1.1 trillion infrastructure bill passed by Congress last week will fund roads, bridges, rails and other components of the country’s infrastructure. The legislation is also addressing racial inequity.
President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan aims to “reconnect neighborhoods cut off by historic investments” and “redress historic inequity.” Part of his plan includes awarding government contracts to minority-owned businesses, including real estate development companies that will do the work in conjunction with climate projects.
Why is racial injustice being addressed in the plan? The real estate development community is almost exclusively white. That lack of diversity, Black developers who spoke with ABC News said, translates into less affordable housing in Black communities, low rates of homeownership and a scarcity of retail and other businesses within those communities.
According to a 2019 report from Urban Land Institute — a nonprofit organization for real estate and land use experts — only 5% of its U.S. members are African American, 4.5% are Asian and 82% are white.
One of the major problems with diversifying real estate, Black developers say, is that they often face hurdles in acquiring funds, and ultimately in expanding their businesses.
Many are working to eliminate those barriers. Last year’s racial reckoning protests invigorated the real estate development community to create and leverage more initiatives and programs to help not only the Black real estate development business, but to further Black economic power.
D.C. becoming model of Black real estate development
Last summer, Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office established several initiatives to provide access to funding for minority developers.
“We are committed to making our city’s prosperity more inclusive, but that won’t happen by chance – it will happen because as a government and as individuals, we are intentional about how we invest and who we make opportunities available to,” said Bowser shortly after its launch.
One of those initiatives is Capital Impact Partners’ $20 million Diversity in Development DMV Loan Fund (DiD-DMV) and coinciding grant program.
“Our goal is to really take a holistic approach to provide opportunity — specifically in communities of color,” Ellis Carr, president and CEO of Capital Impact Partners and CEO of CDC Small Business Finance told ABC News.
“As we thought about the opportunity to support the D.C. area’s real estate development community, we looked at where the hurdles were, particularly those that were faced by developers of color. We heard a number of things, but primarily it was really boiled down to the lack of access to capital in both debt and equity for developers to really be able to take the leap and expand their businesses and wage,” Carr said.
Through the fund, developers, both nonprofit and for-profit, will have access to lower-cost, flexible pre-development and acquisition loans, unlocking crucial early-stage financing that is often denied to developers of color.
The first two financed projects are set to be built in Washington, D.C.’s Ward 7 and Ward 8, areas with a large African American population.
Thomas Houston and Talayah Jackson both received nearly $1 million in funding for their nonprofit community development corporation, Medici Road.
“U.S. housing is a product change,” Jackson told ABC News. “There is a connection between public health, education and housing … it’s all a systemic problem. It’s not just about solving one answer for someone, it’s … tackling multiple things.”
With the funds, Medici Road plans to develop a 17,000-square-foot building in a vacant lot in D.C.’s Deanwood neighborhood with affordable housing, retail and office space to create essential services in the community.
“We’re creating systemic change for generations,” Jackson said. “I think it’s just due time that taxpayers, as residents, have access to the things that really should already be in place. This community should be flourishing, it should be thriving.”
The new condominium community will create a mixed-income development to provides access to healthy food and health and wellness education, Jackson said.
Currently, the seventh ward has higher crime rates, low homeownership rates and few grocery stores. But Houston says that’s the reasoning behind the decision to develop in the area.
“We have a car to drive to wherever grocery store we wanted to. But what if there is an emergency for say food, formula, and we didn’t have any access at all? When you start looking at this from the professional side of the road, and we start looking at public health outcomes access all the stuff is linked, and none of it exists in our neighborhood. And so that’s where the idea came,” Houston said.
The grocery store is expected to be a franchise owned and staffed by residents of the community.
Steps away from the Deanwood neighborhood project, another developer, Mustafa Durrani of Durrani Development Corporation, secured a $2.5 million acquisition loan and another $900,000 predevelopment loan. Durrani plans to transform a vacant area into a new affordable housing community in the Randle Heights neighborhood of D.C.’s Ward 8.
“There’s an idea that affordable homeownership and affordable rentals are like public housing. And so we want to be able to create something that looks like market rate but it’s still affordable,” Durrani said.
(AFGHANISTAN) — Years ago, Naqibullah had assisted the U.S. Marine Corps as a translator in Afghanistan and has since started a new life in the U.S. However, his parents and siblings remain in Afghanistan as the Taliban took over the country this weekend.
Naqibullah will be referred to only by his first name for this report. As of Wednesday, half a world away from his parents, brothers and sisters, he said he’s waiting for word from his family as they hide in their home.
“I’ve talked to them a couple of hours ago… They had fears and concerns about what’s going to happen next,” he told ABC News. “I have a fear that one day they’re going to go into our house and search for … my family to be assassinated.”
‘We’re deeply hurt’
As the U.S. prepared to complete its troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, bringing an end to the two-decade war, the Taliban seized power in a matter of days, taking over all of the country’s major cities.
“I’ve been in touch with veterans that serve and everybody [is] just so nervous … the reaction is that we’re deeply hurt, we’re deeply upset about it. And the country’s going towards [an] uncertain future,” Naqibullah told ABC News in a phone interview on Wednesday. “We don’t know what’s going to happen to those people who work for the government. But right now, they’re, they’re locked in their houses, they don’t know about tomorrow, what’s going to happen to them?”
He said that he and his veteran friends are in disbelief that the Taliban took over Afghanistan so quickly last week.
“How many people, how many years, [how many] heroes lost their lives there? What would be the answer to those hurt?” he said.
Remembering Taliban rule
Naqibullah was born and raised in Afghanistan and remembers living under Taliban rule in the 1990s.
“I remember when they came for us and took over the country,” he said.
He said he remembers the Taliban going door-to-door targeting supporters of the government and imposing “a lot of restrictions” on the daily lives of the people — from rules that women and girls must mostly be confined to the home, to dress codes for both men and women.
After the Taliban refused to hand over Osama bin Laden following the 9/11 terror attacks, President George W. Bush authorized the use of force against those responsible for the attacks. This joint resolution would later be cited by his administration as legal rationale for its decision to take sweeping measures to combat terrorism including invading Afghanistan in October 2001.
Learning English was not allowed in school under Taliban rule, but “when the Americans took over … there were a lot of private schools that were teaching English,” Naquibullah said, and this is how he was able to learn English.
Joining the U.S. armed forces
Naqibullah speaks both Pashto and Dari — the most widely spoken languages in Afghanistan, so when he graduated high school in 2007 at 16 years old, he decided to work with the U.S. military in Afghanistan as an interpreter and translator.
“I thought about it that you know [working] with them would benefit, not just myself, my family, would benefit the entire nation,” he said, pointing to opening schools, reconstruction efforts, training Afghan forces and setting up a new government.
Describing the first time he experienced combat, Naqibullah said that hearing the voices of the Taliban fighters planning to attack and vowing to capture American forces was “demoralizing.”
“Every moment that I was listening to their voices was kind of making me so scared and the fear was raising,” he said. “The morale of the soldier in the U.S. Marines [was] very high, they will keep fighting, you know, they’ll keep pushing forward towards them, but since I was a person knowing their languages … that kind of made me demoralized since it was my first time and I started like almost crying.”
But soon, Naqibullah was encouraged and empowered by the successes of the U.S. as they gained ground against the Taliban.
He worked for the Marines in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2013. After spending a few years on the frontlines, in 2010 he was transferred to Kabul to help train the Afghan army.
A few years ago, Naqibullah moved to the U.S. and became a citizen in 2019.
Naqibullah said he never expected to be in a situation where the Taliban would retake Afghanistan in just over a week.
“Nobody was ready for that… The entire country would collapse into the hands of the Taliban,” he said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen, whether the past 20 years [were of] achievement … or are we going … back to the 1990s or what’s going to happen?”
He says he pleaded with the U.S. government to help Afghans like him, who helped the U.S. over the last two decades. A Pentagon official said yesterday 5,000 to 10,000 Americans remain in Afghanistan, though authorities are unsure of the exact number. The number of Afghans who qualify for evacuation is also unclear, but authorities believe it numbers in the tens of thousands.
“It’s been over 15 months that I applied for my dad to come over here to the U.S. but the case is still under process.” he added. “… I don’t get the answer that I’m looking for,” he said, adding his message to the government is to help Afghan families immigrate to the U.S.
Hopes for a ‘bright future’
Now 31 years old and a father to four daughters, Naqibullah says he worries his mother and sisters won’t have the same freedoms his family is privileged to have in the U.S.
“At this point, I don’t think I see a future for them to stay in Afghanistan,” he said. “I don’t think my family will be saved if they remain in the country.”
As for his daughters, who are U.S. citizens, Naqibullah said that he wants them to have a “bright future” and choose their own paths in life.
“They have the right [to] choose what they’re choosing for their future. I want them to go to school, to be educated to serve the country, to serve the nation, whether it’s in the medical field or any field they choose to go through. I want them to be a contributor back to this country.”
Naqibullah speaks both Pashto and Dari — the most widely spoken languages in Afghanistan, so when he graduated high school in 2007 at 16 years old, he decided to work with the U.S. military in Afghanistan as an interpreter and translator.
“I thought about it that you know [working] with them would benefit, not just myself, my family, would benefit the entire nation,” he said, pointing to opening schools, reconstruction efforts, training Afghan forces and setting up a new government.
Describing the first time he experienced combat, Naqibullah said that hearing the voices of the Taliban fighters planning to attack and vowing to capture American forces was “demoralizing.”
“Every moment that I was listening to their voices was kind of making me so scared and the fear was raising,” he said. “The morale of the soldier in the U.S. Marines [was] very high, they will keep fighting, you know, they’ll keep pushing forward towards them, but since I was a person knowing their languages … that kind of made me demoralized since it was my first time and I started like almost crying.”
But soon, Naqibullah was encouraged and empowered by the successes of the U.S. as they gained ground against the Taliban.
He worked for the Marines in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2013. After spending a few years on the frontlines, in 2010 he was transferred to Kabul to help train the Afghan army.
A few years ago, Naqibullah moved to the U.S. and became a citizen in 2019.
Naqibullah said he never expected to be in a situation where the Taliban would retake Afghanistan in just over a week.
“Nobody was ready for that… The entire country would collapse into the hands of the Taliban,” he said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen, whether the past 20 years [were of] achievement … or are we going … back to the 1990s or what’s going to happen?”
He says he pleaded with the U.S. government to help Afghans like him, who helped the U.S. over the last two decades. A Pentagon official said yesterday 5,000 to 10,000 Americans remain in Afghanistan, though authorities are unsure of the exact number. The number of Afghans who qualify for evacuation is also unclear, but authorities believe it numbers in the tens of thousands.
“It’s been over 15 months that I applied for my dad to come over here to the U.S. but the case is still under process.” he added. “… I don’t get the answer that I’m looking for,” he said, adding his message to the government is to help Afghan families immigrate to the U.S.
Hopes for a ‘bright future’
Now 31 years old and a father to four daughters, Naqibullah says he worries his mother and sisters won’t have the same freedoms his family is privileged to have in the U.S.
“At this point, I don’t think I see a future for them to stay in Afghanistan,” he said. “I don’t think my family will be saved if they remain in the country.”
As for his daughters, who are U.S. citizens, Naqibullah said that he wants them to have a “bright future” and choose their own paths in life.
“They have the right [to] choose what they’re choosing for their future. I want them to go to school, to be educated to serve the country, to serve the nation, whether it’s in the medical field or any field they choose to go through. I want them to be a contributor back to this country.”
(NEW YORK) — In the next month, millions of Americans will get ready to roll up their sleeves for a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. But when it comes to booster shots, it’s not as simple as ‘more is more’ — it’s also a matter of when.
For severely immunocompromised people, a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine is available now. Come mid-September, that option is expected to be open for everyone who got Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, at least eight months after their second dose.
Health experts caution not to jump the gun — or the line — on when you might actually need a booster shot.
With patience, a better immune response
“We have to look at both sides of the equation — the benefits to be reaped and the safety of giving an additional dose,” Dr. William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told ABC News. “You’ll get a more robust immune response if you wait a little longer before you get your booster.”
The COVID-19 vaccines continue to be safe and effective against severe disease and hospitalization. And when immunity wanes, it does so gradually, experts say, with current data suggesting all three of the authorized vaccines provide good protection at least six months after initial vaccination and likely longer.
The Biden administration announced availability of booster shots would begin ahead of any ruling from the Food and Drug Administration or Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory groups.
Wary of delta’s exponential spread, federal health officials are attempting to preempt the possibility of a greater surge should vaccine efficacy dwindle.
You’re likely still protected, for now
“We are concerned that this pattern of decline we are seeing will continue in the months ahead,” Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said at a briefing Wednesday.
“You don’t want to find yourself behind playing catch up,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the White House.
It’s a careful narrative aimed at keeping confidence that vaccines still work — while preparing the public for another round of shots if protection against hospitalization and deaths ebbs.
Even in announcing the step toward boosters, the nation’s top health officials emphasized most fully vaccinated Americans “still have a high degree of protection from the worst outcomes of COVID-19.”
“We are not recommending that you go out and get a booster today,” Murthy said.
“We don’t have data that suggests you benefit from having the additional dose of the vaccine before your immunity drops off,” said Jay Bhatt, an internist, geriatrician and ABC News contributor, adding anxious Americans shouldn’t feel tempted to get a booster earlier than eight months.
Those who got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will also likely need an additional dose, health experts predict. Since its authorization came later, data is still developing on an additional dose.
Getting a booster shot too soon may be counterproductive. Those who wait extend their “runway” of immune protection further.
“Because of all these breakthrough milder infections, and the diminution in antibody levels, those things combined to make the task force antsy and wanting to not wait,” Schaffner said.
Let the most vulnerable go first
Additional third doses should be prioritized first for the most vulnerable and those who were first given vaccines in December and January, experts say. Those people include nursing home and long-term care facility residents and staff, elderly Americans and front-line health care workers, for whom even a mild case of COVID could risk an entire hospital ward.
“There’s real concern among nursing home residents and their loved ones about getting sick again,” Bhatt said.
The same day federal officials previewed coming boosters, the CDC released several studies showing that although the vaccines are highly effective against severe disease, protection against infection may peter out over time.
Health officials don’t want to wait until the nation gets stuck behind the pandemic eight ball again, but some experts worry the move was premature.
Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is skeptical of boosters for the broader population so soon.
“The risks are unknown, and the benefits are unknown. I can’t, as a responsible physician, give someone advice, when I haven’t been able to weigh those two things,” Faust said, cautioning against taking a “shot in the dark.”
Waiting for the data
Pfizer and Moderna have gauged side effects from a third shot tantamount to the primary course — fever, sore arm and fatigue — while the rare risk of more serious side effects, like myocarditis, remains.
Faust points out the clinical trial data and real-world success of the vaccines have been an undeniable “slam dunk” thus far, but third doses are uncharted territory.
“The science on this is unavailable. And that’s not a place where we’ve been before,” Faust said, noting the risk of myocarditis has shown to happen more frequently after the second mRNA dose.
“What’s the third dose going to do?” Faust said. “Is a third dose going to hospitalize more people for myocarditis than we’re actually getting in return for the third dose of vaccine coverage? We literally don’t know.”
Boosters are meant to fortify the vaccine’s still-robust strength over time, but it’s a unique time frame for each individual’s optimized immunity.
“It’s a little bit of a Goldilocks moment. Where do you want to put down your bets?” NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins said in a recent interview on MSNBC. “We think because lives are at stake if we are going a little early, I’d rather be in that space than be a little late.”
“The COVID virus precipitates decision-making, when one has less than an ideal amount of data,” Schaffner said. “You always want more.”
ABC News’ Eric M. Strauss and Sony Salzman contributed to this report.
Jess Dawson, M.D., a masters of public health candidate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.
(HAITI) — The 7.2 magnitude earthquake that just devastated Haiti feels like a bad dream on repeat.
Imagine waking up to an earthquake just about a decade after another quake killed 250,000 of your brothers and sisters and destroyed your beautiful country.
Receiving the news of another earthquake in Haiti, and then having to report on it, even remotely from Florida, was one of the most difficult moments in my career. As I discussed the pain and anguish happening in the aftermath, I felt immense sadness for my people.
Much of the country hasn’t rebuilt from the 2010 earthquake, or Hurricane Matthew in 2016. And the president was recently assassinated.
Plus, there’s a low vaccination rate in the middle of a pandemic killing more than 4 million around the world, and now another natural disaster. And in a worst-case scenario, the earthquake happened right before a massive storm barreled toward the island, after nearly 2,000 were killed in the recent earthquake according to the United Nations.
It’s like a never-ending cycle of PTSD, which is exactly how my family who still lives there feels.
No matter what happens in Haiti, the headline usually includes, “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.” We are often reduced to just poverty, overlooking what makes Haiti one of the richest countries. Haiti is full of culture, arts, and of course food.
But the Haitian people, my people, have a sense of duty to one another and community, because of all we’ve endured throughout history. We have learned to turn pain into compassion.
We have a saying that our people are resilient. This has been demonstrated throughout history. Despite all the cards being stacked against the country, somehow we always find a way to push through. From a collective decision to fight for freedom from slavery, becoming the first Black country to gain independence in 1804 — to the way the community comes together in tragedy.
Faith is central to everything in our society, and looking out for one another is a must. Even as kids growing up in Florida, my brother and I would get in trouble from our dad for not sharing.
If there was just one water left we were expected to ask and make sure no one else at the table or in the house was thirsty before drinking. As a kid, I thought he was just being dramatic, but as an adult I now know why he was that way.
That sense of family, community and care for our fellow human is something you will see in virtually every Haitian family. Maybe “poverty” and the countless tragedies instilled this trait; maybe it’s just something cultural. But it cannot be denied. In times like this, when it seems there is no hope — the Haitian people always seem to find light in the darkness.
My uncle is a doctor and immediately rushed to the affected areas to help after the earthquake struck. While he is one of my heroes, he is not special. During tragedies, everyone pitches in, somehow finding a way to bring a smile or some sort of positivity, as the world literally crashes down.
Structures in Haiti are built to withstand hurricanes, which are common. But the tough concrete buildings that withstand wind and rain in a storm become deadly in an earthquake as they fall. With the threat of aftershocks and storms, even those who are fortunate enough to have shelter are scared to sleep inside.
Tens of thousands of families are homeless yet again because of this disaster. Many pray for even a piece of tarp for shelter. Our economy, which is full of entrepreneurs and street vendors, is crippled yet again because of widespread destruction.
I traveled to Haiti to work on relief after the 2010 earthquake and it was emotional. I was falling apart– yet the people you would expect to be doing the same, were doing quite the opposite. From the tents of homeless families making up mile-long tent cities, emerged hopeful children in full uniform, singing and walking to class. People still played music and greeted one another, bringing food, making conversation.
One of my cousins was rescued days after a grocery store collapsed on her. She held onto hope waiting. My cousin survived the 2010 earthquake only to die this past year due from COVID-19, another concern as displaced families are forced to be in close proximity.
It is traumatic to witness the pain families are going through. It is traumatizing to hear from friends who lost multiple loved ones — again. To see hospitals overwhelmed, and thousands of homes and businesses destroyed leaving people with nowhere to go. It’s like walking through a nightmare that you’ve already experienced, praying it will have a different ending.
But there is inspiration and hope. It warms my heart to see the volunteers risking their lives to save others. It’s been inspiring to see the diaspora sharing reputable organizations doing work on the ground in Haiti to ensure that aid actually makes it to those who need it this time around. Even as I WhatsApp my family there to see how they are doing, they are more concerned with my safety and well-being.
Haiti has been through a lot, and Haitians have proven that we stick together and are resilient. When we are knocked down, we always emerge stronger. The road to recovery will be long, and the impact will be felt long after volunteers leave. I know that through all this adversity the country will rise again.
Yet, it’s hard to witness this tragedy and not ask, “how much more can we take? When will this nightmare end?”
We are resilient, but we are tired and hurting.
Lionel Moïse is an anchor and correspondent for ABC Audio, based in Miami, Florida, who has been covering the most recent earthquake.
This report was featured in the Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2021, episode of “Start Here,” ABC News’ daily news podcast.
(NEW YORK) — The use of monoclonal antibodies as a way to prevent people from getting very sick with COVID-19 is rapidly increasing — alongside the grim statistics on surging infection rates across the country.
Federal health officials have seen a “significant increase” in the ordering of monoclonal antibodies in recent weeks with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services telling ABC News orders have increased by more than 1,200%.
HHS said they are currently shipping about 120,000 patient courses of Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment a week.
More than three-quarters of those orders are going to the regions in the country with low vaccination rates and states currently getting clobbered hardest by COVID’s surge — and where intensive care unit capacities are most strained.
Between July 1 and Aug. 17, more than 438,100 one-dose infusions of the treatment were ordered nationally.
In that same time frame, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina — designated by HHS as Region 4 — ordered about 198,000 patient courses, or roughly 45% of the national order.
New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana (Region 6) ordered roughly 144,000 — about 33% of the order.
Monoclonal antibodies are synthetic versions of the body’s natural line of defense against severe infection — a therapy designed to send reinforcements for the immune system.
The antibody treatment is meant for COVID-19 patients early in their infection and who are at high risk of getting even sicker, nipping infections in the bud before it puts people in the hospital.
It can be used for breakthrough COVID cases as well, regardless of symptoms. If a person has tested positive within the last 10 days, and they are at risk for getting sicker — like older Americans, patients with high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, asthma or obesity — the treatment is available.
The drug can also now be used for preventative use in some cases. The Food and Drug Administration expanded Regeneron’s authorization in late July, allowing for proactive prophylactic use for people who may have been exposed to COVID, and are at high risk of getting very sick because of health complications, being immunocompromised or because a person wasn’t fully vaccinated.
It can be administered through an intravenous infusion, or a subcutaneous injection, which is less time-consuming and labor-intensive, and more practical in an outbreak situation.
An HHS official told ABC News they are seeing new infusion sites springing up, and sites that had been inactive are coming back online and administering the treatment again.
This new uptick and interest in use of the monoclonals comes after months of mediocre uptake, what then-Operation Warp Speed head Moncef Slaoui lamented last winter as “disappointing.”
It also comes as Govs. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, and Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., have ordered the opening of more infusion centers, and touted the treatment’s promise. Abbott, who tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this week, said he is taking it himself.
