Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for SeriousFun Children’s Network
A new exhibit about John Mellencamp is set to open at the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on November 30. The pocket exhibit will draw connections between Guthrie and Mellencamp, highlighting their many similarities.
“Most people might shortsightedly think of Mellencamp’s ‘Jack & Diane’ and mistake it as a pop song rather than a Midwesterner’s reverence to the innocence found in small-town, working-class youth,” Woody Guthrie Center Director Cady Shaw shares. “With a closer look, you’ll find Mellencamp has been weaving threads of Heartland charm with folk-steeped storytelling and heavy-mitted activism through his lyrics, paintings and advocacy his whole life,” adding, “Mellencamp has consistently been an active voice for the greater good.”
The exhibit will feature Mellencamp photographs and album covers, as well as the singer’s guitar that features a profane sentiment carved into it, similar to what Guthrie once did. It will also feature a painting done by Mellencamp himself, which depicts Bob Dylan and Guthrie together.
Tickets for the exhibit are on sale now at the Woody Guthrie Center website.
And speaking of Mellencamp’s art, the singer’s coffee table art book, John Mellencamp: American Paintings and Assemblages, is out now and can be purchased on the singer’s website.
Elton John is a bi-coastal guy: Sunday night, he was rocking the crowd at LA’s Dodger Stadium on his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, and Tuesday night, he was singing in the middle of New York City’s Fifth Avenue.
This holiday season, Elton’s partnered with famed department store Saks Fifth Avenue for a curated holiday collection, proceeds from which will go to The Elton John AIDS Foundation. The collection is available to shop now and as part of the partnership, Saks is donating $1 million to the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
That’s why Elton was the store’s special guest Tuesday night as Saks unveiled its famous holiday windows. Fifth Avenue was shut down as a grand piano was rolled out into the middle of the street, and Elton’s husband David Furnish and their sons Zachary and Elijah took their seats. Elton himself then appeared, sat down at the piano and thanked Saks CEO Marc Metrick for the million-dollar donation.
“This will help turbo charge our mission to end AIDS and it means a great deal to me to have your support –thank you so much,” said Elton. “I’m so thrilled to kick off the holiday season tonight and be a part of this spectacular and iconic window unveiling and light show.”
He then invited Metrick, David and the kids to join him for “the exciting part” — they counted down to the unveiling.
The entire front of the Saks building was then illuminated with a dazzling light show, as Elton performed his signature hit, “Your Song.” Fireworks erupted from the top of the building, and even after Elton left, the display continued, soundtracked to Elton hits like “Step Into Christmas.”
You can watch the whole thing now at Saks Fifth Avenue’s website.
Matthew McConaughey has much to be thankful for, but there are two things in his life he holds most dear.
“Family and health,” he told ABC Audio ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. The actor continued that while “a lot of people say” the same thing, he absolutely means it and “will say it again.”
“[I] look around and go, ‘The family’s still together and we’re healthy. We’re moving forward,'” McConaughey expressed. “That’s really the baseline of everything else in my life.”
While so many people already share his point of view, the Oscar winner explained why family and health should be on the top of everyone’s list. He explained, “I think in most of our lives, out of everything else we have to be thankful for, all of it pales. If the family’s not healthy, everything takes a backseat to that.”
McConaughey wed model and designer Camila Alves in 2012. They share three children — two sons and a daughter. Their eldest is 14, a son named Levi, and their youngest is 9-year-old Livingston. Their daughter Vida is 12.
(WASHINGTON) — As the winter holidays draw near, Dr. Anthony Fauci stood at the White House briefing podium one last time on Tuesday to give Americans health advice as he prepares to leave government after 50 years.
Get boosted, Fauci said, and if you’re not vaccinated yet, get vaccinated. That was his message as he appeared with White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha.
It’s advice he’s given hundreds of times, from that same podium and other forums, as the pandemic stretches on. Fauci plans to step away from his role at the National Institute of Health and as White House chief medical advisor at the end of the year.
But as the country faces its third Thanksgiving with COVID-19, Fauci said the country was inching closer to an “equilibrium” with the pandemic.
“The message that Dr. Jha and I are getting to you today is we can make that happen much sooner by vaccinating and by keeping updated on your booster. It’s just really as simple as that,” Fauci said.
For the holidays, Fauci said there’s “multiple actions” people can take to protect themselves — including masking and testing beforehand.
A younger person may choose to wear a mask if they have an immunocompromised or elderly relative at the table, Fauci said. He also said not to underestimate testing, and that it “makes sense that you might want to get a test that day before” any gatherings.
“Now, we’re not talking about requirements or mandating,” he said. “We’re talking about if you are in a situation and each individual person evaluates their own risk and that in the risk of their family member.”
Jha went so far as to suggest that if everyone followed the recommended vaccine and treatment course, they could “prevent nearly every death in America from COVID.”
“If folks get their updated vaccines and they get treated if they have a breakthrough infection, we can prevent essentially every COVID death in America,” he said. “That is a remarkable fact.”
Jha detailed a six-week long campaign to drive up booster awareness and hopefully increase vaccination coverage, particularly among seniors. The White House will invest nearly half a billion dollars in efforts to expand vaccination efforts at community health centers as well as organizations that work with older people and people with disabilities.
Americans can also expect to see more outreach, as the administration launches a media campaign targeting people over 50 with ads called “Can’t Wait.”
Though Jha had been urging Americans to get their updated booster shots by Halloween in order to get strong protection going into Thanksgiving and Christmas, he said that there was still plenty of benefit in getting the shot now.
The campaign comes as booster uptake has been slow — only about 11% of people aged 5 and older have received a bivalent booster, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and though rates have slightly ticked up as the weather has gotten colder, the rollout has not.
“It’s certainly not too late, if you think about the holidays that are coming,” Jha said. Though if takes about two weeks to get the maximum effect of the booster shot, Jha also said that some protection kicked in “relatively quickly.”
“People who get vaccinated this week, they will have a lot of protection during December, January, February, onwards, the time that we socialize the most.” Jha said.
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied former President Donald Trump’s request to block an appeals court order that he surrender his tax returns and other financial records to the House Ways and Means Committee.
The court offered no explanation for the decision. There was no noted dissent or vote breakdown. It marks the fourth time Trump has lost a high court appeal related to requests for his taxes.
The move appears to be the end of the road for Trump in the years-long saga of congressional subpoenas for his tax records in the stated interest of drafting oversight legislation.
“The Treasury Department will comply with the Court of Appeals’ decision,” a Treasury Department spokesperson said in a statement in response to Tuesday’s high court action. The agency, which includes the Internal Revenue Service in possession of Trump’s confidential tax returns, declined to say when exactly it would provide the records to the Committee.
The Democratic-controlled committee has argued that — by the Supreme Court’s own guidelines laid out in a 2020 ruling in the same ongoing dispute — judges must defer to the legitimate legislative purpose behind a request for information. They said that standard was plainly met in this case.
“We knew the strength of our case, we stayed the course, followed the advice of counsel, and finally, our case has been affirmed by the highest court in the land,” chairman Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., said in a statement reacting Tuesday. “Since the Magna Carta, the principle of oversight has been upheld, and today is no different. This rises above politics, and the Committee will now conduct the oversight that we’ve sought for the last three and a half years.”
Neal will surrender chairmanship of the committee to a Republican in January after the GOP won majority control of the House in the midterm elections.
While Trump has claimed the subpoena is a politically motivated fishing expedition, the committee said the documents are critical for drafting “legislation on equitable tax administration, including legislation on the President’s tax compliance.”
On Nov. 1, Chief Justice John Roberts granted a temporary administrative stay of a lower court order regarding Trump’s tax returns and other financial records. Today, Roberts officially lifted that stay.
The committee had requested six years’ worth of Trump’s returns as part of an investigation into IRS audit practices of presidents and vice presidents.
In his petition to the Supreme Court, Trump accused the committee of seeking his taxes under false pretenses.
“The Committee’s purpose in requesting President Trump’s tax returns has nothing to do with funding or staffing issues at the IRS and everything to do with releasing the President’s tax information to the public,” the petition said.
A federal appeals court ruled unanimously in August that tax returns should be handed over to the House committee. The committee first sought the returns in 2019.
While Trump’s team claimed the House panel’s bid to obtain the tax returns is purely political, the committee insists the documents are valuable to assess how the Internal Revenue Service performs presidential audits.
At the heart of the dispute is a federal tax law mandating that the Treasury Department “shall furnish” tax information requested by the Ways and Means Committee, a law Trump’s lawyers suggest is unconstitutional.
Democrats have been clamoring to get a glimpse of Trump’s tax returns since 2015 when he launched his bid for president and broke decades of precedent by not releasing the documents.
Besides having his personal tax returns sought after, Trump is also facing pressure by criminal probes into his personal business, possession of government documents after leaving office and efforts to block the certification of the 2020 election results.
ABC News’ Lauren Peller, Katherine Faulders and Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Following the emergence of video suggesting Ukrainian fighters may have committed a war crime by firing on nearly a dozen surrendering Russian soldiers at close range, the country’s prosecutor general on Tuesday announced an investigation into the incident — although Kyiv has maintained its troops were responding to an attempted ambush.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, claims the brief video clips, which were circulated widely online, show the troops carrying out an execution and is calling for an international investigation.
Ukraine’s announcement comes after the U.S. State Department’s top war crimes adviser said Monday that U.S. officials were aware of the footage, and underscored that both Moscow and Kyiv are bound to follow the same international law on the battlefield.
“We’re obviously tracking that quite closely,” Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack said of the incident, which took place earlier this month in the Luhansk region of Ukraine.
“It’s really important to emphasize that the laws of war apply to all parties equally, both the aggressor state and the defender state,” she continued. “But when it comes to the war in Ukraine, that’s really where the equivalency ends. When we’re looking at the sheer scale of criminality exhibited by Russian forces, it’s enormous compared to the allegations that we have seen against Ukrainian forces.”
That assessment is supported by multiple international efforts to document war crimes and other atrocities committed in the course of the conflict. The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary A. DiCarlo reported in September that the body’s independent commission was “struck by the large number of executions and other violations carried out by Russian forces” while investigators documented only two incidents of Ukrainian fighters mistreated Russian soldiers.
Van Schaack said how each country’s government handles allegations against its service members is also vastly different.
“Russia inevitably responds with propaganda, denial, myths and disinformation — whereas Ukrainian authorities have generally acknowledged abuses and have denounced, and have pledged to investigate them,” she said. “And so we would urge Ukraine to continue to abide by international obligations in this conflict. And we continue to reiterate the importance that all parties to the conflict must abide by international law or face the consequences.”
Though the videos, which have been verified by the New York Times, depict a slice of the war’s brutal reality, the circumstances surrounding the incident are unclear. The Russian soldiers appear to have opened fire while surrendering, but the actual killings or the events leading up to them are not shown, leaving room for the possibility that the Ukrainian fighters could have acted in self-defense.
While investigating potential crimes on the battlefield is a difficult task, Van Schaack spoke to the challenges that lie ahead for the international justice system once a conviction is reached, acknowledging that Russian bad actors could likely find refuge in their country for years to come — but perhaps not indefinitely.
“If Russian perpetrators remain in Russia, and absent any kind of political transformation there, it will be difficult to move forward,” she said. “But what we have seen in prior conflicts is that perpetrators do inevitably travel, particularly as time passes–they want to visit family, they have other reasons to leave.”
But Van Schaack also expressed optimism that the justice would one day reach the highest levels of power in the Kremlin, and that even Russia’s President Vladimir Putin might be held accountable for atrocities committed during the invasion.
“Superiors can be held liable for the acts of their subordinates,” she said, adding that while prosecutors will follow the evidence, investigators were documenting what appeared to be “systemic acts” that transcended rank and file members of Russia’s military.
“It’s very hard to imagine how many crimes could be committed without responsibility going all the way up the chain of command,” Van Schaack said.
(PHILADELPHIA) — A second busload of migrants from Texas arrived in Philadelphia this week, despite the city’s plea for coordination with the state amid Gov. Greg Abbott’s ongoing efforts to send asylum-seekers to Democratic-led areas, a city spokesperson said.
A Nov. 17 letter from Philadelphia Emergency Management Director Dominick Mireles to Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd implored the state official tasked with executing Gov. Greg Abbott’s busing of migrants to “uphold a core tenet of our shared profession: collaboration.”
Mireles asked his Texas counterpart to communicate with city officials if he planned to continue busing groups of migrants to the city, the letter obtained by ABC News shows. It appears to have been written a day after a bus traveling from Del Rio, Texas, arrived at a Philadelphia transit station transporting 28 migrants.
“Your bus of asylum seekers that arrived yesterday, November 16, 2022, took the City of Philadelphia and its partners by surprise. As you may have heard, a child required emergency medical care upon arrival,” Mireles wrote.
A spokesperson for the City of Philadelphia told ABC News that Texas officials have not responded to the letter as of Tuesday. A group of 46 migrants were bused to Philadelphia from Texas on Monday, Philadelphia officials said.
TDEM did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Since Abbott began directing his emergency management department to dispatch buses to Democrat-led cities as a way of calling attention to what he calls the Biden administration’s “open-border policies,” officials in Chicago, New York City, Washington D.C., and now Philadelphia, have had to accommodate the sudden increase of asylum seekers entering their shelter system without any formal coordination from Texas.
“The Lone Star State will continue doing more than any state in history to secure our border, including adding more sanctuary cities as drop-off locations for our busing strategy,” Abbott tweeted in announcing the first bus of migrants to Philadelphia.
Highlighting a lack of coordination, Mireles asked Kidd that, “Any bus scheduled for Philadelphia be directed to report to a safe and secure location of our choice, not a street corner that you have identified in a jurisdiction that you have no formalized connection to.”
Abbott has recently also decided to start busing migrants to an area close to the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., the home of Vice President Kamala Harris. His busing efforts have left local non-profit organizations scrambling to find housing and provide resources the migrants need to reach their chosen destination where they need to complete the next steps in the asylum claim process.
Mireles listed 8 demands for TDEM, including that they give a 72-hour notice for any bus arriving in Philadelphia. Mireles also asked Kidd to screen travelers for medical conditions like COVID and RSV and to keep family units together during transportation.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney condemned Abbott’s efforts at press conference last week, calling it a “purposefully cruel policy” of using immigrant families for political gain.
“It is truly disgusting to hear today that Governor Abbott and his Administration continue to implement their purposefully cruel policy using immigrant families—including women and children—as pawns to shamelessly push his warped political agenda,” he said. “Sadly, racism and human cruelty have historically been intertwined in how immigrants are received by and within this country, something the previous presidential administration openly and actively encouraged.”
Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Many of the migrants that have arrived in Philadelphia have been picked up by relatives or have gone on to other cities, but some remain at a welcoming center the city established as a temporary stop before they figure out next steps, the city said. Being just the latest city added to Abbott’s radar, city officials say they’re well positioned to receive migrants who arrive within their city limits.
“Since the summer, the City’s Office of Immigrant Affairs and the Office of Emergency Management have been preparing for the potential arrival of migrants via unplanned and uncoordinated bus routes from southern states,” a spokesperson for the City of Philadelphia said in a statement. “The agencies have been meeting and coordinating regularly with nearly 15 local community-based organizations and partners to plan a local response, including preparations for immediate reception and shelter space, emergency health screening, food, water, and more.”
(MOSCOW, Idaho) — Police in Moscow, Idaho, said they have not been able to verify or identify a stalker of one of the slain University of Idaho students, 21-year-old Kaylee Goncalves.
“Investigators have looked extensively into information they received about Kaylee Goncalves having a stalker. They have pursued hundreds of pieces of information related to this topic and have not been able to verify or identify a stalker,” Moscow police said. “If you have information that can help detectives, please contact the tip line at 208-883-7180 or email tipline@ci.moscow.id.us.”
The update came after authorities said earlier in the day they were aware of reports of Goncalves possibly having a stalker.
“We’re aware of these various reports and we’re investigating,” Idaho State Police spokesman Aaron Snell told ABC News earlier Tuesday.
The other students killed in the off-campus house in the early hours of Nov. 13 were Ethan Chapin, 20; Chapin’s girlfriend, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Goncalves’ lifelong best friend, Madison Mogen, 21.
Although no suspects are in custody more than one week after the four students were stabbed to death, Snell said he remains “optimistic.”
“There is a piece of evidence out there somewhere that’s gonna help us solve this case,” he said.
Community members are in fear, Snell said, but they’re also patient. While police can’t release certain information, Snell said, “We continue to work hard and we want the community to know what we’re doing.”
More than 100 investigators, officers and support staff have fielded about 600 tips, officials said Sunday. As the tips pour in, each has been processed, vetted and cleared, according to the Moscow Police Department.
Investigators said they’re searching for surveillance video and are asking for tips from anyone “who observed suspicious behavior.”
Investigators have also released timelines detailing the whereabouts of the victims and the other students who lived at the off-campus house.
ABC News contributor and former FBI agent Brad Garrett told “Good Morning America” on Monday that the killer or killers may have been familiar with the layout of the house.
“It tells me that someone came into the house with a comfort level — that they probably knew their way around the house,” Garrett said.
The Moscow Police Department said it has dedicated four detectives, 24 patrol officers and five members of its support staff to the investigation. They’ve been joined by a wave of outside investigators, who’ve taken over Moscow, a college town with about 25,000 residents.
The FBI sent 22 investigators to Moscow, according to the local police. Another 20 agents were working on the case but located in Treasure Valley, Idaho; Salt Lake City, Utah; and West Virginia. Two members of an FBI behavior analysis unit were also working on the case, police said.
The murder weapon remains missing, police said.
Two roommates were in the house at the time of the murders and appeared to have slept through the crimes, according to police.
A 911 call on Nov. 13 from inside the house was made on one of the surviving roommates’ cellphones, police said. The roommates told authorities that someone was passed out and wouldn’t wake up, officials said.
“Multiple people talked with the 911 dispatcher before a Moscow Police officer arrived at the location,” officials said. “Officers entered the residence and found the four victims on the second and third floors.”
Garrett said investigators should be broadening their search outside the victims’ immediate circle of friends and family.
“You’re going to have to start spreading out to people they had just a casual relationship with,” he said.
ABC News’ Emily Shapiro, Kayna Whitworth, Connor Burton, John Capell, Melissa Gaffney, Marilyn Heck, Izzy Alvarez and Flor Tolentino contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration will extend the pause on student loan payments once again, President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday, as the program to cancel millions of peoples’ student loans remains tied up in the courts.
The extension is intended to give the Supreme Court time to rule on the lawsuits brought against Biden’s student loan program during its upcoming term. The pause on payments will lift either 60 days after the Supreme Court issues a decision on the program, or 60 days after June 30, depending on which date comes first, the Department of Education said.
“It isn’t fair to ask tens of millions of borrowers eligible for relief to resume their student debt payments while the courts consider the lawsuits. For that reason, the Secretary of Education is extending the pause on student loan payments while we seek relief from the court,” Biden said in a video posted by the White House on Tuesday afternoon.
Biden’s plan aimed to cancel $20,000 of debt for people who received Pell Grants in college and $10,000 for all other borrowers, so long as they earn less than $125,000, or $250,000 as a married couple. In recent weeks, the plan was blocked by Republican-led lawsuits in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Northern District of Texas. Last week, the Biden administration asked the Supreme Court to overturn the recent ruling in the Eighth Circuit that halted the relief program, or to consider hearing the case before the court during its upcoming term.
“I’m completely confident my plan is legal,” Biden said in the video. “I’m never going to apologize for helping working class and middle class families recover from the economic crisis created by the pandemic. And I’ll continue working to make government work to deliver for all Americans for all Americans.”
In a statement, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said officials also considered the “tremendous financial uncertainty” that lifting the moratorium would cause ahead of the holidays.
“Callous efforts to block student debt relief in the courts have caused tremendous financial uncertainty for millions of borrowers who cannot set their family budgets or even plan for the holidays without a clear picture of their student debt obligations, and it’s just plain wrong,” said Cardona.
“We’re extending the payment pause because it would be deeply unfair to ask borrowers to pay a debt that they wouldn’t have to pay, were it not for the baseless lawsuits brought by Republican officials and special interests,” he added.
Student debt advocacy groups, many of which had been pressuring the administration, commended the extension.
“This extension means that struggling borrowers will be able to keep food on their tables during the holiday season — and the coming months — as the Administration does everything it can to beat back the baseless and backward attacks on working families with student debt. Win or lose, borrowers can depend on President Biden to keep his promise and deliver student debt relief,” said Mike Pierce, executive director for the Student Borrower Protection Center.
The moratorium on student loan payments, which has been in place for about two years, was scheduled to expire on Dec. 31, with payments resuming on Jan. 1. It was put in place under former President Donald Trump in March 2020 and extended twice before Biden took office. Biden has since extended it six times.
But the Biden administration has argued that the moratorium could only lift in conjunction with Biden’s debt relief program going into effect, easing the transition for people who haven’t had to pay their loans down for years. Extending the moratorium also avoids the messy situation where borrowers restart paying their loans while the relief program is on hold, and then get them canceled, but want refunds on the money they’d begun paying.
Conservative groups have brought lawsuits arguing that Biden’s plan exceeds his administration’s power, that the program unfairly excludes Americans who won’t receive debt relief and that certain loan servicers will lose revenue.
The Biden administration has pushed back on arguments about who qualifies, defending their decision to only give relief to people making below a certain income, and said that the court cases don’t have standing because no one is being harmed by the debt relief program. The administration has also argued that Cardona is completely within his authority to cancel debt because of a law called the HEROES Act, which gives the power to cancel loans during a national state of emergency like the pandemic.
“On the merits, the plan falls squarely within the plain text of the Secretary’s statutory authority,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in the recent Supreme Court filing.
“Indeed, the entire purpose of the HEROES Act is to authorize the Secretary to grant student-loan-related relief to at-risk borrowers because of a national emergency — precisely what the Secretary did here,” Prelogar wrote.
It is the secretary’s job “to ensure that borrowers affected by a national emergency are not worse off in relation to their student loans,” Prelogar argued, and if the Department of Education didn’t act, there could be a “spike” in loan defaults when the pause on student loan payments lifts in January.
Officials rolled the program out in late August with the pledge that anyone who applied before mid-November could have their loans canceled by the time payments resumed. The application, a simple form on the Department of Education’s website, shut down in mid-November after a ruling from the Texas court.
But the Department of Education said 26 million applications had already been received, and 16 million had already been approved for relief, ready for when the department is legally able to discharge it.
(NEW YORK) — A young child in California has died of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, health officials said.
In a release Tuesday, Riverside University Health System – Public Health did not disclose the child’s name, city of residence or sex, just that they were under age 4.
Additionally, officials did not reveal details about the child’s illness aside from the fact that they died at a local hospital “after contracting a respiratory illness that is possibly linked to Respiratory Syncytial Virus.”
Jose Arballo Jr., spokesman for RUHS – Public Health, told ABC News the death occurred late last week but was only officially released to the public on Tuesday.
He added that the child was experiencing “several days of symptoms” before being brought to the hospital and was only hospitalized for “a short period of time” before they died.
“The loss of a child is devastating and all of Public Health sends its heartfelt condolences to the family, loved ones and anyone impacted by this tragic event,” Dr. Geoffrey Leung, public health officer for Riverside County, said in a statement.
The death comes as infections of RSV continue to spread across the country. Public health officials have said the season has started much earlier than usual, with autumn cases on par with those usually seen in January or February.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, weekly RSV cases nationwide have risen from 5,872 the week ending Oct. 1 to 16,512 the week ending Nov. 5.
In California, the five-week average of positive RSV tests has increased from 353.3 the week ending Oct. 1 to 1,335 the week ending Nov. 5, CDC data shows.
The surge has led to several hospitals operating at or near capacity and emergency departments with long wait times.
Health experts have said RSV is emerging earlier and affecting more children than typical because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the pandemic, there was little to no RSV activity due to lockdowns, school closures and mitigation measures such as mask wearing and social distancing. Now, with most of these measures lifted, children are being exposed to viruses like RSV for the first time.
“That just leaves a lot of children, young children in particular, that have been born since March of 2020 who haven’t yet encountered RSV infections,” Dr. Larry Kociolek, medical director of Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, told ABC News in a recent interview. “And so that will increase the ability of the virus to spread and increase the number of children who will get infected.”
Although deaths are not common and usually occur among those with pre-existing conditions, between 100 and 500 pediatric deaths are attributed to RSV every year, according to the CDC.
This is not the first reported death from RSV in the U.S. Earlier this month, California reported a pediatric death from a combination of RSV and the flu with deaths also reported in Michigan and Oklahoma.
Arballo Jr. said the county is also investigating the death of a child under the age of 10 who tested positive for RSV.
The county is asking families over the holiday season to be very careful around babies and young children, who are particularly susceptible to RSV. Arballo Jr. said adults should consider wearing a face mask and frequent hand washing, and advised against handling children if ill.
