(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 4.9 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 735,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 67% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Oct 25, 10:23 am
Cases dropping across US but rising in some Midwest, Northeast states
In the last month, the daily case average in the U.S. has dropped by nearly 43% thanks to falling metrics in states like Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana, which have all seen their case averages drop by nearly 90% or more since August, according to federal data.
But in recent weeks, cases have been creeping up in several states in the Northeast and the upper Midwest, including Minnesota and Michigan.
Alaska currently has the country’s highest infection rate, followed by Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and North Dakota, according to federal data.
About 52,000 COVID-19 patients are currently hospitalized across the U.S., a major drop from the 104,000 hospitalized patients in late August.
But the U.S. death toll remains persistently high, with nearly 1,300 new deaths being reported each day, according to federal data.
Oct 25, 9:36 am
Moderna says its pediatric vaccine produces strong immune response in kids 6 to 11
Moderna has announced that its vaccine produces a strong immune response for children 6 to 11 and appears safe.
The study, which included 4,753 kids, found that side effects were generally consistent with those seen in adolescents and adults, such as fatigue, headache, fever and sore arm.
Moderna said it plans to submit this data to the FDA soon.
Meanwhile, FDA advisors are planning to meet this week to discuss Pfizer’s vaccine for children ages 5 to 11. Full authorization is possible by early November.
Oct 25, 8:12 am
Former CDC head ‘very encouraged’ by US data
Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Monday that he’s “very encouraged” by the country’s current COVID-19 metrics.
Speaking to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos during an interview on Good Morning America, Besser said the United States is “definitely” moving in the right direction with COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths on the decline in “a lot of communities” and vaccinations on the rise.
As the Halloween holiday draws near, Besser advised families living in areas where COVID-19 numbers are going down to remain vigilant by wearing protective face masks and using hand sanitizer when trick-or-treating this year. Otherwise, he encouraged them to “enjoy the holiday.”
“These kinds of things are very good for emotional health and you can do them safely,” explained Besser, who is now the president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
When asked whether he thinks the situation will improve to a point where children won’t need to wear masks in school, Besser said it will come down to what’s happening at the community level.
“I think if we’re in a situation where vaccines are available and the rate of disease in the community is very low, we’ll get to a point where we won’t need masks anymore,” he said. “There will be a day where kids can go to school without masks and just be kids.”
This holiday, all you need is love, Katy Perry and some outfits from the Gap.
Katy stars in the clothing retailer’s new holiday campaign, singing the Beatles’ classic song “All You Need Is Love.” In the commercials, Katy gets up, gets dressed, gets in a car and is driven to a set of a Gap commercial, where she sings the Fab Four’s 1967 number-one hit while people and couples frolic around her, all sporting Gap winter wear as artificial snow falls.
Katy is releasing her full-length version of the song today. One dollar from every stream on Spotify, up to $100,000, will be donated to Baby2Baby, a charity that provides kids living in poverty with the basic necessities of life.
“I’m always excited to work with brands that are going the extra mile to make this world a better, happier place,” says Katy in a statement. “Reimagining one of the most recognizable and emotional songs of our time with an iconic brand like Gap, having such a special and important message, has been a dream.”
“And what better reason to partner than bringing people together to spread joy for the holidays and raise money for Baby2Baby, a charity that’s close to my heart?” says the mother of one-year-old Daisy Dove. “Children are our future. We need to lift kids and help them find their value, self-worth and self-respect.”
Lucasfilm, Disney+/Richard Harbaugh/Disneyland Resort via Getty Images
Within minutes of news that Star Wars prequel star Hayden Christensen would be co-starring in the live-action Disney+ series Ahsoka, that show’s star posted a sweet in-character greeting.
Christensen, who played Anakin Skywalker in two prequel films, was already announced as a cast member of the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series starring Ewan McGregor, headed for Disney+.
However, for fans, Christensen’s participation in Ahsoka was, to quote Palpatine, “a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.”
Dawson, who played the live-action version of the Clone Wars animated series character Ahsoka Tano in The Mandalorian, appeared to be champing at the bit to let the secret out.
The names were nicknames the characters gave each other in the animated series; Skywalker was voiced by actor Matt Lanter, while Ashley Eckstein voiced Tano in her animated form.
Tano was created by Clone Wars Emmy winning animator Dave Filoni, who is now an executive producer on The Mandalorian. She began as something of a hanger-on to the headstrong Jedi Skywalker, who reluctantly trains her, and has since evolved into a fan favorite.
Ahsoka should premiere on Disney+ sometime in 2022.
(HOUSTON) — The remains of a 9-year-old boy have been discovered in a Houston home along with three abandoned children, authorities said.
One of the children, a 15-year-old, said his 9-year-old brother had been dead for one year and his body was in the room next to his, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said Monday.
The 15-year-old and the other two children — boys under the age of 10 — were found home alone on Sunday, the sheriff said.
Both younger kids “appeared malnourished and showed signs of physical injury,” he tweeted.
Deputies also “found skeletal remains of a small child,” the sheriff said.
All three children were taken to the hospital, he said. Their conditions were not released.
Authorities believe the parents hadn’t lived in the home for several months, Gonzalez said.
The children’s mother and her boyfriend were found late Sunday night, he said.
At a news conference Sunday Gonzalez called it a “horrific situation.”
“I have been in this business for a long time and I had never heard of a scenario like this,” he said.
Dune, Denis Villenueve’s sci-fi epic starring Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Zendaya, Jason Momoa and Javier Bardem, topped the box office on its opening weekend, grabbing an estimated $40.1 million. The film, also available to stream on HBO Max, was predicted to make somewhere between $30-$35 million.
Dune, which opened internationally several weeks ago, has racked up an additional $180.6 million overseas.
Halloween Kills, last week’s #1, landed in second place, earning an estimated $14.5 million. It’s two-week total now sits at $73.1 million.
No Time to Die, in its third week of release, finished third with an estimated $11.9 million. The latest Bond flick has racked up $120 million here in the States and $405 million overseas.
Fourth place belongs to Venom: Let There Be Carnage, delivering an estimated 9.1 million. Its four-week total is now at $181.8 million. The Venom sequel added another $170.6 million internationally, bringing its worldwide tally to $352.4 million.
Rounding out the top five is this week’s only other major release: Ron’s Gone Wrong, the animated tale featuring the voices of Zach Galifianakis, Olivia Colman and Ed Helms. It earned an estimated $7.3 million, short of its predicted $10 million.
Wes Anderson‘s latest independent release, The French Dispatch, starring Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton and Timothée Chalamet, had an impressive opening, finishing in ninth place with an estimated $1.3 million.
The cast and crew of Friends are mourning the loss of James Michael Tyler, The actor, who played Gunther on the hit sitcom, lost his battle with prostate cancer over the weekend. He was 59.
Taking to Instagram Sunday evening Jennifer Aniston shared her condolences alongside a clip of a scene they had together on Friends. In the scene, Gunther confesses his love to Aniston’s Rachel, saying “I love you,” to which she responds, “I love you too,” before explaining that her love is more platonic than romantic.
Alongside the snippet, the actress wrote, “Friends would not have been the same without you. Thank you for the laughter you brought to the show and to all of our lives. You will be so missed #JamesMichaelTaylor,” followed by the broken hearty emoji.
Courteney Cox, who played Monica on the series, also took to Instagram to pay tribute to Tyler, writing, “The size of gratitude you brought into the room and showed every day on set is the size of the gratitude I hold for having known you. Rest In peace James. [red heart emoji].”
News of Tyler’s death made waves after Friends producer Kevin Brighttweeted on Sunday, “James Michael Tyler Our Gunther passed away last night. He was an incredible person who spent his final days helping others. God bless you James, Gunther lives forever.”
The official Friends Twitter account also posted a tribute, writing, “Warner Bros. Television mourns the loss of James Michael Tyler, a beloved actor and integral part of our FRIENDS family. Our thoughts are with his family, friends, colleagues and fans.”
They say the show must go on, and that’s exactly what Kane Brown did, despite twisting his ankle on stage.
While performing in Tennessee on Friday night, the country singer appeared to badly injure his ankle, but instead of leaving fans hanging, he continued his set.
A video posted to Twitter, shows that Brown injured himself while jumping down from the main stage onto a lower level. During the landing his ankle twisted, prompting him to hop down to the floor level with the help of security, who then tended to him. Meanwhile, the band continued to play for almost a full minute before realizing the singer was going to need a moment.
Despite the misstep, according to TMZ, the “Be Like That” singer returned to the stage and finished out his set.
Brown later took to social media to show off his swollen ankle, which had ballooned, and joked, “Memphis it looks normal, it’s fine.”
Not only did Brown continue Friday night’s performance while hurt, he went full steam ahead on Saturday’s show as well.
When one fan questioned whether he would perform after hearing of the injury, Brown replied, “Of course it’s still on!”
(WASHINGTON) — The day of the Jan. 6 insurrection, Facebook noticed a rise in social media posts calling for violence and incitement around the certification of the U.S. presidential election result and the storming of the Capitol.
How the social media giant prepared for that day, and how it responded to the sudden onslaught of misleading information and violent rhetoric on both Facebook and Instagram is detailed in internal documents obtained by ABC News and a group of news organizations.
The documents were disclosed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former employee, and provided to Congress in redacted form by Haugen’s legal counsel. It was provided to ABC News by a congressional staffer.
In her filing, Haugen alleged that Facebook had misled investors and the public about potential harms associated with the platform.
In response to a series of Wall Street Journal articles based largely on the documents provided by Haugen, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, in a statement rejected the idea that Facebook “systematically and willfully ignores” research that is “inconvenient for the company.”
One of the documents, updated on Jan. 7, shows that Facebook analyzed some of the Capitol riot’s impact on its platforms.
The document shows there was a spike in the volume of reports from Facebook and Instagram users complaining about posts inciting violence on Jan. 6. There were around seven times as many hourly reports about posts containing incitement to violence as in the previous week, according to the document.
Another set of documents created during the events of Jan. 6 show a wider range of restrictions explored by Facebook to limit potentially harmful content and mitigate violence and incitement. The documents indicate that more severe restrictions, known internally as “break glass” measures, had been active earlier, in 2020, and then removed or rolled back. Several of the restrictions listed as having been previously rolled back focused on groups, such as freezing commenting on some group posts or preventing groups from changing their names to include terms that aimed to delegitimize the election result.
Ciaran O’Connor, a disinformation analyst with the London-based think tank Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said keeping these type of measures in place may have prevented extremism on Jan. 6 that was inflamed by a “dangerous mix of disinformation and conspiracy theories.”
“This action was entirely irresponsible and illustrative of wider failings in Facebook in wrongly prioritizing platform growth over safety,” he said.
When asked about the rollback of the measures, a Facebook official stressed that they were only part of Facebook’s preparations for the election, and that specific metrics were used to determine whether or not to disable them. Measures that were disabled, the official said, were done so gradually.
During the chaos of Jan. 6, Facebook considered re-enabling some of its old strategies and implementing new ones, according to the documents, to respond to the risk of “violence and incitement” in connection with the day’s events.
Some of the proposed restrictions, such as demoting content promoting the storming of the capitol, were described in the documents as a “first line of reactive defense” on the day.
A Jan. 19 report by the Tech Transparency Project linked Facebook’s groups feature to the growth of the “Stop The Steal” movement after the 2020 election. Some members of those groups made calls to overthrow the U.S. government by force to reverse the election result. Facebook removed the first large “Stop The Steal” group, but copycats and similar groups by other names remained on the platform through the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to the report.
In another document, which BuzzFeed News obtained and published in April, Facebook researchers said that harmful movements, such as Stop the Steal, were coordinated efforts that ultimately “helped incite the Capitol Insurrection.”
O’Connor suggested there are potential dangers with Facebook’s groups feature. “Groups have proven to be hubs for misinformation and harmful content, where there often [are] no gatekeepers and false information is allowed to flourish,” O’Connor said.
When asked for comment on the potential harms of groups, a Facebook official pointed to an Oct. 20 update to the feature, as well as previous measures including changes to group recommendations and using independent fact-checkers to flag misinformation in groups.
After the events of Jan. 6, Facebook took further safety measures, according to O’Connor, including limiting the amount of political content shown to some users, including in the U.S., the suspension of Trump’s page, and tools for group administrators to limit toxic or harmful conversations.
Facebook said on Oct. 20 that it will start “demoting” content posted in groups by people who have broken community guidelines anywhere on the platform. The announcement was made with the aim to keep rule breakers from reaching others in their community, according to Facebook’s update.
Another internal Facebook document provides insight into how “demotion” — a way of limiting the exposure of content thought likely to break the platform’s rules — was used in an effort to minimize the spread of potentially harmful information in connection with the events of Jan. 6. The document was posted on Feb. 19.
According to Facebook’s Transparency Center, “problematic or low quality content” may be “demoted” in an effort to reduce the number of users who see it.
The practice of demotion was aided by custom-built algorithmic “pipelines.” Two of those pipelines on Jan. 6 tracked false claims that circulated widely on Facebook amid the storming of the Capitol: that Antifa protesters were responsible, and that then-President Donald Trump had invoked the Insurrection Act, according to the document.
The Insurrection Act, passed in 1807, allows the president to deploy military troops to respond to domestic unrest and disasters. It was last invoked in 1992 by the George H.W. Bush administration during the Los Angeles riots. Trump threatened to invoke the Act in 2020 amid protests over the police killing of George Floyd.
The team responsible for these anti-misinformation pipelines encountered challenges, according to the document, including questions about which posts constituted misinformation.
Employees involved in this effort aimed to avoid “false positives” that did not contain misinformation, using “exclusion terms” like “MAGA losers” to rule out posts that criticized, rather than promoted, the storming of the Capitol.
The document says employees sought guidance from colleagues to resolve “ambiguities,” such as whether a claim that former President Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act was misinformation.
Facebook’s employees, according to the document, judged that claims that Trump would invoke the Act around Jan. 6 were valid, while false claims that he had already done so were considered misinformation.
“In close collaboration with Misinfo Policy, we determined that statements in the future are not considered misinfo. However, users posting the phrase “he signed the Insurrection Act” was considered unambiguous enough and judged as misinfo,” wrote the author of the document, who has not been identified.
In a statement issued on the evening of Jan. 6, the company said that in addition to demoting content that likely violated its rules, it had begun removing certain types of posts, including those that praised the storming of the Capitol or that called for further violence.
Facebook later said in a Jan. 11 statement that it would remove content containing the phrase “stop the steal.”
Haugen told the SEC that the company elects to demote content despite knowing it is “an ineffective response” due to concerns about being criticized over accidentally removing “false positives,” or posts that do not violate its rules.
Facebook executives frequently cite the protection of free speech on the platform as a bedrock principle, such as in an October 2019 speech by CEO Mark Zuckerberg that called for its protection despite its “messiness.”
During Haugen’s Oct. 5 Senate testimony, she criticized Facebook’s “closed design” which she alleged hides information from researchers and regulators.
“As long as Facebook is operating in the shadows, hiding its research from public scrutiny, it is unaccountable,” Haugen said to a Senate Commerce subcommittee.
O’Connor said that despite the changes it implemented after Jan. 6, the company still has work to do.
“Facebook, and other online companies, must do better and take action to limit the dangers of falsified information and extremist actors on their platforms,” he said.
Facebook’s Oversight Board said on Oct. 11 that it would meet with Haugen “over the coming weeks” to discuss the claims she made about the platform’s content-moderation decisions.
Facebook, along with other social media companies like Twitter and Snapchat, was the subject of a request for records announced on Aug. 27 by the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 attack.
On Oct. 22, another former Facebook employee, who has not been identified, was revealed to have submitted whistleblower documents to the SEC. The former employee told the Washington Post that Facebook prioritizes profit over safety on its platforms, and failed to take adequate action to address issues including illegal activity like drug dealing and antiquities trafficking.
A Facebook spokesperson said in response to the Washington Post’s report that the story was “beneath” the newspaper and set a “dangerous precedent” by relying on a single source, but did not deny the second whistleblower’s claims.
Gretchen Carlson is returning to The View as guest co-host on Monday and Tuesday to talk “Hot Topics” as well as topics that are close to her heart.
The journalist has been advocating for women’s rights and workplace equality since becoming a #MeToo pioneer five years ago when she sued former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. She co-founded the organization Lift Our Voices, which aims to give a voice to those silenced by non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and arbitration clauses.
“It became my passion project,” she tells ABC Audio of Life Our Voices. “Because I had the personal experience, but also because I wanted to pay tribute to the thousands, maybe millions of women who have never had their voices heard.”
While Carlson says she never aspired to be the “poster child for sexual harassment,” she’s made the most of the role and has seen her work’s power when it comes to inspiring others, including her own two teenage children.
Her story has also had an effect on pop culture — she was portrayed by Nicole Kidman in the film Bombshell and by Naomi Watts in the mini-series The Loudest Voice. She calls the experience “surreal,” especially because her own NDA from Fox prevented her from consulting on either project.
“I can’t even tell you if they were accurate or not,” she says. “But I have to look at it high level and know that these projects help so many other people.”
(ATLANTA) — With the lowest COVID-19 infection rate among all states as of Friday, California, which has some of the strictest mask and vaccination mandates in the country, has managed to flip the script as the former U.S. epicenter of the pandemic.
“They’ve been very much forward-thinking in terms of policies around vaccination requirements and mandates,” said epidemiologist Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.
As of Friday evening, California had an infection rate of 61.1 cases per 100,000 over the past week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The state was briefly the only to be classified with a “moderate” rate of transmission — 10 to 49.99 cases per 100,000 over seven days — before it went back up to “substantial,” meaning 50 to 99.99 cases per 100,000 over seven days.
Over the previous week, Hawaii, Florida, Louisiana, Connecticut, New Jersey, Mississippi, Maryland, Georgia and Washington, D.C., each also reported “substantial” rates.
A rate of at least 100 cases per 100,000 is labeled as “high.” Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Alaska, as of Friday, had the highest rates over the previous seven days, with each above 450 cases per 100,000 people. The U.S. average over that span was 150.9.
Experts said California’s journey from worst to first is likely due to a combination of things.
“We can’t know for sure which factors are responsible,” Brownstein added, “but we know that the combination of interventions and policies can play a really strong role in driving transmission.”
‘Ending this pandemic’
More than 70% of California’s population has received at least one dose of vaccine, according to the CDC, and the state also leads in total vaccinations administered, roughly 53 million doses. As of Friday, the national average rate was 66.2%.
Being the first state to announce a COVID-19 vaccine requirement for schools, California has some of the strictest mandates in the U.S. The state has mandated vaccines for state employees, health care workers, teachers and at large indoor gatherings.
“The more aggressive the vaccination campaign, the better,” Dr. Todd Ellerin, director of infectious diseases at South Shore Health, told ABC News.
Given that vaccines are the most powerful tool we have in curbing the spread of COVID-19, experts said they believe California’s emphasis on immunizations has provided big dividends.
“These results show quite clearly that vaccines offer protection for individuals who lack immunity, with important implications for finally ending this pandemic,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, wrote in a blog post Tuesday.
Idaho and Wyoming have some of the lowest vaccination rates and the highest transmission rates.
All three COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S. have since shown high effectiveness in preventing death due to COVID-19, and as of Friday, California boasted the lowest death rate in the country, with 0.3 per 100,000 over the previous week. The U.S. average over that span was 2.7 per 100,000.
Additionally, experts told ABC News, having endured the harshest waves of infections last winter and the delta surge in July, formerly infected Californians may have acquired antibodies and more of a natural immunity to COVID-19 — both factors that, in concert with vaccines, could be driving down case numbers.
‘More work to do’
In addition to strict vaccine mandates, California has been unwavering on face-coverings, testing and social distancing policies.
“While California has administered more vaccines than any other state, we have more work to do,” the California Department of Public Health said in a statement to ABC News.
Everyone, regardless of vaccination status, is required to wear a mask on public transit, in health care settings and at educational and correctional facilities. Masks are required for all unvaccinated people and recommended for vaccinated people in settings such as theaters, retail stores, restaurants and bars.
Despite having a higher vaccination rate than California, states like Vermont are still falling behind on transmission rate rankings, which experts said points to the importance of distancing and masking. Breakthrough cases seen in Vermont can be further explained by its higher proportion of residents 65 and older.
Mobility
Research shows mobility, or movement in populations, can be a predictor of disease spread, especially via air travel or mass transit. This became evident through the surge of COVID-19 cases the U.S. saw during holiday season.
Gov. Gavin Newsom pleaded with California residents on Christmas Eve to avoid holiday gatherings at a time when hospitals in the state were under “unprecedented pressure.”
Californian cities experienced a huge surge of cases and hospitalizations following the holidays, although rates have since declined.
No stranger to stay-at-home orders, the California government imposed several lockdowns and restrictions to curb the spread of the virus. It celebrated its most recent reopening in mid-June, which replaced 15-month-long public health restrictions with conditions more akin to “business as usual.”
“In the height of the pandemic, people were locked down, they weren’t moving at all, they were staying at home,” Brownstein told ABC News. “The more people move around, that’s usually an indicator for increased transmission.”
The great outdoors
The virus has been shown to spread more indoors and with people in close proximity to one another. California’s sunny climate means more people spend more time outside.
“When we spend most of our time indoors, that’s when transmission is greatest,” Ellerin said.
Added Brownstein: “More close contacts with people outside your household indoors is what creates additional risk.”
This effect is also compounded by the rise in the virus’ effective reproductive number during the winter season with research suggesting that a drop in temperature encourages virus growth.
Compared to many other states, especially as winter draws nearer, California is in “quite a good spot,” Brownstein said. “In all likelihood, the trends that we’re seeing are realistic and very much driven by compliance with masking and other interventions, plus the well-covered vaccination strategy in the state.”
