Iowa’s ban on most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy was signed into law Friday by Gov. Kim Reynolds, but a judge is still considering abortion advocates’ request to put the restrictions on hold.

The new legislation prohibits almost all abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, which is usually around six weeks of pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant. That’s a dramatic shift for women in Iowa, where abortion had been legal up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Reynolds signed the measure into law in front of 2,000 conservative Christians barely a mile away from where a court hearing for the request to postpone the state’s new ban took place. The ACLU of Iowa, Planned Parenthood North Central States and the Emma Goldman Clinic filed the legal challenge Wednesday and representatives spoke at the court hearing Friday.

That hearing ended with the judge saying a decision on whether to put a hold on the new ban may be made next week.

District Court Judge Joseph Seidlin said he could not imagine “anything that would be more insulting to either side” than for him to “flippantly” rule from the bench Friday.

The split screen punctuates a bitter battle between abortion advocates and opponents in Iowa that has dragged on for years and will likely, for now, remain unresolved as the courts assess the law’s constitutionality.

“As we gather here today, at this very moment, the abortion industry is in the court trying to prevent this law from taking effect and stop once again the will of the people,” Reynolds said before bringing people on the stage to sign the law. “But the passage of this legislation by even a wider margin this times sends an unmistakable message.”

The bill passed with exclusively Republican support late on Tuesday at the conclusion of a rare, 14-hour special legislative session.

The new measure will be considered in the context of decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and Iowa’s Supreme Court last year, when both reversed themselves on rulings that had affirmed a woman’s fundamental constitutional right to abortion.

Those decisions prompted Reynolds to ask the court to reinstate her blocked 2018 law, which is nearly identical to the new one. The state’s high court deadlocked last month, prompting Reynolds to call lawmakers back to the Iowa Capitol.

“Patients’ lives are deeply impacted every day that this law is allowed to stand,” said Ruth Richardson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States. “Iowans will be harmed as they’ve lost the right to control their bodies and futures. Iowans must have the freedom to make the best medical decisions for themselves and their families. We stand at the ready for our patients as we await the Court’s decision and are prepared to help them get the reproductive health care they need regardless of the outcome.”

Planned Parenthood North Central States was planning to refer patients to other states, but remained hopeful there would not be a long interruption in services. As of Wednesday, 200 patients were scheduled for abortions at Iowa Planned Parenthood or the Emma Goldman Clinic this week and next, according to the court filings. Most of them past the six-week mark in their pregnancies.

One Planned Parenthood clinic stayed open until about 9:30 p.m. Thursday in an effort to provide abortion care before the new restrictions, their attorney said.

“I can only hope that all patients who had appointments this morning have gotten the care that they need and that they’re not sitting at a health center right now,” the clinics’ attorney Peter Im said during Friday's court arguments.

Iowa lawmakers passed the law in less time “than the 24 hour time period that’s required for patients to wait before they get an abortion in Iowa," he said, adding that the status quo for the last 50 years has been for abortion pre-viability to be legal in Iowa.

“This law, which on Tuesday the General Assembly passed in the dead of night after less than a day of deliberation, will violate Iowans constitutional rights and alter that status quo and have devastating consequences for Iowans," he said.

There are limited circumstances under the measure that would allow for abortion after the point in a pregnancy where cardiac activity is detected: rape, if reported to law enforcement or a health provider within 45 days; incest, if reported within 145 days; if the fetus has a fetal abnormality “incompatible with life”; or if the pregnancy is endangering the life of the pregnant woman.

Most Republican-led states have drastically limited abortion access in the year since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and handed authority on abortion law to the states. More than a dozen states have bans with limited exceptions and one state, Georgia, bans abortion after cardiac activity is detected. Several other states have similar restrictions that are on hold pending court rulings.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre put out an immediate statement saying Iowa's newly signed law is “an extreme abortion ban that will take away a woman’s right to choose."

“While Republican elected officials advance dangerous laws, President Biden and Vice President Harris stand with the majority of Americans who believe personal health care decisions should be between a woman and her doctor, not politicians, and will continue to call on Congress to codify the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law,” the statement said.
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Ballentine contributed from Columbia, Missouri.

Odalys Avila’s job is finding answers—answers for families who are used to being told “no.”

"We do have a lot of clients who are undocumented, and so, when you're undocumented, unfortunately, you know, they don't qualify for anything," she said.

Avila works at Servicios de la Raza, a social services organization that serves Denver Colorado’s Latino community. She helps members of the community navigate different health systems and sign up for insurance, which gets complicated even if there are US citizens in the household.

"We do have some families who fear, 'if we apply for our kids or for my husband, how is that gonna, you know, affect me as an undocumented person?'" she said.

She sees firsthand how that uncertainty turns into real health complications.

"Not being able to cover medications or not being able to get preventative care and then coming at the last minute, looking for some sort of assistance because you know, now they have these like major health issues that they need to get taken care of," Avila said.

According to 2020 US Census Data, the Hispanic population is the least insured in the country: 18% of Hispanic people of all ages in America were uninsured, compared to 10% of Black Americans and 8% of white Americans.

By age groups: 25% of working-age Hispanics and 9.5% of Hispanics under 18 were uninsured.

"Families are in a really tough spot to decide: do I get healthcare for my child who needs a transplant or do I make sure that we can stay in the United States and not go back somewhere that we had to flee because of violence?" said Rayna Hetlage, senior policy manager at Colorado’s Center for Health Progress, an organization that helped get bills turned into law that allows health insurance access to undocumented immigrants and low-income people.

"When the Affordable Care Act was passed, concessions were made to get it to passed and some of those concessions were things like leaving out DACA recipients, leaving out undocumented immigrants from having any access to coverage," said Hetlage.

A new law will expand Medicaid and CHIP coverage to undocumented pregnant people and children in 2025, and beginning next year, state funds will be able to help qualifying residents who are a certain level below the federal poverty line purchase insurance.

Advocates, like Rudy Gonzalez of Servicios de la Raza, says these solutions are necessary to level the playing field for low-income members of his community.

"We're going to be able to get them insured. I mean, that's the biggest part of this new law," he said.

Several states like California, New Jersey, Texas, Michigan, and New York have worked to create similar solutions, like expanding Medicaid access to undocumented children and pregnant people, with more reaching out to Colorado.

"We've had conversations with other states who are really curious to hear what we're doing here," said Hetlage.

For Avila, she hopes the more access increases for low-income or undocumented folks across the board, the more people will see the need that exists.

"I hope that they support future laws that are possibly put in place. I hope they support this law and this program to be expanded," she said.

The gift of life came in the nick of time for an Ohio man.

WLWT, a Hearst station, first interviewed Mark Plummer in April 2022.

He was suffering from interstitial lung disease, an incurable lung disease that causes stiffening of the lungs, and his insurance would not cover the transplant he needed.

Less than a year later, he has a new set of lungs.

Doctors still don't know what caused him to develop the disease, but Mark Plummer said he is eternally grateful to the person who saved his life by being an organ donor.

"It is absolutely a second chance at life," he said. "We started calling it the gift."

Mark Plummer was admitted to a hospital in Columbus, Ohio, in early April. Family, friends and complete strangers helped pay the bill.

"I got donations from all over the country. We were amazed. Your story got picked up by stations all over the place," Mark Plummer said.

Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center covered the rest through financial aid.

Mark Plummer received his life-saving transplant on April 19.

"I was very, very, very sick, so my recovery was much rougher than most people," he said.

After the surgery, his kidneys went into shock. He was on dialysis for a month and spent a total of eight weeks in the intensive care unit. Then he spent time in rehab and another three weeks in Columbus for observation before heading home to Cincinnati.

"I knew he had it in him, but it was scary," Mark's wife, Linda Plummer, said. "I don't have to worry about him as much anymore. I don't wake up and — how loud is he breathing, is he breathing OK, checking his numbers."

He is now healthy enough to return to work and started a new job with Capabilities Driving School, teaching teens and young adults with disabilities how to drive. He is back to playing with his grandkids, including an adorable new grandson, and walking his two dogs around the neighborhood.

"I can pretty much do what anyone else can do, up to — I'm not ready to run a marathon yet," he joked. "Organ donation does save lives, and I'm sitting here talking to you as living proof that it really does save lives. And I'm looking forward to hopefully living at least another fifteen to twenty years because of that gift."

Now he plans to pay that generous gift forward.

"Why not? Why not pay it forward and help somebody?" Mark Plummer said. "Somebody helped me."

Several weeks ago, Mark Plummer saw a post on Nextdoor by a young woman named Bra'Naye Willis. She and her boyfriend rent an apartment at the Williamsburg Apartments of Cincinnati, and she was looking for advice. She said their apartment had no heat, there were leaks and air quality issues, among other problems.

"I had an asthma attack most recently in December because I couldn't breathe because of the air quality conditions," Bra'Naye Willis said. "It hurts me that people just really don't care about any of us."

The apartment complex has been in the news for months for a series of health and safety violations. The city of Cincinnati filed a lawsuit against the owners in January.

"Both her and her boyfriend, they suffer from lung issues, so that made a connection with me immediately," Mark Plummer said. "Someone who has asthma doesn't need to be in an environment like that."

He started a GoFundMe page for the couple to help them move somewhere else before their lease is up. He also made the first donation.

He is determined not to take his second chance at life for granted and said he is "eternally grateful" to the donor's family.

"On the worst day of their lives, they lost a loved one. That became the best day of my life," he said.

URBANDALE, Iowa — Dr. Alan Bollinger has dedicated his career to helping people overcome addiction.

"When you look at a lot of these people, they've been horribly abused," he said.

Bollinger is a medication-assisted treatment provider at a primary health care clinic in Urbandale, Iowa. Bollinger uses a combination of counseling and buprenorphine to treat people living with addiction.

"If you look at the way people are treated, in general, for their addictions, a lot of times it's stigmatized and the focus is on the behavior rather than on the person, and that makes it difficult to get well," he said.

"Like the rest of the country, we have seen more opioid use and more overdose related to opioids over the last 20 years, and we're also like the rest of the country seeing fentanyl in more than just the opioid drug supply," said Dr. Alison Lynch, a psychiatrist, family physician and addiction medicine specialist at the University of Iowa.

The university has played an essential role in training providers on prescribing buprenorphine, using nearly $4 million from the state’s share of the opioid settlement money.

Lynch said they’ve trained 250 prescribers in the eastern part of the state and more than 100 medical students.

However, one of the biggest hurdles is helping rural health care providers overcome the stigma of using the medication, which is an opioid. Lynch said buprenorphine attaches to opioid receptors in the brain but does not give the effect of being high.

"They don't have to worry about finding another opioid. They don't have to worry about cravings. They don't have to worry about going into withdrawal," she said.

The progress being made is measurable. According to a study from the University of Washington, 40% of rural counties in 2016 had at least one prescriber of buprenorphine. In 2020, the number increased to 63%.

The federal government is putting in money too. In September, the Health Resources and Services Administration announced $104 million would go to rural communities to combat the opioid epidemic, including $10 million for MAT programs.

"The mental health crisis, the substance abuse crisis, they're the same thing and the truth is there's one crisis, and those two things are symptoms. The real crisis is relationship crisis," said Bollinger.

He hopes that, along with the dollars coming in, people's minds will change when it comes to addiction. He believes a changing mindset, along with treatment, is how the crisis can come to an end.

As a record number of Americans are infected with COVID-19, largely due to the rapidly spreading omicron variant, some states' health care systems are beset with nearly full intensive care units.

Four states have less than 10% remaining capacity in their ICUs, according to data Wednesday from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Kentucky, Alabama, Indiana and New Hampshire.

And as infection spreads, states and health care systems nationwide are handling shortages of available medical workers, who face a greater chance of COVID-19 exposure and must isolate after testing positive.

Members of the National Guard and other federal emergency teams have been deployed to hospitals and long-term care facilities in places such as New Hampshire to alleviate the burden with medical and non-medical tasks.

"This is part of the winter surge, part of the long haul, which is why we put so many of the mitigation strategies and measures in place early on to help provide some flexibility to hospitals and health care systems," New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said Wednesday.

Five other states are very close to just 10% of ICU capacity remaining, according to HHS data: New Mexico, Missouri, Rhode Island, Mississippi and Georgia. Nationally, COVID-19 hospitalizations have reached record highs with at least 151,261 Americans need care as of Wednesday.

Early research indicates the omicron variant may produce less of a chance of needing hospitalization than prior COVID-19 variants. But omicron's increased transmissibility means more people at higher risk for severe disease, such as those who are unvaccinated or immunocompromised, will be infected.

"Omicron continues to burn through the commonwealth, growing at levels we have never seen before. Omicron is significantly more contagious than even the delta variant," said Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear Monday. "If it spreads at the rate we are seeing, it is certainly going to fill up our hospitals."

While conditions are not as dire as at the start of the pandemic nearly two years ago due to the availability of vaccines and other treatment options, the staffing shortages in hospitals is a real concern during this latest surge, said Dr. Craig Spencer, director of global health in emergency medicine at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center.

"The problem is that right now we have hospitals where there's not enough nurses to take care of the patients who are coming in, the COVID patients and the non-COVID patients," Spencer told CNN Wednesday.

"That's exactly why we need to do everything we can to try to limit the number of people that are infected, not just those that are older or unvaccinated or not boosted, but everyone. Because each infection represents a potential to infect more people. We need to do what we can to slow that spread right now and ease the pressure on our hospitals," Spencer said.

For those who come into emergency rooms for non-COVID reasons yet test positive, hospitals are still having to invoke quarantine protocols for those patients which puts a strain on operations, he said. And that can have an effect on all patients.

"Right now, we're still seeing sick people that need oxygen, the overwhelming majority of which are unvaccinated. But a lot of the patients that we're seeing right now have underlying chronic conditions that are being exacerbated," Spencer said.

Those patients, he said, can include "someone who gets COVID is dehydrated and needs to stay in the hospital, or someone who gets COVID and is too weak and they can't go home because they're a fall risk. Those aren't as bad in one sense as those kind of classic COVID patients we were seeing before. But every single patient that needs to stay in the hospital takes up a bed. And beds and staffing are what's in short supply right now."

CDC to update mask guidance

Health experts are reiterating the need to wear quality masks as never-before-seen figures of positive COVID-19 cases strike the country.

The U.S. averaged more than 771,580 new COVID-19 cases daily over the past week, according to Johns Hopkins University data, more than three times that of last winter's peak average.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plans to update information about mask-wearing, including the different levels of protection that various masks — such as cloth, surgical or N95 — provide against the spread of COVID-19, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House virtual briefing Wednesday.

Overall, it is important for people to wear any face mask that they have access to, "but Omicron has changed things a bit because it is so transmissible that we know that masks are even more important," Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive officer of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, told CNN Wednesday.

"And if you have the chance, if you have the opportunity, if you have access to a better mask, then the recommendation would be to wear it," she said, adding that N95 and KN95 masks need to be fitted properly to provide the best protection possible.

Vaccines effective with adolescents, study shows

The rate of deaths in the U.S. has remained lower than during last year's winter surge, which is often credited to around two-thirds of Americans eligible for vaccines being fully inoculated, according to the CDC.

The country has averaged 1,817 COVID-19 deaths a day over the past week, JHU data shows. The peak daily average was 3,402 one year ago on Jan. 13, 2021.

However, the latest CDC ensemble forecast predicts a potential 62,000 new COVID-19 deaths over the next four weeks, meaning preemptive vaccinations are still needed.

The age group of Americans who are the least vaccinated remains those under the age of 18, and a new study of real-world hospital data between July and late October points to the effectiveness of vaccinations even for those who, by being younger, are generally at lesser risk.

The findings, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, show that the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine appears to be 94% effective against COVID-19 hospitalization among adolescents ages 12-18 in the U.S.

"Vaccination averted nearly all life-threatening COVID-19 illness in this age group," wrote the researchers from the CDC and a collection of hospitals and universities, who found that far more adolescents hospitalized with COVID-19 were unvaccinated compared with those who were hospitalized for other reasons.

Among the hospitalized adolescents with COVID-19, 4% were fully vaccinated, less than 1% were partially vaccinated, and 96% were unvaccinated. In comparison, of those who did not have COVID-19, 36% were fully vaccinated, 7% were partially vaccinated, and 57% were unvaccinated.

WASHINGTON —

Federal health officials on Thursday pressed nursing home workers to get their booster shots amid a spike in COVID-19 cases among staffers and a concerning lag in booster vaccination for residents and staff.

The omicron variant "is lightning fast, and we can't afford another COVID-19 surge in nursing homes," Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a livestreamed appeal to the industry. "You know that. I know that. Higher numbers of COVID cases would likely once again have a devastating impact on our loved ones ... and we know we just have to work doubly hard to keep them safe."

Nursing homes are a testing ground for President Joe Biden's assertion that the United States is much better prepared to handle a surging virus than it was last winter. Although residents are a tiny proportion of the population, they represent a disproportionate share of Americans who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier this year the advent of vaccines brought the virus under control in nursing homes and allowed them to reopen to visitors. But that return to normalcy could be in jeopardy as omicron pushes COVID-19 cases to new highs for the nation.

Cases among nursing home staffers jumped to 10,353 for the week ending Dec. 27, a rise of nearly 80% from the previous week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Staff deaths increased to 58, tripling from the previous week. Among residents, who are more heavily vaccinated, cases went up slightly and the data showed no increase in deaths.

With medical experts advising that a booster shot is critical to defend against omicron, Becerra said only 57% of nursing home residents and 25% of staff and have gotten boosters. That's clearly behind a booster rate of nearly 66% among people age 65 or older and about 45% for adults of all ages, according to statistics from the White House.

"We've got to change that," Becerra said.

The administration is urging some 1,400 federally funded community health centers across the land to partner with local nursing homes in a renewed vaccination campaign.

Nursing home workers were supposed to be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4 under an earlier order issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which required staff at health care facilities that receive government money to get their shots. That directive got ensnared in litigation and the Supreme Court has set a special session next week to hear arguments on it, along with the much broader Biden administration vaccine mandate for workers at larger companies of all kinds. Together the orders would affect about 100 million employees.

"Once again nursing homes are really the ground zero," said Harvard health policy professor David Grabowski, who has tracked the impact of the pandemic on residents and staff. "How well we do in combating this virus can often be discerned by just looking at the nursing homes."

Grabowski said the Biden administration is right to raise the alarm now. "We see this time and time again: When staff (infection) rates go up, resident rates go up," he explained. Staffers unwittingly bring in the virus from surrounding communities, a common trigger for nursing home outbreaks.

Vaccines enabled nursing homes to weather the delta variant surge earlier this year, and timely booster shots should go a long way toward blocking omicron. "The more vaccines and boosters we have, the more lives we are going to save over the course of the winter," Grabowski said.

But some states are already seeing trouble.

COVID-19 outbreaks in Mississippi nursing homes have almost doubled in the past week, and officials say that indicates the state is probably heading into another major surge of virus cases and hospitalizations.

There were 63 outbreaks in Mississippi nursing homes Monday, about twice the number reported last week, state epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers wrote in a midweek memo to Mississippi hospitals and health care providers.

Along with other data, that points to "very rapid growth of COVID-19 infection and transmission...we have now entered our 5th wave of COVID-19 in the state," Byers wrote.

One of the major nursing home industry groups is backing the administration's push on boosters.

The American Health Care Association said in a statement it's asking members to "double down on their efforts to get as many residents and staff fully vaccinated and boosted as soon as possible."

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Associated Press writer Leah Willingham in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed to this report.

The Centers for Disease Control Prevention released new guidelines that said health workers with COVID-19 no longer need to isolate for 10 days.

The agency updated its quarantine guidance for health workers on Thursday as the nation deals with a surge in omicron cases.

“As the healthcare community prepares for an anticipated surge in patients due to Omicron, CDC is updating our recommendations to reflect what we know about infection and exposure in the context of vaccination and booster doses," CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said. "Our goal is to keep healthcare personnel and patients safe and to address and prevent undue burden on our healthcare facilities. Our priority remains prevention—and I strongly encourage all healthcare personnel to get vaccinated and boosted.”

The CDC said healthcare workers who are fully vaccinated, including a booster, do not need to quarantine after high-risk exposures.

They can return to work after seven days with a negative test if they are asymptomatic.

If they deal with staffing shortages caused by COVID-19, then isolation time can be cut even further.

The Biden administration announced Thursday that it will direct $100 million to the National Health Service Corps to help address the health care worker shortage.

Pulled from funding in the American Rescue Plan, the $100 million represents one of the nation’s biggest investments in a program that helps place primary care doctors in communities that have difficulty recruiting and retaining them. It's a five-fold increase from previous years, the Department of Health and Human Services said.

The National Health Service Corps offers loan repayments and scholarships to clinicians in exchange for multiple years of service in areas that have a health care provider shortage.

"Whether you're in rural America, or in a low income part of America, that shouldn't be a reason why you can't access good quality health care," Health Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a phone interview. "And so we want to help states that are going to try to do what they can to keep that public health workforce in those rural communities, those low-income communities, they're where people need them."

The announcement comes after the United States lost 17,500 health care employees in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. With the industry's employment figures now sitting at just under 16 million, the agency reported the country has lost 524,000 health care employees since the start of the pandemic. Job losses in nursing, hospitals and residential care saw the biggest drops in the industry last month.

Losing employees has in turn increased labor costs. Hospitals and other medical facilities have had to sharply increase spending on recruiting and retaining employees, according to a report published last week by Moody's Investors Services. That has led to boosted benefit options and sign-on bonuses that can go well into five figures since the start of the pandemic.

“Covid has basically caused a laser focus on the glaring gaps and dysfunction across the American health care system,” said Tener Veenema, a scholar focused on workforce issues at Johns Hopkins University's Center for Health Security. “Making investments to redistribute health care providers into rural areas, low-resourced areas, is so important because we know how much they are suffering from a lack of access to good health care.”

States will be able to apply for grants until April and the Department of Health and Human Services predicts it will make up to 50 awards as high as $1 million per year over the course of four years.

Participating states won’t have to match funds or share costs in any way to obtain the grants, and they can use 10 percent of the award for administrative costs.

“With these funds, states can design programs that optimize the selection of disciplines and service locations, and tailor the length of service commitments to address the areas of greatest need in their communities,” said Diana Espinosa, the acting administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration, which oversees the program. “This investment will make a tremendous impact on access to primary care and addressing health disparities at a critical time.”

The project start date isn't until September 2022, so it won't have an immediate effect on the current labor shortage. It represents, however, the latest push by the Biden administration to address the issue that experts believe will only get worse over the next decade.

President Joe Biden pulled $100 million this year from the American Rescue Plan to support the Medical Reserve Corps, an all-volunteer army of doctors, nurses and medical support teams in hopes of accelerating the pace of Covid-19 vaccinations.

"A hundred-million dollars isn’t going to take care of everybody," Becerra admitted. "But it’s certainly going to go a long way in helping our state partners get resources to those local communities, so they can keep that health care worker there, keep them trained, ready and prepared to keep them healthy."

A mother is back home in Texas after a long battle with COVID-19 in an Oklahoma City intensive care unit.

Devisha Long credits her nurses for getting her home. But, she said, it has been a long journey.

She was flown by helicopter from Dallas to OKC. She was placed in a medically-induced coma at Integris Baptist Medical Center and was in this condition for nearly a month. She became a mother during her hospital stay.

“I surprised them. Oh, man, they were so excited,” she said. “You know, everybody was happy.”

Long survived COVID-19 thanks to the innovative extracorporeal membrane oxygenation treatment. This week, she finally returned home to her family in Dallas. Her nurses watched the tender moment while huddled around an iPhone.

“It was freaking awesome! I got chills. I cried, and I don’t cry. It was a breath of fresh air,” the nurses said.

Their former patient hugged her sweet daughters for the first time in months.

While Long was in a coma, Nurse Manager Rebecca Mitchell said she was very sick and was pregnant.

“And then they had to do an emergency C-section before she came to us,” Mitchell said.

“When I finally woke up, the only way I knew I wasn't pregnant is because one of the nurses from the other hospital had made a collage of the baby, and I seen him line up on the wall, and I looked and I was like, That's my baby,” Long said.

She eventually woke up from her coma, holding her baby girl.

“When I first held her and I was like, I can't believe, you know, this is you,” she said.

For the nurse team at Integris, they’ve been running nonstop, experiencing tragedy treating COVID-19 patients.

“It truly has been a hellacious year. I've seen more death. This just this past year than I have in the 10 years I've been a nurse,” Mitchell said.

But this brief moment offered a change from the sad realities of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We all cried. I think we all teared up, because just that those are those moments that you, you need to kind of help rebuild to remind you why we do what we do,” she said.

They remember why they continue their work.

“Thank you for your positivity, thank you for encouraging me. You really helped me to remain strong,” Long said. “Even in the dark times of me being alone, y'all really did an amazing job and I just want to tell you how to continue to do the same because you're touching lives and making a difference."

Long is still recovering from COVID-19, going to appointments in Dallas. As for her newborn, she’s at a Dallas hospital until she can come home.

NORMAN, Okla. —

An Oklahoma man was reunited with the doctors who saved his life after going into cardiac arrest.

Christopher Fennell was having dinner while visiting his son in Norman, Oklahoma. And as they were leaving a restaurant, Fennell fell to the ground and went into cardiac arrest, which led to a brain seizure.

"I was basically dead, and they brought me back," he said.

His son is now a junior at the University of Oklahoma and is studying pre-med. He knew exactly what to do to keep his father alive until paramedics arrived.

"The quick action of my son to call 911 and then hand the phone to my wife, who was in shock and started CPR was, I mean, I wouldn’t be here without that," Fennell said.

Fennell was taken to the hospital, where he stayed in the ICU for 10 days.

"Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest does not have a very good prognosis overall," Dr. Archana Gautam said.

Fennell was later sent to rehab, where he was able to get additional treatment and fully recover.

"To see someone physically recover and cognitively recover after a cardiac arrest is rare," said Dr. Lane Tinsley.

Fennell said without the quick medical attention from his son, paramedics and the doctors — he wouldn’t have fully recovered.

"All of these things God put in place, put breadcrumbs down on the ground to get me here, for the great people here to continue my recovery, put me on the road to recovery and get me back in the position I am in today," he said. "I am a walking miracle, but this is not a story about me. This is a story about how God works in the world today."

NEW YORK —

A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Tuesday temporarily suspending New York state from enforcing its vaccine mandate if health care workers claim a religious exemption.

The order bars the New York State Department of Health from requiring employers to deny or revoke religious exemptions for the vaccine. The health department issued an order in August requiring all health care workers be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Sept. 27.

Seventeen Catholic and Baptist medical professionals who say they oppose getting the vaccine for religious reasons sought to prevent the state from enforcing the mandate, according to a federal complaint filed in New York on Monday.

The professionals — nine doctors, five nurses, a nuclear medicine technologist, a physician liaison and a rehabilitation therapist — wanted a judgment declaring the mandate "unconstitutional, unlawful, and unenforceable," according to the lawsuit.

"The Vaccine Mandate emerges in the context of an atmosphere of fear and irrationality in which the unvaccinated are threatened with being reduced to a caste of untouchables if they will not consent to being injected, even 'continuously,' with vaccines that violate their religious beliefs," the complaint said.

They are seeking a temporary statewide restraining order against the mandate followed by a permanent injunction, according to the lawsuit.

The judge set a Sept. 22 deadline for defendants to oppose the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction, and he scheduled a hearing in the case for Sept. 28.

The mandate, the lawsuit argues, overrides protections provided under the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, New York State's Human Rights Law, the Supremacy Clause as well as the First and 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit names New York Attorney General Letitia James, Commissioner Howard Zucker of the State Department of Health and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul as defendants in the complaint.

CNN reached out to Hochul's office but was told it doesn't comment on pending litigation. CNN also reached out to Hochul's administration, the Department of Health and the attorney general's office for comment and was referred to the Department of Health.

Debate surrounding vaccine mandates has picked up since President Joe Biden announced a new plan to tackle the pandemic last week, which includes vaccine requirements in some workplaces.

Health experts and many officials have called vaccine mandates a necessary step to protect the population and slow the spread of the virus. But there has also been blowback from some state leaders, such as Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, who have called the announcement at the federal level an overreach and pledged to challenge it in court.

Pope Francis declares vaccination 'the moral choice'

The plaintiffs cited religious convictions that prevent them from being inoculated with vaccines that they said "were tested, developed or produced with fetal cells line derived from procured abortions."

Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna used cell lines originating from fetal tissue to test their vaccines, but they are not used in vaccine manufacturing or production, whereas fetal cell lines were used in Johnson & Johnson's "development, confirmation and production," according to Dr. James Lawler, an infectious disease expert at Nebraska Medicine.

Those cells are thousands of generations removed from the original fetal tissue, said Lawler.

No major religious denomination has taken a stand opposing vaccination. Pope Francis declared it "the moral choice because it is about your life, but also the lives of others."

Last month, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas said it would not issue letters of exemption on religious grounds, according to a communication obtained by CNN.

"For the past several months, our Holy Father Pope Francis has made it clear that the various forms of COVID vaccines are morally acceptable, urging Catholics across the globe to become vaccinated, not only for their own safety and well-being, but also out of concern for the weak and vulnerable in our midst," Bishop George Leo Thomas said.

The Thomas More Society, a self-described pro-life group, provided the attorney for the 17 plaintiffs in this case.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Nearly one year after the first official COVID-19 diagnosis in the U.S., medical professionals remain on the front lines of a seemingly never-ending pandemic.

“It's been a trying time for all of us, for all my colleagues and all, everyone involved in the care of the patient,” said Helen Cordova, an ICU nurse at Kaiser Permanente in Los Angeles.

It’s a trying time, with real consequences on the mental health of those we rely on for our health.

According to a recent study conducted by Mental Health America:

• 93 percent of health care workers reported experiencing stress
• 86 percent reported anxiety
• 76 percent were exhausted and burned out
• 75 percent said they were overwhelmed

“If you work in the environment like that, you don't know what's going to come,” said Dr. Eugene Lipov is with the Stella Center, which specializes in treating post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. “It's stressful because you're afraid of not doing your job right. You don't want people dying. You also are afraid you're going to get this communicable disease.”

He said some people working in health care are exhibiting symptoms of PTSD because of the constant psychological toll COVID-19 is taking on them.

“It's very similar to being in a war zone and that actually leads to fight-and-flight system being kicked on,” Dr. Lipov said. “And if it stays on, then you get symptoms of PTSD, such as not being able to sleep, such as all the activity, paranoia - all of that.”

How can workers combat it? Dr. Lipov suggested several steps.

“Number one: you need to get some sleep, meaning turn off the devices,” he said. ”If you can get outside, walk, get some natural light, walk for at least 30 minutes.”

Finally, he said health care workers need to remember to take care of themselves, with the same passion they often show for their patients.

It's been a year since the World Health Organization officially declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic and then-President Donald Trump declared a national emergency, effectively shutting down the entire country.

Since, hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost loved ones, been separated from their families, and so many have lost their jobs.

In the special, hour-long program, "Hindsight: 2020 | The Year that Changed Our Lives," WCPO 9 took a look back at the year so much changed and where we go from here.

Among the stories included in the special are:

Watch the entire, hour-long special in the viewer above.

While most American adults have been vaccinated, people in some states are still hesitant to get their shots.

In Missouri, hospital space is now a concern as COVID-19 cases go up.

"Should we start to see a high number of COVID patients like they are there, we're going to be very challenged with how many beds that we have available," Steve Hoeger of the MARC Health Care Coalition said.

A Springfield, Missouri, hospital has opened its sixth COVID-19 ward as the delta virus variant rages in the state's southwest region.

Chief Administrative Officer Erik Frederick says the hospital needed at most five virus wards last year. Frederick has tweeted that many people in local rural areas are unvaccinated.

He also says people from rural areas don't have nearby hospitals, so they come to Mercy Hospital in Springfield.

About 56% of adults in Missouri have gotten at least one vaccine shot. That vaccination rate is about 12 points lower than the national rate.

Simon Kaufman and Alex Livingston contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON —

President Joe Biden will showcase health insurance cost cuts in a speech in Ohio Tuesday during what may be the best time for Democrats to talk up the Affordable Care Act since it became law.ha

Biden's COVID-19 relief bill pumps up “Obamacare” premium subsidies to address longstanding problems of affordability, particularly for people with solid middle-class incomes. More taxpayer assistance means, in effect, that consumers who buy their own policies through HealthCare.gov will pay hundreds of dollars less out of their own pockets.

“The ACA is over a decade old and this is literally the first time that Democrats have been successful at improving it,” said analyst Larry Levitt of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. “Democrats have succeeded politically by selling the ACA's protections for preexisting conditions, but affordability has always been a challenge. And now Democrats have successfully improved the premium help available under the law.”

Related video: VP Harris tours Florida vaccination site

Biden's speech Tuesday in Columbus, the capital of a political battleground state, is part of a mini-blitz by the White House. Newly minted Health Secretary Xavier Becerra will echo Biden's comments Tuesday in Carson City, Nevada, and join a Florida-themed Zoom event. Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff will pitch the relief bill in Omaha, Nebraska.

The numbers show that the Biden administration does have a product that consumers may want to hear about.

The COVID-19 legislation cuts premiums paid by a hypothetical 64-year-old making $58,000 from $1,075 a month to about $413, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates. A 45-year-old making $19,300 would pay zero in premiums as compared with about $67 on average before the law. People who have even a brief spell of unemployment this year can get a standard plan for zero premium and reduced copays and deductibles.

New and existing customers will be able to take advantage of the savings starting April 1 by going to HealthCare.gov. States that run their own health insurance markets will offer the same enhanced assistance, although timetables for implementation may vary.

Biden has opened a special sign-up period for uninsured people to get coverage through HealthCare.gov through May 15, and the early response has been strong. By spreading the word about the higher subsidies, the White House is hoping to super-charge enrollment. But the 11 million people who already have private plans through the health law will also benefit.

Republicans see Biden's sweeter subsidies as an example of Democratic overreach on the COVID-19 bill. Policy consultant Brian Blase, a former health care adviser in the Trump White House, expects most of the additional taxpayer assistance will merely substitute for what private households would have otherwise paid.

Their complaints notwithstanding, Republicans may face a political dilemma. The higher health care subsidies are keyed to the pandemic and expire by the end of 2022. That will let Democrats set up election-year votes to make the new benefits permanent, or add even more.

The COVID-19 bill follows Biden’s strategy of building on the Obama-era health law to move the U.S. toward coverage for all.

Another provision offers a dozen or so holdout states led by Republicans a financial inducement to expand Medicaid to more low-income adults. So far there have been no takers.

It’s unclear how big a dent the Biden legislation will make in the number of uninsured people, which has risen to an estimated 33 million or more.

But it represents the biggest expansion of federal help for health insurance since the ACA's enactment. Obamacare not only survived President Donald Trump’s repeated attempts to tear it down, it's now getting new life.

Because health insurance is so complicated, consumers are going to have to do their homework to figure out if there’s something in the legislation for them. But people who qualify for higher tax credits won't lose out. If they don't claim the enhanced assistance immediately, they're still entitled to the money when they file their 2021 tax returns next year.

Tuesday marks the 11th anniversary of then-President Barack Obama signing the Affordable Care Act. Biden, who as vice president was at Obama's side at the signing ceremony, is scheduled to tour the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute before his speech.

CINCINNATI — For many of us, going to the doctor can be intimidating enough. For people like Zach Reinstatler, the experience can be much more so.

As a person who transgender, Reinstatler said, "I've experienced discrimination, absolutely."

But it's also the medical transition treatments they've received at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center that they said "saved (their) life."

"When I started coming here for treatment, I was in a much darker place," they told WCPO.

'From the moment they walk in the door'

Reinstatler credits the life-saving work, in part, to one of their doctors, Dr. Sarah Pickle with the UC College of Medicine: In addition to treating patients like Reinstatler, she's working to correct what she characterized as a lack of training among MDs when it comes to LGBTQIA+ issues in medicine.

"Med schools now, the average for LGBTQ curriculum is about four hours," she told WCPO, which is why she's working with residents like Dr. Andrea Jaramillo to broaden that education, post-medical school.

"Follow the same principles that we follow with any population — respect, love, compassion," Jaramillo said.

Pickle also worked to create other signals of affirmation among UC Health's culture and processes, such as revising patient paperwork to ask patients for their preferred pronouns or gender identity.

Affirmation, she said, "starts from the moment they walk in the door. It's what they see."

It also takes understanding: Pickle is also working to develop a virtual reality learning module — scheduled to launch in March 2022 — to help doctors and clinicians better understand the experiences of transgender people. Once launched, the training will be available to any clinician in Ohio.

"How do we create a culture of caring?" she said. "It has to start with training."

Learning to talk about LGBTQ health

Pickle's work marks a stark contrast from just three or four decades ago, when public discussions about LGBTQIA+ healthcare revolved primarily around HIV and AIDS, creating a culture of fear and shame, as it was often called "a gay man's disease."

It's a misconception that Cincinnati Black Pride founder Tim'm West said still persists today.

"It's not only not fair; it's really inaccurate," he said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly a quarter of HIV diagnoses in 2018 were in people who identified as heterosexuals, and roughly another 7% of cases were related to intravenous drug use.

West's journey with the disease began in the late 1990s. He said that's when he got his first glimpse about the medical field's difficulty talking about LGBTQ health issues.

"I trusted someone who said he was negative," he said. "I was in a relationship with that person. That ended, left with something as a reminder of it."

When he was first diagnosed, he said, the message he was given was grim.

"At the time, they didn't have the language, so the doctor told me I had full-blown AIDS," he recalled. "It was pretty scary."

It prompted him to seek out a new doctor. He found a clinician who was both black and gay, whom he identified with. He said the compassionate, connected care impacted his attitude and, therefore, his health. He was more inclined to follow medical instructions.

In 2021, his viral levels are undetectable.

Affirmation as health care

Dr. Shanna Styker, with Equitas Health in Walnut Hills, said LGBTQIA+ communities "have been disproportionately impacted by poor access to health care because of discrimination," and that bad experiences with providers can cause people to delay or avoid care. That can lead to worse health outcomes.

It's why Equitas Health Institute director, Julia Applegate, and her team have worked to facilitate a top-to-bottom healthcare network — from primary care all the way down to a pharmacy that is familiar with the types of prescriptions a doctor might order for a transgender patient.

"The coordination of care is so important because the amount of homophobia and transphobia in our bigger society is so strong," she said.

As a lesbian, she said she had to wonder if her appearance ever prevented her physician from talking with her about certain things.

"All through my prime fertility years, I was never asked if I wanted to be a parent," she said. "Not once."

She said medicine still has a long way to go, but she said LGBTQIA+ patients will have a better experience now than even 10 years ago due to strides in affirming care, like the kind Pickle is working to instill at UCMC.

"Medical transition has saved my life," Reinstatler said. "Dr. Pickle has been a huge part of that. She's affirming. She's understanding."

WASHINGTON —

Video above: Biden encourages younger Americans to get vaccinated.

President Joe Biden is set to unveil the next phase of his massive plan to rebuild the American economy this week, and a collection of Democratic senators from a broad ideological spectrum are asking the president to make sure the proposal includes improvements to the health care system.

In a letter obtained by CNN, 17 senators specifically ask for Biden to lower the Medicare eligibility age, expand Medicare benefits to include hearing, dental, and vision care, implement a cap on out-of-pocket expenses under traditional Medicare, and allow the program to negotiate lower drug prices.

Biden's plan is expected to include proposals related to education, child care and climate change. What remains an open question is what plans the administration has to include health care in the package.

Health care could be a dicey negotiating point with some Democrats in Congress hoping for expansions to Medicaid and Medicare while others are looking for changes to the Affordable Care Act. There could also be a fight over reigning in the cost of prescription drugs, a goal Democrats share but have different views on how to make happen.

All of that could lead the White House to hold off on adding another complicated policy to an already overloaded package and instead try to make a run at health care later in the year.

But these 17 Democrats want Biden to make that move now.

"Medicare has been one of the most successful and popular federal programs in our nation's history since it was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. Now, 55 years later, the time is long overdue for us to expand and improve this program so that millions of older Americans can receive the health care they need, including eyeglasses, hearing aids and dental care," the letter reads.

The letter is led by Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Ben Cardin of Maryland. It has a broad range of Democratic support from both progressives like Sanders and Warren, as well from Democrats in leadership like Stabenow and Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York are also signatories.

While the White House has teased bits and pieces of the plan, officials insist that it is still a work in progress and aspects of it could be dropped our added before it is formally released. The specifics are expected to be unveiled ahead of Biden's address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday to mark his first 100 days in office. Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and members of his Cabinet are expected to hit the road to sell the plan immediately after.

The White House declined to say if health care would be part of this particular proposal, but press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Friday that expanding access to health care and making it more affordable remain a priority for Biden and his administration.

"Even as he's making these decisions, that the American Families Plan and his speech on Wednesday, will not represent the totality of every priority item for him and every item on his agenda that he wants to move forward as president," Psaki said.

But the Democratic senators -- nervous about their party's tight margins in both the House and the Senate -- believe Biden needs to act quickly to enact meaningful change and that these changes to health care are urgent.

"We have an historic opportunity to make the most significant expansion of Medicare since it was signed into law," the letter reads. "We look forward to working with you to make this a reality and, in the process, substantially improve the lives of millions of older Americans and persons with disabilities."

Posted at 5:27 PM, May 21, 2021

and last updated 2021-05-21 17:44:28-04

This week on the Hear Cincinnati podcast, host Brian Niesz is joined by community reporter Lucy May, senior real-time editor Pat LaFleur and senior manager of enterprise/investigative Meghan Goth to discuss the latest cicada news, a project creating homeownership opportunities, the secret informant in a Cincinnati bribery case and more.

Following the panel, John Matarese joins the podcast to discuss Cincinnati's hot real estate market and the resulting pressure on renters.

Listen to this episode in the podcast player above.

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