Just how many Americans — citizens and legal permanent residents — remain abandoned in Afghanistan? The State Department has yet to give any firm figures, and the national media remains completely uninterested. Local news outlets are the only media reporting on it, Jim Geraghty notices today:

The sort of headline that shouldn’t just be local news: “43 Connecticut Residents Still Stuck In Afghanistan.”

Those knee-jerk Biden critics over at . . . er, the Connecticut affiliate of NBC News report[.]

Indeed. Two weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times offered a local news report — via a newsletter — on Californians trapped behind Taliban lines without covering it in its national news section. NBC’s Connecticut affiliate kept its local viewers apprised on 43 state residents still stuck in Afghanistan while its parent news organization ignored the story entirely:

More than three dozen Connecticut residents are still trying to leave Afghanistan after American forces withdrew. Elected officials, relief organizations, and veterans groups are trying to get them out.

“Their school teachers are calling me asking me where are the students. The 10-year-old student from New Haven who is stuck in Kabul is sending me voicemail messages,” Chris George, executive director of IRIS said.

George is talking about some of the 43 Connecticut residents stuck in Afghanistan.

“They’re running out of food and yes, they are running out of hope,” George said.

Even if the State Department won’t give any firm numbers, Sen. Richard Blumenthal will. His estimate of the number of people his own office is tracking — eight hundred — far exceeds any number that State has suggested. Alex Plitsas, a veteran of Afghanistan working to get people out, tells NBC News’ affiliate that he believes over 1,000 Americans remain trapped, and that the number of Afghan allies we abandoned exceeds sixty thousand.

Fox News is the only national outlet providing consistent coverage of this crisis, thanks to Trey Yingst, who puts the number of abandoned Americans into the thousands:

Thousands of American allies remain stuck in Afghanistan. Our coverage continues. pic.twitter.com/e1I0QP7ARL

— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) October 18, 2021

Where is the Biden administration in these efforts? Er …

The State Department plans to resume regular evacuation flights from Afghanistan before the end of the year to help U.S. citizens, residents and some visa applicants leave the country, a senior State Department official said, an effort that will require coordination with the Taliban and other governments.

Jim points out that we’ve been out of Afghanistan for 49 days. It’s going to take another two months before the US government puts together a plan to evacuate the Americans and allies it abandoned seven weeks ago. What a disgrace — for Joe Biden, the State Department, the Pentagon, and especially for the national media that has gone out of its way to avoid covering it.