Eden Health District COVID-19 Bulletin
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"This is the time more than ever to adopt the healthiest lifestyle that you can. Sleep, nutrition and exercise is the trifecta that will position you to respond to the virus in the best way possible. You’ll be in better condition to resist.”
Dr. Eric Verdin, CEO, Buck Institute for Research on Aging,
7/6/20
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Helping others stay in business
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Partners Jeff Solorio, John Juniper, Benjamin Montoya, and Edoardo Chavarin started fixing up their 1940s gas station in Los Angeles three years ago, turning it into Full Service Coffee Co., a drive-thru coffee shop for people on the go. With the stay-at-home order forcing many non-essential businesses to shut down, their low-contact shop was able to keep running at full service.
"We realized we had an advantage because we have a drive-up concept," said Chavarin. "Minimal contact was always part of our DNA because people can just drive up and get their coffee."
As the pandemic has stretched on, they have started helping other small businesses stay afloat too. They're buying handmade masks, fresh bread, pastries, frozen tamales and coffee essentials from other spots and selling them to their customers.
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"We turned almost into this little bodega and a one-stop-shop. We're so happy that we have this little advantage and that we can share it so that people don't have to shut down completely," said Chavarin.
"We're just super, super grateful to our customers for being supportive to the new customers that are coming out that are finding us through this. And but also to our staff, you know, they're the ones on the front lines," added Chavarin.
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Alameda County:
6,855
Contra Costa County:
3,878
California:
265,200
U.S.:
2,910,023
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Alameda County:
140
Contra Costa County:
85
California:
6,373
U.S.:
130,090
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East Bay Times, July 6, 2020
According to the California Emergency Medical Services Authority, at least 15 people have been moved from Imperial to hospitals in the Bay Area. UCSF, which has relatively low numbers of coronavirus patients and can offer highly specialized care, said this week it had received at least three. Stanford has also accepted patients. At least 500 patients have been transported out of Imperial County during the pandemic. Imperial has become the entryway for U.S. citizens living in Mexico seeking medical care.
Press Release, July 1, 2020
The Hayward City Council has extended on Tuesday an emergency moratorium on residential and commercial evictions for failure to pay rent or make mortgage payments due to Covid-19 hardship. The moratorium, which was extended to Sept. 30, 2020, also temporarily bans the eviction of residential tenants for reasons other than nonpayment of rent that otherwise would be allowable under no-fault eviction provisions of the City’s rent-stabilization ordinance.
Mercury News, July 6, 2020
Bay Area mental health specialists and crisis line managers say they have seen an increasing number of calls or texts from distraught people seeking help. Tom Tamura, executive director of Contra Costa Crisis Services, said his agency is handling an estimated 1,000 additional calls per month compared with the same period in 2019.
Mercury News, July 6, 2020
AC Transit could eliminate dozens of routes and slash service on many others as the East Bay bus system limps through the coronavirus pandemic and braces for what could be a long-lasting recession. Like other public transportation agencies, AC Transit is already running a reduced schedule and has not been collecting fares since coronavirus lockdown orders chased away most of its passengers this spring. In a recent budget presentation, officials estimated the agency is losing $5 million per month from not collecting fares, and millions more from declining sales tax revenue. At its lowest point this spring, ridership was down by 74 percent, a spokesman said.
East Bay Times, July 6, 2020
Many Bay Area businesses, bludgeoned by government-ordered shutdowns and now a slow return of customers, are asking landlords for a break on rent as they try to recover from the pandemic-induced economic meltdown. The balancing act for property owners is delicate. In countless instances, commercial property owners must make payments to lenders that have provided a mortgage for a retail building or a mall. Rents provide the cash flow to help the landlord pay off that mortgage
.
SF Chronicle, July 5, 2020
As restaurants in the Bay Area shut down their dining rooms in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic strain they faced surfaced many of the fissures in the industry that had previously existed without much comment. Among them is their reliance on undocumented workers. Roughly 1 in 3 undocumented workers in the state is employed in an industry highly affected by the shutdown, according to the California Budget and Policy Center. Largely unable to work from home and disqualified from federal money, these immigrants have little to cushion them from the nationwide financial impact of the pandemic. Thus, they have to work by any means necessary.
NPR, July 3, 2020
The pandemic has led to a huge increase in orders for plexiglass and other types of clear plastic barriers meant to keep us safe. "It's completely out of hand," said Russ Miller, store manager of
TAP Plastics in San Leandro
, California, which has 18 locations on the West Coast. "In 40 years of selling plastic sheets, I've never seen anything like this." TAP's sales were up more than 200 percent in April, according to Miller, and he said the only reason its sales have declined since then is the company has no more full plastic sheets to sell, even though earlier this year TAP ordered a massive supply that it had expected to last for the rest of the year. "That was gone in two months," Miller said.
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CNN, July 6, 2020
Despite the intense spread of the coronavirus in Spain, a large-scale study of more than 61,000 participants found that just
5% of Spain's population has developed antibodies
, strengthening evidence that a so-called
herd immunity
to Covid-19 is "unachievable," the
medical journal the Lancet reported
on Monday.
The findings show that 95% of Spain's population remains susceptible to the virus. Herd immunity is achieved when enough of a population has become infected with a virus or bacteria, or vaccinated against it, to stop its circulation.
Isabella Eckerle, head of the Geneva Centre for Emerging Viral Diseases, and Benjamin Meyer, a virologist at the University of Geneva,
Lancet, July 6, 2020
"In light of these findings, any proposed approach to achieve herd immunity through natural infection is not only highly unethical, but also unachievable. With a large majority of the population being infection naive, virus circulation can quickly return to early pandemic dimensions in a second wave once measures are lifted."
Lisa Krieger, science reporter, East Bay Times, July 6, 2020
As we age, our body’s elegant symphony of immune cells turns dissonant. We may feel fine. But our hidden defenses no longer fully shield us, and may turn against us. By the age of 50, our production of infection-fighting T cells is less than 10% of its peak when we wee younger. It’s harder for an older person to clear the coronavirus from their blood. To make matters worse, there’s emerging evidence that this new virus actually kills immune cells, either directly or indirectly. While risk is greatest for those with underlying medical conditions, age is an independent risk factor for severe Covid-19. Death was most commonly reported among persons in their 80s, regardless of the presence of underlying conditions.
Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2020
Nationwide, hospitals have identified 5,142 coronavirus infections apparently acquired inside hospitals from May 14 to June 21, according to figures provided to The Wall Street Journal by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The figure could be higher; the reporting is voluntary. Those are just cases in patients. The CDC hasn’t publicly reported in-house infection of the staffs of hospitals.
LA Times, July 1, 2020
A new study estimates that the true number of U.S. fatalities linked to the pandemic is
up to 28% higher than the official tally
. That means that for every 3.5 known victims of COVID-19, another American lost his or her life as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, researchers
reported
Wednesday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
NY Times, July 1, 2020
Hundreds of thousands of seriously ill coronavirus patients who survive and leave the hospital are facing a new and difficult challenge: recovery. Many are struggling to overcome a range of troubling residual symptoms, and some problems may persist for months, years or even the rest of their lives.
Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2020
Long-term Covid-19 patients’ symptoms vary widely, from elevated heart rates and trouble breathing to gastrointestinal problems and cognitive difficulties. Many patients are younger and had previously been healthy, with Covid cases initially considered mild to moderate. But months later they are still sick, and some are getting worse.
The Harvard Gazette, June 29, 2020
Though transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been understood to transmit mainly through large droplets expelled during coughing, sneezing, or talking,
Edward Nardell
,
professor of medicine and of global health and social medicine at
Harvard Medical School
,
said that evidence has risen that at least some cases of COVID-19 occur via airborne transmission. That happens when virus particles contained in smaller droplets don’t settle out within six feet and instead hang in the air and drift on currents. Airborne transmission is thought to have been a factor in the coronavirus’ spread among members of a Washington choir, through an apartment building in Hong Kong, and in a restaurant in Wuhan, China.
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LA Times, July 6, 2020
The California coronavirus outlook worsened over the holiday weekend, as hospitalizations continued to rise and more counties were added Sunday to Gov. Newsom’s Covid-19 watch list, which is now at its highest level since the pandemic began. The rate at which coronavirus tests in California are coming back positive has jumped 42% over the last two weeks.
Vox, July 6, 2020
In recent weeks, California has taken a turn for the worse. Its total coronavirus cases are up more than 90% over the past two weeks. The
test positivity rate,
an indicator of how widespread infection is, as well as whether an area is conducting enough testing, is increasing, too. Hospitalizations are also rising, jumping by more than 50% over two weeks as hospitals in Los Angeles and other areas warn they could reach capacity soon. And while deaths aren’t up yet, experts worry that could merely be a result of a lag between new cases and deaths.
Peter Fimrite, science reporter, SF Chronicle, July 4, 2020
Infectious-disease specialists say the low death rate is partly because of drugs that control COVID-19 better than before. But mainly, they say, it’s because most recent COVID-19 victims have been young people who are less likely to develop serious complications.
“Young people do die, not as much as old people, but it is not them we are worried about. It is their grandparents, their older relatives and all the other people who are at high risk of dying that we are worried about,” said Lee Riley, the head of the division of infectious disease and vaccinology at the UC Berkeley school of public health. “I would expect that in two weeks we can expect the death rates to go up,” said aid John Swartzberg, an infectious-disease specialist at UC Berkeley.
Sacramento Bee, July 5, 2020
After virus testing sites branched out to more diverse communities in recent weeks, the grim severity of the situation became clear: Latinos of working age are getting sick and dying from the coronavirus in disproportionately high numbers. “We have failed our under-served communities,” said David Lubarsky, chief executive officer for UC Davis Health, speaking of the overall response to date to the pandemic.
LA Times, July 5, 2020
As the coronavirus’ spread has ensnared increasing numbers of young people in the last few weeks, health officials have deduced that dining out and drinking at recently reopened restaurants and bars may be partly to blame, despite the businesses’ best efforts to control the virus’ spread with plexiglass barriers, constant sanitation and repeated reminders to remain 6 feet apart. Restaurants and bars have also consistently led the list of widening Covid community outbreak locations that have troubled public health officials. The result has been a set of on-again, off-again reopening and closing orders that have thrown hospitality owner, and their employees, into an emotional and financial tailspin.
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SFGate, July 6, 2020
The White House is again rejecting calls for a national mask-wearing mandate. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows says in an appearance on “Fox and Friends” Monday morning that the president sees the issue as a “state-to-state” matter.
USA Today, July 6, 2020
The nation's unrelenting march toward 3,000,000 coronavirus cases continued unabated Monday, with more than 49,000 new infections reported by the John Hopkins data dashboard. Governors grappled with plans to reopen their economies, or slow them down again, after a Fourth of July weekend where celebrations ignoring social distancing guidelines led the news. Among measures on the table: shutting down high-capacity businesses such as bars and gyms, halting elective surgeries and requiring people to wear masks.
Axios, July 6, 2020
A record 8,181 coronavirus patients were hospitalized Sunday in Texas, and officials in major cities warned that hospitals' intensive care capabilities could be overwhelmed within weeks.
NY Times, July 6, 2020
The quest to end parties and other social gatherings has gained new urgency because of the exploding coronavirus in Florida, which reported more than 10,000 new cases on Sunday. The state’s contact tracers, already overwhelmed by the surging number of new cases, have found it especially difficult to track how the virus jumped from one party guest to the next because some infected people refused to divulge whom they went out with or had over to their house.
Arizona Republic,
July 5, 2020
Arizona reported 3,536 new Covid-19 cases and four additional deaths on Sunday, according to data from the Arizona Department of Health Services. The number of Covid-19 patients using ICU beds again broke records Saturday, as did the number of ventilators in use. Arizona is among the worst hot spots in the nation for COVID-19. The disease is widespread here, and health officials caution people to stay home as much as possible and wear masks in public.
Reuters, July 6, 2020
Fifteen immigration lawyers and advocates, who together say they have received hundreds of requests from detainees seeking to leave facilities in eight U.S. states for health reasons, said they are seeing increases in the number of people considering abandoning their cases.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has dialed back arrests and released some immigrants on parole, but has come under fire for shifting detainees between facilities during the pandemic, which ICE has said is part of its effort to stem the spread of the virus and to promote social distancing. The agency has also been criticized for deporting more than a hundred infected people to their home countries.
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EdSource, July 6, 2020
Many outdoor education programs in California have shut down in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, potentially eliminating science instruction based on exposure to natural environments for some students in the coming school year. At the same time, a growing body of research has shown evidence of uneven access to distance learning, especially among English learners and low-income students. Now, some districts are discussing how to take lessons outside to mitigate the loss of hands-on science experiences while opening the classroom beyond four walls where students can keep at least six feet apart while learning outdoors.
SF Chronicle, July 2, 2020
News that more than 40 Santa Clara principals and other district officials were exposed to the coronavirus when they met inside weeks ago prompted county officials to question the wisdom of such a large in-person gathering. County officials said that the seemingly unnecessary gathering was “a lesson for other government agencies.”
CNN, July 6, 2020
The pandemic has physically separated students from some of the support system of teachers, therapists and aides just as those in the higher age bracket need to make critical decisions about their adult life. And that's left parents flailing. The Department of Education is asking schools to continue to offer education to students with disabilities or special needs just as they teach students who don't need the extra help.
USA Today, July 5, 2020
Retiring teachers from around Wisconsin told USA Today that it was difficult not getting to soak up their last days as an educator. They wanted to appreciate the children, as well as the teachers and school staff they worked with for decades, before they walked out of their classrooms for the final time.
Washington Post, July 3, 2020
Question: If you had young kids, would you send them back to school in the fall?
Dr. Fauci: It really depends on where you live.
Dr. James Hamblin, The Atlantic, July 1, 2020
"Until we know more, a safe assumption is that the virus is affecting more children than we currently realize. Hopefully that proves wrong, and cases remain rare and treatable. But more than 500,000 people have now died of COVID-19 around the world. The bigger mistake would be to unduly downplay MIS-C and overlook something serious amid the chaos."
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Juliette Kayyem, Former Department of Homeland Security official, The Atlantic, July 6, 2020
Schools do not have a simple on-off switch. To reopen schools will not just take a lot of money. Classroom layouts, buildings, policies, schedules, extracurricular activities, teacher and staff assignments, and even curricula must all be altered to minimize the risk of coronavirus transmission. Stakeholders, including teachers’ unions, scared parents, and the colleges and universities that will someday enroll a portion of the 50 million students in the nation’s public K–12 schools, all have interests, some not easily avoided or ignored by a governor.
Vox, July 1, 2020
Ashish Jha, the faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, likened individual actions to putting up sandbags and other protective measures around a house during a flood. Yes, the sandbags can help. But if the water reaches a certain height, no amount of protective measures around the house are going to keep it safe. “If the flood in your community is massive, there’s nothing you can do to keep the water out,” Jha told me. “So the first thing you want to do is make sure that the river doesn’t get too high. The second thing you can think about is how to protect your home.”
NPR, July 5, 2020
At the Georgia Institute of Technology, which is scheduled to hold in-person classes, more than 800 of its 1,100 faculty members have
published a letter
outlining their concerns that criticizes the state university system for mandating reopenings that "do not follow science-based evidence, increase the health risks to faculty, students and staff, and interfere with nimble decision-making necessary to prepare and respond to Covid-19 infection risk."
Buzzfeed, July 5, 2020
At least 112 fraternity house members at the University of Washington have tested positive for the virus as of Sunday. The outbreak at the university raises concerns echoed by faculty members at other universities who have cautioned against reopening campuses for in-person classes in the fall semester amid the worsening coronavirus pandemic.
The Times of Israel, July 6, 2020
When schools reopened in early May, children studied in small groups, smaller than regular classes, as a measure to stop the spread of the virus. But this so-called capsule arrangement was quickly stopped, and regular class sizes were restored. According to Gabi Barbash, a former director-general of the Health Ministry, this was a major mistake. “Schools should have either stayed closed or allowed only 15 kids in classes,” he said. “Kids who are above nine should be treated like adults, and shouldn’t gather in groups of more than 10 to 15.”
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Covid-19 survivor says thanks
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Shakell Avery spent weeks on a ventilator at Menorah Medical Center in Overland Park, Kansas, fighting the novel coronavirus. His family didn’t know if he would make it and neither did his doctors or his nurses.
Avery returned to the hospital last week, walking and talking, thanking those who helped care for him.
“You all brought me back to my family,” he said. “I look at you guys as a family as well.”
Sara Stremel was one of the nurses who cared for Avery. “Hearing him speak is one thing and to see him stand and takes steps is beyond something we thought we would ever even see,” Stremel said.
“At night, when they don’t have their family, you become that family," Jessica Knox, Avery's night nurse, said. "You are person listening to them. You are the person staring in their eyes."
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Avery credits his recovery with a plasma donation from a survivor in New York.
“I’m here to tell you [coronavirus] is not a joke," Avery said, begging those who have recovered from the virus to donate plasma. "It’s definitely not a game or anything you want to go through. You’re saving someone’s life. Somebody saved mine.”
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Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2020
Some European nations are closing in on a milestone that to the U.S. seems distant: virtually stopping the new coronavirus from spreading within their territories. Echoing the achievement of Asia-Pacific countries such as
New Zealand
,
Vietnam
and
Taiwan
, a handful of places in Europe are reporting only a smattering of new daily infections. Their success in containing the pandemic has allowed them to reopen their economies earlier, at a faster clip and with greater confidence than the stop-start efforts of U.S. states and hard-hit neighbors such as the U.K.
The Guardian, July 5, 2020
The potential for Covid-19 to spread through airborne transmission by lingering in the air is being underplayed by the World Health Organization, a group of scientists say. In an open letter due to be published this week, 239 scientists from 32 countries call for greater acknowledgement of the role of airborne spread of Covid-19 and the need for governments to implement control measures. They say emerging evidence, including from settings such as meat processing plants where there have been outbreaks, suggests that airborne transmission could be more important than the WHO has acknowledged.
If airborne transmission were shown to be a major factor, some experts have suggested it could be helpful to wear masks indoors, even in settings where social distancing is being enforced; that tighter regulations may be needed for ventilation and air conditioning to minimize recirculating air; and that it may even be appropriate to install UV lights in some buildings to guard against potentially infectious particles.
CNN, July 3, 2020
CNN'S Paula Newton explains what measures Canadians are taking to flatten the curve as countries continue to battle the coronavirus pandemic.
Newsweek, July 6, 2020
Residents of Sonoyta, the Mexican border town facing Lukeville, Arizona, formed a blockade at the border over the weekend in a bid to block Americans from entering the country amid a rise in the U.S. state's coronavirus cases.
Associated Press, July 6, 2020
As Egyptian authorities fight the swelling coronavirus outbreak, security agencies have tried to stifle criticism about the handling of the health crisis by the government. At least 10 doctors and six journalists have been arrested since the virus first hit Egypt in February, according to rights groups. Other health workers say they have been warned by administrators to keep quiet or face punishment. One foreign correspondent has fled the country, fearing arrest, and another two have been summoned for reprimand over “professional violations.”
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NY Times, July 5, 2020
Early numbers had shown that Black and Latino people were being harmed by the virus at higher rates. But new federal data reveals a clearer and more complete picture: Black and Latino people have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus in a widespread manner that spans the country, throughout hundreds of counties in urban, suburban and rural areas, and across all age groups.
Latino and African-American residents of the United States have been three times as likely to become infected as their white neighbors, according to the new data, which provides detailed characteristics of 640,000 infections detected in nearly 1,000 U.S. counties. And Black and Latino people have been nearly twice as likely to die from the virus as white people, the data shows.
Raw Story, July 6, 2020
The U.S. is left relying almost entirely on tried-and-true though time-consuming and expensive manual contact tracing. As it stands,
only seven states and the District of Columbia
have sufficient numbers of contact tracers. Compliance is another challenge. Officials in Rockland County, New York have
issued subpoenas
to force people to cooperate with contact tracing efforts.
David Lim and Alice Miranda Ollstein, Politico, July 5, 2020
The US still doesn’t have a handle on testing six months into the coronavirus pandemic. The nation has conducted more than 4 million tests in the past week, more than ever before. But big jumps in testing capacity have been effectively erased by record-breaking increases in new infections as states reopen their economies. The supply chain problems that hampered testing early on never entirely went away and still threaten the ability of labs to conduct testing for everyone asking. The renewed testing crisis threatens federal and state officials’ ability to quell an outbreak that public health experts say could spin out of control in the coming months.
Emily Cadman and Sybilla Gross, Bloomberg, July 5, 2020
As the pandemic drags on, it’s exposing generational fault-lines that were set in train a decade ago when the financial crisis hit Millennials hard and left Generation Z, described by Pew Research as those born after 1996, with a legacy of insecure work and stunted opportunities.
Ana Ibarra, CalMatters, July 2, 2020
It is a nightmare scenario no county or state wants to face: hospitals overrun with critically ill patients, and no place to put them. Nationwide, hospitals spent months preparing for a surge, but health officials say a rapid rise in sick patients can quickly overwhelm entire regions.
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Alameda County Data
: 2,050 n
ew cases have been recorded over the last 14 days. The number of confirmed infections is currently doubling every 25.5 days.
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Contra Costa County Data
: 1,368 new cases have been recorded over last 14 days. The number of confirmed infections is currently doubling every 20.6 days.
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Top 8 Locations of Cases in Alameda County
, data as of 7/5/20
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Oakland:
2,706
Hayward:
1,116
Eden MAC: 436
Fremont: 361
San Leandro: 345
Union City: 222
Livermore: 213
Castro Valley:
212
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Top 8 Locations of Cases in Contra Costa County
, data as of 7/6/20
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Richmond: 876
Concord: 456
Antioch: 436
San Pablo: 367
Pittsburgh:
299
Bay Point:
163
Walnut Creek: 165
Brentwood: 133
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We have posted information on food pantries and food services in the cities of Hayward and San Leandro and unincorporated Alameda County including Castro Valley and San Lorenzo. You can access the information
here on our website
.
Alameda County has also released an
interactive map
listing food distributions and other social services.
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We are proud to partner with the
East Bay Community Foundation
in publishing this bulletin. Through donations to its
COVID-19 Response Fund,
the EBCF provides grants to East Bay nonprofit organizations delivering essential services to those most impacted by the economic fallout from the pandemic.
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Your feedback is welcome. Please share the Bulletin.
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The
Eden Health District Board of Directors
are Gordon Galvan, Chair, Mariellen Faria, Vice Chair, Charles Gilcrest, Secretary-Treasurer, Roxann Lewis and Pam Russo. The Chief Executive Officer is Mark Friedman.
The Eden Health District is committed to ensuring that policy makers and community members receive accurate and timely information to help make the best policy and personal choices to meet and overcome the challenges posed
by
the Covid-19 pandemic.
Each bulletin includes a summary of the top health, Bay Area, California, national and international news on the pandemic plus links to a diverse range of commentary and analysis. We publish the Bulletin on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On Mondays and Fridays the Bulletin includes an education section.
We welcome your feedback on our bulletin. Please contact editor
Stephen Cassidy
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