Eden Health District COVID-19 Bulletin
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“I think six feet is a fine number, but we need to convey that this is a starting point. Beyond six feet doesn’t mean there’s zero risk.”
Linsey Marr, environmental engineering professor, 8/27/20
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Tri-Valley youth donate to assist health care workers |
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The ValleyCare Charitable Foundation recently highlighted a series of youth fundraisers that supported Stanford Health Care-ValleyCare during the Covid-19 pandemic.
"We are so inspired by these young people in our community," Shaké Sulikyan, executive director of VCCF, said in a statement. "Their compassion and generosity gives us hope in these trying times."
Youth from all over the Tri-Valley donated to the foundation in a variety of ways to raise funds.
Pleasanton residents Ketaki Lole, Trisha Sukale and Priyal Saraf raised their funds by giving Bollywood dance lessons to children ages 5 to 12. The girls said they wanted to do the most they could to assist health care workers.
The third-grade class of Congregation Beth Emek Religious School donated their tzedakah, or charitable funds, to their community hospital. Every week, each students' tzedakah would grow over the weeks and months. These students were then given the task to pick a charity for donations.
According to their teacher, Robin Wood, students usually choose medical or animal welfare causes, but Covid-19 has been so impactful that the students chose to donate to VCCF. "None of the students knew anyone who contracted Covid-19," Wood said. "But they knew it was out there and it was a big deal. They decided this time they wanted to help local coronavirus efforts."
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Local Brownie Troop No. 32951 chose to raise funds to support child care services for families of essential workers from cookie sale profits. Alongside their service project, Covid troop learned about the difference between an N-95 surgical mask and the standard cloth mask, and the impacts of COVID-19 on different occupations.
Meghana Nuthi, a freshman at Dougherty Valley School raised over $1,500 to support VCCF's case. She used the money to buy bagels and coffee for health care workers on the front lines fighting Covid every day. Nuthi said she was inspired by the perseverance of health care workers. The virus doesn't care about age, gender, race, or health; it's a threat to everyone, she said. Because of that, it surprised her to see young people breaking social distancing guidelines while healthcare professionals sacrifice their health to help others.
"I wanted to show health care workers that there are young people who understand the severity of this virus," Nuthi said. "There are young people who understand what they are sacrificing, and that we are grateful. And that we care about them, just like they care about us."
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Alameda County: 17,621
Contra Costa County: 13,398
Bay Area: 83,062
California: 692,956
U.S.: 5,884,174
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Alameda County: 244
Contra Costa County: 173
Bay Area: 1,102
California: 12,698
U.S.: 181,092
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The California Department of Public Health has resolved the issue with the state’s electronic laboratory reporting system. All cases attributed to the backlog, however, have not yet been added to data at the county level. The Bay Area statistics consist of data from Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma counties.
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County Website, August 28, 2020
With restrictions, outdoor, shared public swimming pools and wading pools may open today. Restrictions include capacity reductions, appointments, and lane limitations to allow for physical distancing. Personal services providers, including hair salons, barbershops, nail salons, skin care and waxing services and non-medical massage providers may provide services outdoors subject to applicable state and local guidance.
SF Chronicle, August 26, 2020
Oakland hair saloon owner Alicia Orabella said it’s not logistically feasible to reopen the two-chair salon she has owned for seven years Friday, even though she’s found herself in debt for the first time in her life, about $100,000, some of it through taking out a Small Business Administration disaster-relief loan. She ticked off reasons: Coloring services that make up 90% of Orabella’s services are not allowed outside; the concrete is uneven; a small breezeway would make it tough to distance properly; she could not find insurance for outdoor operations. None of it is as sanitary as being inside. “It’s not a viable solution, at all,” she said. “I’m all about being compliant and doing the right thing, but we need to open up a dialogue.”
Press Release, August 26, 2020
Daily hospitalizations due to Covid-19 and the percentage of Covid-19 tests returning positive remained steady or fell slightly in Contra Costa County during early August, reflecting recent local progress in slowing the spread of a deadly virus. These key data indicators for the pandemic remain at dangerously high levels in Contra Costa, which remains on the California Department of Public Health's county monitoring list, but are not currently increasing as they did in June and July.
Given the improvement, Contra Costa County today makes small changes to its social distancing health order to allow certain business sectors to begin operating again outdoors as of Friday, August 28, 2020. The changes align Contra Costa's policy with recently updated state health guidelines:
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Personal care services that do not involve close contact with the face, such as nail salons and massage, may begin operating outdoors in accordance with the state-issued industry guidelines and checklist.
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Gyms and fitness centers may begin operating outdoors in accordance with their own state guidelines and checklist.
- Hotels and short-term rentals in the county may open for personal or recreational travel, not just for essential business purposes.
Oaklandside, August 27, 2020
Oakland wants to open several new supportive-housing sites across the city, seizing an opportunity to use millions of dollars in state coronavirus funds to buy buildings for seniors, veterans, families, and people just released from prison. On Friday, the City Council will convene for a special meeting to vote on approving applications for $36.6 million in state “Homekey” dollars to buy a college dorm, two hotel-style buildings, and a number of smaller properties. The city would spend about $16 million of its own money to match the state funds, a requirement of the competitive grant. City staffers say Oakland will be in a better position to receive the funding awards if officials approve that spending Friday.
Berkeleyside, August 26, 2020
How risky is riding BART during the pandemic? It’s probably safer than you think, according to medical professionals — and could become safer in the future, if technologies the transit agency is testing now pan out.
This month, BART piloted a project to outfit five of its train cars with dense filters capable of trapping coronavirus. It also installed a UV light inside the HVAC unit of one car to zap flowing air with radiation. These experiments come on top of a mask mandate and a daily “fogging” routine that has BART workers, equipped with backpacks and hose guns, misting train interiors with electrostatic disinfectant. The agency hopes these measures will lure commuters back to BART, which has suffered a major ridership and revenue hit due to COVID-19.
Mercury News, August 28, 2020
Fort Point National Historic Site, a San Francisco landmark known for its imposing Civil War-era brick Army fort, is reopening. Starting Saturday, the outdoor areas will be available to the public once more every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., including the courtyard, alcoves on the second and third floor filled with cannons and its roof with views to the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay.
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STAT, August 27, 2020
CDC Director Robert Redfield attempted Thursday to clarify a set of controversial changes to the agency’s Covid-19 testing guidelines. At issue are a set of guidelines released on Monday that say that people without symptoms who have come into contact with someone with Covid-19 do not necessarily need to be tested. Earlier, the CDC had said that “testing was recommended” for the same group. Redfield’s comments Thursday softened the change. He said testing “may be considered” for asymptomatic contacts of people who have confirmed or probable cases of Covid-19. The guidelines, he said, were intended to place “an emphasis” on testing people with symptoms, as well as people in long-term care facilities and nursing homes and people who may be particularly vulnerable to the infection.
Reuters, August 27, 2020
Several large U.S. states are not heeding new federal health officials’ calls to reduce Covid-19 testing of some exposed to the virus, joining a broad rebuke of the Trump administration by public health leaders. Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Texas, New Jersey and New York all plan to continue to test asymptomatic people who have been exposed to Covid-19, despite new guidance from the CDC suggesting that such tests may not be needed.
Today, August 27, 2020
A new study out of Wuhan, China, where the novel coronavirus was first detected last year, indicates that some children infected with Covid-19 may show eye symptoms. The recent study, which was published in the medical journal JAMA Ophthalmology on August 26, examined 216 children between the ages of 2 and 11 years old. All children had tested positive for Covid-19, and while many symptomatic patients had common coronavirus symptoms like fevers and coughs, 49 (22.7%) of the children studied showed "various ocular manifestations." Similar symptoms have also been seen in adults.
Washington Post, August 27, 2020
A team of infectious-disease experts argues in a new analysis, published this week in the BMJ, that six-feet protocols are too rigid and are based on outmoded science and observations of different viruses. Other researchers say six feet is a start — but only a start, warning that more space is almost always better, especially in poorly ventilated areas indoors. Factors such as air circulation, ventilation, exposure time, crowd density, whether people are wearing face masks and whether they are silent, speaking, shouting or singing should all be part of assessing whether six feet is sufficient, experts say.
Nature, August 28, 2020
For every 1,000 people infected with the coronavirus who are under the age of 50, almost none will die. For people in their fifties and early sixties, about five will die — more men than women. The risk then climbs steeply as the years accrue. For every 1,000 people in their mid-seventies or older who are infected, around 116 will die. These are the stark statistics obtained by some of the first detailed studies into the mortality risk for Covid-19.
But “age cannot explain everything”, says Henrik Salje, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge, UK. Gender is also a strong risk factor, with men almost twice more likely to die from the coronavirus than women. And differences between countries in the fatality estimates for older age groups suggest that the risk of dying from coronavirus is also linked to underlying health conditions, the capacity of health-care systems, and whether the virus has spread among people living in elderly-care facilities.
Gladstones Institute, August 25, 2020
Covid-19 was initially identified as a respiratory disease, but scientists now appreciate that it also affects several other organs in the body, including the heart. Heart damage is a major determinant of Covid-19 related deaths, and even patients who experience only mild Covid-19 symptoms exhibit signs of cardiac dysfunction several months after recovery. Unlike some other tissues in the body, the heart does not regenerate. So, it’s possible that someone who becomes infected with Covid-19, even a mild case, could recover and then develop heart disease years later.
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Mercury News, August 27, 2020
Even as cases and hospitalizations continue to fall, there is at least one more grim milestone to report in California’s battle with COVID-19: There have already been more deaths recorded in August than any other month of the pandemic.
With five days of data left to be logged, the August death toll climbed to 3,328 on Wednesday — breaking a record set the previous month — after another 147 fatalities were reported around the state, according to data compiled by this news organization. That was fewer than a week ago, however, so the seven-day average fell slightly to about 123 fatalities per day over the past week.
California has averaged at least 120 deaths per day for the entirety of August, reaching as high as 145 virus fatalities per day in the state’s deadliest seven-day period of the pandemic, which ended Aug. 6 (only six of those days, Aug. 1-6, are counted toward the August total). But deaths are beginning to trend downward, following hospitalizations and cases, both of which have been falling for about a month.
Associated Press, August 28, 2020
All but one of the Republicans in the California Senate were barred from the state Capitol on Thursday after they were exposed to the coronavirus, prompting unprecedented changes that will allow them to vote via video conference from their homes as the Legislature rushes to complete its work by Monday’s deadline.
Republican Sen. Brian Jones confirmed Wednesday he had tested positive for the virus. On Tuesday, he attended a Republican caucus lunch where 10 of the 11 members sat around a large conference table and removed their masks to eat. Those senators were scheduled to be tested for the virus on Thursday but entered quarantine when Jones reported his infection.
Associated Press, August 28, 2020
California is poised to take another halting step toward normalcy with Gov. Newsom expected to announce plans Friday for reopening businesses that were shuttered in July amid soaring coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. California has the most confirmed virus cases in the nation, with nearly 700,000, and the third-most deaths — 12,550. But since the closures last month, the average number of daily cases has been falling along with the infection rate and hospitalizations, which peaked at 7,170 on July 21 and since dropped to about 4,300.
Most of California’s 58 counties, including the most populous — Los Angeles — remain on a state monitoring list because they are above one or more of the benchmarks for cases, infection rates and hospitalizations. Inclusion on the list restricts what businesses can operate, whether schools can offer classroom instruction and limits other activities, such as attending indoor religious services.
LA Times, August 28, 2020
Even as California finally begins to see declines in both Covid-19 deaths and hospitalizations, health officials and experts are preparing for a potential third surge of coronavirus cases fueled by two groups that already have been hit hard: low-wage essential workers and young people.
“Where I’m worried that we’re going to see a ton of transmission is in middle schools, high schools and colleges,” said Dr. George Rutherford, UC San Francisco epidemiologist and infectious diseases expert. “We all saw the disastrous openings at the University of North Carolina, Notre Dame, Michigan State ... and a couple weeks earlier in high schools in Georgia and other places. I think that’s really where a lot of the action is going to go on.”
Sacramento Bee, August 27, 2020
An extra $300 per week available to California’s unemployed residents will start going out the week beginning Sept. 7. The benefit, which will be in addition to regular weekly checks, will be rolled out in phases, so not everyone will see the extra money in two weeks. The new amount will be nearly double the current average state unemployment benefit.
Eligible beneficiaries who receive unemployment payments of more than $100 a week can qualify. They also get a payment on their regular jobless claim and must have provided self-certification that they are unemployed or partially unemployed for reasons related to the Covid-19 pandemic.
LA Times, August 26, 2020
Gov. Newsom said on Wednesday that California has signed a contract with an East Coast medical diagnostics company to more than double the number of coronavirus tests that can be processed in the state, eventually expanding capacity to roughly a quarter of a million tests per day.
Under the $1.4-billion agreement, a new Santa Clarita lab will be able to provide testing results within two days, far quicker than the average five- to seven-day processing times offered by other labs. The expanded testing capacity and quicker results will increase the ability of local health officials to quickly isolate people who test positive for the virus and to track down and test those who came in contact with them, Newsom said, which are crucial to slowing the spread of Covid-19.
The new lab is expected to begin processing coronavirus tests in November. When the lab is at full capacity in March and processing as many as 150,000 tests per day, the cost per test is expected to be a little more than $30, Newsom said. Currently, Medicare and Medi-Cal pay about $100 per coronavirus test, and the average overall cost varies from $150 to $200 per test, state officials said.
Sacramento Bee, August 27, 2020
The Merced County Health Department ordered the Foster Farms Livingston Facility to shut down over the largest and most severe Covid-19 outbreak in Merced County, according to a statement released on Thursday by the health department. Officials described the Foster Farms outbreaks as the “most severe and long lasting” in Merced County. At least 358 employees have tested positive, and eight employees have died due to the coronavirus, according to a letter obtained from the Merced County Health Department.
KQED, August 27, 2020
More than 1,100 people at the Fresno County Jail have tested positive for Covid-19 since the pandemic began. The running tally of infections at the county-run complex surpasses those at all but two state prisons in California. But unlike the state’s careful tracking and reporting of cases at prisons and nursing homes, data on Covid-19 infections in county jails have not been consistently collected or made readily available to the public.
LA Times, August 27, 2020
Four months into the pandemic, never has the city seemed so upside down.
Over the past decade, developers renovated the Arts District and raised apartments in South Park. City agencies gained traction with the homeless population. Today, Parking attendants wave flags to the empty streets. Storefronts, boarded-up from break-ins, merge with stalled construction sites. Homeless camps double as sidewalk bazaars.
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Reuters, August 27, 2020
Several U.S. Midwest states reported record one-day increases in the number of new coronavirus cases on Thursday as nationwide deaths from the virus topped 180,000 and officials braced for the possibility of another surge with school openings. Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota all recorded on Thursday the biggest one-day increases in new infections since the pandemic started.
Nationally, metrics on new cases, deaths, hospitalizations and test positivity rates are all declining but there are emerging hotspots in the Midwest.
North Dakota, where cases rose 30% last week, reported a record 333 new cases on Thursday. Neighboring South Dakota, where cases rose 50% last week, reported a record 623 new infections. Infections have been rising since an annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota drew more than 365,000 people from all over the country from Aug. 7 to 16. The South Dakota health department said 40 cases have been traced to the Sturgis rally.
Wall Street Journal, August 28, 2020
After largely succeeding in shielding itself for the first four months of the pandemic, Hawaii is being hit hard by Covid-19. Thanks to its nearly 2,500-mile distance from California and a mandatory 14-day quarantine for new arrivals, Hawaii had fewer than 2,000 cases of Covid-19 between March and late-July, one of the lowest infection rates in the nation. In the past month, it has reported more than 5,500. The sudden surge threatens a public health crisis and could extend how long it will take the state to revive the state’s tourism-dependent economy, which has been decimated by the drop in travel.
USA Today, August 28, 2020
The greatest percentage increases in coronavirus cases over the past week in the the US are the following states:
- Wyoming: + 3.1%
- South Dakota: + 3.1%
- Iowa: + 2.7%
- North Dakota: +2.5%
- Illinois: +1.4%
- Kansas: + 1.0%
- Hawaii: + 0.9%
- Maine: + 0.8%
- Rhode Island: + 0.4%
- Missouri: + 0.3%
California ranks 28th as, unlike the above states where the the daily average of new Covid-19 cases is increasing over the previous week, it fell by 1% in California.
STAT, August 27, 2020
President Trump on Thursday pledged a Covid-19 vaccine would be available by the end of 2020, the most concrete claim he has made yet about the timetable for coronavirus vaccine development. “We are delivering life-saving therapies, and will produce a vaccine before the end of the year, or maybe even sooner,” he said.
While Trump has repeatedly hinted at a possible vaccine approval before the end of 2020, his pledge Thursday marks his most definitive stance yet on a vaccine timetable. While it is possible that the Food and Drug Administration could issue emergency authorization for a vaccine by the end of the year, it is far from a sure bet — no drug company has completed clinical trials for a Covid-19 vaccine.
CNN, August 28, 2020
A well-known coronavirus model previously cited by the White House forecasts more than 317,000 US deaths from Covid-19 by December.
As of Friday morning, the model from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington projects that 317,312 people may die from the illness.
The new IHME estimate suggests that the United States could see more than 136,000 additional deaths between now and December, and the daily death rate could rise to more than 2,000 per day. Yet IHME researchers noted on their website on Thursday, when they updated their model, that "if mask wearing in public increases to 95%, more than 67,000 lives could be saved."
ABC News, August 27, 2020
Home sales are booming. Stocks are setting record highs. Industrial production is clambering out of the ditch it fell into early this year.
And yet the U.S. economy is nowhere close to regaining the health it achieved, with low unemployment, free-spending consumers and booming travel, before the coronavirus paralyzed the country in March. Not while the viral outbreak still rages and Congress remains deadlocked over providing more relief to tens of millions of people thrown out of work and to state and local governments whose revenue has withered. Every week, roughly 1 million new Americans are applying for unemployment benefits — a depth of job insecurity not seen in any single week during the depths of the 2007-2009 Great Recession.
LA Times, August 27, 2020
Since the virus took hold, many employers have been under siege, accused of failures to enforce social distancing, inadequate protective supplies and a lack of transparency when workers are infected. As yet, there is no tidal wave of Covid-related litigation — and may never be, given the hurdle of proving where exactly anyone was infected. But Republicans are pushing for a sweeping liability shield dubbed the Safe to Work Act, a measure that consumer groups staunchly oppose. The issue is a sticking point in stalled negotiations between the Trump administration and Democratic lawmakers over broad legislation to extend billions of dollars in federal unemployment benefits and relief for state and local governments.
Boston Globe, August 27, 2020
A new study quantifies Covid-19′s disproportionate toll on Black and Latino communities in Massachusetts for the first time, and explores the extent to which other demographic factors — including foreign-born noncitizen status, average household size, and the role of the essential worker — explain racial and ethnic gaps. The results, drawn from an analysis of 351 Massachusetts cities and towns, are staggering: A 10 percentage point increase in the Black population is associated with 312.3 more cases per 100,000 people. The same increase in the Latino population is associated with 258.2 more cases per 100,000.
Similar patterns have played out nationally. The CDC reported last week that Covid-19 infection rates are 2.8 times higher in the Hispanic or Latino and American Indian or Alaska Native populations, when compared to the rate for non-Hispanic white people. For Black people, the case rate is 2.6 times higher and the death rate is 2.1 times higher. Case and death rates for white and Asian Americans are similar.
Axios, August 28, 2020
Most people across 14 wealthy countries surveyed by Pew tend to think their country has handled the pandemic well — and in Denmark and Australia that view is near-universal.
The flipside: There are two exceptions to the generally positive outlook: the U.S. and U.K. Americans were also by far the most likely to say the pandemic has divided their country (77%), rather than uniting it (18%). The polling was conducted throughout the summer, when most of these countries — but not the U.S. — had either bounced back from large initial outbreaks, or managed to avoid them.
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Mercury News, August 28, 2020
Fifty-seven grade-schoolers bounded through the campus gates Thursday morning in adorable pastel-colored face masks and lined up to scrub their hands, ushering in a new era of education in the Bay Area as the first school to officially return to the classroom in the age of the coronavirus. Sunnyvale Christian School, a TK-5 private school in the heart of Silicon Valley, became the region’s first to welcome back students with a new set of rituals and safety protocols — along with a renewed sense of normalcy painfully absent since the mass quarantines closed classrooms in March.
SF Chronicle, August 27, 2020
The superintendent of the San Leandro Unified School District is stepping up online security after the latest incident of Zoombombing this week — intruders invading a teacher’s classroom video feed to post lewd material or shout obscenities or insults. Superintendent Mike McLaughlin said an incident occurred in a class Monday that resulted in students being shown “inappropriate and possibly pornographic images.” He said that in the future, only school-issued accounts will be allowed to access Zoom classes.
At Albany High School last week, a freshman orientation was disrupted by people who drew obscene pictures and engaged in racist and sexist speech in the chat function. The district apologized, said it’s investigating and increased security, including requiring all students to log on using only school-issued email accounts. Because the Albany orientation included parents, people with non-school emails accounts were admitted.
CalMatters, August 27, 2020
The pandemic has increased the mental strain on a generation of college students already reporting record levels of psychological challenges, state and national surveys show. California colleges have responded by moving therapy appointments online and using state grants to add services. But some mental health advocates say the coronavirus crisis highlights the fragility of a system that even before the pandemic was not doing enough to meet students’ needs. Eighty percent of college students nationwide say that Covid-19 has negatively impacted their mental health, and over half say that they don’t know where to go for help.
CalMatters, August 26, 2020
Difficult questions about what’s safe and what’s sensible have come down to hundreds of district-by-district negotiations. Teachers’ unions say what’s on the line is both the immediate health of students and teachers, as illustrated by school outbreaks in other places, as well as the long-term viability of the state’s public schools. California Teachers Association President E. Toby Boyd said in an interview that without more funding, the union is bracing for much deeper cuts than the 30,000 education layoffs that labor groups reported during the Great Recession. The union projects a looming budget shortfall of up to $20 billion, or “a big hole to fill.”
The union and allies like the California Federation of Teachers and Service Employees International Union are hoping to build on many successful distance learning negotiations to lobby for new taxes. “Society has realized the importance of education and what teachers really do,” Boyd said. “We will see if that’s the truth. There’s a phrase: put your money where your mouth is.”
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US & International Education News |
NPR, August 28, 2020
Looking for a snapshot of coronavirus outbreaks in U.S. schools? The National Education Association has just launched a tracker of cases in public K-12 schools.
The tracker is broken down by state and shows schools and counties with known cases and suspected cases and deaths, as well as whether those infected were students or staff. It also includes links to the local news reports so users know where the virus data comes from.
SF Chronicle, August 27, 2020
A federal judge has rejected Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ attempt to give private schools a greater share of Congress’ Covid-19 relief funds at the expense of public schools in low-income areas. In a setback for DeVos’ privatization efforts, U.S. District Judge James Donato of San Francisco said Wednesday that the secretary’s reading of the March 2020 law known as the CARES Act contradicted the clear intention of Congress and amounted to “interpretive jiggery-pokery.” He issued a nationwide injunction in a suit by California, seven other states and the District of Columbia, and four school districts, including San Francisco.
CalMatters, August 28, 2020
Instead of the small learning groups and private tutors some wealthy parents are arranging for their children this school year, many low-income parents are turning to family members, neighbors and friends for child care and help navigating distance learning.
According to parents and advocates across California, many low-income parents have become unemployed because of the pandemic, while others have no choice but to work outside their homes. While distance learning is a struggle for all, children and families from more marginalized communities are facing many other hurdles, like a loss in income, not having enough food to eat or family members being exposed to the coronavirus through their jobs.
Associated Press, August 27, 2020
Virus or no virus, European authorities are determined to put children back into classrooms, to narrow the learning gaps between haves and have-nots that deepened during lockdowns — and to get their parents back to work.
Facing a jump in virus cases, authorities in France, Britain, Spain and elsewhere are imposing mask rules, hiring extra teachers and building new desks and classrooms. And even though the virus has invaded classrooms in recent days from Berlin to Seoul, and some teachers and parents warn that their schools aren’t ready, European leaders are sending an unusually consistent message: Even in a pandemic, children are better off in class.
The Guardian, August 28, 2020
Research on the ability of children of different ages to catch and transmit the virus is contradictory, and differences in education systems and social conventions make comparisons difficult. One complicating factor is what epidemiologists call contact matrices: the degree to which different age groups mix, particularly within extended multigenerational families, which can vary from society to society and from group to group within a society.
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'Miracle' Covid survivor recounts being hospitalized again, placed on ventilator |
Chriselda Davis said she caught Covid-19 from a church service in March, before any stay-at-home orders were issued. Her husband, Pastor Tony Davis, said 10 other people at the church service tested positive for Covid-19. Four have since died.
In an interview, Chriselda Davis recounted her personal nightmare of again being hospitalized, this time with what doctors diagnosed as double pneumonia.
In April, Davis and her husband, Pastor Tony Davis, happily celebrated her 46th birthday after she had recovered from the coronavirus. But two months later, "she had issues with breathing again, started to vomit," Tony said. "I just saw something strange with her."
The couple thought it was Covid-19 again. "I went to the hospital and from there I don't remember anything," Chriselda said.
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Her husband said doctors told him it wasn't coronavirus, but double pneumonia. She needed to be on a ventilator. "It just broke my heart."
This time, Chriselda spent 30 days in the hospital — 14 on a ventilator — three days longer than when she was treated for the coronavirus. Tony said doctors cautioned him that she might not survive.
Now back at home, Chriselda faces a long recovery. "I can make five steps, then I have to stop and catch my breath because I'm out of breath because of my lungs," she said. "It's hard."
The couple urged people to take the coronavirus seriously. "Just wear the mask. It's that simple gesture to try to save lives," Tony said.
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Reuters, August 28, 2020
German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned on Friday that the coronavirus pandemic would worsen in coming months, and that life would not return to normal until a vaccine against it had been developed. Her government has so far also managed the coronavirus crisis better than many of its European counterparts, introducing rigorous testing that has helped keep cases and deaths relatively low.
But, in common with the trend across much of the world, the country’s new daily infections have accelerated in recent weeks. Merkel and regional leaders agreed on Thursday to keep Germany’s schools open, ban major events until at least the end of the year, and toughen quarantine rules for travellers returning from high-risk countries.
Bloomberg, August 27, 2020
More than five months after reporting its first case, Peru has one of the world’s worst outbreaks by other measures, too. Over the past seven days, no country has posted more cases. It’s also among nations with most fatalities by population size over the past week. The outbreak has been so bad that as much as a quarter of Lima’s 12 million population may have already had the virus, according to a government study published last month. Officials warn the country’s real death toll may be close to double the official figure.
Associated Press, August 27, 2020
Europe is entering a “tricky moment” with the new school year, and while classrooms have not played a major role in spreading coronavirus, there is growing evidence of youth infecting others at social gatherings, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.
Throughout the summer, countries on the continent have recorded higher numbers of Covid-19 infections among young people, Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, told a news briefing. “It may be that the younger people are not necessarily going to die from it, but it’s a tornado with a long tail. It’s a multi-organ disease, so the virus is really attacking the lungs, but also the heart and other organs,” Kluge said.
The Guardian, August 28, 2020
India has set a new national record of daily coronavirus infections, reporting more than 77,000 cases in 24 hours, just shy of the global one-day record tally held by America. India’s health ministry reported 77, 266 new cases on Friday, taking its total cases to 3.39 million, data from the federal health ministry showed. India also recorded more than 1,000 new deaths taking total fatalities, to 61,529, the fourth highest total in the world, behind the US, Brazil and Mexico.
Bloomberg, August 27, 2020
South Korea announced stricter social distancing measures for Seoul, where a recent spike in coronavirus cases is raising worries of another wave that could undermine the country’s ability to manage the pandemic.
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Gil Duran, Sacramento Bee, August 27, 2020
The coronavirus pandemic has devastated California’s economy. With unemployment surging as high as 15%, and with a budget hole estimated at $54 billion, state leaders face tough choices. So do out-of-work Californians, some of whom can’t pay their rents and don’t know if they will have a roof over their heads in the coming months. On Sept. 1, the state’s current protections against coronavirus-related evictions will expire. Some legislators and community advocates fear a “tsunami” of evictions, which could add to the state’s homeless crisis. The pandemic has worsened California’s endemic economic inequality, sharply contrasting the differences between privileged Californians who can work online and those who must risk their lives to pay the bills -- or go without.
Mario Ramirez and Andrew Buher, Politico, August 27, 2020
The challenge of safely returning staff and students to classrooms shouldn’t rest solely with district superintendents and school leaders. To think our educators can become public health experts on the fly is naive and dangerous. The first resource educators should turn to are their state and local public health departments, whose job is to help crucial public institutions like schools navigate the complexities of the pandemic. But there, they are often hitting a barrier.
Degraded by decades of underinvestment, shifting values, complacency and special interest politics, local public health departments, particularly those outside of major urban centers, are ill-equipped to support local education leaders working to return staff and students to schools safely
George Skelton, LA Times, August 27, 2020
“California is being tested right now in an unprecedented number of ways, and the governor is working nonstop day and night to make sure California is meeting the moment,” Newsom spokesman Nathan Click says, echoing one of his boss’ favorite, overused phrases: “Meet this moment.” Despite the pandemic that’s almost into its seventh month, plus the tattered economy, huge wildfires and blackouts, Newsom, 52, is surviving politically. You don’t hear many people shouting his praises, but they’re not throwing rocks either.
The Hill, August 28, 2020
On Sunday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency use authorization for convalescent plasma as a treatment for Covid-19. Scientific studies are inconclusive about taking that approach, and some said authorizing its use will hinder the ability to conduct more definitive research. And on Monday, the CDC quietly changed its guidance on testing those who have come into contact with a Covid-19 patient. The agency no longer recommends those contacts be tested, despite what is known about the risk of asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic spread of the virus. Both decisions appear tinged by politics.
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Over the last two weeks, Alameda County officials have confirmed 3,392 new cases, which amounts to 206 cases per 100,000 residents. |
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Over the last two weeks, Contra Costa County officials have confirmed 2,916 new cases, which amounts to 257 cases per 100,000 residents. |
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Top 8 Locations of Cases in Alameda County, cases as of 8/27/20
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Oakland: 7,210
Hayward: 2,485
Fremont: 1,184
Eden MAC: 1,064
San Leandro: 945
Livermore: 748
Union City: 583
Castro Valley: 457
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Top 8 Locations of Cases in Contra Costa County, cases as of 8/27/20
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Richmond: 2,659
Antioch: 1,777
Concord: 1,730
Pittsburgh: 1,496
San Pablo: 1,196
Bay Point: 676
Walnut Creek: 499
Brentwood: 497
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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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Working in collaboration with the Alameda County Public Health Department, the Cities of Hayward and San Leandro, and the Castro Valley and Eden Area Municipal Advisory Councils, the District has printed “Mask On” posters for each city and community in the Eden Health District area. The posters are free and intended for businesses, health clinics, schools, churches, public agencies and nonprofit organizations to display in their entrances.
“Wearing masks in public or any gatherings, including events with friends and extended families, is essential for slowing the spread of the virus,” stated Eden Health District Director Pam Russo. “We are seeing signs of progress in California, Alameda County remains a Covid-19 'hot spot' in the Bay Area. Please wear a mask to protect yourself while protecting others.”
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The public is welcome to download and print or share “Mask On” posters from the District’s website. Posters are available in English, Spanish and Chinese languages.
Posters may also be retrieved during business hours from the lobby of the Eden Health District office building located at 20400 Lake Chabot Road, Castro Valley. Posters for the City of Hayward are also available from the Hayward Chamber of Commerce located at 22561 Main Street, Hayward.
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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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Your feedback is welcome. Please share the Bulletin. |
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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, education 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, unless the day fall on a public holiday.
We welcome your feedback on our bulletin. Please contact editor Stephen Cassidy.
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