Eden Health District COVID-19 Bulletin
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“How difficult is it for humans to unite to fight a common enemy that’s killing people indiscriminately? Can’t we understand that the divisions or the cracks between us actually are to the advantage of the virus?”
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhamom Ghebreyesus,
7/9/20
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Woman gives birth to healthy triplets after surviving Covid-19
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Maggie Sillero of Houston was shocked when she learned she was pregnant with triplets. But she took the news in stride, marveling that three babies, not one, were growing inside her.
Because her pregnancy was considered high risk, she was admitted to The Woman’s Hospital of Texas at 28 weeks to be monitored until the babies were born. Every patient admitted to the hospital is tested for Covid-19. Sillero tested positive.
"I was really shocked. My family and I had been so careful and I hadn’t even left my house since March," Sillero said. "I was mostly concerned about how it might affect my babies, and I was also worried about my husband and son, Alexander. My husband got tested after my results came back, and confirmed that he also had coronavirus."
She handled the news of her Covid diagnosis well, Dr. Dolar Patolia said, and stayed strong through her entire hospital stay, even while being isolated from her son and her family for the better part of a month.
"Fortunately, when [one of the babies] showed signs indicating need for delivery, Maggie had just received her second negative test. Maggie is amazingly strong,” Patolia stated.
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The triplets, named Isabella, Nathaniel and Adriel, turned 1 month old on July 4, and the family hopes the babies will be coming home soon. "Each of them have almost doubled their weight in this month, which is amazing. I’m so proud of them, they are fighters," Sillero said.
Sillero’s advice to other pregnant women with Covid? "Take it day by day and celebrate each accomplishment. You are not alone in this."
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Alameda County:
7,407
Contra Costa County:
4,460
California:
302,940
U.S.:
3,144,472
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Alameda County:
146
Contra Costa County:
88
California:
6,862
U.S.:
133,677
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SF Chronicle, July 10, 2020
The recent surge of coronavirus infections in California is driving up demand for testing and triggering a resurgence in testing delays, forcing many people to wait up to a week to get tested. Others are waiting up to two weeks to get test results back. Much of the backlog in the testing system, across the U.S., appears to be linked to the nation’s largest commercial labs, Quest and LabCorp. Both are seeing a dramatic influx of tests and struggling to process them quickly.
City News, July 9, 2020
Hayward will continue through the rest of July and August its program of closing B and Main streets on Saturday afternoons and evenings to expand space for outdoor dining and encourage shopping downtown. The event, which resumes this Saturday, July 11, will include B Street from Foothill to Watkins Street and Main Street from A to C streets, and is scheduled to take place from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Livermore Independent, July 9, 2020
“The Livermore Community Living Center (CLC) is investigating 16 residents and 15 employees who have recently tested positive for COVID-19,” said Armenthis Lester, the network’s chief communication manager. “The veterans who tested positive have been transferred to the Palo Alto VA hospital for care. To date, one Livermore CLC veteran has died due to COVID-19 complications."
SF Chronicle, July 9, 2020
Coronavirus infections among health care workers at San Francisco General Hospital are increasing at a rapid rate, raising concerns about workplace conditions and testing procedures. Between June 27 and July 6, Covid-19 infections among employees at the facility rose by 50% to reach a total of 45, according to a staff memo sent Monday on behalf of Chief Executive Officer Dr. Susan Ehrlich. The document went on to say the recent rise is due to the overall spread of coronavirus in the region.
SF Chronicle, July 9, 2020
Once thought of as a predominantly urban issue affecting cities like San Francisco and Oakland, homelessness has hit Bay Area suburbs hard in the past few years, pushing into the corners of every county across the region. Some suburbs registered exponential increases between 2017 and 2019 in the biennial point-in-time counts of the homeless population in each county. San Leandro, for example, counted 344 homeless individuals without shelter last year, up from 55 two years earlier, a 525% increase.
East Bay Citizen, July 9, 2020
Oakland Zoo officials last week contend their facility is akin to an outdoor museum, a type of business that is already allowed to resume business. In the letter to the state’s director of health and human services and state public health officer dated July 7, Colleen Chawla, the director of the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency, agrees with the Oakland Zoo’s interpretation and urges them to group zoos with outdoor museums.
SF Eater, July 9, 2020
Oakland was primed to welcome a new wave of POC-owned cocktail bars. But Covid-19 threatens to undo the entire movement.
SFist, July 9, 2020
SF's beloved cable cars are going to remain offline indefinitely, likely until a vaccine puts a final end to the spread of the virus, and both operators and riders can be assured of safety.
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CNN, July 10, 2020
As coronavirus cases spike nationwide,
parents are
wondering whether it's safe to send their children back to school. But with most of the research and testing geared toward adults, the answer is complicated. We do know:
- Children are not immune to coronavirus
- Their symptoms can differ from adults
- Research focused on children is limited
"While children don't get as sick from Covid-19 as adults do, they can become seriously ill. We should not be lulled into thinking children are immune to Covid-19," said Elizabeth Cohen, CNN's senior medical correspondent.
Lisa Krieger, science writer, East Bay Times, July 10, 2020
A growing body of research suggests young children aren’t responsible for most viral transmission. Adults are. More work must be done to prove that kids are truly harmless, cautioned Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at a Thursday press briefing. Transmission in elementary school seems lower than in high schools, according to Dr. Naomi Bardach, associate professor of UCSF’s Department of Pediatrics. There’s limited data on middle-school and pre-school children, she said.
The Lancet, July 9, 2020
In a UK study of 78 children admitted to ICU for paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome or PIMS (which in the US is referred to as MIS-C), most (78%) had no pre-existing medical conditions. "The emergence of this condition in children might also have a social impact. Until now, the risk of serious illness resulting from COVID-19 in children has been thought to be negligible: even though the risk is still low, there are implications for health-care resources and balancing the need for adult and paediatric intensive care units." Researchers estimate that 1.5% of children infected with Covid-19 will develop PIMS requiring ICU admission
.
- MIS-C is a condition where different body parts can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs, CDC website
SF Chronicle, July 10, 2020
Dr. George Lemp, a retired University of California epidemiologist now living in Sonoma County, has spent much of the past four months crunching numbers, trying to gain insight into the demographics of the pandemic. In the two weeks ending June 27, he saw counts skyrocket 76% among people age 18-34 in California, compared with the prior two weeks. In the most recent two-week period Lemp studied (June 14-27), people age 18-34 accounted for 36.5% of new cases and those under 18 represented 10.2% of cases.
SF Chronicle, July 9, 2020
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that people with type A blood have a higher risk of contracting Covid-19 and suffering complications. The analysis also showed that people with type O blood were at least partially protected from the virus.
Beth Skwarecki, science writer, Lifehacker, July 9, 2020
There is still no known cure, nor specific pharmaceutical preventative or treatment, for COVID-19. So if anybody is selling one, it’s a scam.
Huffington Post, July 9, 2020
Bill Nye
is sick and tired of people not wearing masks. In two videos uploaded to TikTok mimicking the “Consider the Following” segment of his hit 1990s kids show “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” Nye demonstrated why masks are absolutely vital in the era of COVID-19.
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Mercury News, July 10, 2020
California has now experienced its deadliest seven-day period of the pandemic. Another 135 Californians perished from the virus Thursday, just shy of the record set Wednesday but more than any other day before that. With it, the seven-day average climbed to 84 fatalities per day, 29% higher than a week ago and the highest it has ever been. The previous peak came in mid-April, when an average of 80 people died per day from April 18-24.
New cases and hospitalizations aren’t slowing down, either. The state added another 9,769 confirmed cases Thursday, raising the seven-day average to 7,909, also a new high. The number of patients hospitalized in California hit a low of 3,092 on June 13; in the month since, it has nearly doubled to 6,126, hitting a new high on Wednesday.
While California has hit new highs of infections and deaths, the Bay Area has so far staved off the worst of the virus. Cases and hospitalizations continue to rise in the region, but its 10 counties accounted for seven of the 135 fatalities (5%) statewide Thursday
.
CalMatters, July 10, 2020
This week, San Bernardino County
canceled hundreds of appointments
due to a shortage of materials. Unable to meet soaring demand, Los Angeles County
asked residents
to get tested only if they have symptoms, work in high-risk environments or were exposed to someone who tested positive. Although the state is
testing more than 100,000 people each day
, up from 8,000 in March, it’s now grappling with a three-headed hydra of supply constraints, overwhelmed labs and delayed processing of tests. As a result, the state public health department asked labs on July 4 to
prioritize processing tests
from patients with symptoms and those in hospitals, nursing homes or prisons.
LA Daily News, July 9, 2020
Los Angeles County is experiencing broad disparities in deaths and infections of the novel coronavirus depending on race and economic status, even as access to testing in lower income neighborhoods has improved, according to public health officials. Latinos are now more than twice as likely as whites to be infected with the novel coronavirus and twice as likely to die. Blacks were 27% more likely to be infected and nearly twice as likely to die from the virus compared to whites.
Associated Press, July 10, 2020
Sutter County was one of the first places in California to broadly reopen its economy. It and neighboring Yuba County defied Gov. Newsom’s stay-at-home order to let restaurants, hair salons, gyms and a shopping mall reopen in early May. But two months later, the counties that together have a population of about 175,000 are averaging a combined 30 new cases per day, up from five at the beginning of June, with what the counties’ shared public health director calls a “scary elevation of hospitalized cases” from seven to 21 in just one week.
SF Chronicle, July 9, 2020
The seemingly impossible task of gearing up for fire season in the midst of a surging pandemic fell with full force on California Thursday, prompting Gov. Newsom to lay out the state’s battle plan. He announced the hiring of 858 seasonal firefighters to replace prison crews whose ranks were cut in half after several of those inmates tested positive for the coronavirus. Cal Fire relies on inmate crews to build fire breaks, put out embers and do a lot of the dirty work necessary to suppress deadly infernos like those that have plagued California in recent years.
LA Times, July 9, 2020
Los Angeles residents could again be ordered to stay home to stem the spread of the coronavirus should infections and hospitalizations continue to climb, Mayor Eric Garcetti warned this week. The potential return of the kind of strict restrictions that kept Angelenos indoors and effectively shuttered wide swaths of the region’s economy is yet another indicator of what elected and health officials have maintained for weeks: that the threat of COVID-19 remains real, and trend lines are heading in the wrong direction.
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The Hill, July 10, 2020
Three of the states hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic set new records for the daily number of deaths from the virus on Thursday, signaling that that recent spike in cases is beginning to take its toll.
Florida reported 120 new deaths as the state has quickly become
one of the world's epicenters
for the virus.
Texas reported that it had suffered 105 COVID-19 deaths, breaking its record that it had set just one day earlier with 98. The Lone Star State broke its record for the number of daily new cases on Tuesday with 10,028 and added another 9,782 new infections on Thursday.
The Hill, July 10, 2020
Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, in an interview published Friday pushed back on President Trump's claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are "harmless," saying that it is "obviously not" the case. The comments come amid growing public distance between Trump and Fauci. Trump has been seeking to downplay the virus, while Fauci and a wide range of other experts have warned of the danger of the worsening outbreaks around the country, which are leading to spikes in hospitalizations in hard-hit states.
Washington Post, July 9, 2020
Governors across the country are facing growing pressure from public health experts and local leaders to reimpose stay-at-home orders as the only way to regain control of coronavirus outbreaks that threaten to overwhelm hospitals and send the death count rocketing. The push appeared to receive a boost from Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease official, who suggested in comments released late Wednesday that struggling states “should seriously look at shutting down.” He took a more measured approach on Thursday, emphasizing that stay-at-home orders should remain a last resort and suggesting a pause in reopening plans instead.
NY Times, July 9, 2020
States across the American South and West are grappling with shortages of vital testing equipment and a key antiviral drug, and hospitals are being flooded with coronavirus patients, forcing them to cancel elective surgeries and discharge patients early.
“When hospitals and health care assistants talk about surge capacity, they’re often talking about a single event,” said John Sinnott, chairman of internal medicine at the University of South Florida and chief epidemiologist at Tampa General Hospital. “But what we’re having now is the equivalent of a bus accident a day, every day, and it just keeps adding.”
Associated Press, July 10, 2020
Fighting a surge in coronavirus cases in the spring, Florida appeared to be “flattening the curve” as theme parks shuttered, beaches closed and residents heeded orders to stay home. Now, it’s almost as if that never happened. Hospitals have seen their numbers of coronavirus patients triple, with new patients outpacing those being discharged. A record 435 newly hospitalized patients were reported today to have tested positive for the virus, though they include people seeking hospital care for other reasons and are not all symptomatic.
The Guardian, July 10, 2020
Located on the border with Mexico, Starr County officials successfully kept the coronavirus in check.But then Gov. Greg Abbott decided to reopen the state and stripped local governments of their power in the process. M
alls, restaurants, movie theaters, gyms and salons threw open their doors, albeit at limited capacity. Now the virus is spreading like wildfire in a community woefully under equipped to handle an outbreak.
I
nternational Business Times, July 10, 2020
The Transportation Security Administration reported more than 1,000 employees tested positive for coronavirus, more than 900 of whom are security officers.
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Bay Area & California Education News
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East Bay Times, July 9, 2020
Alarmed by the recent surge of Covid-19 cases in Contra Costa County, the Antioch Unified School District has postponed the start of a new school for almost a month. The school board on Wednesday night unanimously approved a Sept. 1 start date for classes. Superintendent Stephanie Anello said the district intends to offer online classes that students can take from home and, if the coronavirus situation improves, open up some classrooms for face-to-face instruction.Meanwhile, the Knightsen School District, which serves K-8 students, will delay its start by a week to Aug. 3. It intends to offer online distance learning only.
Livermore Independent, July 9, 2020
Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District (LVJUSD) fleshed out multiple options for resuming school in late August. Under the hybrid model, students would likely come to campus on alternating days to limit the number of people on campus at any time, said LVJUSD Superintendent Kelly Bowers. That will be more likely than having morning and afternoon shifts, because of the logistical complications of cleaning the school between shifts. If distance learning were required, either part-time or full-time, the district is establishing clearer, common daily expectations for students and teachers. LVJUSD will also enhance teaching and learning resources, which will be organized in a new learning management system platform called Schoology.
Ed Source, July 9, 2020
California’s largest teachers union is declaring bluntly that “California cannot reopen schools unless they are safe.” In a
strongly worded letter
sent Wednesday to Gov. Newsom, the leadership of the California Teachers Association said that the recent surge in infections “gives us pause around the state’s preparedness for safe in person school instruction in a short six to eight week time frame.”
Alameda County Office of Education, July 2, 2020
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Associated Press, July 9, 2020
Federal health officials won’t revise their coronavirus
guidelines for reopening schools
despite criticism from President Donald Trump, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. What they will do, he said, is provide additional information to help states, communities and parents decide what to do and when. “Our guidelines are our guidelines,” Dr. Robert Redfield declared.
USA Today, July 10, 2020
Kimberley Byrd died June 26 after testing positive for Covid-19. She taught first grade in the Hayden-Winkelman Unified School District in a small eastern Arizona community. Before she tested positive, Byrd and two other teachers taught a summer school class virtually from the same classroom. All three teachers came down with the virus. They decided to teach virtually while together in the same classroom, but took what they thought were extensive measures: They wore masks, they disinfected equipment and kept distance between each other. "We were very careful," Skillings said.
Wall Street Journal, July 9, 2020
School districts throughout the U.S. are getting a firsthand lesson on what a fall reopening could bring: sporadic closures as students and staffers test positive for Covid-19. At least half the states have districts that have shut down summer athletic training mainly due to students and coaches testing positive for the virus, some of whom passed pre-screening checks. The experience has been a wake-up call for administrators planning to open schools for in-person learning after summer break.
Thomas Frieden, Arne Duncan & Margaret Spellings, The Atlantic, July 9, 2020
We need to reopen schools this fall. But we have to do it carefully. If we move too fast, ignore science, or reopen without careful planning, this will backfire. We can reopen if we follow commonsense guidelines.
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Scout makes face shields for frontline workers
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Kai Gottschalk is living up to the slogan of the Boy Scouts of America -- "Do a good turn daily" -- by using his own 3D printer to make face shields for health care providers. A member of Troop 941 in Pleasanton, Gottschalk has manufactured and shipped nearly 3,800 shields made of transparency sheets and hard plastic bands.
Bay Area recipients include Oakland's Highland Hospital, Kaiser Permanente, St. Rose Hospital in Hayward, Livermore Optometry Group and Waste Management. The protective equipment also has been shipped to hospitals nationwide.
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Gottschalk, 15, said he was inspired by a family friend who works in the medical field. When Gottschalk heard about the lack of proper protective clothing for medical professionals needed to treat those possibly infected with the coronavirus, he decided to take action.
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Bloomberg, Updated July 10, 2020
Hong Kong reported 32 additional local coronavirus cases on Friday, adding to a resurgence of infections that is forcing the financial hub to reinstate restrictions that had been recently loosened, including the closing of schools. All schools will now break for summer holiday starting Monday, Hong Kong Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung said in a briefing Friday. Schools had only just resumed after a months long shutdown.
Bloomberg, July 10, 2020
Russia issued new statistics for deaths linked to Covid-19 in April and May, indicating a mortality rate more than triple the level shown in previous official data. The Federal Statistics Service on Friday reported 15,277 deaths linked to the virus in that two-month period, including those of 9,192 where Covid-19 was reported as the main cause. That compares with a figure of 4,831 deaths from coronavirus in April-May reported previously by the government.
Associated Press, July 10, 2020
The coronavirus storm has arrived in South Africa, but in the overflowing Covid-19 wards the sound is less of a roar than a rasp. More than 8,000 health workers across Africa have been infected, half of them in South Africa. How the country struggles to manage the pandemic will be amplified in other nations across Africa, which has the world’s lowest levels of health funding and health staffing. The continent as of Friday had 541,381 confirmed cases, but shortages in testing materials means the real number is unknown.
Washington Post, July 9, 2020
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pleaded Thursday for international unity to fight the pandemic devastating the world in the wake of President Trump’s announced intention to quit the organization. With tears in his eyes, Tedros said the true enemy was not the virus itself but “the lack of leadership and solidarity at the global level and national levels.”
Associated Press, July 9, 2020
Bolivia’s interim president and Venezuela’s No. 2 leader announced Thursday that they have been infected with the new coronavirus, just days after Brazil’s leader tested positive as the pandemic hits hard at some of Latin America’s political elite. The infections in Venezuela, Brazil and Bolivia, which are seeing a spike in cases, come after Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández tested positive in June and was briefly hospitalized.
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Derek Thompson, staff writer, July 9, 2020
The gap between spiking cases and falling-then-flatlining deaths has become the latest partisan flashpoint. What follows are five possible explanations for the case-death gap. Take them as complementary, rather than competing, theories:
1. Deaths lag cases—and that might explain almost everything.
2. Expanded testing is finding more cases, milder cases, and earlier cases.
3. The typical COVID-19 patient is getting younger.
4. Hospitalized patients are dying less frequently, even without a home-run treatment.
5. Summer might be helping—but probably only a little bit.
Vox, July 10, 2020
Early in the pandemic, many hoped
summer weather
would reduce the transmission of Covid-19. However, when temperatures get searingly hot, people spend more time in enclosed spaces, which presents the greatest opportunity for infection if the virus is present.
Annie Lowrey, The Atlantic, July 10, 2020
The economic evidence, as well as testimonials from Americans receiving the bonus, supports not just keeping the $600 payment, but expanding it to encompass millions more Americans. Simply giving people cash turns out to be a powerful way to protect workers during a public-health crisis, to alleviate poverty, and to empower employees to bargain with employers. Uncle Sam needs to give out a lot more.
Smriti Mallapaty, Nature, July 10, 2020
Scientists say that widespread testing is needed to get outbreaks of the new coronavirus under control. But in many regions there’s a shortage of the chemicals needed to run tests. In several countries, health officials have started using a strategy that was first proposed in the Second World War: group testing. By testing samples from many people at once, this method can save time, chemical reagents and money, say researchers.
Ashley Nunes, BBC, July 9, 2020
Rather than banning visitors outright (or relegating them to quarantine), some countries may agree to open their borders to one other while keeping their borders to all other countries closed. This minimizes transmission risk for travelers within the bubble while preventing the importation of new cases from outside.
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Alameda County Data
: 2,025 n
ew cases have been recorded over the last 14 days. The number of confirmed infections is currently doubling every 31.6 days.
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Contra Costa County Data
: 1,781 new cases have been recorded over last 14 days. The number of confirmed infections is currently doubling every 16.5 days.
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Top 8 Locations of Cases in Alameda County
, data as of 7/8/20
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Oakland:
2,900
Hayward:
1,171
Eden MAC: 455
Fremont: 390
San Leandro: 368
Livermore: 256
Union City: 236
Castro Valley: 222
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Top 8 Locations of Cases in Contra Costa County
, data as of 7/9/20
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Richmond: 994
Antioch: 519
Concord: 515
San Pablo: 419
Pittsburgh:
361
Bay Point: 197
Walnut Creek: 194
Brentwood: 161
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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.
We welcome your feedback on our bulletin. Please contact editor
Stephen Cassidy
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