The County of Alameda is partnering with the City of Alameda to bring pop-up testing to the island’s residents and workers. The site, off Road A near 1401 Harbor Bay Parkway, will be open Wednesday, September 30 through Saturday, October 3. Drive-through appointments can be made at https://ac.fulgentgenetics.com/appointment/screen/landing You do not need a doctor’s note or insurance and you will not be asked about immigration status.

Thanks to recent progress being made in the fight against Covid-19 in Contra Costa, the county has moved into the less restrictive red tier ("substantial") of the state's four-tiered, color-coded reopening system. Contra Costa had been in the state's purple or "widespread" tier, the most restrictive tier.

Sam Juha has slung sandwiches and salads at his deli Cheese n’ Stuff on Durant Avenue for 34 years. But what’s mostly on his menu nowadays are heaping portions of disappointment and worry.“I’ve never had a month like this; this is the worst I’ve seen,” says Juha. “The overhead is still the same – we have the same employees, rent, and PG&E bills – but we’re only doing 20 percent of our normal business.”

REACH Outdoor Youth Hub

The REACH Youth Center in Ashland has opened a learning hub. It is available to all area young people ages 11-24, including non-REACH members, in need of connectivity and support for their distance learning needs.

Extensive contact tracing in two southern Indian states offers the strongest evidence yet that a few super-spreading individuals are responsible for a disproportionate share of new coronavirus infections, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Science. It also suggests that children are more efficient transmitters of the virus than widely believed. A team of Indian and U.S. researchers examined data from 575,071 individuals who were tested after coming into contact with 84,965 people with confirmed cases of Covid-19.

The study also found that although children younger than 17 were the least likely to die of Covid-19, they transmitted the virus at rates similar to the rest of the population, underscoring the idea that the disease doesn’t spare young people. One data point in particular holds implications for reopening schools: Children ages 5 to 17 passed the virus to 18% of close contacts their own age.

Teenagers are about twice as likely to become infected with the coronavirus as younger children, according to an analysis released Monday by the CDC.

What We Know About the Airborne Spread of the Coronavirus

What does the science on airborne transmission of the coronavirus actually say? An international group of researchers from China, Australia and the United States recently reviewed the evidence for airborne transmission. They concluded it was highly plausible.

In two-story-high stainless steel vats, a drug is brewing in trillions of hamster ovary cells. Many experts think this could be the best bet to defang the novel coronavirus and transform it from a potentially lethal infection into a treatable illness.

Becton Dickinson and Co.’s Covid-19 test that returns results in 15 minutes has been cleared for use in countries that accept Europe’s CE marking, the diagnostics maker said Wednesday. The test is part of a new class of quicker screening tools named for the identifying proteins called antigens they detect on the surface of SARS-CoV-2. Rapid antigen testing has been making inroads in Europe as well as the U.S. 

It’s always important for parents and kids to talk about their feelings, and for parents to model healthy stress management, but even more so when so much feels overwhelming. Part of talking about feelings is first developing the vocabulary needed to have the conversation, that’s why Matthew Utley writes for Fatherly that we should create a “feelings chart” for our kids

Historical precedent amplifies this sense of urgency. In the years following the last recession, an estimated 4,750 more Americans than projected died by suicide, according to an analysis published in The Lancet. “We are very concerned about the layering of multiple stresses on the people of California,” said Jim Kooler, assistant deputy director of the state Department of Health Care Services’ behavioral health division.

Public playgrounds and other outdoor recreational facilities are allowed to reopen with extensive rules for child supervision and safety, the California Department of Public Health quietly announced Monday.

Children from different households must be monitored at all times to ensure they don’t play together. Mingling of all kinds is prohibited, and masks must be worn by anyone over 2 years old. Playground operators are being asked to restrict occupancy to playground fixtures such as jungle gyms, slides, swings and sandboxes to allow for proper social distancing. They are also being asked to use tape and signage to help children stay the recommended 6 feet away from playmates of a different household.

Gov. Newsom paved the way for nurse practitioners in California to practice medicine independent of doctors under a bill he signed Tuesday. Assembly Bill 890 would allow nurse practitioners to practice independently in 2023. Nurse practitioners would have to operate under a doctor’s supervision for a minimum three-year transition period before embarking on their own practices. Current California law requires nurse practitioners, who hold masters or doctorate degrees in nursing and additional certification beyond a regular nursing degree, to always operate under a doctor’s supervision.

During a discussion on race in America in the first presidential debate, former Vice President Joe Biden cited a horrific statistic to punctuate his case that President Donald Trump has not been good for Black Americans: 1 in 1,000 Black Americans have died in the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to the APM Research Lab, as of mid-September, “1 in 1,020 Black Americans has died (or 97.9 deaths per 100,000).” More than 200,000 Americans are confirmed dead from Covid-19, and a disproportionate number of them are Black. It’s that simple. (Biden’s statement that 1 in 500 could die by the end of the year without swift action would appear to reflect the estimates that the US death toll could grow to 400,000 by January 1.)

U.S. restaurants are moving warily into fall, hoping their slow recovery persists despite the new challenge of chilly weather and a pandemic that’s expected to claim even more lives.

Most countries are failing to adequately protect women and girls during the fallout from Covid-19, according to a new UN database that tracks government responses to the pandemic. The global gender tracker has looked at how 206 countries and territories address violence against women and girls, support unpaid care workers and strengthen women’s economic security. Forty-two countries had no policies to support women in any of these areas. Only 25 had introduced some measures in all three categories.

The U.S. still has a long way to go to achieve herd immunity to the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. A large study published last week in the medical journal Lancet found that fewer than 1 in 10 Americans have antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the formal name for the coronavirus. Even in the hardest-hit areas, like New York City, estimates of immunity among residents are about 25%.

To reach 50% to 70% immunity would mean about four times as many people getting infected and an “incredible number of deaths,” said Josh Michaud, associate director of global health policy at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Some of those who survive could suffer severe consequences to their heart, brain and other organs, potentially leaving them with lifelong disabilities. “It’s not a strategy to pursue unless your goal is to pursue suffering and death,” Michaud said.

Just as the coronavirus has an accomplice in health conditions like diabetes and asthma, it is also aided and abetted by the stark inequality that makes such conditions possible. A century of racist housing practices — from redlining to contract buying to the grossly unequal lending that persists today — have denied Black Chicagoans generations of wealth. Black neighborhoods see more poverty, air pollution, extreme heat and flood damage, and less access to health care and food — all factors that make residents more vulnerable to the coronavirus. The maps are of Chicago, but they reflect the reality of numerous other American cities where coronavirus has devastated communities of color. Draw a map of Chicago and shade the areas with more poverty, pollution and coronavirus. It will start to look like being Black is a pre-existing condition. 

The obstacles and hardships facing working mothers are not new, but the pandemic has given them more visibility, says Caitlyn Collins, a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis and author of the book Making Motherhood Work: How Women Manage Careers and Caregiving. "Low-income families, single parents, they see how little support they have constantly because they're in a never-ending battle to figure out how to put food on the table, to keep a roof over their heads, [to find] someone to watch their kids so they aren't alone at home while they go to work," Collins says. "It's advantaged people who have long not seen these difficulties."