Eden Health District COVID-19 Bulletin
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“We are hopeful that collective actions taken over the past couple of weeks have allowed us to get back to the work of slowing the spread. It is important to keep in mind that we will need to continue with all the modifications and sacrifices for weeks to come.”
Dr. Barbara Ferrer, L.A. County’s public health director,
8/2/20
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Teens spread smiles through non-profit Drive-By Heroes
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In a time where celebrating feels a bit less colorful than we’re used to, three teens in Pearland, Texas, are doing what they can to brighten the days of children, one superhero visit at a time.
In July, identical twin brothers Isaiah and Stephan Torres started the non-profit Drive-By Heroes. They visit kids from afar, dressed up in superhero costumes for special occasions.“We were just sitting around thinking about how we could help out people adjust to this new lifestyle,” said Isaiah Torres.
They get a lot of birthday requests, but they’ll drop by on request for other reasons, too. “There are also cheer ups,” Stephan said. “We just cheer up kids who are down because they are stuck inside all the time.”
The community can book a visit on their
Facebook page
, and the Drive-By Heroes come out free of charge. Their friend Jasmine Saenz helps, too.
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“It was such a good idea and it was such a charitable thing to do, just to get out of the house ourselves, but also bring joy to other people," Jasmine said. “It was just such a nice feeling.” Although they offer a free service, they do ask for food donations, which they give to a neighborhood food bank.
The drive-by heroes serve as reminders that not even a pandemic can stop the good guys.“Everyone can make a little difference in their community,” Isaiah said. “Even during this time, we are still all connected.”
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Alameda County:
11,524
Contra Costa County:
8,033
California:
512,849
U.S.:
4,690.404
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Alameda County:
189
Contra Costa County:
127
California:
9,400
U.S.:
155,124
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City Website
Starting today, August 3rd, the
City of Hayward Covid-19 Testing Center is now operating from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Skywest Golf Course. The address of the center is 1401 Golf Course Road, adjacent to Hayward Executive Airport. Further, appointments are now required for tests. Register for a test
here
.
Pleasanton Weekly, August 2, 2020
The Covid-19 testing site at the Alameda County Fairgrounds will be introducing new criteria to determine residents eligible to receive the assessment, effective August 3rd. The testing site will remain open to symptomatic residents and those who have been in close contact with a confirmed Covid-19, but now asymptomatic residents must fall into specific job- or health-related categories in order to qualify. As always, they must be a resident of Pleasanton, Dublin or Livermore and 10 years old or older.
SF Chronicle, August 3, 2020
Across the Bay Area, mask-wearing appears to have risen sharply since California’s mask mandate took effect in mid-June. In stores and on busy streets, almost everyone wears a face covering. According to a July
survey
by the Public Policy Institute of California, 74% of respondents said that people in their communities should wear masks in public places at all times, and another 12% said most of the time. But pockets of noncompliance remain, especially in outdoor parks, where people gather with friends.
SF Chronicle, August 2, 2020
A week ago, when Alameda became the first county in the Bay Area to surge past 10,000 cases of the coronavirus, a swarm of political and public health leaders staged a news conference at the edge of Lake Merritt and pleaded with residents to stop gathering there. It’s too risky, they said. Oakland is experiencing a surge in cases propelled at least in part by parties and other get-togethers that aren’t safe when so much virus is circulating. And that’s certainly been well documented, across the Bay Area and California. But full disclosure: No cases have been specifically tied to Lake Merritt.
That doesn’t mean picnics and barbecues around the lake, or any other park or outdoor space, are safe, or that people should freely gather there. Rather, the lack of identified cases underscores a consistently frustrating short-coming in the response to this pandemic: poor data collection. “I’ll be honest, I wish the data was better,” said Nicholas Moss, the Alameda County health officer. “We know where people live. We know their gender. We know their age. But we’re missing huge amounts of data for some of our cases.”
July was the worst month yet for California in its battle with the coronavirus, with record-breaking cases and deaths. But even the number of cases reported is an unreliable data point. The reports vastly undercount the actual number of infections, public health officials believe the number is probably 10 times that.
East Bay Times, August 3, 2020
Oakland International Airport, revealing a welcome counterpoint to a dreadful travel year worldwide due to the coronavirus, more than doubled its passenger flights in June compared with May. Passenger traffic through Oakland airport increased 141 percent during June compared with May, yet in a reminder of coronavirus-linked economic woes, the June levels were 79 percent below the passenger traffic volumes for June 2019. An estimated 255,100 travelers flew in and out Oakland International Airport during June, a big jump from the 105,600 who transited through the East Bay aviation hub in May, the airport reported. But both the May and June numbers are far below the 1.22 million who flew through Oakland airport in June 2019.
SF Chronicle, August 2, 2020
In California, new-car sales in the state fell about 24% for the first four months of 2020 compared to a year earlier, according to estimates from the California New Car Dealers Association. But the Bay Area and other transit-centric hubs are now seeing a rise in sales, as people flock to “COVID cars.” “There is a risk that the pandemic could reinforce longer-term travel behavior toward more auto ownership and use,” Susan Shaheen, co-director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at UC Berkeley, said in an email. “However, these impacts are uncertain. There is also a possibility of a longer-term increase in telework.”
Berkeleyside, July 31, 2020
Eight post offices have been left without sufficient staff to operate fully after two postal workers in the Berkeley/Albany service area tested positive for Covid-19 in mid-July, prompting some of their co-workers to self-quarantine. Another worker based in Oakland who delivered mail to Berkeley has also died. One of the women who tested positive worked at the Albany post office on Solano Avenue. The other worked mostly at the Detached Delivery Unit office on Eighth Street but delivered mail and packages to other post offices, thereby potentially exposing others. Augustine Ruiz, Jr., a spokesperson for the postal service, acknowledged that two workers had come down with the coronavirus but could not say if that led to
the staffing shortage that has caused disruption in eight post offices
.
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East Bay Times, August 3, 2020
Understanding the mystery of why some infected persons feel fine may help suggest targets for vaccines and treatment. These cases also underscore the importance of masks and expanded testing, because asymptomatic people may unwittingly transmit infection to others. Estimates of the proportion of true asymptomatic cases, people who are infected and never develop symptoms as compared to people who are infected and later fall ill, have ranged from 40% to 45%. Emerging evidence suggests that a person’s immune response, largely influenced by genetics, is what helps determine the severity of illness, say infectious disease experts.
SF Gate, August 1, 2020
Doctors, nurses, dental workers and other front-line health workers wear shields, but mostly as an added layer of protection in conjunction with masks. The shields also extend the longevity of the masks by blocking droplet contamination. Despite the benefits, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
is clear on its guidance: Face shields are not recommended for “normal everyday activities or as a substitute for cloth face coverings.”
For one thing, it’s unknown how well shields, which have openings at the sides and bottom, protect others from droplets expelled by the wearer.
Furthermore, the level of protection a shield affords to the person wearing it has not been thoroughly studied. In a recent coronavirus outbreak at hotel in Graubünden, Switzerland, only those workers who were wearing a face shield were exposed.
Kaiser Health News, August 3, 2020
With millions of lives on the line, researchers have been working at an unprecedented pace to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. But that speed, and some widely touted breakthroughs, belie the enormous complexity and potential risks involved. Researchers have an incomplete understanding of the coronavirus and are using technology that’s largely unproven. Some even
question whether vaccines will really end
the pandemic. If vaccines produce limited protection against infection, experts note, people will need to continue wearing masks and social distancing even after vaccines roll out.
Yet in an interview with KHN, the country’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said he’s “cautiously optimistic” that researchers will overcome such obstacles.
“We know the body can make an adequate response against this virus” after two shots of a vaccine being tested, Fauci said. “There’s no reason to believe that we won’t be able to develop a vaccine against it.”
Associated Press, August 2, 2020
Who gets to be first in line for a COVID-19 vaccine? U.S. health authorities hope by late next month to have some draft guidance on how to ration initial doses, but it’s a vexing decision. “Not everybody’s going to like the answer,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, recently told one of the advisory groups the government asked to help decide. “There will be many people who feel that they should have been at the top of the list.” Traditionally, first in line for a scarce vaccine are health workers and the people most vulnerable to the targeted infection.
Science, July 31, 2020
“Everybody talks about a binary situation, you either get it mild and recover quickly, or you get really sick and wind up in the ICU,” says postdoctoral fellow Athena Akrami, who falls into neither category. Thousands echo her story in online Covid-19 support groups. Outpatient clinics for survivors are springing up, and some are already overburdened. Akrami has been waiting more than 4 weeks to be seen at one of them, despite a referral from her general practitioner.
The list of lingering maladies from Covid-19 is longer and more varied than most doctors could have imagined. Ongoing problems include fatigue, a racing heartbeat, shortness of breath, achy joints, foggy thinking, a persistent loss of sense of smell, and damage to the heart, lungs, kidneys, and brain.
Kaiser Health News, July 31, 2020
The coronavirus has so diminished trust in the U.S. medical system that even people with obstructed bowels, chest pain and stroke symptoms are ignoring danger signs and staying out of the emergency room, with potentially mortal consequences. A
study
by the CDC found that emergency room visits nationwide fell 42% in April, from a mean of 2.1 million a week to 1.2 million, compared with the same period in 2019.
NY Times, July 29, 2020
As the pandemic has upended school, summer plans, and daily life for millions of teenagers, many are turning to a podcast to cope. “Teenager Therapy,” hosted by five rising seniors at Loara High School in Anaheim, Calif., has become a lifeline for kids and a breakout hit.
The show features five teens (self-described
on their website
as “sleep deprived, yet energetic”) having loose, candid conversations about mental health, school and family, friendships and sexuality, and more. Sometimes they interview big names; the influencer Loren Gray and the singer Maggie Lindemann have both been on the show. But usually, the format is more of a free-form discussion.
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Sacramento Bee, August 2, 2020
Coronavirus cases in California are still rising, but the rate at which infections are spreading is dropping despite a sharp rise in deaths across the state. Although 9,224 Californians have died of Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, new infections are being reported at a lower rate now than was commonplace for much of July.
In the past week, the daily average has dropped by nearly 22%. Statewide, hospitalizations appear to be tapering off somewhat in response to the lowered rate of infection. A total of 6,459 Californians are being held in hospitals with lab-tested cases of coronavirus. Of those, 1,966 are being treated in ICUs. Amid a peak in hospitalizations, the state reported a total of 7,170 people hospitalized on July 21, a figure which has since dropped by nearly 10%.
LA Times, August 2, 2020
Coronavirus hospitalizations in Los Angeles and Orange counties have dropped over the last week, which may be evidence that actions taken to limit the virus’s spread are working, public health officials said Sunday. There were 1,784 confirmed coronavirus patients in L.A. County hospitals Saturday compared with 2,017 last Saturday, a drop of nearly 12%.
San Diego Union-Tribune, August 2, 2020
A small group of community leaders spoke out publicly last week about what they said is a need for new, more culturally-sensitive and targeted outreach effort. Shane Harris, founder of the civil rights organization People’s Alliance for Justice, spoke out about the makeup of the county’s case investigation and contact tracing workforce, noting that while just 25 percent of such workers were Latino, nearly two-thirds of cases were in that demographic group. “This is humiliating; this is embarrassing,” Harris said.
NY Times, August 2, 2020
To offset rising rents in a nation where
one in four tenant households
spend more than half of their pretax income on shelter, a multitude of low-wage service workers in Silicon Valley have piled into ever more crowded homes. Living in overstuffed units subdivided by hinged partitions and tacked-up sheets, these households, many of them retail and service workers who are unable to do their jobs from home, were acutely susceptible to the virus’s spread. With double-digit unemployment projected to persist through next year, the same families face losing the crowded homes that make it so easy to get sick in the first place.
SF Gate, August 1, 2020
The first of August arrived with a renewed sense of worry for renters in the capital region and California affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Until now, tenants have been protected by a series of overlapping rules on the county, state and federal levels which have put evictions on hold during the coronavirus pandemic. Gov. Newsom has extended local governments’ ability to ban evictions until Sept. 30, but many are counting on the Legislature, which is considering multiple bills to extend that ban and protect tenants and property owners who have lost income. Without new rules to take their place, advocates and lawyers say the most vulnerable renters could face a wave of eviction summons even as the pandemic worsens.
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CNN, August 3, 2020
The US has entered a "new phase" of the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, told CNN on Sunday, with cases rising in both urban and rural areas. "It's extraordinarily widespread,"
The recommendations from health officials have remained the same for months -- yet despite a continuing climb in coronavirus cases, some Americans are still opting to attend large social gatherings, and refuse to wear face coverings. There need to be stricter measures and — in some communities — another round of stay-at-home orders, said Dr. James Phillips, a physician and assistant professor at George Washington University Hospital.
At least 30 states have paused their reopening plans or imposed new restrictions to combat a rise in cases, and at least 39 states have some kind of mask order in place. But the efforts to slow the spread come as some parts of the country are preparing to welcome students back to schools and college campuses.
Wall Street Journal, August 2, 2020
Cases of the new coronavirus in the U.S. reached a record for the month of July, as the White House coronavirus coordinator said the pandemic is more pervasive in the country than at any other time. The U.S. is experiencing the world’s largest outbreak and saw more than 1.9 million new cases of the disease in July, which is more than double the number of new cases recorded in any single previous month, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Politico, August 3, 2020
The United States is mounting the largest vaccination effort in its history, without a plan on how to reach racial and ethnic groups that have not only been devastated by the virus but are often skeptical about government outreach in their communities. In the absence of a national strategy, some local groups aiding minority communities are beginning to draw up their own plans for engaging hard-to-reach patients. But that’s a far cry from a sustained national effort that brings together federal agencies, local officials and communities that have often been excluded from such conversations.
Washington Post, August 3, 2020
Major League Baseball’s coronavirus outbreak shows a lack of protocols and foreshadows what could happen in reopened schools if proper measures aren’t in place, according to former Food and Drug and Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb. “This is highly infectious, and MLB didn’t do what NBA did to put in place a really strict bubble,” Gottlieb said in a Monday interview on CNBC. “I think it is a warning of what could potentially happen if we aren’t very careful with the schools.”
There have been
outbreaks
among the Miami Marlins and the St. Louis Cardinals in the time since the MLB season began less than two weeks ago, leading to the cancellation of three series over the weekend and leaving the rest of the season in doubt.
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EdSource, July 31, 2020
With just over one week before school starts Aug. 10 in Oakland Unified, the district is still in negotiations with its labor unions on how it will deliver distance learning and how it will determine when it is safe to bring students and staff back to campuses.
Although the district announced tentative
plans
on July 10 for distance learning and a phased approach to returning to classroom instruction, it alerted parents last week that it could not release “clear detailed plans to reopen schools” until it establishes agreements with each of its unions, including the Oakland Education Association, which represents teachers.
East Bay Times, August 3, 2020
As the coronavirus outbreak forces schools to start the new school year online again, disadvantaged students continue to struggle with access to technology. They’re more at risk than ever of getting left behind. A startling
one-quarter of California students
lack adequate access to the internet, according to a 2020 report by education nonprofit Common Sense. A majority of them are Black, Latinx or Native American.
Districts in the Bay Area have reported sobering numbers: the Oakland Public Education Fund estimates half of Oakland’s 50,000 students lack either a computer or internet access and, according to a spokeswoman for San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo, 14,000 of San Jose’s 36,000 students lack access to digital resources as well.
LA Times, August 3, 2020
The teachers union and the Los Angeles school district have reached a tentative agreement over rules for instruction in the fall, according to a source close to the negotiations.
Under the pact, students engaged in distance learning in Los Angeles would have a more predictable learning schedule, more like a regular school day, even though their campuses will remain closed due to the
coronavirus pandemic.
EdSource, August 3, 2020
The coronavirus pandemic is pushing many California child care providers to the brink of closure and forcing them to risk both their own health and their finances. With less income and more expenses, many providers are missing rent and mortgage payments and racking up credit card debt, even as they worry they will be infected with the coronavirus, according to a
new survey
from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley.
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Associated Press, August 3, 2020
With a new school year beginning this week in some states, working parents are struggling to balance their jobs with their children’s schoolwork as the coronavirus pandemic continues to cause upheaval around the country.
Many school districts around the country had offered parents a choice of at least some in-person classes or remote instruction. But an uptick in Covid-19 cases in many states has prompted districts to scrap in-person classes at least for the start of the school year, including Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington. Parents in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee are among those who will be the first to navigate the new academic year as schools open up in parts of those states this week.
USA Today, August 3, 2020
Hundreds of employees in Georgia's largest school district have either tested positive for COVID-19 or have been exposed to the virus, officials said. Gwinnett County Public School teachers gathered for in-person pre-planning Wednesday at 141 facilities across the county, the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
reported.
The next day about 260 employees were "excluded from work" due to coronavirus. The district, which is scheduled to reopen on August 12, has a reporting and tracing process in addition to the protocol for excluding employees who test positive or come into contact with a confirmed case Sloan Roach, a spokeswoman for the district told
CNN.
NY Times, August 1, 2020
Just hours into the first day of classes on Thursday, a call from the county health department notified Greenfield Central Junior High School in Indiana that a student who had walked the halls and sat in various classrooms had tested positive for the coronavirus. Administrators began an emergency protocol, isolating the student and ordering everyone who had come into close contact with the person, including other students, to quarantine for 14 days. It is unclear whether the student infected anyone else.
LA Times, July 31, 2020
The first wave of college students returning to their dorms aren’t finding the typical mobs of students and parents. What they found Friday were strict safety protocols and some heightened anxiety amid a pandemic in which virus infections are rising in dozens of states. Across the country, students are jumping through additional hoops by getting tests, navigating travel quarantines and abiding by strict rules.
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Covid-19 survivor of first double-lung transplant grateful to be home
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A Chicago woman who last month became the nation's first Covid-19 patient to undergo a double lung transplant said last week that she woke up days later, unaware about the surgery and unable to "recognize my body."
Mayra Ramirez, 28, said that before she fell ill she was an independent, active person who moved from North Carolina to Chicago in 2014 to work as a paralegal. She had an autoimmune condition, but was otherwise healthy. She had gone on a three-mile run shortly before becoming ill and heading for the hospital.
The last thing she remembers before the surgery is calling her mother to tell her she was going to be intubated and asking her mother to make health care decisions for her. Ramirez underwent the lung transplant on June 5 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. She didn't wake up until mid-June.
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Ramirez is the first U.S. coronavirus patient to undergo a double transplant.
Ramirez who is now at home, said she's feeling much better, though she's still working to rebuild her strength and endurance. She said she knows there's a family grieving their loved one.
"It wasn't until weeks later that I had the ability to, you know, think to myself there's a family out there that's grieving their loved one," Ramirez said. "I have that person's lungs and how lucky I was to have received it."
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The Guardian, August 3, 2020
July was the worst month of the coronavirus pandemic so far for many countries, with more than 8 million cases recorded – nearly as many as the first six months of the outbreak put together, figures have shown. With global infections passing 18 million on Monday, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned over the weekend that the pandemic continues to accelerate, with cases doubling about every six weeks.
Reuters, August 3, 2020
The World Health Organization warned on Monday that, despite strong hopes for a vaccine, there might never be a “silver bullet” for Covid-19, and the road to normality would be long. More than 18.14 million people around the world are reported to have been infected with the disease and 688,080 have died, according to a Reuters tally, with some nations that thought they were over the worst experiencing a resurgence.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus exhorted all nations to rigorously enforce health measures such as mask-wearing, social distancing, hand-washing and testing. “The message to people and governments is clear: ‘Do it all’,” Tedros told a virtual news briefing from the U.N. body’s headquarters in Geneva. He said face masks should become a symbol of solidarity round the world.
Associated Press, August 3, 2020
Vietnam has confirmed 21 more coronavirus cases linked to three hospitals in the central city of Da Nang, the health ministry said Monday. The country, which had lifted many restrictions after more than three months with no local infections, now has 196 cases in the new outbreak.
Vietnam had been widely praised for its success in controlling its initial outbreak of the coronavirus, with no reported cases of local transmission for 99 days. But nine days ago, a case was confirmed at a Da Nang hospital.
The virus has now spread to six parts of the country, including three large cities, forcing authorities to reimpose virus restrictions.
Bloomberg, August 2, 2020
After initial success, Japan is facing a reality check on the coronavirus.
The country garnered global attention after containing the first wave of Covid-19 with what it referred to as the “Japan model” — limited testing and no lockdown, nor any legal means to force businesses to close.
But now the island nation is facing a formidable resurgence, with Covid-19 cases hitting records nationwide day after day. Infections first concentrated in the capital have spread to other urban areas, while regions without cases for months have become new hotspots. And the patient demographic — originally younger people less likely to fall seriously ill —is expanding to the elderly, a concern given that Japan is home to the world’s oldest population.
CNN, August 2, 2020
Across Latin America,
skyrocketing new infection numbers
are reaching even the highest circles, a sign of how pervasive the coronavirus has become, and how ineffective many government efforts have been to stop it so far.
.Latin America is, without a doubt, "the world's most affected region" by the pandemic, Dr. Marcos Espinal, Director of the Department of Communicable Diseases at the
Pan American Health Organization
(PAHO), told CNN in a recent interview. "We are in a very critical situation. Brazil reported Wednesday more than 40,000 new cases, Colombia more than 10,000 and Mexico more than 7,000. The next few weeks are going to be of high importance in terms of finding out how can we flatten the curve," Dr. Espinal said. He added that some countries that had some success at the beginning like Chile, now have to redouble efforts due to exacerbating factors in the pandemic like work conditions, mobility and highly vulnerable populations.
BBC, August 3, 2020
The number of deaths from coronavirus in Iran is nearly triple what Iran's government claims, a BBC Persian service investigation has found. Based on unpublished government data sent to the BBC from an anonymous almost 42,000 people with Covid-19 symptoms died in Iran through July 20th, versus 14,405 reported to the public by the health ministry. The number of people known to be infected is also almost double official figures: 451,024 as opposed to 278,827.
In recent weeks, it has suffered a second steep rise in the number of cases. The first death in Iran from Covid-19 was recorded on 22 January, according to lists and medical records that have been passed to the BBC. This was almost a month before the first official case of coronavirus was reported there.
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Ed Yong, The Atlantic, September 2020 issue
How did it come to this? A virus a thousand times smaller than a dust mote has humbled and humiliated the planet’s most powerful nation. America has failed to protect its people, leaving them with illness and financial ruin. It has lost its status as a global leader. It has careened between inaction and ineptitude. The breadth and magnitude of its errors are difficult, in the moment, to truly fathom.
Despite ample warning, the U.S. squandered every possible opportunity to control the coronavirus. And despite its considerable advantages—immense resources, biomedical might, scientific expertise—it floundered. While countries as different as South Korea, Thailand, Iceland, Slovakia, and Australia acted decisively to bend the curve of infections downward, the U.S. achieved merely a plateau in the spring, which changed to an appalling upward slope in the summer. “The U.S. fundamentally failed in ways that were worse than I ever could have imagined,” Julia Marcus, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School, told me.
Natalie Dean, NY Times, August 3, 2020
I’m a vaccine researcher, and even I would place myself in the “not sure” bucket. What we have right now is a collection of
animal data
, immune response data, and safety data based on early trials and from similar vaccines for other diseases. The evidence that would convince me to get a Covid-19 vaccine, or to recommend that my loved ones get vaccinated, does not yet exist.
Key to getting a quick result is placing trials in outbreak hot spots where people are most likely to be infected. We can even target the highest-risk people within those areas, using mobile teams to travel to neighborhoods, bringing the trial directly to the people. Some trials
explicitly prioritize
essential workers like health care workers or grocery employees. Others are simply focused on enrolling large numbers of participants as fast as possible. Combining those efforts, it could take as little as three to six months to generate enough convincing safety and efficacy data for companies to apply for expedited review by the Food and Drug Administration.
Christin Hauser, NY Times, August 3, 2020
More than a century ago, as the 1918 influenza pandemic raged in the United States, masks of gauze and cheesecloth became the facial front lines in the battle against the virus. But as they have now, the masks also stoked political division. Then, as now, medical authorities urged the wearing of masks to help slow the spread of disease. And then, as now, some people resisted.
In 1918 and 1919, as bars, saloons, restaurants, theaters and schools were closed, masks became a scapegoat, a symbol of government overreach, inspiring protests, petitions and defiant bare-face gatherings. All the while, thousands of Americans were dying in a deadly pandemic.
Wall Street Journal, August 3, 2020
C
ovid-19 cases among the 18-to-29-year-old age group are rising. They accounted for
27.1% of U.S. cases
in J
uly. The group’s share in cases has been climbing every month since April.
As a result, young adults are getting tagged as irresponsible. But many scientists argue that scolding won’t help. They say the impulse among adolescents and emerging adults to break away from family and interact more with peers is part of normal development. Socializing and seeking new experiences is how they forge their identities.
Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic, August 2, 2020
“This push to open schools is guaranteed to fail,” says Peter Hotez, a pediatrician and molecular virologist, and the dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. “The social-distancing expectations and mask requirements for the lower grades are unrealistic,” Hotez told me. “In communities with high transmission, it’s inevitable that Covid-19 will enter the schools. Within two weeks of opening schools in communities with high virus transmission, teachers will become ill."
Katherine Eban, Vanity Fair, July 30, 2020
Six months into the pandemic, the United States continues to suffer the worst outbreak of Covid-19 in the developed world. Considerable blame belongs to a federal response that offloaded responsibility for the crucial task of testing to the states. The irony is that, after assembling the team that came up with an aggressive and ambitious national testing plan, Jared Kushner then appears to have decided, for reasons that remain murky, to scrap its proposal.
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Alameda County Data
:
Over the last two weeks, officials have confirmed 2,504 new cases, which amounts to 152 per 100,000. The number of confirmed infections is currently doubling every 52.9 days.
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Contra Costa County Data
: Over the last two weeks, officials have confirmed 2,253 new cases, which amounts to 199 per 100,000. The number of confirmed infections is currently doubling every 36 days.
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Top 8 Locations of Cases in Alameda County
, cases as of 8/2/20
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Oakland:
4,618
Hayward:
1,654
Eden MAC: 686
Fremont: 641
San Leandro: 596
Livermore:
505
Union City: 344
Castro Valley:
325
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Top 8 Locations of Cases in Contra Costa County
, cases as of 8/3/20
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Richmond: 1,654
Antioch: 1,008
Concord: 932
Pittsburgh:
768
San Pablo: 697
Bay Point: 370
Walnut Creek: 365
Brentwood: 323
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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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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 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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