Eden Health District COVID-19 Bulletin
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"Living with the pandemic is about change: changing our behavior, changing our interactions, changing our institutions, and changing our systems for caring for another."
Mark Friedman, CEO of Eden Health District, 4/23/20
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Alameda County:
1,352
Contra Costa County:
770
California:
39,620
U.S.:
872,122
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Alameda County:
46
Contra Costa County:
23
California:
1,531
U.S.:
50,106
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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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East Bay Times, April 24, 2020
In a sign that COVID-19 continues to prey on society’s most vulnerable, three patients in an Oakland nursing home have died, and 50 others have contracted the virus, comprising one of the largest clusters in the East Bay. “Sadly, there have been three deaths related to COVID-19” at the Excell Health Care Center on High Street, said Annaliese Impink, a spokesperson for the 99-bed facility, in an email Thursday. She confirmed that 33 other patients and 17 employees have tested positive for coronavirus. The three deaths at the Oakland facility add to an already grim toll at nursing homes in Alameda County. At least 13 people have died at Gateway Rehabilitation and Care Center in Hayward, and two patients have died at East Bay Post-Acute in Castro Valley. Combined, those three homes have more than 200 coronavirus infections of staff and patients, according to the most recent numbers available.
SF Chronicle, April 23, 2020
A day after face wear became mandatory, people seemed to be complying, according to law enforcement agencies. Officials say they’re mostly taking an educational approach, informing people of the new requirement instead of threatening them with a citation. “We just don’t want to make anyone force us to have to give them a citation,” said Sgt. Juan Valencia, spokesman for the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.
SF Chronicle, April 23, 2020
Dr. Michelle Albert, a UCSF cardiology professor who is also president of the Bay Area American Heart Association board of directors, said there has been a 50% decline in cardiology inpatients and a 70% decline in admissions to cardiology intensive care at UCSF Parnassus. “When patients do come in they are volunteering that they were scared of coming or they thought that they weren’t supposed to come in,” stated Dr. Junaid Khan, medical director of cardiovascular services at Alta Bates in Oakland. “For stroke victims, time loss is brain loss, and for heart attacks, if you wait too long it limits the number of options we have to help you.”
KQED, April 23, 2020
Local data from public health departments reveal that Latinos are disproportionately affected by the coronavirus in the Bay Area, mirroring initial nationwide findings that the virus is hitting different racial groups unequally. For instance, in San Francisco, Latinos account for 15% of the population, according to
data from the U.S. Census Bureau
, but comprise 25% of confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to
data accessed from the health department
on April 22. In Santa Clara County, Latinos account for
26% of the population
, and
36% of confirmed cases
; and in Alameda County,
22.5% of the population
and
25% of confirmed cases
.
Mercury News, April 24, 2020
Something felt strange about Patricia Dowd’s death. Dowd, 57, had no heart issues and strong lungs. She ate well, exercised and recently had seen her doctor. So when the San Jose woman died Feb. 6 of an apparent heart attack, her husband asked for an autopsy to determine what killed her. The flu-like symptoms Dowd experienced in her final days, it turned out, were COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Dowd now is the first known person in the United States to die from the virus. “She was in shape,” Dowd’s brother, Ricardo Cabello, said in an interview. “She did spin class. She was always doing some kind of aerobics. ”At Christmas with family, “she wanted to sit at a place where she would be looking at the faces of the kids and the brothers and sisters that were opening the presents she gave them,” said Cabello. After their mother died, he added, “she held the family together.”
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CNBC, April 24, 2020
The
Food and Drug Administration
warned consumers Friday against taking malaria drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19 outside a hospital or formal clinical trial setting after “serious” poisoning and deaths were reported. The agency said it became aware of reports of “serious heart rhythm problems” in patients with the virus who were treated with the malaria drugs, often in combination with antibiotic azithromycin, commonly known as a Z-Pak. It also warned physicians against prescribing the drugs to treat the coronavirus outside of a hospital.
CNN, April 23, 2020
The novel
coronavirus
silently spread in the US earlier than previously thought, infecting tens of thousands of people in New York and other major cities, researchers say. A new model by the Network Science Institute at Northeastern University in Boston shows the first infections came from China in early or mid-January, and that the virus went undetected because many people were not presenting symptoms. "The disease spread under the radar," Alessandro Vespignani, director of the Network Science Institute. The model suggests that while Americans were focused on China, about 28,000 people in major US cities were infected by March 1.
Live Science, April 23, 2020
Nearly 1 in 7 people in New York who were randomly tested for coronavirus antibodies turned out to have them, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced. In New York City, the number is even higher: About 1 in 5 people tested positive for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. It's not yet clear, however, if these persons are now immune to the virus.
LA Times, April 23, 2020
Is a second wave inevitable? The answer depends on the nature of the virus itself, our own behavior and the degree to which we prepare for another surge, experts said.
There are several types of coronaviruses that can infect humans, including
four
that are responsible for about a quarter of our common colds. Though SARS-CoV-2 is more dangerous, the fact that it’s a coronavirus suggests it may have characteristics in common with its older cousins.
USA Today, April 23, 2020
In a series of breathtaking multibillion-dollar bets by vaccine makers, possible candidates to fight the new coronavirus are being prepared for production across the globe, before it’s even known whether any of them will work. Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci has repeatedly told a pandemic-weary nation a vaccine against the virus may be ready in 12 to 18 months. That timeline would shatter all precedents for developing a new vaccine, which typically takes many years. The fastest it has ever been done was for mumps, which took four years.
Business Insider, April 21, 2020
In an
early-release research letter
in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, researchers found that nine persons dining
in a windowless restaurant in Guangzhou, China, were struck by COVID-19 from an
asymptomatic individual. Some of those that developed COVID-19 were seated at the same table as the infected person. However, others were seated more than six feet apart. Researchers theorize that the
restaurant's
air-conditioning blew viral droplets to the neighboring tables.
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San Leandro first responders drove by Kaiser San Leandro hospital on Wednesday, April 22, 2020, to thank the physicians, nurses and staff for all that they do to care for their patients, including those with COVID-19. Watch video:
Instagram
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SF Chronicle, April 23, 2020
California has cleared it’s backlog of pending COVID-19 tests for the first time since it began reporting the numbers in mid-March, state health officials said Thursday.
In doing so, the state cleared a hurdle that has for weeks hampered health officials’ efforts to combat the coronavirus. As of Wednesday, more than 482,097 tests had been completed and no results were pending, the California Department of Public Health reported on Thursday. The state’s data reports are delayed by a day.
Mercury News, April 23, 2020
During his press briefing, Gov. Newsom said Wednesday marked the deadliest day since the coronavirus pandemic began in California as 115 people who had tested positive for COVID-19 died. Newsom announced the state’s death toll spiked by 8.5% on Wednesday and the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases jumped by 5.6%. “We’re not out of the woods yet,” Newsom said. “I know there’s a deep desire, people are making calls on an hourly basis saying it’s time to open back up, consider the deadliest day in the state of California within the last 24 hours.”
Cal Matters, April 23, 2020
Gov. Newsom has repeatedly said that reopening will be more like adjusting a dimmer than flipping a light switch, and that he’ll be guided not by a target date, but by progress on
six measurements
, including the availability of tests to detect the virus and the ability for schools and businesses to assure greater distance between people.
“There is no such thing as reopening back to normal,” he said. “It’s normal with caveats, it’s reopening with conditions.”
Sacramento Bee, April 23, 2020
People who are receiving unemployment insurance payments in California no longer have to recertify their claims every two weeks to keep receiving the money, California Labor Secretary Julie Su announced Thursday. More than 2.7 million Californians have filed for unemployment insurance in the last five weeks as the coronavirus pandemic keeps people at home. The state paid out $2 billion in unemployment benefits last week alone.
Politico, April 24, 2020
California cities are anticipating a near $7 billion collective revenue shortfall over the next two fiscal years due to the coronavirus pandemic, an estimate that could grow substantially if stay-at-home orders last through the summer. The League of California Cities urged Gov. Newsom to create a stabilization fund for cities and put toward local governments some of the
$9.5 billion that the state has received
as part of
the CARES Act
for pandemic response. Only six cities with populations over 500,000 are eligible for that federal funding in California, and the rest goes to the state.
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FOX News, April 24, 2020
The United States’
coronavirus
-
related death toll passed 50,000 Friday morning, after more than 3,000 people died Thursday. A tally compiled by Johns Hopkins University put the death toll at 50,031, with more than 869,000 cases across the country. The US is the hardest-hit country in the world, but on Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence indicated he was hopeful the pandemic would begin to recede as summer approaches,
telling Fox News
that it could "largely" be "behind us” by Memorial Day Weekend.
NY Times, April 24, 2020
William Bryan, the head of science at the Department of Homeland Security, stated at the daily White House coronavirus briefing Thursday evening that the government had tested how sunlight and disinfectants, including bleach and alcohol, can kill the coronavirus on surfaces in as little as 30 seconds. An excited President Trump returned to the lectern and theorized the use of ultraviolet light on patients and the possible benefits of injecting patients with disinfectants in the fight against the virus. Experts
have long warned
that ultraviolet lamps can harm humans if used improperly, when the exposure is outside the body, much less inside.
The link between ultraviolet light and skin cancer is well established. Bleach and other disinfectants may kill microbes but they also can kill humans if swallowed or if fumes are too powerful.
Associated Press, April 23, 2020
President Donald Trump will be holding a signing ceremony Friday for a bill providing a nearly $500 billion infusion of coronavirus spending, rushing new relief to employers and hospitals buckling under the strain of a pandemic that has claimed almost 50,000 American lives and one in six U.S. jobs.
Houston Chronicle, April 23, 2020
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing America's largest egg producer, accusing it of illegally inflating prices during the coronavirus pandemic. In a lawsuit announced Thursday, the attorney general said Cal-Maine Foods had driven up prices on generic eggs by 300 percent, despite not having been hindered by the outbreak. Cal-Maine is a vertically integrated company, meaning it controls everything from the chicken to the store shelf.
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This week, the
SF Chronicle reported
, UCSF sent a team of healthcare professionals to the Navajo Nation to help its strained healthcare system. The largest US Native American reservation has been hit hard by Covid-19, and the cases seem to be weeks away from peaking. The 7 doctors and 14 nurses from the Bay Area will be in New Mexico and Arizona for the next month.
UCSF sent a
similar team to New York City
earlier this month,
providing urgently needed support for patients in the NewYork-Presbyterian hospital system.
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Financial Times, April 23, 2020
AFP, April 24, 2020
Even as Germany begins easing curbs on public life to halt contagion of the virus, authorities are busy ramping up their capacity to deal with a second wave of infections. Chancellor Angela Merkel has repeatedly warned that Germany must not rest on its laurels even if the infection rate has dropped, saying it is still "on thin ice".
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BBC, April 24, 2020
I
n February and March, Japan succeeded in suppressing early cluster outbreaks, and in keeping total infections in the hundreds. But now the capital Tokyo appears to have a developing epidemic with more than 3,500 cases confirmed. Countrywide there are now more than 12,000 cases. Doctors in Tokyo say a state of emergency, declared two weeks ago, is not slowing the spread of the virus enough to stop new cases from overwhelming the hospital system
.
NY Times, April 24, 2020
Italy’s leading virologists now consider home infections, alongside clusters in retirement homes, to be a stubborn source of the country’s contagion. Living together in close quarters and the failure to move the infected into dedicated quarantine facilities have, they say, paradoxically propped up the curve of infections that “stay home” measures were designed to suppress. The problem is one the Chinese government bludgeoned quickly. It
ordered the roundup of all residents in Wuhan infected
with the coronavirus, warehousing them in quarantine camps, sometimes with little care. While that approach may have helped contain the virus, ripping people apart from their homes is anathema to Western democracies, especially Italy, where tight-knit families are the rule.
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Seattle Times, April 23, 2020
The novel coronavirus pandemic will define the modern era in the same way World War II shaped an earlier generation, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates says in a
11-page memo
outlining his ideas on how best to tackle the disease. “This is like a world war, except in this case, we’re all on the same side,” he writes. Gates’ memo barely mentions politics, focusing instead on the technological innovations necessary to bring the virus to heel. But he warns it will not be a fast or easy process.
Kaiser Health Network, April 24, 2020
While most of the world hungers for a vaccine to put an end to the death and economic destruction wrought by COVID-19, some anti-vaccine groups are joining with anti-lockdown protesters to challenge restrictions aimed at protecting public health. A group calling itself the
Freedom Angels
, whose members last year
stood on chairs and chanted
at public hearings on the California vaccine bill, say governors are abusing their power by shutting down gun shops and other businesses.
The Atlantic, April 23, 2020
People have trouble appraising exponentially growing problems, seeing exactly how they themselves might be affected, and understanding the best way to help when disaster arrives. Our brains aren’t designed to anticipate threats such as pandemics, which allows the tiny, brainless pathogens to get the upper hand as we fumble along. The only way to counteract these biases, experts say, is to prepare ahead of time. Which is, alas, something the United States also failed to do.
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The Atlantic, April 23, 2020
Farmworkers in the U.S. were struggling long before the COVID-19 crisis, and the pandemic has heightened the paradoxes of their lives. The federal government needs them to keep working; it is peak harvest season in places such as the Salinas Valley, and strawberries and broccoli must be picked, packaged, and shipped. But maintaining social distancing on the job is near-impossible for farmworkers, especially in packing houses and the shared buses and carpools that many must take to the fields, and most farmworkers are not given personal protective gear.
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Celebrating Everyday Heroes
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A neighborhood in Berkeley blossomed with colorful signs earlier in the week, paying tribute to the area’s beloved mail carrier, Kerry Jones.
Berkeleyside reports that over 100 homemade signs of gratitude, of all hues and designs, appeared throughout the area, mounted or drawn on windows, doors, benches, railings, tables, sidewalks, fences and mailboxes. For 24 years Jones has served the neighborhood.
The neighbors who first suggested “Kerry Appreciation Day” said in an email that Jones is unfailingly personable and dedicated, without complaint or hesitation even as he has put himself at greater risk during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Answers to Common Questions on Wearing Face Coverings
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Last week, the public health officers of several Bay Area counties, including Alameda and Contra Costa, issued an
order
requiring the wearing of face coverings in public. As of Wednesday, residents must comply with the order. The order is in addition to the
Shelter-in-Place order
which requires people to stay home as much as possible and maintain physical distancing. Below are answers to common questions on the mask order. Answers to additional questions can be found
here
.
Why are masks required?
A key way COVID-19 spreads is via respiratory droplets expelled when a person sneezes or coughs. While not a substitute for frequent hand washing and maintaining at least 6-feet of physical distance from others, masks can help reduce the spread of these droplets. Keep in mind, an infected person can transmit the coronavirus even without having any, or only mild, symptoms.
What types of masks are required?
- Basic nonmedical, cloth masks, including scarves and bandannas, without holes are required.
- The mask must cover your nose and mouth but, of course, make sure you can breathe through it.
Are medical grade masks or ones with a one-way valve recommended?
No. As long as medical grade masks such as N95 masks and surgical masks are in short supply, the public health officers ask that we not purchase and use them. Any mask that incorporates a one-way valve (typically a raised plastic cylinder about the size of a quarter on the front or side of the mask) does not comply with the order. Masks with these valves permit the release of droplets. Plastic masks and ski masks with holes for nose or mouth also do not comply with the order.
When must masks be worn?
Face coverings are required to be worn:
- While inside or waiting in line to enter essential businesses, like a grocery store or pharmacy;
- When seeking health care;
- When waiting for or riding on public transit, or in a taxi, ride share vehicle or private town car; and
- When entering facilities allowed to operate under the Shelter in Place Order.
What are the exceptions to the order?
- The order does not apply to when driving alone or with members of your own household.
- Masks are not required when engaged in outdoor recreation such as walking, bicycling, or running, though it is recommended to have a mask with you and practice physical distancing.
- Children age 12 and younger are not required to wear masks or anyone that has trouble breathing or been advised by a medical professional to not wear a mask.
What's the best way to wear and care for a mask?
First, wash your hands before putting on the mask. The
CDC recommends
that cloth face coverings should
- fit snugly but comfortably against the side of the face
- be secured with ties or ear loops
- include multiple layers of fabric
- allow for breathing without restriction
Cloth masks should be washed after daily use, in hot water with regular detergent, and dried completely on a high heat setting. Always sanitize your hands after handling masks and do not touch your face.
How can I make a mask?
In the video below,
Jeremy Howard, a University of San Francisco researcher and the co-founder of
Masks 4 All
,
explains how to create your own, with no sewing required.
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Donate PPE To Area Hospitals
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Hospitals throughout the East Bay are experiencing
a shortage of medical supplies. They are seeking donations of new Protective Personal Equipment (masks, gowns and other products). For more information visit:
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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.
Please share our bulletin with your contacts. If you would like to submit feedback or stories on the local response to the pandemic,
please contact bulletin editor Stephen Cassidy at
stephen.cassidy@ethd.org
. And if you are operating a local food bank and would like your organization profiled in our nonprofit spotlight, please contact us.
The
Eden Health District Board of Directors
are Gordon Galvan, Chair, Mariellen Faria, Vice Chair, Charles Gilcrest, Secretary, Roxann Lewis and Pam Russo. The Chief Executive Officer is Mark Friedman.
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