COVID-19
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At A Bay Area "Test-To-Treat" Site, Few Takers For Free Antivirals
After avoiding movie theaters, restaurants, and gyms for more than two years, Helen Ho decided to take her first big risk since the start of the pandemic to attend her graduation. In late May, Ho, 32, flew to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to collect her Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University. A few days after returning home to the Bay Area, she tested positive for COVID-19. At first, the Ivy League-educated researcher found herself at a loss for what to do. “The protocols on how to respond after you test positive are extremely confusing,” Ho said. But a few days later, after talking to an advice nurse, she found herself in the scrubby courtyard of a defunct senior center in West Berkeley that had been transformed into one of the state’s new “test-to-treat” sites. The senior center is one of 138 free COVID testing locations California has expanded into one-stop treatment sites to improve the accessibility of antiviral medication. California Healthline Read more
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Wellness Festival Planned For 2nd Annual Hayward Juneteenth Celebration
Trap yoga, dance work-out and twerk-out sessions will take center stage at the second annual Juneteenth Hayward celebration, which is taking the form of a participatory wellness festival at Hayward’s Heritage Plaza from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, June 18. Produced by the Hayward Chamber of Commerce Black Business Roundtable in partnership with Hayward Farmers Market, Juneteenth Hayward will be hosted by CBS “Survivor” Season 4 winner Vecepia Robinson, and is free to the public thanks to sponsors East Bay Community Energy, Subaru One Dealership of Hayward and other community leaders and organizations. City of Hayward Read more
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SFO Says Passengers Should Prepare For Hours-Long Waits At Security Amid Surge In Travel
Travelers showing up at San Francisco International Airport have been finding longer, slower-moving security lines than they’ve anticipated over the last several days, leaving some to fret over whether they’ll make their flights. Airport officials notified airlines to advise their passengers they may have to wait “longer than usual” to get through the Transportation Security Administration checkpoints at SFO due to “very high levels of passenger activity,” according to an email sent out Tuesday by American Airlines.
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UCSF’s Wachter Says His Wife Now Likely Has Long COVID And Her Health Is 'Not Great"
Dr. Bob Wachter, UCSF’s chair of medicine, says his wife, Katie Hafner, is doing “not great” weeks after getting COVID-19 and is suffering brain fog and other symptoms. Providing an update on Hafner's condition following the journalist and author’s positive test in May, Wachter said in a lengthy Twitter thread Monday that “many people ask how my wife fared after her COVID case — we truly appreciate the concern. The answer is: not great.” Five weeks post-infection, Hafner is likely suffering from the symptoms of long COVID, including fatigue and periodic headaches, he said. SF Chronicle Read more
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COVID Vaccine/Treatment News |
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FDA Advisers Vote In Favor Of Authorizing Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine For Ages 6-17
Vaccine advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration decided unanimously Tuesday in favor of expanding the emergency use authorization of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine to include older children and teens, ages 6 to 17, saying it would offer more benefits than risks. All 22 members of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee voted “yes” in response to two questions of whether the benefits of the vaccine — when given as two 100-microgram doses for ages 12 to 17 and two 50-microgram doses for ages 6 to 11 — outweigh its risks, based on the available scientific evidence. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was authorized for children aged 5 to 11 in October, and approval for teenagers preceded that by months.
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Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine's Safety Slightly Bests Pfizer's
An observational study in JAMA Internal Medicine reports a slightly better safety profile for the Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccine than for the Pfizer/BioNTech version in U.S. veterans, but both vaccines had very good safety profiles. CIDRAP Read more
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3 Ways Novavax’s COVID-19 Vaccine Is Different
A new vaccine could soon be available to millions of U.S. adults who still have not been inoculated against COVID-19. A panel of independent vaccine experts recommended on June 7 that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorize a two-shot vaccine from the Maryland-based biotech Novavax. If the agency gives it the green light and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) signs off on its use, the vaccine would join three others that have been available to most U.S. adults for a little more than a year now. The main difference between the Novavax vaccine and the already-approved and widely used vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna is the technology behind the shots. AARP Read more
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Pfizer Says COVID Pill Wasn't Effective For Standard-Risk Patients
Pfizer on Tuesday said a study showed its COVID-19 pill Paxlovid didn't significantly reduce the risk of hospitalization or death in people with a standard risk of developing severe infections. The results could mean the antiviral could be largely limited to high-risk patient populations, where it's been shown to be effective. Pfizer said it was halting enrollment in the study of standard-risk patients after Paxlovid showed a 51% risk reduction, which the company called "non-significant." Axios Read more
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A New Test Can Help Reveal If You're Immune To COVID-19
How much protection do you currently have against COVID-19? The answer depends on so much: whether you’ve already had COVID-19 (and if so, how long ago); whether you’ve been vaccinated (and if so, how many times, and how recently); whether you have any medical conditions that could weaken your immune system; and so on. Even antibody testing only approximates immunity to COVID-19, so there’s no simple way to know. But an international group of researchers recently developed a different tool to help assess COVID-19 immunity: a blood test that can measure T cells, white blood cells that work alongside virus-fighting antibodies to mount an immune response. Their work is described in a new study published in Nature Biotechnology. Time Read more
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State/National/International News |
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Newest Omicron COVID-19 Lineages Gaining Ground In United States
We’re still in the Age of Omicron, but the face of it keeps changing. The United States appears to be in the midst of another biological baton pass between COVID-19 variants. The Omicron lineage BA.2 and its spinoff, BA.2.12.1, drove cases this spring, building into waves of infections in places like the Northeast and parts of California. Now, two other forms of Omicron, BA.4 and BA.5, are eating into the BA.2 group’s dominance. More than 1 in 5 COVID-19 infections last week were caused by BA.4 and BA.5, according to updated estimates posted Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up from 13% the week prior. The rest of the cases are from the BA.2 lineages. STAT Read more
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Dr. Anthony Fauci Tests Positive For COVID
Dr. Anthony Fauci has tested positive for COVID-19, the National Institutes of Health said Wednesday, marking the first time the nation’s leading expert on infectious disease is known to have contracted the virus. Fauci is experiencing “mild symptoms” and isolating as he works from home, the NIH said. He has been fully vaccinated and boosted twice in line with public health guidance. The NIH noted that Fauci has not been in recent close contact with President Joe Biden or “other senior government officials.” HuffPost Read more
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One Year After California's Reopening, "Wily" COVID Still Stymies Return To Normal
June 15, 2021, dawned cool and carefree across the Bay Area, where for the first time in well over a year, it finally looked like there might be a way out of the COVID-19 pandemic — and it might not be too far off. California officially “reopened” that day last year, dropping almost all public health restrictions that had been keeping people mostly at home and preventing the economy from humming back to life. Coronavirus cases were at their lowest levels since the pandemic’s earliest weeks. Hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID had plummeted. Nearly half of all Californians were considered “fully” vaccinated — a remarkable achievement just six months after the vaccines had been authorized. Reality has played out quite differently. COVID has proved an especially stubborn opponent, rivaling the most infectious pathogens on the planet. But it’s also become a more familiar foe, and one that most Californians are reluctantly learning how to live with. SF Chronicle Read more
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Will The U.S. Overcome Its COVID Complacency Even As The Threat Returns?
A few months ago, it seemed as though the country was poised to finally tame the pandemic, after two years of restrictions and tens of billions in government spending. The Biden administration in March released the first national COVID-19 preparedness plan to help Americans safely “return to normal,” a strategy to live with the continued presence of the virus and the emergence of new variants. The pandemic response has become mild-mannered and performative, backed by neither money, urgency, nor enforcement. Kaiser Health News Read more
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Study On Child Hepatitis Cases Points To Prior COVID Infection, But Experts Say Too Soon To Know
A new study points to prior COVID-19 infection as a possible culprit for the global wave of severe hepatitis cases among children -- though experts caution the true cause is still a medical mystery. Researchers in Israel added evidence for the theory in a small study published in the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, suggesting some children might develop liver inflammation in the weeks after recovering from a mild COVID-19 infection. While the root cause of the pediatric hepatitis outbreak is still unknown, experts say the leading theories include COVID-19 infection, infection with a common cold virus, or an interplay between the two infections, according to Dr. Alok Patel, a pediatric hospitalist at Stanford Health and an ABC News medical contributor. ABC News Read more
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More California Homeowners Now Eligible For COVID Mortgage Relief
More struggling California homeowners now qualify for mortgage relief, after the state on Tuesday expanded a program designed to help those who have fallen behind on their payments during the COVID-19 pandemic. Homeowners who missed payments this year now are eligible for aid that previously was offered only to those who missed at least two payments before Dec. 27, 2021. The funds also now can be used to help with past-due property taxes, even for those whose mortgage payments are current, or for those who own their homes outright. And the state has upped the income limit to qualify — homeowners now are eligible for assistance if they make 150% or less of their county’s median income. Mercury News Read more
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Long-Haul Travelers Are Wary About The U.S. Dropping Testing Requirements
The travel industry applauded the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s decision to lift the COVID-19 testing requirement for people entering the United States, but some travelers were wary. In Asia, where flights to the United States can stretch well beyond 12 hours, people with trips planned said they were worried they would be at greater risk of contracting COVID on planes. NY Times Read more
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CDC Adds 3 Destinations To "High" Risk List, Including Mexico
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday placed three new destinations in its "high" risk category for COVID-19, including a North American travel behemoth - Mexico. In April, the CDC overhauled its ratings system for assessing Covid-19 risk for travelers. The Level 3 "high" risk category is now the top rung in terms of risk level. Level 2 is considered "moderate" risk. Level 1 is "low" risk. CNN Read more
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Total Confirmed Cases
Bay Area: 1,499,941
California: 9,851,436
U.S.: 85,817,389
Alameda County
Primary Vaccine Series Completed: 86.5%
Total Cases: 297,349
Total Deaths: 1,903
Test Positivity (7-day rate): 10.8%
Hospitalized Patients (as of 6/16): 124
ICU Beds Available (as of 6/16): 96
The community level of COVID-19 in Alameda County is high based on cases and hospitalizations, according to the most recent update from the C.D.C. on June 9. The numbers of hospitalized COVID patients and deaths in the Alameda County area have risen. NY Times
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Total Reported Deaths
Bay Area: 8,519
California: 91,793
U.S.: 1,012,099
Contra Costa County
Primary Vaccine Series Completed: 86.8%
Total Cases: 216,234
Total Deaths: 1,322
Test Positivity (7-day rate): 13.4%
Hospitalized Patients (as of 6/16): 101
ICU Beds Available (as of 6/16): 62
The community level of COVID-19 in Contra Costa County is high based on cases and hospitalizations, according to the most recent update from the C.D.C. on June 9. The number of hospitalized COVID patients has risen in the Contra Costa County area. Deaths have remained at about the same level. NY Times
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Getting A Second Booster? 5 Tips To Improve Your Immune Response
If you are 50 or older, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now recommends a second COVID-19 booster shot of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or the Moderna vaccine at least four months after getting the first booster. If you are planning to do so, there are a few things you can try — or avoid — to improve your body’s response to the booster and potentially give yourself better protection against the disease. AARP Read more
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- COVID-19 testing is a good idea, but keep in mind, people who test negative can still harbor the virus if they are early in their infection.
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A viral test tells you if you have a current infection.
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An antibody test might tell you if you had a past infection.
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Over the past week, Alameda County has averaged 736 new cases and 1 new deaths per day.
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Over the past week, Contra Costa County has averaged 548 new cases and 1.6 new deaths per day.
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Top 10 Locations of Cases in
Alameda County, cumulative
as of 6/16/2022
Oakland: 85,903
Hayward: 37,023
Fremont: 31,640
San Leandro: 18,034
Berkeley: 17,051
Eden MAC: 16,274
Livermore: 14,537
Union City: 12,995
Alameda: 10,764
Castro Valley: 10,437
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Top 10 Locations of Cases in
Contra Costa County, cumulative
as of 6/16/2022
Richmond: 30,778
Antioch: 28,088
Concord: 23,334
Pittsburg: 18,113
San Pablo: 13,053
Brentwood: 12,939
Walnut Creek: 11,438
Oakley: 10,617
San Ramon: 10,405
Martinez: 7,435
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About Eden Health District |
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The Eden Health District Board of Directors are Chair Mariellen Faria, Vice Chair Pam Russo, Secretary/Treasurer Roxann Lewis, Gordon Galvan and Ed Hernandez. 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.
We welcome your feedback on our bulletin. Please contact editor Lisa Mahoney.
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