COVID-19
breaking news & updates
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COVID Test Resources
Food Pantries
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Eden Health District Announces Grants Program
Community non-profit agencies serving residents of the Eden area (Hayward, San Leandro, Castro Valley, Ashland, Cherryland, San Lorenzo, Fairview, and Hayward Acres) are encouraged to apply for community grants up to $25,000. Key priorities for funding include mental health, housing and homelessness, and food and nutrition. Here is the link to apply: https://ethd.org/grants/application-forms/. Grant applications are due September 30 at noon. Grant awards will be made in December of 2022. Services funded by community grants should start in January of 2023.
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Santa Clara County COVID Transmission Levels Falling After 3-Month Surge
COVID-19 transmission levels in Santa Clara County have begun to fall for the first time since mid-May, but still remain high due to highly contagious subvariants of the Omicron variant, the county's top health official said Tuesday. Lab-confirmed COVID cases stayed mostly flat for nearly three months throughout the summer, county Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody said during a presentation to the county's board of supervisors. Those case counts were also likely a fraction of the county's true number of active cases, Cody said, due to both asymptomatic cases and cases confirmed only by an at-home test.
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How The Mission’s Latino Leaders Stepped Up To Respond To
COVID-19
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, half of the people testing positive in San Francisco were Latino, though Latinos make up only about 15% of the city’s population. When testing sites and other resources weren’t commensurately located in the heavily affected Mission District, community leaders from nonprofits came together to form the Latino Task Force. The task force pushed the city to provide resources — like tests — and came up with an outreach plan and the infrastructure to deliver it to the community. From knocking on doors to showing up at sports games and street fairs, the Latino Task Force worked to help the community understand the coronavirus and to help struggling neighbors meet their needs. SF Chronicle Read more
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San Jose Church Doesn’t Have To Pay Pandemic Violation Fines, Appeals Court Says
Citing Supreme Court rulings on religious institutions’ rights to hold services during the pandemic, a California appeals court has overturned $190,000 in fines against a San Jose church and its pastors for defying state and county limits on indoor public gatherings. Santa Clara County, however, is still seeking $2.3 million in penalties against the church, Calvary Chapel San Jose, for refusal to require face masks and follow other health precautions during services in late 2020. The county said those fines were not affected by the appeals court’s decision. SF Chronicle Read more
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COVID Vaccine/Treatment News |
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Novavax Seeks U.S. Authorization For COVID Vaccine Booster
Novavax Inc. said on Monday it had filed for U.S. authorization for use of its COVID-19 vaccine as a booster dose in people who had either received its shots or a different vaccine. The application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration comes in the face of a slow rollout in the United States, where the Novavax vaccine was authorized in July, despite expectations that it would convince vaccine skeptics to get inoculated. Reuters Read more
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Should Parents Delay Kids’ Second COVID Vaccine?
Here’s What The Research Says
More than two years into the pandemic, the United States and Canada have become the first nations to approve two mRNA vaccines for children as young as six months. But the vaccines, made by Pfizer–BioNTech and Moderna, have proven less effective against the Omicron variant. So some parents are considering extending the interval between initial doses — a trick that might make the vaccines more potent. Previous studies have found that waiting longer than the three to four weeks typically recommended between the first two shots might boost immunity and lower the risk of side effects. Most studies looked at an eight-week to four-month interval. But no studies or clinical trials have investigated the effect in infants and toddlers. With a new variant, BA.5, sweeping the globe, many scientists think that it is better to fully vaccinate young children sooner, rather than waiting for their second dose and risking infection. Nature Read more
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Why a Century-Old Vaccine Offers New Hope Against COVID And Other Pathogens
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when prevention seemed light years away, several scientists launched trials to see whether a tuberculosis vaccine developed in the early 1900s might protect people by bolstering the immune system. The Bacillus-Calmette-Guerin vaccine has long been known to have broad effects on the immune system, and is still given to infants in the developing world and in countries where TB is prevalent. Scientists observed many years ago that the vaccine seems to train the immune system to respond to a variety of infectious diseases, including viruses, bacteria and parasites, and reduces infant mortality. NY Times Read more
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Biden Administration Will Stop Buying COVID-19 Vaccines, Treatments And Tests As Early As This Fall
The Biden administration has been planning for how to get past the crisis phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and will stop buying vaccines, treatments and tests as early as this fall, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said on Tuesday. "One of the things we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about in the last many months – and we’re going to continue this work, and you’ll hear more from the administration on this – is getting us out of that acute emergency phase where the U.S. government is buying the vaccines, buying the treatments, buying the diagnostic tests,” Jha said at an event sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. “My hope is that in 2023, you’re going to see the commercialization of almost all of these products. Some of that is actually going to begin this fall, in the days and weeks ahead,” he said. CNN Read more
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State/National/International News |
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COVID Public Health Emergency Appears To Be Headed For Extension
The Biden administration appears headed toward extending the COVID-19 public health emergency for another three months, allowing special powers and programs to continue past the midterm election. Health & Human Services had extended the emergency declaration through Oct. 13 and pledged it would give states and health providers 60 days' notice before it ends. Lifting the emergency would bring major policy shifts to insurance markets, drug approvals and telehealth. Axios Read more
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First Lady Jill Biden Tests Positive For COVID-19
First lady Jill Biden has tested positive for COVID-19 while on vacation with the president and their family, according to her office. Jill Biden tested negative on Monday during her routine testing, and then developed "cold-like symptoms" Monday night, according to her communications director, Elizabeth Alexander. "She tested negative again on a rapid antigen test, but a PCR test came back positive," Alexander said in a statement Tuesday morning. ABC News Read more
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The Pandemic’s Soft Closing
A quick skim of the CDC’s latest COVID guidelines might give the impression that this fall could feel a lot like the ones we had in the Before Times. Millions of Americans will be working in person at offices, and schools and universities will be back in full swing. There will be few or no masking, testing, or vaccination mandates in place. Sniffles or viral exposures won’t be reason enough to keep employees or students at home. And requirements for “six feet” will be mostly relegated to the Tinder profiles of those seeking trysts with the tall. Americans have been given the all clear to dispense with most of the pandemic-centric behaviors that have defined the past two-plus years — part and parcel of the narrative the Biden administration is building around the “triumphant return to normalcy,” says Joshua Salomon, a health-policy researcher at Stanford. The Atlantic Read more
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Colleges Ease COVID-19 Restrictions As Fall Semester Begins For Millions Of Students
Millions of students are heading back to college for their third full academic year since the COVID pandemic hit. But as students move into their dorms and sign up for classes this year, things are different. On many campuses, the masking restrictions are gone. Classes are being held in-person, testing requirements are loosening, and quarantine and isolation dorms have been returned to regular housing. College officials say the goal of easing these restrictions is to try and get students back to a more typical college experience. NPR Read more
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The Odds Of Getting COVID From Your Housemate Are "About A Coin Flip"
By this point, the pandemic saga has introduced us to a cast of recurring characters. Among them are the Chill Friend, who is totally over COVID precautions at this point, and the Unlucky Acquaintance, who has had COVID three times and brings it up whenever someone else falls sick. And then there is the Person Whose Roommate Has COVID. You know the type: They’ll describe, in the hushed tones usually reserved for tragic gossip, how and when their live-in friend, partner, child, or whoever came down with the virus — before interjecting, “But I feel fine! … For now.” Nervous laughter ensues. Whether their house is dealing with a blazing-fever situation or a mild-cough one, Person Whose Roommate Has COVID always has the same underlying worry: Am I next? The Atlantic Read more
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Most In New Poll Say They Didn’t Take COVID Precautions Before Vacations
Few Americans who reported taking a vacation in the past three months took extra steps to avoid a COVID-19 infection prior to their trip, according to a new Axios-Ipsos poll. The poll found that exactly half of the respondents reported taking a vacation or trip in the past three months. Of those respondents, 24 percent said they wore a mask indoors more frequently before the trip. Twenty-seven percent said they limited dining and other indoor events, while 22 percent said they limited seeing people outside of their household before their trips. The Hill Read more
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Shanghai COVID: Ikea Shoppers Flee Attempt To Lock Down Store
There were chaotic scenes at an Ikea store in Shanghai on Saturday, with shoppers trying to escape as authorities tried to quarantine them. Health officials were attempting to lock the store in Xuhui district down as a customer had been in close contact with a positive COVID case. Videos show the guards closing the doors at one point, but a crowd forced them open and made their escape. Shanghai endured a severe two-month lockdown earlier this year. Since then, in line with the country's strict "zero-COVID" strategy, the city of 20 million people has ordered flash lockdowns of areas where positive cases or their close contacts have been detected. BBC
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California Monkeypox Response Is Bumpy, But Builds On Some Lessons From COVID
Hundreds waiting hours for a monkeypox vaccine only to be turned away. Residents taking to social media to detail struggles getting diagnosed and treated. State and local leaders demanding federal action. Emergency orders declared. At face value, these details paint the picture of a country and state in crisis, struggling to apply lessons learned from the past two and a half years of COVID-19 response. However, scientists, public health leaders, and physicians who spoke with CalMatters said infrastructure and resources augmented during the COVID-19 pandemic have, in fact, aided the monkeypox response. Still, it has its faults. Mercury News Read more
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Zuckerberg SF General Hospital Opens Its First Weekend Monkeypox Vaccine Clinic
In an effort to vaccinate as many people against monkeypox — a global public health emergency that includes at least 546 cases in San Francisco, which accounts for roughly a quarter of all confirmed or suspected infections in California — as possible, the walk-in vaccine clinic at 1001 Potrero Avenue opened Saturday for its first weekend to immunize patients. SFist
For more information on monkeypox in SF, including eligibility for the vaccine, case counts, vaccine locations, and ways to avoid infection visit sf.gov/monkeypox.
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Does Decades-Old Smallpox Vaccination Protect Against Monkeypox?
Health officials are scrambling to stretch scarce doses of vaccine to slow the mounting monkeypox outbreak, but do older people already vaccinated as kids for the related but deadlier smallpox virus already have protection? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention isn’t betting on it. The U.S. health agency says those exposed to the monkeypox virus “who have not received the smallpox vaccine within the last 3 years should consider getting vaccinated.” And on Monday, the CDC endorsed a strategy of giving the smallpox vaccine under the skin — at a fifth of the usual dose. Mercury News Read more
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Total Confirmed Cases
Bay Area: 1,709,977
California: 10,942,596
U.S.: 93,199,082
Alameda County
Primary Vaccine Series Completed: 82.7%
Total Cases: 337,776
Total Deaths: 1,993
Test Positivity (7-day rate): 9.9%
Hospitalized Patients (as of 8/17): 127
ICU Beds Available (as of 8/17): 110
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Total Reported Deaths
Bay Area: 8,898
California: 94,240
U.S.: 1,038,343
Contra Costa County
Primary Vaccine Series Completed: 83.0%
Total Cases: 243,874
Total Deaths: 1,393
Test Positivity (7-day rate): 11.6%
Hospitalized Patients (as of 8/17): 81
ICU Beds Available (as of 8/17): 55
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High Blood Pressure May Double The Risk Of Severe COVID, Even After Full Vaccination
Having high blood pressure more than doubled a person’s risk for hospitalization from an Omicron-variant COVID-19 infection – even despite full vaccination including a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccines, in an analysis of adults hospitalized with COVID-19 in Los Angeles between December 2021 and April 2022, according to research published in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal. The impact of high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, on severe COVID-19 illness remained even in the absence of other chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, kidney disease or heart failure. American Heart Association 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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Top 10 Locations of Cases in
Alameda County, cumulative
as of 8/17/2022
Oakland: 96,218
Hayward: 41,473
Fremont: 36,989
San Leandro: 20,507
Berkeley: 19,447
Eden MAC: 18,208
Livermore: 16,219
Union City: 14,779
Alameda: 12,424
Castro Valley: 12,022
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Top 10 Locations of Cases in
Contra Costa County, cumulative
as of 8/17/2022
Richmond: 33,990
Antioch: 31,311
Concord: 26,384
Pittsburg: 20,005
Brentwood: 14,594
San Pablo: 14,346
Walnut Creek: 13,281
San Ramon: 12,339
Oakley: 11,830
Martinez: 8,499
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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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