Health officials in Santa Clara County announced Tuesday that they are now offering the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine, which was recently approved by federal regulators. According to the county's Department of Public Health, the shots will be available at all County Health System vaccination sites. The shots are administered in two doses, given 3-8 weeks apart. Unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines which use mRNA technology, Novavax uses traditional protein-based technology to develop immunity. Officials said both types of vaccines are safe and effective at preventing serious illness and death from the virus. CBS News Read more

Apple is dropping its mask mandates for corporate employees at “most locations,” according to an internal email from the COVID-19 response team, obtained by The Verge. “Don’t hesitate to continue wearing a face mask if you feel more comfortable doing so,” the email reads. “Also, please respect every individual’s decision to wear a mask or not.” The move comes amid a surge in the highly transmissible BA.5 variant of COVID-19. Earlier this week, the Bay Area transit system BART brought back its mask mandate. The Verge Read more

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Renegade.bio, a Berkeley public benefit corporation founded in 2020 to administer COVID tests, has developed a proprietary PCR test for the monkeypox virus and has begun administering the tests locally. The company already has a contract with the California Department of Public Health to test samples of monkeypox at its lab, but has been developing its own test to be used in detection at the early fever stage of the virus. The Business Journals Read more

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), recently announced an agreement to purchase 66 million doses of Moderna’s bivalent COVID-19 vaccine booster candidate for potential use in the fall and winter. This contract announcement follows a recommendation by the FDA last month that vaccine manufacturers update their existing COVID-19 vaccines to create a bivalent booster that can target BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants. The purchase is in addition to the 105 million bivalent COVID-19 vaccine booster doses the U.S. government purchased recently from Pfizer for potential use later this year, pending FDA authorization and a recommendation by CDC. Pending those FDA and CDC actions, HHS would receive the first deliveries of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine booster doses in early fall. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Read more

Around a third of people with COVID will experience a rebound of their symptoms, regardless of whether they’ve been treated with the antiviral Paxlovid, according to a study posted online Tuesday. The preprint study — meaning it hasn’t been published in a peer-reviewed journal — found that 27% of people with COVID saw a rebound in their symptoms after they had initially improved. NBC News Read more

The coronavirus vaccines have been a brilliant success, possibly saving tens of millions of lives. But they haven’t ended the pandemic and their effectiveness has been eroded by the evolution of variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. A new generation of COVID-19 vaccines is needed – but what exactly should this involve? The U.S. plans to roll out boosters that target the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants. New Scientist Read more

As the pandemic continues, the Food and Drug Administration has granted extensions to the shelf life of some at-home rapid antigen tests, causing confusion about whether a test is safe to use. If you find a box of tests that says they’re expired, are they really past their prime? Not necessarily, says Dr. Eli Aronoff-Spencer is an assistant professor of medicine at University of California San Diego and co-leads a NIH grant to develop and commercialize new tests. When test makers took their products to market, they had limited data to show how long they last. KPBS Read more

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday declared a state of emergency in California over the spread of the monkeypox virus in order to “bolster the state’s vaccination efforts.” “California is working urgently across all levels of government to slow the spread of monkeypox, leveraging our robust testing, contact tracing and community partnerships strengthened during the pandemic to ensure that those most at risk are our focus for vaccines, treatment and outreach,” Newsom said in statement. Monkeypox is a rare disease similar to smallpox, though usually milder. It is largely spreading among men who have sex with men as well as transgender and nonbinary people, though health officials warn that anyone can contract the virus through direct contact with infectious sores, scabs or body fluids or by touching clothing and bedding used by a person with the virus. LA Times Read more

There were more than 51,500 confirmed coronavirus reinfections in California in the first three weeks of July. That accounts for at least 1 in 7 of the overall cases in that period, according to data provided to The Chronicle by the California Department of Public Health. State officials say more people are getting infected repeatedly as more immune-evasive subvariants such as BA.5 take hold. At the beginning of the year, about 1 in 20 California cases were confirmed reinfections. “The risk of reinfection over time is influenced by a variety of factors, including characteristics of circulating COVID-19 variants and waning immunity whether from vaccination or prior infection,” the state said. SF Chronicle Read more

“People in the Northern Hemisphere are now neck-deep in a summer of travel—and so, too, are the coronaviruses they’re carrying,” The Atlantic's Science writer Katherine J. Wu reported in early July. As the summer goes on and the coronavirus subvariant BA.5 continues to spread, Katherine says "things are not great right now. Based on the patterns of cases that we’re seeing, it’s pretty clear that we’re at a very high level, probably comparable to what we were seeing in terms of caseloads this past winter—among the worst caseloads of the pandemic." The Atlantic Read more

Students are heading to another school year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but this time, there seem to be fewer discussions and fretting about masks and other mitigation measures - despite a rise of infections sweeping the country. Most of the largest public school districts in the United States are not requiring masks for the new school year, making masking "optional" as students return to classes and the highly transmissible BA.5 subvariant spreads. CNN Read more

There is a petition circulating to allow Novak Djokovic to play at the U.S. Open but the Serbian appears likely to miss the entire North American hardcourt swing barring a sudden change in COVID-19 protocols in the United States and Canada. Djokovic has refused to take the COVID-19 vaccine yet the 21-times Grand Slam winner remains on the entry lists for the ATP 1000 events in Montreal and Cincinnati that serve as tune-ups for the Aug. 29-Sept. 11 U.S. Open in New York. Reuters Read more

Sources: Johns Hopkins University, SF Chronicle, and dashboards for California and Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

Two and a half years and counting. That’s how long the pandemic has wreaked havoc on individuals, communities, health systems and every aspect of our society. With Lollapalooza here and the start of the next school year on the horizon, Dr. Emily Landon, chief health care epidemiologist at the University of Chicago, said isolating/quarantining has become important again with the BA.5 variant being the most dominant strain of COVID-19 in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Chicago Tribune Read more