COVID-19
breaking news & updates
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October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Checklist for Recovery After Mastectomy
Did you know that 1 in 8 women in the United States will develop breast cancer in her lifetime? According to the American Cancer Society, when breast cancer is detected early, and is in the localized stage, the 5-year relative survival rate is 99%. Early detection includes doing monthly breast self-exams, and scheduling regular clinical breast exams and mammograms. The National Breast Cancer Foundation provides help and inspires hope to those affected by breast cancer through early detection,
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COVID Test Resources
Food Pantries
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A Stunning 300 New COVID Variants Are Circling The Globe. Which Ones Will Break Through In The Bay Area?
The new variants are coming. And right behind them, our third COVID-19 winter. But we’re unlikely to see the ghosts of Christmases past, say experts, because these newcomers look a lot like the current virus. And our growing immunity is softening and shortening infection, limiting disease and hospitalization. “We’ll see a surge” as people move indoors, especially if vaccination and masking rates remain low, said UC San Francisco epidemiologist George Rutherford. But, so far, there’s “no evidence … that these variants cause more severe disease.” Mercury News Read more
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Stanford Set To Lift COVID-19 Masking Requirement Today
Stanford University says it will lift its COVID-19 masking requirement for students in the classroom starting today. While masking will no longer be mandatory campus-wide, individual instructors will have the option to require it. The university said the level of COVID-19 cases is now low enough to ease restrictions in class and on the school shuttles. NBC Bay Area Read more
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Bay Area Sees "Eviction Tsunami" As Pandemic Renter Protections End
Evictions are soaring since state and local pandemic protections lapsed over the past year, with cases across the core five-county Bay Area more than doubling, according to a Bay Area News Group analysis of court data. From July 2021 through June 2022, the region saw more than 6,300 eviction filings. The surge began when many emergency tenant protections were rolled back in September 2021, and it has spiked even higher as statewide safeguards were progressively lifted, expiring altogether at the end of June. During that time, eviction cases skyrocketed across Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco and Contra Costa counties. The exception was Alameda County, where local tenant protections remain in place. Despite the lower numbers there, by this summer, the region saw over 1,000 eviction court filings in both June and July alone. East Bay Times Read more
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Not Just COVID: Cases Of Winter Illnesses Already Increasing Among Kids Across Bay Area
Hospitals across the country are seeing an increase in what are usually winter-related illnesses already in the month of October. Don't let our current warm weather fool you, cold and flu season is already upon us. While COVID fears are plateauing for some, doctors are warning the community about the early reemergence of certain seasonal illnesses. "This particular surge of standard winter viruses that's occurring in October is unusual," Stanford Children's Health Critical Care physician Dr. Alan Schroeder said. Locally, Dr. Schroeder says his hospital is also seeing an unseasonable increase in illnesses. "Not only quite a bit more RSV, but quite a bit more of the other standard winter viruses as well," Dr. Schroeder said. "Something called rhinovirus is something we've been seeing for a good six weeks or so. And then the RSV surge has really been the last couple of weeks." ABC7 News Read more
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COVID Vaccine/Treatment News
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COVID Vaccines Will Be On The 2023 Vaccine Schedule, But That Doesn’t Mean They’re Required In Schools
COVID-19 vaccines will be part of recommended immunization schedules in 2023 for both children and adults, after a unanimous vote by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. That doesn’t make the vaccines mandatory for anyone, a point that was emphasized in a discussion before Thursday’s vote. The board members addressed concerns from the public that adding COVID-19 vaccinations to the schedule would force schools to require the shots. “We recognize that there is concern around this, but moving Covid-19 to the recommended immunization schedule does not impact what vaccines are required for school entrance, if any,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, a committee member and director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Mercury News Read more
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The Bivalent Shot Might Lay You Out
For as long as my marriage lasts, my household will be divided by reactions to vaccines. I am, fortunately, speaking of physical reactions rather than ideological ones; my partner and I are both shot enthusiasts, a fact we verified on our first date. But if my immune system is a bashful wallflower, rarely triggering more than a sore arm in the hours after I get a vaccine, then my spouse’s is a party animal. Every immunization I’ve watched him receive — among them, four doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine — has absolutely clobbered him with fevers, chills, fatigue, and headaches for about a full day. When he got the flu shot and the bivalent COVID jab together a few weeks ago, he ended up taking his first day off work in more than a decade. As usual, the same injections caused me so few symptoms that I wondered if I was truly dead inside. The Atlantic Read more
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Pfizer Says COVID-19 Vaccine Will Cost $110-$130 Per Dose Once U.S. Stops Buying The Shots
Pfizer will charge $110 to $130 for a dose of its COVID-19 vaccine once the U.S. government stops buying the shots, but the drugmaker says it expects many people will continue receiving it for free. Pfizer executives said the commercial pricing for adult doses could start early next year, depending on when the government phases out its program of buying and distributing the shots. The drugmaker said it expects that people with private health insurance or coverage through public programs like Medicare or Medicaid will pay nothing. The Affordable Care Act requires insurers to cover many recommended vaccines without charging any out-of-pocket expenses. ABC News
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State/National/International News
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"We Need To Be Prepared For This": COVID Nightmare Variant Spreading, Already In U.S.
XBB, the new so-called "nightmare" COVID-19 variant, is spreading rapidly in parts of the world and has already made its way to the U.S., researchers say. XBB is a variant of Omicron and has been dubbed the "nightmare variant" in Singapore. It is extremely immune evasive and has also shown that it might be immune to current vaccines. "The XBB variant wave in Singapore will soon be their 2nd worst for the pandemic," Dr. Eric Topol, founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, tweeted. "The reinfection rate prior to the wave was 5% and now up to 17%, which tells us about the immune escape properties of this variant (akin to BQ.1.1, very high level of immune evasion)." NBC Boston Read more
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Omicron Subvariants Pose A New Threat To People With Immune Deficiencies
People with compromised immune systems face a new winter of discontent as the ever-mutating Omicron virus threatens to outrun the preventive monoclonal antibody cocktail that hundreds of thousands of them have relied upon for extra protection against COVID. Troubling recent reports reveal the emergence of new Omicron subvariants that not only evade AstraZeneca’s Evusheld, the antibody drug authorized to prevent COVID infection, but also the sole antibody drug that has retained effectiveness as treatment for COVID, Eli Lilly’s bebtelovimab. NBC News Read more
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CDC Director Rochelle Walensky Tests Positive For COVID-19
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and prevention tested positive for COVID-19 Friday night, the agency announced Saturday. Walensky is up to date on her vaccines and is experiencing mild symptoms, according to the CDC. She is isolating at home and will participate in her planned meetings virtually, the CDC said in a statement. ABC News Read more
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What Europe’s COVID Wave Means For The U.S.
Winter is coming. Again. For the past two years, colder temperatures have brought seasonal COVID upticks, which turned into massive waves when ill-timed new variants emerged. In Western Europe, the first part of that story certainly seems to be playing out again. Cases and hospitalizations started going up last month. No new variant has become dominant yet, but experts are monitoring a pair of potentially troubling viral offshoots called BQ.1 and XBB. “We have the seasonal rise that’s in motion already,” says Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of Bern, in Switzerland. If one of these new variants comes in on top of that, Europe could end up with yet another double whammy. The Atlantic Read more
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Latest Omicron Subvariant Can Reinfect People Who Had COVID
A new study claims that the latest omicron subvariant can reinfect people who have been vaccinated or already been infected with COVID. The study in the New England Journal of Medicine discovered that omicron subvariant, BA.4.6, can reinfect individuals by escaping the antibodies produced through infection or vaccination. The subvariant only accounts for 12% of COVID cases nationwide and it’s far from the last subvariant we’ll see in the coming months. “They’re all kind of duking it out, it’s like sibling rivalry,” said UCSF Infectious Disease Expert Dr. Peter Chin-Hong. Chin-Hong called these new subvariants, which include BQ.1 and BF.7 the “grandchildren” of the omicron variant. But he said the combination of recent waves of infection and high vaccination rates in the Bay Area should mean fewer hospitalizations compared to last year. NBC Bay Area Read more
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Federal COVID Funding Is Ending. What You Need To Know If You Have Medicare, Medi-Cal, Private Insurance Or No Insurance
The U.S. government has spent billions battling the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Biden administration has announced that it expects to end the purchase and free distribution of everything from COVID tests to vaccines because cases are dropping and funding is drying up. The implications for California residents – and those in other states – are significant. The Kaiser Family Foundation has looked at how different groups of Californians will be affected by these changes and provided analysis.
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The Main COVID Symptoms Have Changed, Research Shows
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, patients have reported dozens of different symptoms, ranging from cold and flu-like symptoms to more unique ones, including “COVID tongue.” But like all viruses, the primary symptoms associated with COVID have changed and can vary based on your vaccination status, according to a new list released last week. Researchers have found that for participants in all three groups — fully vaccinated, those who received just one dose, and unvaccinated — four of the five most commonly reported symptoms are the same: sore throat, runny nose, persistent cough, and headache.
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COVID Linked To Rise In Pregnancy-Related Deaths
COVID-19 drove a dramatic increase in the number of women who died from pregnancy or childbirth complications in the U.S. last year, a crisis that has disproportionately claimed Black and Hispanic women as victims, according to a report released Wednesday. The report lays out grim trends across the country for expectant mothers and their newborn babies. It finds that pregnancy-related deaths have spiked nearly 80% since 2018, with COVID-19 being a factor in a quarter of the 1,178 deaths reported last year.
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It’s Gotten Awkward To Wear
A Mask
Last week, just a couple of hours into a house-sitting stint in Massachusetts for my cousin and his wife, I received from them a flummoxed text: “Dude,” it read. “We are the only people in masks.” Upon arriving at the airport, and then boarding their flight, they’d been shocked to find themselves virtually alone in wearing masks of any kind. On another trip they’d taken to Hawaii in July, they told me, long after coverings became optional on planes, some 80 percent of people on their flight had been masking up. This time, though? “We are like the odd man out.” The Atlantic Read more
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If You Had COVID, Several Of Your Organs Could Be Aging 3-4 Years Faster
After over two and a half years of COVID research, scientists are seeing the first data points that prove a dramatic change in human organs after a COVID infection. "You can start thinking about getting COVID as almost as an accelerant to aging. The viral infection accelerates the aging process in people," said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center at Washington University in St. Louis and the chief of research and education service at Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System.
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Monkeypox Outbreak Leaves Risks, Questions in Its Wake
As a global outbreak of monkeypox loses steam, disease researchers said they need a better understanding of how the virus spreads, and how well vaccination protects against it to predict whether it could come roaring back. A global outbreak that gained momentum in May spread the virus much farther than it had been found previously. The virus might have reached new animal hosts, increasing the risk of future outbreaks, said epidemiologists and infectious-disease specialists. The extent to which vaccination has protected the most at-risk people from catching monkeypox is unknown. “We can’t get lulled into this sense that monkeypox has disappeared,” said Jason Kindrachuk, an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba with a focus on emerging viruses.
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Total Confirmed Cases
Bay Area: 1,773,644
California: 11,322,413
U.S.: 97,054,958
Alameda County
Primary Vaccine Series and Boosted: 69.0%
Total Cases: 349,726
Total Deaths: 2,030
Test Positivity (7-day rate): 5.2%
Hospitalized Patients (as of 10/20): 64
ICU Beds Available (as of 10/20): 89
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Total Reported Deaths
Bay Area: 9,221
California: 96,466
U.S.: 1,066,174
Contra Costa County
Primary Vaccine Series and Boosted: 66.4%
Total Cases: 274,501
Total Deaths: 1,452
Test Positivity (7-day rate): 5.3%
Hospitalized Patients (as of 10/20): 33
ICU Beds Available (as of 10/20): 45
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Cholesterol-Lowering Statins: Do They Help With COVID-19?
Common medications used to lower cholesterol may reduce the severity of COVID-19 and the risk of dying from this disease, a preliminary study suggests. Some previous research has shown similar COVID-related benefits of statins. However, other studies have found that these drugs had little impact on COVID-19 severity or mortality. Additional research, including well-designed randomized controlled trials, are needed to know whether statins will work as a COVID-19 treatment. Healthline 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 10/13/2022
Oakland: 99,076
Hayward: 45,929
Fremont: 38,630
San Leandro: 23,107
Berkeley: 20,583
Livermore: 16,865
Union City: 15,399
Eden Area MAC: 14,989
Alameda: 12,991
Dublin: 12,256
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Top 10 Locations of Cases in
Contra Costa County, cumulative
as of 10/23/2022
Richmond: 37,865
Antioch: 34,804
Concord: 28,654
Pittsburg: 21,659
Brentwood: 17,943
San Pablo: 15,872
Walnut Creek: 14,782
San Ramon: 14,286
Oakley: 13,226
Martinez: 9,909
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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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