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,

education, and support services. Breast cancer stages

Bay Area health officials are worried that not enough people are rolling up their sleeves to get the updated bivalent COVID-19 booster shots ahead of the upcoming holiday season. “What we’ve seen so far is a very slow and sluggish uptake of these boosters,” Dr. Sara Cody, the Santa Clara County health officer, said at a briefing Monday. “Among those who are eligible, just 11% of people living in our county have gotten their booster shot.” Other counties in the region reported similar numbers or lower, in stark contrast to the robust demand for the initial series of COVID vaccines last year. Health officials have warned of another potentially devastating winter surge — especially as new, immune-evasive virus variants emerge and more people move indoors for social activities — if people let their protection fade. SF Chronicle Read more

The Bay Area, with some of the highest vaccination rates in the country, is just now approaching 1 in 10 residents getting the newest COVID booster shots, nearly six weeks after it was authorized by the FDA. In Alameda County, just 8.57% of residents have received the bivalent booster. That's 144,409 out of 1,685,886 residents. In Contra Costa County, 7.97% of residents have gotten the booster. That's 92,497 out of 1,160,099 residents. East Bay Times Read more

In the North Bay, one county's health officials are sounding the alarm that a new wave of COVID-19 cases may not be far off. Marin County's Public Health Director Dr. Matt Willis urges everyone eligible to get boosted and says the fall surge means masks could make a return in schools and indoor public spaces. "In recent weeks, we've been seeing 25 cases per day, that's now crept up to 30 cases per day," said Dr. Willis. Dr. Willis says he's concerned about the rise in local cases and hospitalizations, he believes the number will continue to rise with increased case rates in the Northeast and in Europe. He says your best defense is the new bivalent booster shot. ABC7 News Read more

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Inside their Glassell Park home, Louis Salazar Jr. gently rubbed the foot of his elderly mother, who lay in bed as a nurse prepared her COVID-19 booster shot. “I’m going to vaccinate you now, OK?” licensed vocational nurse Angela Tapia told the 88-year-old woman, who has Parkinson’s disease and is immobile. Salazar, 64, watched and counted down out loud from the foot of the bed. “Three, two, one — see?” he said as Tapia swiftly applied a bandage. “Perfect.” More than 7,400 people had been vaccinated through the Los Angeles County program targeting homebound residents by late September, according to county data. LA Times Read more

Biden health officials are bracing for the prospect that the country’s sole preventive COVID-19 treatment for immunocompromised people could be ineffective this winter. AstraZeneca’s Evusheld, the only monoclonal antibody authorized as a periodic injection to prevent infection, has become an essential shot for roughly 17,000 Americans with weakened immune systems. But news this month that it is not effective against a steadily climbing coronavirus strain sent health officials racing to game out other antibody options and convene a meeting with patient groups. STAT Read more

The COVID-19 booster market is starting to look more like an annual flu season than it did in the first two years of the pandemic. That's according to Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel, who joined Yahoo Finance's 2022 All Markets Summit to discuss the COVID vaccine outlook. Bancel noted that not everyone is likely to need an annual booster. "I think it's going to be like the flu. If you're a 25-year-old do you need an annual booster every year if you're healthy? You might want to ... but I think it's going to be similar to flu where it's going to be people at high risk, people above 50 years of age, people with co-morbidities," Bancel said. Yahoo! Finance Read more

For two years, coronavirus variants emerged, one by one, sweeping the globe. But this fall and winter are expected to be different: Instead of a single ominous variant lurking on the horizon, experts are nervously eyeing a swarm of viruses — and a new evolutionary phase in the pandemic. This time, it’s unlikely we will be barraged with a new collection of Greek alphabet variants. Instead, one or more of the multiple versions of the omicron variant that keep popping up could drive the next wave. They are different flavors of omicron, but eerily alike — adorned with a similar combination of mutations. Each new subvariant seems to outdo the last in its ability to dodge immune defenses.

Washington Post Read more

Research at Boston University that involved testing a lab-made hybrid version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is garnering heated headlines alleging the scientists involved could have unleashed a new pathogen. There is no evidence the work, performed under biosecurity level 3 precautions in BU’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, was conducted improperly or unsafely. In fact, it was approved by an internal biosafety review committee and Boston’s Public Health Commission, the university said Monday night. But it has become apparent that the research team did not clear the work with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was one of the funders of the project. The agency indicated it is going to be looking for some answers as to why it first learned of the work through media reports. STAT Read more

The CDC bowed to the Trump administration’s demands to change the editorial process of its weekly scientific journal after warnings from then health secretary Alex Azar to “get in line,” a House investigation found. The pressure faced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report‘s procedures was one of several instances of political interference by former President Donald Trump’s aides that the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis identified in a report released Monday. The report was provided to Bloomberg Law ahead of the official release. Bloomberg Read more

Anthony Fauci praised Operation Warp Speed, former President Donald Trump’s campaign to quickly create a COVID-19 vaccine, as “a very positive thing” in an interview Sunday. But what, host Jonathan Karl asked, about the idea that many Trump supporters continue to constitute a majority of the anti-vaccine movement anyway? “It’s weird,” the retiring chief medical adviser to the president said on ABC’s “This Week. In an exit-style interview as he prepares to leave a 54-year career in government service, Fauci said the former president should get credit where it’s due for his administration’s vaccine campaign; however, he also reflected on what he viewed as the more difficult moments of advising Trump. Politico Read more

Whitney Dafoe of Palo Alto hasn’t spoken in nine years. He hasn’t eaten a bite of food or sipped water in nearly as long. But at 39, Dafoe writes eloquently about the debilitating and largely ignored illness he shares with millions. “I like to compare the state I’m in now to staying up for two nights in a row while fasting, then getting drunk,” he wrote on the blog he uses to tell the world about living with his nearly unpronounceable disease: myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, or ME/CFS, for short. “Fatigue is much too mild a word.” Now, ME/CFS is gaining new attention because of the sudden notoriety of a related condition: long COVID. The National Institutes of Health is spending more than $1 billion to uncover the mysteries of chronic, post-COVID symptoms reported by millions of Americans. SF Chronicle Read more

In June, Dr Massimo Galli, a well-known infectious diseases specialist in Italy, disclosed that since contracting COVID in January, he had experienced widespread muscle pain and “a fair amount of fatigue that I did not have before”. The interview, headlined My Long Battle With Long COVID, contained a mea culpa: Galli confessed that he had initially doubted the condition. “With due embarrassment,” he admitted to having believed many long COVID symptoms – including brain fog and cardiovascular issues – to be psychosomatic phenomena. “Now that I’m myself affected, I have to reconsider some of my beliefs,” Galli said. The Guardian Read more

Just a few months ago, it looked like the U.S. had lost its chance to eliminate the spread of monkeypox – that is, stamp out the outbreak and get cases down to zero, except for new infections that come from abroad. Experts worried it was just a matter of time before the virus started spreading more widely in the U.S., especially in settings like daycare centers and college dorms. Now it's clear those concerns did not materialize. Some infectious disease experts are even raising the idea that the U.S. could eliminate the virus. NPR Read more

Since the world began confronting a global outbreak of monkeypox in the spring, the scientific community has had plenty of reasons to rue the fact that for decades this virus has been understudied. Here’s another one: Because of that oversight, doctors treating people who have been infected with monkeypox can’t answer with certainty whether some of them will face any long-term health consequences, referred to as sequelae in the field of medicine. (The word comes from Latin and means “that which follows.”). STAT Read more

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

As the days shorten and people trade their tank tops and shorts for sweaters and tights, the turn of autumn signals another new beginning: the start of flu and cold season, and COVID winter No. 3. According to Dr. Helen Chu, an epidemiologist and infectious-disease physician at the University of Washington School of Public Health, it’s a myth that simply being cold will make you more likely to get sick. But viruses do tend to transmit most efficiently in drier, colder conditions, leading to spikes in winter months. So now is the time to get serious about immune health. NY Times Read more