COVID-19
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A Bay Area School Group Went To D.C. Fifty Kids Came Back With COVID
Marin County eighth-graders got to visit Washington, D.C., last week, renewing a favorite spring break tradition that had been on a two-year pandemic hiatus. But dozens of them returned with more than souvenirs: Over the past two days, about 50 students have tested positive for the coronavirus, swept up in an East Coast swell in COVID cases that has hit high-ranking policymakers and the D.C. elite. “By and large they’re having mild symptoms,” Dr. Matt Willis, the Marin County health officer, said of the infected students. He said about 90% of eighth-graders in the county are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus and half have received booster shots as well. SF Chronicle Read more
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Coliseum Authority Recommends Oakland Drop COVID Vaccine Mandate
Officials with Oakland Alameda Coliseum Authority are recommending Oakland remove or suspend the vaccination mandate. Right now, Oakland requires proof of vaccination to attend mass gatherings or indoor events. Others in the Bay Area have lifted similar mandates. "On February 1st when all of the counties were beginning to relax some of the requirements, Oakland adopted this emergency ordinance," said Henry Gardner, Executive Director of the Coliseum Authority. Gardner and the executive board, which consists of members of the Oakland City Council and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, will meet Friday to discuss a plan asking the city to change the rule.
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Free Flu, COVID-19 Vaccines In Oakley On April 23
Contra Costa County Health Services will be providing free flu and COVID-19 shots on the second and fourth Saturdays of April, May, and June from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. at St. Anthony's Catholic Church, 971 O'Hara Ave., in Oakley. The next scheduled clinic is on April 23. For complete information, visit https://bit.ly/3xeOeZV. The Press
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50,000 Bay Area Renters Waiting For California COVID-19 Emergency Rental Relief Money
Hundreds of thousands of Californians are still waiting for emergency COVID-19 rental assistance, despite the program closing to new applicants at the end of last month. State data shows less than half of the households that applied for rental relief have actually seen funding. While nearly a half million have completed an application, about a quarter million are still considered "under review." KTVU Read more
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VTA Has Hundreds Of Unvaccinated Employees. They May Lose Their Jobs
For months, the Valley Transportation Authority lacked a COVID vaccination requirement, even as the virus surged and every other Bay Area transit agency cracked down. But now that cases have plummeted, it is about to implement a tough policy that could lead to the firing of hundreds of unvaccinated employees. The latest tally provided by the VTA listed 379 employees — nearly 20% of the total workforce — without a single dose of the vaccine. Of these employees, 59 have received exemptions on medical and religious grounds. While some are expected to submit vaccination records this month, the rest face the possibility of losing their jobs in the coming weeks, a move that would exacerbate staffing shortages and could lead to cuts in light rail and bus service in Santa Clara County. Mercury News Read more
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COVID Vaccine/Treatment News |
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America Created Its Own Booster Problems
At face value, boosting should be one of the simplest actions a vaccinated American can take to fight COVID-19: just get one more shot. The very nature of the shots is an encore; at one point, the people who now need them “must have already decided a shot would be worthwhile,” says Van Yu, a psychiatrist at Janian Medical Care, in New York, who’s been working to immunize his city’s homeless population. For many, though, boosting is not about getting just another shot. Experts have not always sold boosters as the same slam dunk as the initial COVID-19 vaccination series; accordingly, unboosted people haven’t treated it as such. The country’s booster problem is the culmination of months of such confusion. It is also an exacerbation of the inequities that plagued the country’s initial immunization efforts. The Atlantic Read more
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COVID Vaccines Didn’t Work For Many Cancer Patients — But Researchers Are Designing A New Shot For Them
A couple months before the pandemic started, Joseph Ford started experiencing a rash of pinpoint polka dots around his lips, ankles, and lower legs. They were itchy, inflamed, painful, and, for him, the first signs of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. “Petechiae,” he explained. Just as he was starting to deal with that, COVID-19 changed the world.
“Go home and stay there,” Ford, a 77-year-old retired librarian in Tumwater, Wash., recalled a physician telling him as COVID hollowed out society. “You won’t survive a COVID infection.” Stat Read more
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COVID-19 Vaccines Carry Low Risk Of Heart Conditions, Studies Find
The risk of developing inflammatory heart conditions after COVID-19 vaccination is relatively low, two large studies found, especially when compared with the heart-related risks from COVID-19 disease itself and from vaccines against other diseases. One study, an analysis of 22 previous studies, found that the risk of the conditions including myocarditis in people who received a COVID-19 vaccine wasn’t significantly different from that for non-COVID-19 vaccines such as those against flu, polio and measles. And the heart risk associated with COVID-19 shots was lower than the risk after smallpox vaccination. The results of the analysis, which included data on the effects of more than 400 million doses of various vaccines, were published online Monday by The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. Wall Street Journal Read more
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New Drug Slashed Deaths Among Patients With Severe COVID, Maker Claims
An experimental drug halved the death rate among critically ill COVID patients who were receiving supplemental oxygen and were at high risk for serious lung disease and death, the drug’s developer announced on Monday. There is a pressing need for new treatments for critically ill patients. Drugs like Paxlovid, made by Pfizer, are aimed primarily at patients who have mild or moderate disease. Other treatments administered to hospitalized patients in serious condition have shown limited effectiveness. NY Times Read more
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CVS, Feds Reach Agreement On Vaccine Portal Accessibility
CVS Pharmacy has reached a settlement with federal prosecutors that will ensure the company’s online vaccination scheduling portal remains fully accessible to people with disabilities, officials said Monday. The U.S. attorney’s office in Rhode Island alleged the company, which operates nearly 10,000 retail pharmacies nationwide, was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act because the portal was not accessible to people who use screen reader software designed for the visually impaired, and to those who have difficulty using a mouse. AP Read more
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Pfizer's Bourla: COVID Vaccines For New Variants Possible For Fall
Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla said on Wednesday that the company could possibly develop a new vaccine that protects against the Omicron variant as well as older forms of COVID-19 by autumn. "It's easy to do something only against Omicron. What is scientifically and technically more challenging ... is to be effective against everything known so far, so you don't have two different vaccines for different variants," Bourla said, speaking at a press conference held by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations. Reuters Read more
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State/National/International News |
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U.S. Extends Face Mask Requirement For Planes, Trains, Buses
Requirement Extended to May 3
Though COVID-19 cases remain low and face mask requirements to slow the virus’ spread have vanished from most public settings, U.S. health officials Wednesday extended for two more weeks the requirement for public transportation that was set to expire Monday, citing concerns about a highly contagious strain of the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the order, which applies to planes, trains, buses, boats, stations, airports, marinas and other and transit hubs, will remain in effect until at least May 3 while it monitors the BA.2 omicron subvariant now responsible for 86% of U.S. cases and a similar share worldwide. East Bay Times Read more
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As U.S. Cases Tick Up, The New White House Covid Czar Says It's Not A Moment To Be "Excessively Concerned"
The new White House COVID-19 response coordinator, Dr. Ashish K. Jha, said Monday that while there had been a recent uptick in new U.S. coronavirus cases, he was not overly concerned. “We’ve got to watch this very carefully — obviously, I never like to see infections rising — I think we’ve got to be careful,” Dr. Jha said on the “Today” show. “But I don’t think this is a moment where we have to be excessively concerned.”
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The City Of Philadelphia Will Reinstate An Indoor Mask Mandate, The First Major U.S. City To Do So This Spring
With new coronavirus cases low but rising sharply in recent days, the city of Philadelphia announced on Monday that it will reinstate an indoor mask mandate a little more than a month after lifting it, becoming the first major U.S. city to do so. “This is our chance to get ahead of the pandemic,” said Cheryl Bettigole, the city’s health commissioner, in a news conference. She acknowledged that the average number of daily new cases, currently at 142, is still nowhere near what it was at the beginning of the year, when the Omicron variant was pushing the seven-day average to nearly 4,000. NY Times
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Most Americans Say COVID Is No Longer A Crisis
Less than one in 10 Americans now describe COVID-19 as a crisis — with about three in four calling it a manageable problem and one in six saying it's no problem at all — according to the latest installment of the Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index. These sentiments — and the public's growing desire to be done with mask mandates and other restrictions — raise significant challenges for public health officials in managing new surges, and could create real political headwinds ahead of the midterms. Axios
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WHO Says It’s Closely Watching China As The Country Grapples With Its Worst COVID Surge
The World Health Organization on Monday said it is monitoring a major surge in COVID cases in mainland China, an outbreak that local officials have attributed to the more contagious omicron BA.2 subvariant. Dr. Kate O’Brien, director of WHO’s immunization and vaccine program, said the agency is in contact with public health authorities in China about its COVID resurgence. WHO officials said they need to monitor the effectiveness of regional lockdowns and the country’s vaccines, but said it doesn’t have enough information to make an assessment yet. CNBC Read more
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Period Poverty Was A Health Crisis Before the Pandemic. Now It’s Worse
When COVID-19 first hit the United States in early 2020, items like toilet paper quickly became a hot commodity. It made Marni Sommer, a Doctor of Public Health and researcher on menstruation, curious if the same was happening with period supplies “I saw the run on toilet paper and thought, ‘well what about menstrual products?’ and noticed people were grabbing those, as well,” she said. “Most of us were staying home at the time and I wondered what that meant for people with perhaps less privacy living in constrained environments to be able to manage their period with dignity.” Healthline Read more
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Heart Complications Are Rare And Treatable In Children After COVID-19
As a novel virus, there is much we still don’t understand about COVID-19, even more than two years into a global pandemic.
However, for parents of children and young adults, there appears to be some positive news. Heart complications arising from COVID-19 are rare and mostly treatable, according to a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association (AHA). Healthline Read more
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Long COVID-19 May Remain A Chronic Condition For Millions
COVID-19 has become a chronic condition for tens of millions of people – and an expensive one, as well. Long COVID – a condition marked by lingering symptoms that can involve multiple bodily systems – has cost a cumulative $386 billion in lost wages, savings and medical expenses in the U.S. alone as of January, according to one estimate. On Tuesday, the Biden administration announced that it was making long COVID a national priority. CNN Read more
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Total Confirmed Cases
Bay Area: 1,298,550
California: 9,136,621
U.S.: 80,502,590
Alameda County
Primary Vaccine Series Completed: 85.3%
Total Cases: 259,498
Total Deaths: 1,860
Test Positivity (7-day rate): 2.3%
Hospitalized Patients (as of 4/13): 56
ICU Beds Available (as of 4/13): 106
As of April 13, cases have stayed about the same recently and are still high. The number of hospitalized COVID patients has fallen in the Alameda County area. Deaths have increased. The test positivity rate in Alameda County is relatively low, suggesting that testing capacity is adequate for evaluating COVID-19 spread in the area. NY Times
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Total Reported Deaths
Bay Area: 8,295
California: 89,531
U.S.: 987,106
Contra Costa County
Primary Vaccine Series Completed: 85.9%
Total Cases: 191,403
Total Deaths: 1,296
Test Positivity (7-day rate): 2.8%
Hospitalized Patients (as of 4/13): 25
ICU Beds Available (as of 4/13): 41
As of April 13, cases have decreased recently but are still high.The number of hospitalized COVID patients has also fallen in the Contra Costa County area. Deaths have remained at about the same level. The test positivity rate in Contra Costa County is relatively low, suggesting that testing capacity is adequate for evaluating COVID-19 spread in the area. NY Times
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When Symptoms Linger for Weeks, Is It Long COVID?
Many Americans are discovering that recovering from COVID-19 may take weeks or even months longer than expected, leaving them with lingering symptoms like intense fatigue or a racing pulse. But does that mean they have what’s known as long COVID? Though such cases may not always amount to debilitating long COVID, which can leave people bedridden or unable to perform daily functions, it is common to take weeks to fully recover. Kaiser Health News 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 72 new cases and 1.7 new death per day.
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Over the past week, Contra Costa County has averaged 43 new cases and 0 new deaths per day.
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Top 10 Locations of Cases in
Alameda County, cumulative
as of 4/13/2022
Oakland: 75,854
Hayward: 33,684
Fremont: 26,494
San Leandro: 15,890
Eden MAC: 14,646
Berkeley: 13,566
Livermore: 13,050
Union City: 11,398
Alameda: 8,952
Castro Valley: 8,906
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Top 10 Locations of Cases in
Contra Costa County, cumulative
as of 4/13/2022
Richmond: 28,122
Antioch: 25,637
Concord: 20,669
Pittsburg: 16,584
San Pablo: 12,002
Brentwood: 11,532
Oakley: 9,624
Walnut Creek: 9,544
San Ramon: 8,267
Martinez: 6,351
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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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