Masks are once again required when indoors and using enclosed public transportation at Yosemite National Park. Yosemite’s mask mandate applies to all people regardless of vaccination status, with the rules going back into effect this week because of currently high COVID-19 community levels near the national park. As of June 25, Madera County had an 8.8% positivity rate over the past seven days, which is roughly the same rate the county experienced back in February before many mask mandates throughout California were loosened two months later. Mercury News Read more

UC Santa Cruz researchers have compiled more than 10 million genetic variants of the COVID-19 virus from around the world and organized them into a family tree that maps the evolution of the coronavirus. “This scale of data is really unprecedented,” said UC Santa Cruz bioinformatics programmer, Angie Hinrichs. “We’ve never had so many genomes from the same species before. In February 2020, after the first coronavirus strain become available, UC Santa Cruz researchers adapted the design of their existing genome browser and created one specifically to hold and display the collected genetic variants of the COVID-19 virus. Once the browser was built, coronavirus sequences flooded in daily by the thousands from researchers both in the U.S. and internationally. UC Santa Cruz researchers found themselves struggling to manage the massive influx of data. East Bay Times Read more

A panel of independent experts advising the Food and Drug Administration is set to recommend on Tuesday whether to update existing Covid-19 vaccines to target a newer version of the coronavirus in a booster shot that Americans could get in the fall. The federal government is hoping to improve the vaccine to better boost people’s immunity before a likely resurgence of the virus this winter. But in order to move that quickly, it may need to abandon the lengthy human trials that have been used to test coronavirus vaccines over the past two years in favor of a faster process that relies more on laboratory tests and animal trials. NY Times Read more

Pfizer announced Saturday that tweaking its COVID-19 vaccine to better target the Omicron variant is safe and works — just days before regulators debate whether to offer Americans updated booster shots this fall. The vaccines currently used in the U.S. still offer strong protection against severe COVID-19 disease and death — especially if people have gotten a booster dose. But those vaccines target the original coronavirus strain and their effectiveness against any infection dropped markedly when the super-contagious Omicron mutant emerged. NBC News Read more

Children as young as 6 months can now receive a COVID-19 vaccine to protect them against severe disease, hospitalization and death. And they have two choices: One from Moderna and one from Pfizer and BioNTech. Both are mRNA vaccines that induce high levels of virus-fighting antibodies. Both reduce the risk of infection and of transmitting an infection to others. In children, they can reduce the risk of multisystem inflammatory syndrome or MIS-C, and potentially prevent long COVID. But parents may be wondering which one is best for their infants, toddlers and preschool-age children. In short, the two main differences are the dosing schedule and the side effects. Young kids who get Moderna will receive protection quicker, because it is a two-dose course and Pfizer is three doses, and the Moderna vaccine produced more fevers in young kids than the Pfizer vaccine. LA Times Read more

Nearly 20 million lives were saved by COVID-19 vaccines during their first year, but even more deaths could have been prevented if international targets for the shots had been reached, researchers reported Thursday. On Dec. 8, 2020, a retired shop clerk in England received the first shot in what would become a global vaccination campaign. Over the next 12 months, more than 4.3 billion people around the world lined up for the vaccines. The effort, though marred by persisting inequities, prevented deaths on an unimaginable scale, said Oliver Watson of Imperial College London, who led the new modeling study. “Catastrophic would be the first word that comes to mind,” Watson said of the outcome if vaccines hadn’t been available to fight the coronavirus. The findings “quantify just how much worse the pandemic could have been if we did not have these vaccines.” AP Read more

The Biden administration on Thursday rolled out free at-home COVID-19 tests that are designed to be more accessible for people who are blind or visually impaired. White House COVID-19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said the administration will provide more accessible, rapid self-tests to Americans across the country for free through Covidtests.gov, which ships tests through the US Postal Service. The specific USPS form to place orders for CCOVID-19 tests that are more accessible to individuals with low vision or who are blind can be found here. CNN Read more

Case rates for COVID-19 are declining in some parts of California, including Sacramento, but the statewide test positivity rate and virus hospitalizations continue to climb as more evasive and transmissible subvariants of Omicron approach dominance. The state’s test positivity rate has grown to 13%, the California Department of Public Health reported Friday. That’s the highest rate recorded since Jan. 30, and up from 10.4% the previous Friday. Positivity has grown nearly tenfold since April 1, when state health officials reported the metric at 1.4%. Sacramento Bee Read more

When scientists find a new disease-causing virus in humans, the first question they want answered is: Can this thing spread easily from person to person? And if not, will it someday? Avian influenza can infect humans, but it’s not very good at passing from one person to another. Same with the coronavirus that causes MERS, another severe respiratory illness. Though hundreds of cases of both have been reported over the past two decades, neither virus seems inclined to evolve toward efficient person-to-person transmission. SF Chronicle Read more

Women are significantly more likely than men to experience long-term symptoms of COVID-19, a new review suggests. Researchers from Johnson & Johnson's Office of the Chief Medical Officer for Women's Health analyzed data from studies involving 1.3 million patients. The results, published Tuesday in the journal Current Medical Research and Opinion, showed females are 22% more likely to develop long COVID than males. ABC News Read more

More than 330,000 Americans could have been saved during COVID-19 pandemic if the United States operated under a universal health care system – nearly one-third of the total COVID-related deaths – according to a recent study. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA last week found that universal health care would have helped address underlying and pre-existing conditions that contributed to the COVID-related deaths, ultimately saving over 338,000 lives between the start of the pandemic and mid-March 2022. USA Today Read more

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

The United States is amid a months-long ascent of confirmed cases — with no sign of leaders reimplementing mask mandates and two new, potentially more infectious Omicron subvariants rearing their ugly heads — just as summer party season is in full swing. Among the tried-and-true mitigation efforts, like masking and ventilation, testing remains essential, regardless of vaccination status, particularly if you plan on gathering in any capacity. (While risk of infection is much lower for outdoor events, testing is important regardless of whether your party is inside or outside.) Vox Read more