COVID-19
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What 3 Years Of Bay Area Google Searches Tell Us About The COVID-19 Pandemic
The Bay Area last week marked three years of living with COVID-19, and many people are still figuring out how to cope with the aftereffects. As in other places around the nation, local residents turned to Google for answers to their questions. But what they searched for over the duration of the pandemic continuously evolved — from general questions about the virus and its initial impact to inquiries about the social and economic implications of COVID-19. Data collected by Google Trends during the three-year period from Feb. 1, 2020 to March 1, 2023 offers a compelling snapshot of the pandemic’s history, including the emergence of variants and vaccines and controversies over masking and mandates. SF Chronicle Read more
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These Nine Charts Show How COVID Transformed S.F. In The Last Three Years
The coronavirus pandemic fundamentally altered San Francisco’s future when, three years ago last Thursday, health officials and Mayor London Breed ordered residents to shelter in place. The health crisis and unprecedented shift to remote work hollowed out downtown and triggered a calamity for residents, business and property owners, transit agencies and city leaders. Devoid of office workers and tourists, restaurants and shops closed permanently and streets were eerily empty. The scars of the pandemic are still visible, with downtown still a shadow of life before the virus. There are scores of empty seats on public transit, and more still among the quiet floors of the city’s office towers. But things are changing. SF Chronicle Read more
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Alameda County’s Answer To Black Maternal Mortality Is Working
The U.S. ranks 55th in the world in maternal mortality rates. Those rates are even worse for Black women, whose maternal mortality rate is more than two times higher than any other racial or ethnic group. Patients and advocates cite lower access to quality care and racism in the medical system as main drivers of these outcomes. A program in Alameda County is providing an answer to that problem. BElovedBIRTH Black Centering, operating through the Alameda Health System, is completely rethinking what birthing looks like for Black folks. The program provides group perinatal care by, for, and with Black people — and it’s leading to better outcomes for the families involved. KQED
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Vaccine/Testing/Treatment News |
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FDA Offers Radio Silence On Question Of Spring COVID Boosters, As Other Countries Push Ahead
Are you six months out from your COVID-19 bivalent booster and wondering when you’ll be able to get another shot? If you live in the United Kingdom or Canada, you already have your answer. The Canadian and U.K. governments, acting on recommendations from expert committees, plan to offer spring booster shots for people at highest risk of getting severely sick from COVID. But in the United States, there’s been radio silence from the Food and Drug Administration on the question of spring boosters, creating frustration among a small but determined group of people who are keen not to have to wait until the autumn to get another dose of COVID vaccine. STAT Read more
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Why Getting A COVID Vaccine In The Nose Might Work Better
Scientists are hopeful a new type of vaccine in development could give us a better shot at fighting COVID-19 — without involving any type of shot at all. Clinical trials are underway for a type of intranasal vaccine, which is administered by spraying into the nose, not injecting into the arm. While current vaccines and boosters are very effective at preventing severe disease and death, the hope is that a nasal vaccine would be even better at preventing mild illness. “These will induce immunity in the mucosa of the nasal pharynx – the site of initial viral replication – and may prevent infection and reduce transmission,” said Dr. William Moss, a professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. KRON4 Read more
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FDA Advisers Endorse Paxlovid’s Benefits As A COVID Treatment
A panel of expert advisers to the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday endorsed Paxlovid as a treatment for adults with COVID who are at high risk for progression to severe illness. The move is likely to lead to full approval of the drug, which has been available under emergency use authorization. The 16-1 vote came after the agency released a new analysis showing that Paxlovid reduced hospitalizations and deaths among both unvaccinated and vaccinated people. Agency researchers estimated, based on COVID rates in January, that Paxlovid could “lead to 1,500 lives saved and 13,000 hospitalizations averted each week in the United States.” NY Times Read more
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State/National/International News |
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The Strongest Evidence Yet That An Animal Started The Pandemic
For three years now, the debate over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic has ping-ponged between two big ideas: that SARS-CoV-2 spilled into human populations directly from a wild-animal source, and that the pathogen leaked from a lab. Through a swirl of data obfuscation by Chinese authorities and politicalization within the United States, and rampant speculation from all corners of the world, many scientists have stood by the notion that this outbreak — like most others — had purely natural roots. But that hypothesis has been missing a key piece of proof: genetic evidence from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, showing that the virus had infected creatures for sale there. Now, an international team of virologists, genomicists, and evolutionary biologists may have finally found crucial data to help fill that knowledge gap. The Atlantic Read more
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Is Long COVID Risk Changing? 50,000 Survey Responses Reveal Key Shift
The risk of long COVID appears to be on the decline. The clue to this extraordinary possibility comes from tens of thousands of responses to U.S. Census Bureau questionnaires that show a shrinking percentage of COVID survivors reporting long COVID symptoms — the persistent, often debilitating effects of the illness that studies have historically shown in about 19% of COVID survivors. Last June, the Census Bureau, in partnership with the National Center for Health Statistics, added questions about long COVID to their “Household Pulse Survey,” a mostly monthly online questionnaire begun in April 2020 to gauge the pandemic’s impact. SF Chronicle
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California’s COVID Misinformation Law Is Entangled In Lawsuits, Conflicting Rulings
Gov. Gavin Newsom may have been prescient when he acknowledged free speech concerns as he signed California’s COVID misinformation bill last fall. In a message to lawmakers, the governor warned of “the chilling effect other potential laws may have” on the ability of doctors to speak frankly with patients but expressed confidence that the one he was signing did not cross that line. Yet the law — meant to discipline doctors who give patients false information about COVID-19 — is now in legal limbo after two federal judges issued conflicting rulings in recent lawsuits that say it violates free speech and is too vague for doctors to know what it bars them from telling patients.
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COVID Worsened A Health Crisis Among Pregnant Women
Tammy Cunningham doesn’t remember the birth of her son. She was not quite seven months pregnant when she became acutely ill with COVID-19 in May 2021. By the time she was taken by helicopter to an Indianapolis hospital, she was coughing and gasping for breath. The baby was not due for another 11 weeks, but Ms. Cunningham’s lungs were failing. The medical team, worried that neither she nor the fetus would survive so long as she was pregnant, asked her fiancé to authorize an emergency C-section. New government data suggest that scenes like this played out with shocking frequency in 2021, the second year of the pandemic. NY Times Read more
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"COVID-Somnia" And The Impact Of Long COVID On Sleep
When Priya Mathew recovered from a mild case of COVID-19 in November, she thought she was out of the woods. Then came long COVID. "At one point I counted 23 symptoms," Mathew told CBS News. "The most alarming ones were shortness of breath, labored breathing, heart palpitations." One of the most crippling symptoms? Insomnia. CBS News
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Novak Djokovic Denied U.S. Entry Over COVID Vaccine Policy
Novak Djokovic has been ruled out of next week’s Miami Open after the Serbian was denied an exemption that would have allowed him to enter the United States despite not being vaccinated against COVID-19, tournament director James Blake said. Being not vaccinated against COVID-19 remains a requirement of international travellers but Djokovic had hoped to be granted special permission to enter the country. Al Jazeera Read more
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Newsom Proposes Bond Measure, Sweeping Mental Health Reform In California
Gov. Gavin Newsom is asking lawmakers and voters to approve sweeping mental health reforms that would commit billions of dollars in state funding for behavioral health-based housing and treatment facilities throughout California. The Democratic governor’s proposal, unveiled Sunday in San Diego, would raise at least $3 billion through a bond measure to fund the construction of new mental health campuses, residential settings and permanent supportive housing. Newsom wants to redirect another $1 billion in funds annually from an existing income tax on top earners to operate the facilities, his office said. LA Times Read more
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Schools Sue Social Media Companies Over Youth Mental Health Crisis
School districts across the country are increasingly taking on social media, filing lawsuits that argue that Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube have helped create the nation’s surging youth mental health crisis and should be held accountable. The legal action started in January, with a suit by Seattle Public Schools, and picked up momentum in recent weeks as school districts in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida have followed. Lawyers involved say many more are planned. San Mateo County, home to 23 school districts and part of Silicon Valley in Northern California, filed a 107-page complaint in federal court last week, alleging that social media companies used advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to create addictive platforms that cause young people harm. Washington Post Read more
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Fentanyl Crisis/Drug Trends |
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Fentanyl Overdoses Reported At Santa Clara County Jails
As the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office contends with a spike in fentanyl overdoses at the Elmwood Correctional Facility in Milpitas, the medical examiner-coroner’s office has identified a 44-year-old inmate who died after apparently coming into contact with the opioid last week at the Main Jail in San Jose. Deputies at the Main Jail were conducting welfare checks around 8:20 a.m. on March 11 when they found 44-year-old Roland Wrigley unresponsive on the floor of his cell, Sgt. Michael Low said in a statement.
Wrigley was given CPR as well as Narcan, a medicine used to counteract an opioid overdose, but he was pronounced dead at the scene a short time later, Low said. Mercury News Read more
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Even Over The Counter, Narcan May Be Too Costly To Reach Many Drug Users
Before month’s end, federal regulators are poised to allow over-the-counter sale of a nasal spray that reverses the potentially lethal effects of an opioid overdose. But groups that work to reduce the toll of drugs on the streets have one question: Will anybody be able to afford it? “It’s a step in the right direction but I don’t think it’s enough,” said Colin Miller, a co-founder of the Twin City Harm Reduction Collective, which hands out sterile needles and anti-overdose medicines to drug users in Winston-Salem, N.C. “No drug user is going into a pharmacy and paying $47 a kit.” Washington Post Read more
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The Best Treatment For Depression? It Could Be Exercise
Exercise as a treatment for severe depression is at least as effective as standard drugs or psychotherapy and by some measures better, according to the largest study to date of exercise as “medicine” for depression. The study pooled data from 41 studies involving 2,265 people with depression and showed that almost any type of exercise substantially reduces depression symptoms, although some forms of exercise seemed more beneficial than others.
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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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About Eden Health District |
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The Eden Health District Board of Directors are Chair Pam Russo, Vice Chair Ed Hernandez, Secretary/Treasurer Roxann Lewis, Mariellen Faria and Surlene Grant. 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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