COVID-19
breaking news & updates
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Don't Cancel Holiday Plans Due To COVID But Take Precautions, Local Doctors Say
With Christmas less than a week away, doctors at UCSF say there is no need to cancel any holiday plans due to COVID, but people should take precautions to limit the spread.
"We have vaccines, we have Paxlovid," said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, Doctor of Infectious Disease at UCSF. "It is not just COVID but there is also the flu and RSV. If people would like to avoid getting sick, then the usual tasks of masking, getting vaccinated and avoiding large crowds should be considered." It has been a few years since the COVID-19 virus severely limited how people gathered for the holidays. People in Walnut Creek say they are ready for this year to feel the most "normal" compared to previous ones. "We have elderly family members that we don't get to see very often so we all got to fly down for the first time which was really fun," said Nora Angus, who is visiting from Oregon. ABC7 News Read more
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Local Camp For People With Disabilities Seeks To Reopen After Three Years Of COVID Closure
Every year in California, hundreds of thousands of children head off to summer camps. They ride horses, sing songs, go swimming, roast marshmallows around campfires, sleep in cabins, meet new friends and form memories that last a lifetime. For generations, a week at overnight camp has been part of growing up. But only a handful of camps are set up for kids with disabilities. Often they can make an even larger difference, boosting confidence and self-esteem. Michael Griggs knows. He was a teenager in a wheelchair, born with cerebral palsy. He was depressed. He felt aimless and sorry for himself when his family encouraged him to visit Camp Harmon, a 40-acre camp in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Boulder Creek that has served people with disabilities since its founding in 1964. East Bay Times Read more
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A Double-Decker Bus Is Taking Health Services Directly To Farmworkers In Half Moon Bay
Farmworkers in California were hailed as the unsung heroes of the COVID-19 pandemic who played a critical role in keeping grocery stores stocked with food, despite being one of the hardest-hit communities in the state, with higher rates of infection as well as mental health challenges amid crowded living conditions and limited access to health care. In the Bay Area coastal community of Half Moon Bay, advocates have launched an effort to help agricultural workers facing continued challenges from the ongoing pandemic — such as difficulty taking time off from work for medical appointments — by delivering some essential services directly to them. SF Chronicle Read more
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Oakland's Holy Names University To Shut Down After 154 Years, Citing Challenges From COVID-19
A venerable 154-year-old Catholic university in Oakland is preparing to shut down at the end of the spring semester, citing a jump in administrative costs and declining enrollment after the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. Holy Names University issued advance warnings of possible mass layoffs Dec. 1, while also handing notices to 32 employees the institution expects to lay off at the end of January or in early February. Officials are also set to disband Holy Names’ sports programs once the season wraps up in the spring. SF Chronicle Read more
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COVID Vaccine/Treatment News |
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FDA Eyes Updating Vaccines To Better Target Changing Virus
Federal regulators are considering whether today's COVID-19 vaccines are sufficiently protective or may need updating to fight emerging generations of the coronavirus. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's vaccine advisory committee plans to meet Jan. 26, along with CDC and National Institutes of Health officials to consider “whether and how the composition of currently available primary vaccines should be modified,” and whether booster shot composition and schedules should be adjusted to attack 0evolutionary virus strains. “COVID-19 vaccines remain our best available protection against COVID-19, particularly the most devastating consequences of the disease, including hospitalization and death,” an FDA release stated. SF Chronicle Read more
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What Kind Of COVID Antivirals Can I Take? Here Are Options As California Cases Remain High
California has seen a surge in COVID-19 cases this winter, and while there are early signs that it peaked, health officials are urging people who are positive and at higher risk of severe disease to seek treatment as soon as possible. The daily COVID case rate is 21.6 per 100,000 residents, according to a weekly update on Dec. 15 from the California Department of Public Health. This is an increase of 7% from the previous week. Test positivity rates are slowly going down, going from 11.5% last week to 11.1%. As of Dec. 1, there’s only one antiviral treatment for COVID that’s approved by the Food and Drug Administration — Remdesivir, according to the National Institutes of Health. The popular drug, Paxlovid, also known as Ritonavir-boosted nirmatrelvir, is also another treatment option, but it’s not FDA approved and has an Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA instead. Sacramento Bee Read more
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COVID-19 Treatment Paxlovid Has Been Free So Far. Next Year, Sticker Shock Awaits
Nearly 6 million Americans have taken Paxlovid for free, courtesy of the federal government. The Pfizer pill has helped prevent many people infected with COVID-19 from being hospitalized or dying, and it may even reduce the risk of developing long COVID. But the government plans to stop footing the bill within months, and millions of people who are at the highest risk of severe illness and are least able to afford the drug — the uninsured and seniors — may have to pay the full price. PBS Read more
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State/National/International News |
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Tips For Making Holiday Gatherings Safer (Or Deciding When To Skip Them)
This year’s holiday season arrives as the flu, respiratory syncytial virus — RSV — and multiple strains of COVID-19 are circulating. Sacramento County has high community COVID-19 transmission — a CDC metric meaning the county has at least 100 new cases per 10,000 people in the past 7 days — again, meaning holiday gatherings run the risk of being superspreader events. And anecdotal shortages of children’s cold and flu medicine along with filled pediatric hospitals can make it difficult to get speedy treatment for sick children. “It’s still important to avoid catching COVID-19,” said Dr. Noha Aboelada from Roots Community Health Center in Oakland. “We’re learning more about the cumulative nature of the harms of repeat infection … people are catching COVID-19 and having strokes or heart attacks within the month following acute infection, even if that infection was mild.” CapRadio Read more
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Fauci’s Parting Advice To The Country: Stick To The Science
Long before the bobbleheads and the “Fauci ouchie,” Dr. Anthony Fauci was a straight-shooter about scary diseases — and “stick with the science” remains his mantra. Fauci steps down from a five-decade career in public service at the end of the month, one shaped by the HIV pandemic early on and the COVID-19 pandemic at the end. In an interview with The Associated Press, Fauci said he leaves excited by the prospect of advances such as next-generation coronavirus vaccines — but worried that misinformation and outright lies mark a “profoundly dangerous” time for public health and science. Mercury News Read more
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CVS, Walgreens Limit Purchases Of Children’s Pain-Relief Medicine
Increased demand has led CVS and Walgreens to limit purchases of children’s pain-relief medicine, the companies confirmed to CNN on Monday. CVS is restricting both in-person and online purchases to two children’s pain relief products. Walgreens has limited online purchases to six over-the-counter fever reducers per transaction, but it does not have an in-store purchase limit. "Due to increased demand and various supplier challenges, over-the-counter pediatric fever reducing products are seeing constraint across the country,” Walgreens said in a statement. The limits were put into place “in an effort to help support availability and avoid excess purchases.” CNN
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Maybe Consider Not Kissing That Baby
Barack Obama did it. Donald Trump did it. Joe Biden, of course, has done it too. But each of them was wrong: Kissing another person’s baby is just not a good idea.
That rule of lip, experts told me, should be a top priority during the brisk fall and winter months, when flu, RSV, and other respiratory viruses tend to go hog wild (as they are doing right this very moment). “But actually, this is year-round advice,” says Tina Tan, a pediatrician at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Rain, wind, or shine, outside of an infant’s nuclear family, people should just keep their mouths to themselves. Leave those soft, pillowy cheeks alone! The Atlantic Read more
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Long COVID Patients Can Face A Battle Trying To Claim Benefits Through Their Workplace Disability Insurance
Mike Yada remembers the day in August 2020 when it became clear that his unusual symptoms — which emerged after a mild case of COVID-19 earlier in the year — were worsening. “I went for an easy hike, but by the end I was so winded that I couldn’t walk back to my car,” said Yada, who, pre-Covid, would have easily traversed the flat terrain near the beach. He had to call an Uber for the one-mile ride back to his parked car. That was the start of what Yada, 48, calls “crazy symptoms.”CNBC Read more
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BF.7: What to know about the Omicron COVID variant Spreading In China
Since the COVID variant Omicron emerged in late 2021, it has rapidly evolved into multiple subvariants. One subvariant, BF.7, has recently been identified as the main variant spreading in Beijing, and is contributing to a wider surge of COVID infections in China. But what is this new variant, and should we be worried? Although reports from China about this variant's characteristics are concerning, it doesn't appear to be growing too much elsewhere in the world. Here's what we know. BF.7, short for BA.5.2.1.7, is a sub-lineage of the Omicron variant BA.5.
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Can I Get COVID-19 And The Flu At The Same Time? What About COVID And R.S.V.?
It is possible to get multiple infections at once. Researchers have found cases of people testing positive for both COVID-19 and the flu since the beginning of the pandemic. While respiratory syncytial virus infections are not as common in adults as they are in children and seniors, it is also possible for someone to have COVID and R.S.V. — or any other viral infection, for that matter. “But it’s not as common as we thought it might be,” said Dr. Michael Chang, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston. NY Times Read more
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U.S. Taps Stockpile To Increase Supply Of Flu Drug
The United States has released doses of the antiviral flu drug Tamiflu through a national stockpile for the flu season amid surging demand, the health department said on Wednesday. The country is seeing a spread in influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) as temperatures fall, presenting a triple epidemic threat along with COVID-19 during the year-end holiday period. Hospitalizations caused by the influenza virus hit a decade high earlier this month, according to federal data. Reuters Read more
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Local Teacher Created A Mental Health Check-In Chart For Her Students And Now Teachers Around The World Are Doing The Same
A teacher has come up with a clever idea to ensure her students have a safe place to share their feelings. Erin Castillo, an educator at John F. Kennedy High School in Fremont, California, created a mental health check-in chart for her students. Now, she's inspiring teachers around the globe to make their own versions of the chart for their classrooms. "I never expected it to get beyond my following," Castillo told "Good Morning America" of her chart, which was originally posted on her Instagram page. "To see this being used in multiple countries around the world, having [teachers] reach out from New Zealand and Africa...to hear actual stories of people helping their students, I'm really overwhelmed with joy." Yahoo! Read more
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Harmful Content On Eating Disorders, Suicide Can Pop Up In Minutes on New TikTok Account, Study Finds
TikTok recommends potentially harmful content related to self-harm and eating disorders to some young teenagers within minutes of them creating an account, a new report released Dec. 15 found. In the study, researchers from the non-profit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) set up TikTok accounts posing as 13-year-old users from the United States and several other countries. Within 2.6 minutes after joining, users were recommended content related to suicide, the report found. Eating disorder content was recommended within 8 minutes, it showed. Every 39 seconds on average, TikTok recommended videos about body image and mental health to teens, the report shows. Healthline Read more
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Fentanyl Crisis/Drug Trends |
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DEA Seized Enough Fentanyl To Kill Every Person In The U.S. In 2022
The Drug Enforcement Administration said Tuesday it has seized more than 379 million potentially fatal doses of illegal fentanyl this year, as Mexican drug-trafficking organizations continue to flood the United States with the cheap synthetic opioid responsible for record numbers of U.S. overdose deaths. The agency said it has confiscated more than 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder and 50.6 million illegal fentanyl tablets so far in 2022. That was twice the number of tablets seized in 2021, when more than 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses. Two-thirds of those deaths were caused by fentanyl, according to U.S. public health data. Washington Post Read more
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California Bill Seeks To Fight Overdose Deaths By Requiring Libraries, Bars To Carry Narcan
Assembly Member Matt Haney knows firsthand how fast and easy access to opioid reversal medication can mean the difference between life and death for overdose victims. Haney said he was walking in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood over the spring when he saw a man on the sidewalk in the grips of an overdose. He rushed to the stranger’s side and began yelling for someone to find Narcan, the lifesaving medication. The man got lucky as a bystander had a dose. Haney inserted the nozzle into the man’s nostrils and pressed the plunger. He said the man sprang back from the brink of death seconds later. SF Chronicle Read more
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"Magic Mushrooms" Would Be Decriminalized In California Under New Bill
The possession and personal use of certain psychedelic drugs such as “magic mushrooms” and ayahuasca would be decriminalized in California under a bill introduced Monday backed by mental health professionals and veterans groups. Supporters of Senate Bill 58 say that the legislation is a step toward ending California’s “war on drugs” and that decriminalizing psychedelics could pave the way for better treatment options to alleviate substance use disorders and other health issues such as anxiety and depression. The bill will likely face opposition among law enforcement groups, which have raised concerns in recent years with the possible public safety risks associated with hallucinogens. LA Times Read more
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Assisted Living Facilities Pressed To Address Growing Needs Of Older, Sicker Residents
Assisted living communities too often fail to meet the needs of older adults and should focus more on residents’ medical and mental health concerns, according to a recent report by a diverse panel of experts. t’s a clarion call for change inspired by the altered profile of the population that assisted living now serves. Residents are older, sicker, and more compromised by impairments than in the past: 55% are 85 and older, 77% require help with bathing, 69% with walking, and 49% with toileting, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics. Kaiser Health News Read more
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Total Confirmed Cases
Bay Area: 1,847,231
California: 11,698,626
U.S.: 100,130,777
Alameda County
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the Latest Figures
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Total Reported Deaths
Bay Area: 9,456
California: 98,142
U.S.: 1,088,947
Contra Costa County
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the Latest Figures
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Face Masks Are Still A Good Idea. Here Are The Best Ones To Stock Up On
In anticipation of potential coronavirus surges this winter, the Biden administration is once again offering free COVID tests and making contingency plans to provide personnel and equipment in the event any health systems are overwhelmed. If you want to err on the side of caution or go that extra mile to help protect the immunocompromised people in your life, but your mask stock has been dwindling, take this opportunity to replenish your stash just in time for your holiday dinners, New Year’s parties or winter travel plans. HuffPost 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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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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