COVID-19
breaking news & updates
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January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month
January is Human Trafficking Awareness and Prevention Month, a presidentially designated observance designed to educate the public about human trafficking and the role they can play in preventing and responding to human trafficking. Read about efforts by Dr. Kimberly Chang, family physician and Director of Trafficking and Healthcare Policy at an Alameda Health Consortium community health center, Asian Health Services in Oakland, to address this crisis. Alameda Health Consortium Read more
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COVID Test Resources
Food Pantries
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Bay Area COVID, Flu, RSV Cases Finally Dropping
Cases of COVID, the flu, and RSV have been dropping and while health leaders say it’s a good sign, we’re not out of the woods yet. "We are seeing rates in our wastewater, and the number of people getting sick, are coming down for all three diseases,” said Dr. Sarah Rudman, Santa Clara County deputy health officer. Heath leaders say wastewater samples are one of the best indicators of future trends. In the South Bay, hospitalizations are also down 30% from a month ago “RSV peaked in November. Our flu numbers look like they peaked about a month ago and are heading in the right direction,” said Rudman. NBC Bay Area Read more
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UCSF's Wachter Says He Will Mask "Likely Forever" In Some Situations
In his most recent COVID-19 risk analysis for his social media followers, UCSF’s Chair of Medicine Dr. Bob Wachter said he is once again ready to let down his guard. “I’m changing my behavior. In the Bay Area, I’m now OK with indoor dining & removing my mask for small group gatherings,” he said in a long Twitter thread posted on Thursday. “I haven’t changed, the risk has.” He said with infection rates falling below 10 cases per 100,000 people in the region and hospitalization levels relatively low in San Francisco, the “trend line certainly supports the premise that there’s less virus around than last month.” SF Chronicle Read more
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Downtown S.F. Still Has North America’s Weakest Pandemic Recovery
Downtown San Francisco continues to have the weakest recovery from the pandemic out of 62 North American cities as of November 2022, with only 31% of its fall 2019 activity, based on mobile phone data, a new study shows. In sharp contrast, the Central Valley cities of Bakersfield and Fresno saw activity from September to November 2022 surpass 2019 levels, with the second- and third-strongest recoveries on the continent. Bakersfield saw 125% of 2019 activity and Fresno saw 121%. Only Salt Lake City saw a higher rate, at 135%. SF Chronicle Read more
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Share The Warmth
Donations of gently used coats of all sizes are needed. Drop coats off at:
Ashland Community Center (1530 167th Ave, San Leandro): Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., through the end of January
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COVID Vaccine/Treatment News |
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Were Bivalent Boosters Worth It?
In early September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended updated COVID-19 boosters for all Americans 12 and over. The “update” was a broadening of the vaccines’ target: In addition to aiming for the initial strain of the virus, the new boosters would also take aim at the spike protein present on newer Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2, BA.4 and BA.5. The hope was that the new boosters (called “bivalent,” for the two strains) would provide additional protection, priming the immune system to recognize a much-mutated virus that had grown better at evading the immune system and reinfecting people.VOX Read more
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What Older Americans Need To Know About Taking Paxlovid
A new coronavirus variant is circulating, the most transmissible one yet. Hospitalizations of infected patients are rising. And older adults represent nearly 90% of U.S. deaths from COVID-19 in recent months, the largest portion since the start of the pandemic. What does that mean for people 65 and older catching COVID for the first time or those experiencing a repeat infection? The message from infectious disease experts and geriatricians is clear: Seek treatment with antiviral therapy, which remains effective against new COVID variants. Mercury News Read more
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Is It Time For A Reality Check On Rapid COVID Tests?
As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its fourth year, a negative result on a little plastic at-home test feels a bit less comforting than it once did. Still, you dutifully swab your nostrils before dinner parties, wait 15 minutes for the all-clear and then text the host "negative!" before leaving your KN95 mask at home. It feels like the right thing to do, right? Some experts caution against putting too much faith in a negative result. NPR Read more
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COVID Vaccine Card Scam Alleged; Kids Duped With Saline Shots, Investigators Say
A Utah plastic surgeon and four co-defendants allegedly conducted a scheme in which they sold almost 2,000 fraudulent COVID vaccine cards, using the lot numbers of vials they emptied down the sink. The five were indicted last week by a federal grand jury in Salt Lake City on charges including conspiracy to defraud the United States, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Utah. From October 2021 to September 22, prosecutors say, the conspirators distributed 1,937 vaccination record cards, requesting cash payment of $50 or a “donation” to a specified charity. They had vials of COVID-19 vaccine — hundreds of doses that the doctor had ordered from the Centers for Disease Control — but instead of administering it, they would note the vial number on the card and dump the solution, the court documents say. With children, they would allegedly administer a saline shot so the young recipients would believe they’d been vaccinated.
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State/National/International News |
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Monica Ghandi: COVID Is Endemic. Here Are Five Things We Can Do To Keep It That Way
On Sept. 18, President Biden famously said “the pandemic is over.” He very quickly followed that up by saying: “We are doing a lot of work on it.” These notions may sound contradictory, but they are indeed the way to approach the concept of endemicity; combating COVID-19 will take ongoing and hard work. Saying we are exiting the emergency phase, which the World Health Organization also signaled in September, does not mean COVID is over. Unfortunately, COVID will never be over. This virus is not eradicable. SF Chronicle Read more
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These 11 People Still Haven't Had COVID. They Share Their Secrets
Three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of Americans have had COVID at least once, with the new immune-evasive XBB.1.5 subvariant driving up the numbers of new cases and reinfections. Even the lucky few who still haven’t gotten the novel coronavirus may have actually had it before; in many cases, “never COVIDers” (or “Novids,” if you prefer) have contracted the virus but weren’t aware because they had mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. One large study found around 40% of COVID cases are asymptomatic. “In fact, a lot of studies looking at antibody levels have found the presence of COVID antibodies in people who never claim to have been infected,” said Dr. Scott Roberts, an assistant professor of infectious diseases at Yale School of Medicine. That said, Roberts and other medical experts say that “never COVIDers” do exist: They may be naturally immune or have been more diligent than others in social distancing practices and vaccinations. HuffPost Read more
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California Is One Of 4 States With High Flu Activity
California is among the states being hit hardest by flu, according to the most recent data, but its numbers have improved steadily since Thanksgiving. The Centers for Disease Control report for the week ending Jan. 14 puts four states in the range of high flu activity: New Mexico, California, North Dakota and Texas. The District of Columbia and New York City are also in that category. California had been in the “very high” category from mid-November until the end of December. The slider bar at the top of the interactive map above allows display of the map since the start of October. The CDC data is drawn from reports of “influenza-like illness” — respiratory illness that includes fever plus a cough or sore throat. Mercury News Read more
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LA County Moves Into CDC’s "Low" Category For COVID
Thanks to the declining hospitalization numbers, Los Angeles County moved out of the federal government’s “medium” COVID activity level and into the “low” category on Thursday, Jan. 19. Earlier this week, the county dipped below 1,000 COVID-related hospitalizations, according to state records. Experts hope the week’s double dose of good news indicates that the deadly pandemic is on the wane after a winter surge and concerns that tricky new variants were more likely to spread more swiftly through the population in the weeks after rekindled holiday travel and family gatherings.
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Trying To Stop Long COVID Before It Even Starts
Three years into the global fight against SARS-CoV-2, the arsenal to combat long COVID remains depressingly bare. Being vaccinated seems to reduce people’s chances of developing the condition, but the only surefire option for avoiding long COVID is to avoid catching the coronavirus at all — a proposition that feels ever more improbable. For anyone who is newly infected, “we don’t have any interventions that are known to work,” says Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist and long-COVID researcher at Yale. Some researchers are hopeful that the forecast might shift soon. The Atlantic Read more
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Nurses Are Burned Out And Fed Up. For Good Reason
It is enraging but not particularly surprising that our health care system is failing the most essential of its workers. Nurses are the keystone holding up our rickety and raggedly uneven health care system. We desperately need more of them, but we have created a health care system — indeed, a broader society — that, as if by design, devalues them and takes them for granted. Like workers in other female-dominated professions in the care economy, nurses are spoken of, often with a whiff of condescension, as heroes. But just like teachers, social workers, health aides, day care workers and mothers, we sure don’t treat them that way. Mercury News
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China Says COVID Outbreak Has Infected 80% Of Population
The possibility of a big COVID-19 rebound in China over the next two or three months is remote as 80% of people have been infected, a prominent government scientist said on Saturday. The mass movement of people during the ongoing Lunar New Year holiday period may spread the pandemic, boosting infections in some areas, but a second COVID wave is unlikely in the near term, Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said on the Weibo social media platform. Hundreds of millions of Chinese are traveling across the country for holiday reunions that had been suspended under recently eased COVID curbs, raising fears of fresh outbreaks in rural areas less equipped to manage large outbreaks. CNBC Read more
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Fresh Ideas About The Causes Of Depression Are Bringing New Treatments
Last year, one of our most commonly held ideas about depression was turned upside down. “Antidepressants study casts doubt on drugs taken by 8 million people,” The Times newspaper stated in July. Other publications ran similarly alarming headlines. Depression is one of the biggest medical problems facing societies worldwide, treatments have long been controversial and here was research showing that Prozac and other common antidepressants are based on a defunct hypothesis about what causes the condition. The study’s lead researcher even went as far as to suggest that any benefits from such medicines come from a placebo effect. NewScientist
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NFL Has Been Slow To Embrace Mental Health Support For Players
When Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest and collapsed on the field in the middle of the “Monday Night Football” game in Cincinnati on Jan. 2, Carrie Hastings, half a continent away, understood what she needed to do — and right away. “I had a few guys that I sort of immediately knew I should check in on,” said Hastings, the Los Angeles Rams’ sports psychologist and mental health clinician. “A couple of spouses and significant others, too.” Kaiser Health News Read more
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Dementia: Could Poor Mental Health In Middle Age Increase Risk?
According to the World Health Organization, there are currently 55 million people worldwide living with dementia, with nearly 10 million new cases being diagnosed each year. To lower the risk of dementia in a population, researchers must understand what causes dementia. Several studies have looked at the association between psychological distress — an umbrella term that encompasses symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress — and dementia. However, the link between the two remains unclear.
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Fentanyl Crisis/Drug Trends |
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"Fentanyl Is A Historic Foe": New Data On S.F. Fatal Drug Overdoses Suggests Where Epidemic Is Headed
San Francisco’s drug crisis shows no sign of abating, with 2022 nearly as deadly as the prior year, new data on fatal overdoses reveals. Throughout the year, 620 people fell victim to the epidemic, according to new figures released Wednesday by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner — a slight dip from the year prior when 640 people died of an overdose. The city’s death toll, which is largely driven by fentanyl, still remains troublingly high, though this is the second year that the number of deaths dropped. Still, fatal overdoses fell by nearly 12% from a peak in 2020 to 2021; but between 2021 and 2022, they dipped only slightly, by 3%. SF Chronicle Read more
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Easing Prescription Rules For Opioid Treatment Meds Did Not Increase Overdose Deaths, Study Finds
A new study shows that reducing restrictions on buprenorphine, a medication that can treat opioid use disorder, did not lead to an increase in overdose deaths involving the treatment. The findings may help allay concerns that making buprenorphine more widely available could lead to more overdose deaths. Buprenorphine and similar medications, like methadone and Suboxone, are opioid agonists that reduce withdrawal symptoms and cravings. Compared to methadone, buprenorphine has a lower potential for misuse and overdose, making it the most accessible of all the options, but it remains "substantially underused," the study says. CBS News Read more
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Total Confirmed Cases
Bay Area: 1,891,940
California: 11,957,408
U.S.: 102,006,329
Alameda County
Check the Dashboards Below for
the Latest Figures
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Total Reported Deaths
Bay Area: 9.593
California: 99,685
U.S.: 1,104,118
Contra Costa County
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the Latest Figures
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Is It a Cold? The Flu? Or COVID?
It starts with a sniffle, then it moves to a cough. Maybe you get a sore throat or achy muscles, or spike a fever. Is it a cold? Perhaps the flu? Could it be COVID? It’s been three years since COVID-19 burst on the scene, adding yet another virus-causing illness that could be to blame for your feeling crummy. After all, the common cold, the flu and COVID-19 share a similar list of symptoms. Further complicating the guessing game are the COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, which can fight off some of the disease’s most severe symptoms, making it even more difficult to identify the culprit behind a mild cough or scratchy throat. AARP 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 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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