"My advice is that you take whichever of these three vaccines you are offered. It is WAY better than not being vaccinated!”

The Hayward Fire Department, in a partnership with Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center and the Alameda County Department of Public Health, has established a COVID-19 vaccination site at the Firehouse Clinic on the grounds of Hayward Fire Station 7 in South Hayward. Currently, the site, located at 28300 Huntwood Ave., is offering the COVID-19 vaccine by Moderna to Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center patients and community members who are age 65 and older or work in the healthcare, emergency services, education and childcare, and food and agriculture sectors in accordance with State and County vaccination criteria. Get details on City of Hayward website

The U.S. just added another powerful tool against COVID-19 to its inventory: a third vaccine. This latest piece of good news comes at a time U.S. health leaders say is critical in the country's battle against the virus, as dropping cases begin to plateau and concerns grow over highly transmissible variants. "Starting tonight, 3.9 million doses of J&J will be distributed across all channels, states, tribes, territories and pharmacies and community health centers," one senior administration official said in a Sunday night briefing call. "Those J&J doses will be delivered as early as this Tuesday morning."

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Just over 2.4 million coronavirus vaccinations were reported to the CDC on Sunday, matching Saturday's record-high for inoculations as seen in Bloomberg's vaccine tracker. Over 75 million vaccine doses have been administered thus far, with 7.5% of the population fully vaccinated and 15% having received at least one dose.

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There’s still plenty of confusion and concern around whether coronavirus vaccines protect you from infecting others, but a recent slate of studies suggests that they do. Scientists stress that the benefits are partial, and that vaccinated people shouldn’t throw caution (or their masks) to the wind. But they also say the information can help people who’ve been vaccinated make safe and sensible decisions about getting together with friends and family - especially if they’ve also been immunized. San Diego Union Tribune Read more

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

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors will consider purchasing emergency vaccine equipment during its Tuesday meeting. The Alameda County Health Care Services Agency (HCSA) and their local health systems' partners began administering the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines to residents on February 15 at the COVID-19 Vaccine Mega Points of Dispensing (PODs) in Pleasanton. The agency and its partners requested that the board purchase $47,112 worth of vaccine equipment from Cobalt Equipment, Inc to help maintain the PODs until May 15. San Leandro Patch Read more

After more than a month of plunging coronavirus cases nationally, the numbers have started to flatten and even creep back up, prompting a grim warning from U.S. public health leaders Friday to remain cautious in the coming weeks. The situation was brighter in California and the Bay Area, where cases and hospitalizations continue to fall and counties have begun easing public health restrictions. SF Chronicle Read more

That is when things got ugly. LA Times Read more

About one in seven Californians, 14.8 percent, have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, a positive sign after one of the slowest vaccination rollout starts in the nation. In California, 19.1 percent of residents 18 and older have received at least one vaccine dose, and 6 percent of all residents have received both doses, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. In total, 8,243,711 vaccine doses have been administered in California, 76 percent of the doses delivered, according to the state’s Department of Public Health. Mercury News Read more

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky warned states on Monday that "now is not the time" to lift public health restrictions, as the recent dramatic declines in coronavirus cases and deaths "appear to be stalling." While the average of 70,000 new infections and 2,000 daily deaths is nowhere near the extremely high levels recorded at the start of 2021, the figures are still a poor baseline to "stop a potential fourth surge" - especially with the threat posed by more contagious new variants, Walensky warned. Axios Read more

Might protection from COVID-19 be found in drugs as simple as pseudoephedrine and arthritis medication? Flaxseed and turmeric extract? Fish oil, ibuprofen, nasal spray, Vitamin D? Hopes are high that therapeutics might be hiding in plain sight in the medicine cabinet, but evidence remains sparse as research continues. One year into the pandemic, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved just one drug to treat COVID-19, and its effects are modest. A few others, which mimic the work of natural antibodies, have received emergency use authorization, but those aren’t slam-dunks either. Orange County Register Read more

Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo on Monday became the first recipient of a coronavirus vaccine under the global Covax scheme, as U.S. health workers prepared to distribute nearly four million doses of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson jab. Covax, a scheme designed to ensure that poorer countries do not miss out on COVID-19 vaccines that have so far been largely hoovered up by rich nations, is aiming to deliver at least two billion doses by the end of the year. Raw Story Read more

Six recent studies suggest that people who've already come down with COVID-19 might not need to get a second vaccine dose. The federal government has not changed its recommendation for a second dose, but studies that look at the immune response show that while a first shot gives people who've recovered from COVID-19 a huge boost, the second shot makes little difference. USA Today Read more

People who test positive for COVID-19 but aren't sick enough to need hospitalization are still required to isolate at home. CDC Read more