June 1, 2020
Eden Health District COVID-19 Bulletin
"We talk about flattening the curve, but it stands to reason that it’s going to be more difficult to contain in our more low-income communities, and that is likely part of what’s happening right now."
Noha Aboelata, President, Alameda Health System Board of Trustees, 5/31/20
Adopt a High School Senior
Across the country, members of Adopt a High School Senior groups are celebrating and commemorating the Class of 2020, which is unable to enjoy the traditional graduation celebrations in the midst of the pandemic. Within these Facebook groups, members post about a loved one who is graduating, and other members sign up to deliver gifts to the seniors.

In Santa Rosa, Cardinal Newman High School teacher and coach Monica Mertle surprised senior Ben Thornton with swag from the University of Arizona, where he is headed to play wheelchair basketball.
“We’ve lost so much in these last couple months — graduation, prom, senior trip,” Thornton said. “It’s special to me to receive a gift like this from a complete stranger.”
Source: CBS Bay Area News
By the Numbers
CONFIRMED CASES
Alameda County: 3,390

Contra Costa County: 1,450

California: 112,364

U.S.: 1,795,555
REPORTED DEATHS
Alameda County: 96

Contra Costa County: 37

California: 4,174

U.S.: 104,484
Sources: Johns Hopkins University, LA Times & Alameda & Contra Costa Counties Dashboard
For Bay Area trends visit SF Chronicle tracker .
Bay Area News
SF Chronicle, May 31, 2020
New cases in Alameda County jumped more than 30% last week over the one before. Public health officials say that expanded testing explains some of the increase in cases. But not all of the increases can be explained by testing, authorities said. Hospitalization numbers, for example, also have picked up over the past two weeks, and those aren’t influenced by testing.

The case rate varies across the county, and in keeping with statistics in the rest of the United States, communities of color have dramatically higher rates than other areas. Eleven ZIP codes have higher rates than the county average, and all of them have large black and Latino populations. The most affected neighborhoods are in East Oakland and parts of Hayward. Countywide, Latinos have the highest rate of illness: 321 per 100,000 residents. African Americans have the highest fatality rates: 11 deaths per 100,000 residents, which is double the county average.

SFist, May 29, 2020
The 94601 zip code in Oakland, which is home to the largely Latinx Fruitvale district as well as the Fairfax, Jefferson, Melrose, and Jingletown neighborhoods, now has one of the highest per capita rates of COVID-19 cases in the region. According to county data, there are now 309 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the 94601 zip code, which equates to a rate of 553 per 100,000 residents. The highest rate in San Francisco still belongs to the SoMa zip code, 94103, which has had 581 cases per 100,000 residents (a total of 158 cases to date in a population of around 27,000 people).

Mercury News, June 1, 2020
Pastor Larry Ihrig had a message for congregants as he greeted them with elbow bumps Sunday morning at the entrance to the sanctuary at Livermore’s Celebration Church. “Welcome home again, guys. I wish we could hug, but we can’t do any of that.” More than 100 worshipers came out to the church Sunday morning for the first in-person service in more than two months, curtailed in March by the region’s public health orders, put in place nearly two and a half months ago to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Although Gov. Gavin Newsom issued new guidelines to guide the reopening of places of worship statewide, gatherings of any sort, including religious services, were still banned Sunday by local orders in the Bay Area. While the vast majority of religious leaders followed the regulations and  stuck to their online offerings , some decided to reopen their doors on Sunday in defiance of the orders.

East Bay Times, June 1, 2020
Cars are once again creeping along the San Francisco approach to the Bay Bridge during the evening commute, which in the pre-pandemic era was consistently ranked the  most traffic-choked corridor  in the region. By last week, though, crossings had rebounded to about two-thirds of pre-coronavirus levels across the spans. 
Health News
Salt Lake Tribune, May 31, 2020
Reporter Andy Larson recently wrote a widely shared article on how the coronavirus can spread in everyday scenarios . He continues the discussion by reviewing the risk of infection at some summertime favorite places and events like the outdoors and weddings.

Erin Bromage, a Comparative Immunologist and Professor of Biology, May 29, 2020
In a blog post, Professor Bromage explains in a concise, but comprehensive, manner the importance of face coverings in reducing the community spread of the coronavirus.
Science, May 27, 2020
Identifying infected individuals to curb SARS-CoV-2 transmission is more challenging compared to SARS and other respiratory viruses because infected individuals can be highly contagious for several days, peaking on or before symptoms occur. The probability of becoming infected indoors depends on the total amount of SARS-CoV-2 inhaled. The amount of ventilation, number of people, how long one visits an indoor facility, and activities that affect air flow all impact the spread of the coronavirus. For these reasons, it is important to wear properly fitted masks indoors even when 6 ft apart.

NY Times, May 29, 2020
A few viral particles cannot make you sick — the immune system would vanquish the intruders before they could. But how much virus is needed for an infection to take root? What is the minimum effective dose? A precise answer is impossible, because it’s difficult to capture the moment of infection. A higher dose is clearly worse, though, and that may explain why some young health care workers have fallen victim even though the virus usually targets older people.

Negative Long Term Health Impact for Some Covid-19 Survivors
East Bay Coronavirus Cases
Source: SF Chronicle , data as of 5/27/20
by day as of May 31, 2020
by day as of May 31, 2020
Alameda County: 938 new cases over last two weeks. The number of confirmed infections is currently doubling every 26.4 days.
Contra Costa County : 305 new cases over last 2 weeks. The number of confirmed infections is currently doubling every 52.2 days.
Top 8 Locations of Cases in Alameda County, as of 5/31/20
Oakland : 1,183

Hayward: 645

Eden MAC: 219

Fremont: 173

San Leandro: 157

Union City: 128

Castro Valley: 118

Newark: 103
Top 8 Locations of Cases in Contra Costa Alameda County, as of 5/31/20
Richmond: 310

Concord: 139

Antioch: 126

San Pablo: 108

Pittsburgh: 103

Bay Point: 70

Brentwood: 68

Pleasant Hill: 65
California News
Mercury News, May 31, 2020
California had 109,865 confirmed coronavirus cases and 4,143 deaths as of Sunday. That’s about 274 cases and 10.3 deaths per 100,000 residents. The state now has a seven-day average of 2,313 new daily cases, the highest daily average since the start of the pandemic, and 59.6 new daily deaths. New deaths have been slowly declining over the past week after averaging more than 70 new daily fatalities for most of May. But while two-and-a-half months ago it was nearly impossible to tell exactly where people were getting infected with the deadly virus, it is becoming more clear that longterm care homes for the elderly, jails and prisons, food processing plants and social gatherings are the main culprit for repeated outbreaks among Californians.

LA Times, May 30, 2020
There have been questions about whether the state is moving too fast. But Gov. Newsom, whose first-in-the-nation stay-at-home order was crediting with slowing the spread of COVID-19, on Friday made the case for how the state is proceeding. Newsom noted that roughly 50,000 Californians statewide are being tested daily for the coronavirus. Over the past seven days, just over 4% of those tested statewide have been positive, which he called an “encouraging number.” Newsom said that hospitalizations for COVID-19 also have remain stable statewide, and most medical centers have ample capacity.

Politico, May 30, 2020
A sharply divided Supreme Court late Friday turned aside a church's urgent plea that California's coronavirus lockdown orders are putting an unconstitutional burden on religious freedom. Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court's liberals in rejecting a San Diego church's request for relief from Gov. Newsom's most recent directive limiting churches to 25% of their normal maximum capacity, with an absolute maximum of 100 people at any service.

Mercury News, May 31, 2020
California health officials are distributing what’s left of our reserve of the highly coveted remdesivir, the world’s only effective treatment for Covid-19. With demand high and supplies limited by a complex manufacturing process, there are only enough doses of the drug to treat an estimated 800 to 1,440 sick patients until the next delivery in mid to late June.
U.S. News
Associated Press, June 1, 2020
Protests erupting across the nation  over the past week, and law enforcement’s response to them, are threatening to upend efforts by health officials to track and contain the spread of  coronavirus  just as those efforts were finally getting underway. Health experts need newly infected people to remember and recount everyone they’ve interacted with over several days in order to alert others who may have been exposed, and prevent them from spreading the disease further. But that process, known as contact tracing, relies on people knowing who they’ve been in contact with, a daunting task if they’ve been to a mass gathering.

USA Today, June 1, 2020
Across the nation, when the list of coronavirus symptoms is narrowed to what the CDC recently identified as the most serious pairs of ailments, dry cough and difficulty breathing, or fever and loss of taste or smell, Hispanics experienced them almost twice as often as non-Hispanic groups. Overall, 1 in 12 Hispanic households said someone in their home experienced those combinations at least once from late March to late May, compared with 1 in 21 non-Hispanic households. “Data is now emerging that matches the reality that we’re seeing,” said Clarissa Martínez de Castro, deputy vice president of the nation’s largest Latino nonprofit advocacy group, UnidosUS. “There are lots of factors at play, but among the biggest is the overrepresentation of Latinos in frontline jobs that don’t allow working from home.”

Washington Post, June 1, 2020
Nearly 6 in 10 Americans say the coronavirus outbreak has exacted a severe economic toll on their communities, but a majority of a divided country still says controlling the virus’s spread is more important than trying to restart the economy, according to a   Washington Post-ABC News poll . Most Democrats and independent prioritize controlling the coronavirus over restarting the economy. Overall, 42 percent say they personally know someone who has been diagnosed with the coronavirus, a sharp increase from 11 percent who said this in late March.

NPR, May 30, 2020
NPR's analysis finds that in 32 states, including California, plus Washington D.C., blacks are dying at rates higher than their proportion of the population. "We know that these racial ethnic disparities in COVID-19 are the result of pre-pandemic realities. It's a legacy of structural discrimination that has limited access to health and wealth for people of color," says   Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith , director of the Equity Research and Innovation Center at Yale School of Medicine.
A Well-Deserved Sip
When the family of 103-year-old Jennie Stejna learned in late April that she had COVID, they feared that the end was near. Her son-in-law, Adam Gunn, collaborated with the nursing home where she lives so the family could say their goodbyes to her on the telephone.

Overcoming all odds, Stejna pulled through, and in mid-May her test results came back negative. To celebrate, the centenarian enjoyed a cold beer, after which, Gunn noted, “She told the staff to get the hell out of my room, I’m not sick anymore.”

The photo of her enjoying the beer went viral. Stenja is taking her new-found notoriety in her characteristically nonchalant manner, attributing it more to the beer than to her resiliance: “It’s because it’s a cold beer, it’s good,’” said Gunn. Source: Boston Globe
CA Education News
SF Chronicle, May 29, 2020
More than 6 million kids, their parents and their teachers are waiting for word on what it will take for schools to safely reopen in the fall. They didn’t get it Friday. Gov. Newsom was expected to release safety and health guidelines this week, but delayed that, saying state officials were still revising the document. A summary of the draft guidelines,   obtained by The Chronicle , indicated school districts would need to keep students and staff 6 feet apart at all times, install hand-washing stations, and assess students and staff for virus symptoms, including taking temperatures.

Berkeleyside, May 29, 2020
Berkeley Unified leaders confirmed Wednesday that they expect to continue “distance learning” in the 2020-21 school year, reserving school campuses, if they’re permitted to reopen, for “supplemental” uses. The School Board did not officially vote on the educational structure at its Wednesday meeting, but the officials approved a set of “planning assumptions” that COVID-19 will continue to be present in Berkeley, that distance learning will be the core of the academic program, and that configuring school sites for limited use will be a secondary priority.

Courthouse News Service, May 29, 2020
Superintendent Austin Beutner of LA Unified School District and San Diego Unified Superintendent Cindy Marten said in a  joint statement  Friday that while reopening schools is vital for students’ well-being, any reboot must be guided by public health indicators. “A robust system of Covid-19 testing and contact tracing will need to be in place before we can consider reopening schools,” Marten and Beutner said in the statement. “Local health authorities, not school districts, have to lead the way on testing, contact tracing and a clear set of protocols on how to respond to any occurrence of the virus.” The two school districts employ about 90,000 educators and staff combined and serve more than 825,000 students, the statement said.

Cal Matters, June 1, 2020
In California, childhood vaccinations have declined 40% from the previous April, according to the state  Department of Public Health . Pediatricians and school nurses worry that the decline in fully vaccinated children comes as California schools are preparing to reopen, perhaps as early as July. This could lead to outbreaks of measles, whooping cough and other serious infectious diseases this year.
U.S. & International Education News
Mercury News, June 1, 2020
From North Carolina State to Rice to Notre Dame, universities have moved up the academic calendar. Instruction will start in August and end by Thanksgiving. Students will not return until January or February. The idea is “intriguing,’’ said Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist at UC San Francisco and the Director of Public Health within the school’s Institute for Global Health Sciences. “It’s like hurricane preparedness,” he said. “Get the plywood on the windows before storm.”

USA Today, May 31, 2020
Although nearly half of America’s schoolchildren were on free or reduced lunch before the pandemic, school shutdowns eliminated the revenue that came from other children whose families paid for the meals. All told, spending for many feeding programs has outstripped federal reimbursements for the emergency meals. The House’s most recent relief bill allocated $3 billion for child nutrition programs from now through September 2021, but the bill will face heavy challenges in the Senate. 

USA Today, May 29, 2020
In the absence of a vaccine for COVID-19, social distancing and hygiene will be important to limit spreading the virus. The question is how to successfully implement those measures in schools usually filled with crowded hallways, class sizes of more than 30 people and lunchrooms of hundreds. The new   CDC guidance on reopening the economy , a 60-page document released in the third week of May, recommends that schools place desks six feet apart, serve lunch in classrooms, close playgrounds, keep children in the same groups every day and cancel field trips and extracurricular activities. It also recommends daily health checks and temperature screenings of staff and students daily, if feasible.

The Jerusalem Post, May 31, 2020
Students and parents at the Gymnasia Rehavia school in Jerusalem expressed anger at the conduct of both students and the school's administration as the school became one of the epicenters of the newest round of coronavirus outbreaks in Israel, with 104 students, 15 staff members and three parents confirmed as being infected so far. One student at the school, Amit Sason, wrote on Facebook that the school itself neglected to enforce or follow Health Ministry guidelines, putting over 15 students close to each other in each class and not making teachers wear masks.
International News
Agence France-Presse, June 1, 2020
Europe took bolder steps in easing coronavirus lockdowns Monday, with some pubs, tourist sites, pools and schools reopening despite fears of a second wave of infections, while in Latin America new cases piled up past the one million mark.
The pandemic has now killed more than 372,000 million people and infected at least 6.1 million since erupting in China last year, and efforts to halt its spread by imposing restrictions on everyday life have plunged several economies into recession.

T he Guardian, June 1, 2020
Fears that  Iran  is in the grip of a second wave of coronavirus have been reinforced, with the health ministry saying 3,000 new cases were recorded in 24 hours, the highest figure for two months. The Islamic Republic, one of the worst-hit countries in the Middle East, started easing its lockdown in April after a drop in deaths.

BBC, June 1, 2020
Hong Kong police have banned a vigil marking the Tiananmen Square crackdown for the first time in 30 years. Authorities said the decision was due to health concerns over coronavirus. However, there are fears this may end the commemorations, as China seeks to impose a new law making undermining its authority a crime in the territory.

The Guardian, May 30, 2020
As Mexico’s daily death toll rises to become one of the highest in the world, a record 501 fatalities were reported on Tuesday alone, the country is simultaneously preparing to reopen and weathering a politically charged battle over the true scale of the crisis. Latin America’s number two economy registered its first Covid case in late February and has since recorded more than 9,000 deaths and 81,400 cases, although the government admits the true number is probably considerably higher.

Financial Times, May 26, 2020
Denmark was one of the first European countries to close down its public spaces to stem the spread of coronavirus, shutting its borders, schools and restaurants in mid-March. Its swift response seems to have paid off. As Covid-19 cases plummeted, Denmark last month became the first EU nation to reopen primary schools. Its restaurants, hairdressers, shops, museums and zoos have now all followed suit.
Analysis/Opinion
Washington Post, May 31, 2020
The month of May brought a particularly glaring accrual of trauma and grief to black communities across the country, which have been ravaged by the pandemic and its economic fallout. A series of attacks on black people, including several caught on tape and circulated in recent weeks on social media, sent additional waves of pain through communities already suffering through a heavy assault by the novel coronavirus.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, LA Times, May 30, 2020
The black community is used to the institutional racism inherent in education, the justice system and jobs. And even though we do all the conventional things to raise public and political awareness, write articulate and insightful pieces in the Atlantic, explain the continued devastation on CNN, support candidates who promise change, the needle hardly budges. But Covid-19 has been slamming the consequences of all that home as we die at a significantly higher rate than whites, are the first to lose our jobs, and watch helplessly as Republicans try to keep us from voting. Just as the slimy underbelly of institutional racism is being exposed, it feels like hunting season is open on blacks.

The Hill, May 31, 2020
Former FDA Commissioner  Scott Gottlieb  said the “underlying problems” of racial inequity in the U.S. need to be addressed in order to stop the coronavirus pandemic which is impacting communities of color at disproportionate rates. “I think it's a symptom of broader racial inequities in our country that we need to work to resolve,” he said Sunday  on CBS’s “Face the Nation .

Dr. Paula Johnson, President, Wellesley College, CNN, May 31, 2020
The pandemic comes as a reminder of what we stand to lose when diverse voices go unheeded. Women -- and women of color in particular -- are on the front lines of this crisis in disproportionate numbers. Nearly 60% of the 700,000 jobs eliminated in March were held by women, according to data from the US Labor Department.

Washington Post, May 30, 2020
A state-by-state analysis shows that deaths officially attributed to Covid-19 only partially account for unusually high mortality during the pandemic.
Eden Area Food Pantries

We have gathered information on food pantries and food services in the cities of Hayward and San Leandro and unincorporated Alameda County including Castro Valley and San Lorenzo. You can access the information here on our website .

Alameda County has also released an  interactive map  listing food distributions and other social services. 
We are proud to partner with the East Bay Community Foundation in publishing this bulletin. Through donations to its COVID-19 Response Fund, the EBCF provides grants to East Bay nonprofit organizations delivering essential services to those most impacted by the economic fallout from the pandemic.
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The Eden Health District Board of Directors are Gordon Galvan, Chair, Mariellen Faria, Vice Chair, Charles Gilcrest, Secretary, Roxann Lewis and Pam Russo. 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.

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