COVID-19
breaking news & updates
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Eden Health District Announces Grants Program
Community non-profit agencies serving residents of the Eden area (Hayward, San Leandro, Castro Valley, Ashland, Cherryland, San Lorenzo, Fairview, and Hayward Acres) are encouraged to apply for community grants up to $25,000. Key priorities for funding include mental health, housing and homelessness, and food and nutrition. Here is the link to apply: https://ethd.org/grants/application-forms/. Grant applications are due September 30 at noon. Grant awards will be made in December of 2022. Services funded by community grants should start in January of 2023.
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1st Day Of School In Oakland Brings A Sense Of Normalcy
The first bells of the new school year rang in Oakland on Monday and students headed back to campus with a sense of normalcy. For the first time in a long time, students won't need to worry about COVID-19 protocols. No mask mandates. And no vaccine requirements. This time last year, students had to come to school with a face covering. But Alameda County recently lifted its newest indoor mask mandate at the end of June, meaning school districts had about a month to decide if they wanted to relax those rules as well. Oakland Unified still says they strongly recommend a mask indoors, but on school member says he's happy to start the year off without all those requirements. KTVU Read more
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COVID-19 Nasal Spray? Treatment Closer To Reality Thanks To U.C. Berkeley Research
A nasal spray to treat COVID-19 is much closer to reality more than two years into the pandemic, thanks to a team of U.C. Berkeley scientists. The researchers published a study last week in the scientific journal Nature Communications showing a coronavirus therapeutic administered in hamsters and mice's noses was highly effective in treating and preventing infections. Additional experiments are necessary before the treatment, known as antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs), can be approved for human clinical trials. But the scientists are optimistic about ASOs' utility as a readily replicable nasal spray, especially after the group's initial research indicated it's unlikely to produce toxic side effects in people. KCBS Radio Read more
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Frontline Workers at S.F. Monkeypox Clinics See Similarities To COVID Beginnings
On the frontlines in the fight against monkeypox, community clinics across the Bay Area are testing, vaccinating and doing what they can before the window to end the outbreak closes. One clinic in San Francisco, Carbon Health, says the monkeypox battle is very similar to what it saw two years ago with COVID-19. "The volume of testing that we are doing and the number of people who are coming back positive for monkeypox, that's been increasing steadily," Carbon Health's Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sujal Mandavia said. "In fact, over the last week, it almost doubled." NBC Bay Area Read more
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COVID Vaccine/Treatment News |
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What’s Up With America’s COVID Booster Plan?
While the U.S. may have led the charge to develop and deploy COVID vaccines, our efforts to get and stay fully vaccinated have not gone well. As the two-year anniversary of the country’s vaccine rollout fast approaches, the U.S. pandemic response seems stuck at a standstill while the coronavirus keeps adapting and spreading at a startling pace. The U.S. booster-shot drive has been a confusing mess from the start, and as of now, far too many Americans who are eligible for either their first or second booster have not gotten them, weakening the country’s wall of immunity that has so far prevented a big wave of hospitalizations and deaths despite a surge of new cases from more transmissible Omicron subvariants like BA.5. Increasing booster uptake, and expanding the protection those boosters offer by tweaking them for the new variants, is one way to reinforce the wall. Below is everything we know about the Biden administration’s plan to do just that. New York Magazine Read more
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Study: Pfizer COVID Vaccine Efficacy Wanes 27 Days After Dose 2 In Teens
A new study finds waning Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine protection against symptomatic infection in Brazilian and Scottish teens starting 27 days after the second dose amid the Delta and Omicron variant waves, but protection against severe illness was still strong at 98 days in Brazil. The study, published Monday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, analyzed nationwide data from 503,776 COVID-19 tests of 2,948,538 adolescents aged 12 to 17 years from Sep 2, 2021, to Apr 19, 2022, in Brazil, and 127,168 tests of 404,673 adolescents from Aug 6, 2021, to Apr 19, 2022, in Scotland. Protection against severe illness, defined as hospitalization or death within 28 days, was estimated only in Brazil owing to the small number of such cases in Scotland. CIDRAP Read more
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Can COVID Rapid Tests Really Detect If You’re Contagious With New Omicron Variants?
The alarming spread of Omicron subvariants — particularly BA.5, which has quickly become the dominant coronavirus strain in the U.S. — has again put a spotlight on how well COVID-19 rapid antigen tests work at this stage in the pandemic. While some early research and anecdotes have suggested that at-home test kits may not be as good at spotting Omicron’s sneaky subvariants, Bay Area infectious disease experts say the rapid antigen tests are still an effective way to diagnose infection. But they add that variants like BA.5 only drive home the importance of using rapid antigen testing as effectively as possible to avoid a false negative result. SF Chronicle Read more
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Long-COVID Treatments: Why The World Is Still Waiting
Bhasha Mewar has had it with doctors. Over the past two years, Mewar has spent nearly all of her life savings seeing heart and respiratory specialists, haematologists, urologists, dermatologists and more, in a desperate bid to tame her long-COVID symptoms. She has taken a slew of drugs: beta blockers to calm her racing heart, steroid inhalers to ease her laboured breathing and an antimalarial drug prescribed to her for reasons she never fully understood. And when Mewar — a curator at an art museum in Ahmedabad, India, who has been sick since what was probably a bout of COVID-19 in March 2020 — would visit her lung doctor twice a month, he always told her the same thing: you need to exercise. “I can’t even walk to the bathroom,” she would reply. Nature Read more
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State/National/International News |
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Under 60, Healthy, Vaccinated And Boosted? "You're In A Pretty Good Place" With COVID-19
Data obtained by CNN from New York's largest health-care provider indicates you're very unlikely to become severely ill with COVID-19 if you're under age 60, up to date on your COVID-19 vaccines and don't have underlying health problems, backing up a government plan expected to be announced this week that will ease up on coronavirus restrictions. If you're young, healthy and vaccinated, "you're going to be in a pretty good place," said Dr. William Schaffner, a vaccine adviser to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "You're going to be well-protected." CNN Read more
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Californians Are Staying Infected With The Coronavirus For A Long Time. Here’s Why
Health officials recommend that anyone infected with the coronavirus isolate for at least five days. But for many, that timeline is becoming overly optimistic. The isolation period, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shortened in December from 10 days to five, is more a starting point than a hard-and-fast rule in California. According to the state Department of Public Health, exiting isolation after five days requires a negative result from a rapid test on or after the fifth day following the onset of symptoms or first positive test — a step not included in federal guidelines. But many people don’t start testing negative that early. LA Times Read more
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Coronavirus Today: The Isolation Conundrum
There are so many things we still don’t understand about COVID-19, and one of the most perplexing is knowing when it’s safe to stop isolating after a positive coronavirus test. The guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are clear. In most cases, you can rejoin the world after five full days as long as you satisfy two key criteria — you have to be fever-free for at least 24 hours without the aid of medicine, and your symptoms have to have improved since your initial diagnosis. (If you are immunocompromised or you became severely ill, the CDC advises you to isolate for 10 days.) LA Times Read more
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Uber, Lyft Facing Fines For Failing To Provide Drivers With Proper COVID-19 Protections
State workplace safety regulators cited ride-hailing companies Lyft and Uber for failing to provide masks and gloves to their drivers and otherwise prevent the spread of COVID-19, and for excluding drivers from their general injury and illness prevention plans, Cal/OSHA documents show. “This is the first time that a state safety agency has extended workplace protections to gig workers, and challenges the companies’ (claim) that they have no responsibility to ensure safety of drivers,” Rideshare Drivers United, a group which represents thousands of gig workers, some of whom brought the complaints, said in a statement. SF Chronicle Read more
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Dozens In China Infected With New "Langya" Virus Carried By Shrews
Nearly three dozen people in China have been sickened by a newly identified virus from the same family as the deadly Nipah and Hendra viruses, though there’s no evidence the pathogen can be transmitted from person-to-person. The virus, named Langya henipavirus or LayV, was found thanks to an early detection system for feverish people with a recent history of exposure to animals in eastern China. The patients - mainly farmers - also reported fatigue, cough, loss of appetite and aches, with several developing blood-cell abnormalities and signs of liver and kidney damage. All survived. Bloomberg Read more
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"We Don’t Even Agree On How To Define It Yet": It’s Year Three Of The Pandemic And Scientists Still Know Very Little About Long COVID
We’ve entered year three of the pandemic, and experts still know very little about long COVID, including how to cure its symptoms. On July 20th and July 21st, the Global Virus Network hosted the first-ever conference devoted solely to the science of long COVID. There, scientists spoke openly about what is known about the mysterious condition and the questions that remain. For example, researchers are still searching for answers to two key questions: How do we define long COVID? and Will COVID-19 medication like Paxlovid treat long COVID symptoms as well? CNBC Read more
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A "Staggering" Number Of People Couldn't Get Care During The Pandemic, Poll Finds
When the pandemic started, Tomeka Kimbrough-Hilson knew she had a small growth inside her uterus. She was first diagnosed with uterine fibroids back in 2006 and had been able to have the non-cancerous mass removed through outpatient laser surgery. Over the years, she'd also been able to manage her symptoms with medication and changes in her lifestyle. But when those symptoms – a bloated belly, irregular periods, nausea – returned in 2020, Kimbrough-Hilson was unable to get an appointment with a specialist. NPR Read more
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Norwegian Cruises To Drop Vaccination Requirement, Ease Testing Rules
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings will end its vaccine requirement for customers and loosen coronavirus testing rules next month, the company announced Monday. Starting Sept. 3, fully vaccinated travelers who are 12 or older will no longer have to test before boarding a ship on Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises. Washington Post Read more
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Japan To Offer Omicron COVID Shots To People Vaccinated At Least Twice
New COVID-19 vaccines considered effective against the Omicron variant will be available to all people who have completed at least two inoculations from as early as mid-October, the government said Monday.
The bivalent vaccines have been reported to provide some increase in neutralizing antibodies against the BA.5 subtype currently prevalent across the country. The Japan Times Read more
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Three Possible Futures Of The Monkeypox Epidemic
The Biden Administration's decision last week to declare the monkeypox epidemic a public health emergency in the US ought to broaden the government’s power to ramp up its response, to change vaccination strategies, and loosen regulations that restrict availability of drugs and tests. But as much as it’s a hoped-for pivot, it’s also an inflection point. The declaration provides a chance to look at what’s been done so far, assess the opportunities that have already passed us by, and ask what’s the smartest thing to do next. Wired Read more
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There’s Just One Drug To Treat Monkeypox. Good Luck Getting It
The only drug available to treat monkeypox is so difficult to access that just a fraction of the nearly 7,000 patients in the United States have been given it. Health officials have designated tecovirimat, also called Tpoxx, an “investigational drug,” which they say means it cannot be released from the strategic national stockpile without a series of convoluted bureaucratic steps. But most doctors do not have the time or resources to fill out the required 27-page application or to provide the detailed patient information.
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FDA Authorizes Emergency Use Of The Monkeypox Vaccine To Increase Supply
The U.S Food and Drug Administration has issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the current monkeypox vaccine that enables healthcare providers to stretch the current supply up to five-fold. This change involves giving the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine intradermally or in the skin instead of subcutaneously or under the skin, using a fraction of a single-dose vial for each injection. Healthline Read more
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Monkeypox And Your Skin: How To Prevent And Treat Post-Infection Scarring
Last week monkeypox was declared a public health emergency in the U.S. and now with more than 8,900 confirmed cases of monkeypox, thousands of Americans are struggling with a defining feature of the condition, skin lesions. The classic skin lesions of monkeypox start with a pimple-like lesion that can look like pus-filled bumps (pustules) with redness around them. ABC News Read more
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Total Confirmed Cases
Bay Area: 1,695,607
California: 10,856,377
U.S.: 92,461,201
Alameda County
Primary Vaccine Series Completed: 82.5%
Total Cases: 335,019
Total Deaths: 1,968
Test Positivity (7-day rate): 11.7%
Hospitalized Patients (as of 8/10): 153
ICU Beds Available (as of 8/10): 96
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Total Reported Deaths
Bay Area: 8,820
California: 93,919
U.S.: 1,034,948
Contra Costa County
Primary Vaccine Series Completed: 82.9%
Total Cases: 241,949
Total Deaths: 1,388
Test Positivity (7-day rate): 12.4%
Hospitalized Patients (as of 8/10): 116
ICU Beds Available (as of 8/10): 42
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How Do You Manage Omicron BA.5 Symptoms, Including A Sore Throat?
While a sore throat has always been a symptom of COVID, experts said that it is becoming more common, and sometimes more severe, with the BA.5 subvariant of Omicron — now, the dominant strain of COVID in the United States. To soothe an aching throat, “the best approaches are typically what grandma would advise,” said Dr. Michelle Prickett, a pulmonology and critical care specialist at Northwestern Medicine. Staying hydrated is crucial for alleviating inflammation in the throat, she said. NY Times
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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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Top 10 Locations of Cases in
Alameda County, cumulative
as of 8/10/2022
Oakland: 95,488
Hayward: 41,131
Fremont: 36,651
San Leandro: 20,314
Berkeley: 19,256
Eden MAC: 18,055
Livermore: 16,033
Union City: 14,640
Alameda: 12,281
Castro Valley:11,907
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Top 10 Locations of Cases in
Contra Costa County, cumulative
as of 8/10/2022
Richmond: 33,749
Antioch: 31,037
Concord: 26,187
Pittsburg: 19,877
Brentwood: 14,454
San Pablo: 14,258
Walnut Creek: 13,147
San Ramon: 12,238
Oakley: 11,718
Martinez: 8,437
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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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