Eden Health District COVID-19 Bulletin
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“We have this quagmire: We have neither a healthy public nor a healthy economy. We’re in a situation where it’s not safe to open further but nobody feels there is enough justification to close down again”
California State Senator Steve Glazer, 8/6/20
“I had friends of mine, very progressive people, call me up when they saw so many Black people dying from the virus, asking me what’s going on. I said, ‘Wait a minute.’ They had no clue that the health care system has not really been fair or accessible for low-income people, for Black and brown people.”
U.S. Representative Barbara Lee, 8/6/20
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This unsung hero cleans and disinfects the Covid-19 wing |
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Patients might not see Maria Saravia’s smile behind her mask, but it’s there. Saravia visits the rooms of Keck Hospital of USC’s Covid-19 patients to sanitize surfaces, remove trash and hazardous waste and freshen bed linens.
The 56-year-old single mother of three cleans and disinfects the COVID-19 ward from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. six days a week. As an environmental services worker, she takes deep pride in her responsibilities despite the risks.
“My job is to make sure their rooms are clean,” she says. “By doing that and making sure everything is taken care of, I feel like I’ve done my part to help out.”
Saravia starts each day the same way: Her N95 respirator and safety glasses go on first. Then she slips on her gloves, shoe covers and cardinal-and-gold scrub hat. She dons the protection to keep herself safe, of course. But it’s also for her parents, who are in their late 80s. They live with Saravia and her three adult daughters in LA.
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Born in El Salvador, Saravia came to the United States in her early 20s. She joined USC’s environmental services team 18 years ago and has been a dedicated employee ever since — first at USC Norris Cancer Hospital, then Keck Hospital of USC.
Although she sometimes struggles with English, she fights language barriers and strives to connect with every person she visits.“Sometimes they reply, sometimes it’s just a nod or a wave,” she said. “I still try to communicate with them, even if it’s just a simple ‘Good morning.’”
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Alameda County: 12,884
Contra Costa County: 8,760
California: 541,695
U.S.: 4,904,474
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Alameda County: 206
Contra Costa County: 136
California: 10,029
U.S.: 160,437
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California's electronic data systems for reporting case numbers and test results are experiencing technology issues. This means that Alameda and Contra Costa County’s trends for cases, testing, and positivity rates are likely inaccurate due to incomplete reporting. Death rates are not affected as they are reported through different systems. Also, Alameda County has launched a new Covid-19 data dashboard at https://covid-19.acgov.org/data.page?
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Mercury News, August 7, 2020
The California Department of Public Health uses six criteria to determine if there is elevated disease transmission, increasing hospitalizations or limited hospital capacity in a county.
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Testing rate: Below 1.5 per 1,000 population per day over past 7 days
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Case rate: Above 10 per 10,000 population over the past 14 days
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Positivity rate: 8% or higher over past 7 days if 14-day case rate is less than 10 but higher than 2.5 per 10,000
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Hospitalizations: Increase of 10% or more in 3-day average vs. previous 3 days
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ICU capacity: 20% or less beds available
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Ventilator capacity: 25% or less ventilators available
Falling out of line with any one of the six metrics for three days lands a county on the list. To come off, a county has to meet all six markers for three straight days.
Currently, hospitalizations are trending in the right direction in most of the region, but there isn’t one county that meets the per-capita case threshold necessary to come off the list, according to our calculations.
San Mateo County, with a rate of 12.5 cases per 10,000 residents over the past two weeks, is closest to falling below the state threshold of 10, followed by Santa Clara County, with a per-capita rate of 13.9 per 10,000. For the past two weeks, Alameda County has 15.7 cases per 10,000 residents, and the rate is 15.3 for Contra Costa County.
SF Chronicle, August 6, 2020
Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert with UCSF, said that while all Bay Area counties should be on the watch list according to the state’s strict guidelines, he doesn’t think the measurements are as finely tuned as they could be.
“Being on the watch list is a crude measure of risk,” he said. “What might be more useful is a traffic light designation: red, amber and green.” He said California is basically three separate “countries” now: Southern California, which was initially the state’s hot spot; the Central Valley, whose worrying surge is comparable to states such as Texas and Florida, and the Bay Area, which was doing well at the beginning of the pandemic but has worsened overall.
East Bay Express, August 5, 2020
After initially keeping the coronavirus at bay, the number of new cases in Alameda County has skyrocketed to more than 11,000 over the past two months, and it may get worse, according to the county's interim public health officer.
Local health officials had previously predicted a surge in new cases sometime in August. The surge, however, appears to have arrived earlier than expected, said Nicholas Moss, the Alameda County interim public health officer. "It is fair to say that it could be worse in the fall and winter," Moss told the Alameda County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday afternoon.
Contra Costa Health Services, August 5, 2020
All individuals who are diagnosed with COVID-19 must immediately take the following actions:
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Isolate themselves in their home or another residence following all requirements listed in the “Self-Isolation Instructions for Confirmed Cases.”
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Tell their close contacts that they need to quarantine themselves, following the “Home Quarantine Instructions for Close Contacts.”
Close contacts who should be notified to self-quarantine are people who were near them during their infectious period, as further described in the health order below. The infectious period commences 48 hours before symptoms began (or, in the absence of symptoms, 48 hours before the date of administration of a positive test) and ends when the isolation period is over (see Section 4 of the health order below). Close contacts of an individual who has Covid-19 are persons who, during the individual’s infectious period, were within six feet of the individual for 15 minutes or longer.
East Bay Citizen, August 5, 2020
Charles Gilcrest, the long-time political consultant and local insider who helped start the political careers of many San Leandro elected officials, and later served as informal advisors for several mayors and councilmembers, died on Monday. In 2016, he attained his life-long goal of serving as an elected official after winning a seat on the Eden Health District. As local and state officials made attempts to dissolve the health care district during Gilcrest’s tenure, he helped steer the board through uncertain times that followed the district’s loss of San Leandro Hospital.
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NY Times, August 6, 2020
Of all the coronavirus’s qualities, perhaps the most surprising has been that seemingly healthy people can spread it to others. This trait has made the virus difficult to contain, and continues to challenge efforts to identify and isolate infected people.
Smell-Loss Survey Suggests Covid Widespread in Health Workers
Bloomberg, August 6, 2020
A large proportion of U.K. health-care workers may have been infected with coronavirus early in the pandemic, according to a survey suggesting that loss of smell and taste may be a guide to determining its prevalence in populations. About two-thirds of the London National Health Service staffers surveyed reported diminished ability to taste or smell -- one of the prominent, early symptoms of Covid-19 -- just weeks after the coronavirus arrived in the U.K., according to research published Thursday in The Lancet Microbe journal.
MedPageToday, August 7, 2020
NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, MD, said Thursday that efforts to reduce health disparities are a key part of the plans to develop and distribute vaccines. Fauci, speaking during a press briefing hosted by the Alliance for Health Policy and sponsored by APCO Worldwide, also sought to allay concerns raised by some researchers that the virus could be around for decades. "We hope, as a pandemic threat, that we are really on the cusp of seeing the end of it," Fauci said.
Kaiser Health News, August 6, 2020
Health care workers of color were more likely to care for patients with suspected or confirmed Covid-19, more likely to report using inadequate or reused protective gear, and nearly twice as likely as white colleagues to test positive for the coronavirus, a new study from Harvard Medical School researchers found. The study also showed that health care workers are at least three times more likely than the general public to report a positive Covid test, with risks rising for workers treating Covid patients.
Dr. Andrew Chan, a senior author and an epidemiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, said the study further highlights the problem of structural racism, this time reflected in the front-line roles and personal protective equipment provided to people of color.
BBC, August 6, 2020
“Face shields offer a number of advantages,” wrote Eli Perencevich, an epidemiologist at the University of Iowa in a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association calling for their widespread use. “While medical masks have limited durability and little potential for reprocessing, face shields can be reused indefinitely and are easily cleaned with soap and water, or common household disinfectants.” But face shields appear to be only truly effective in ideal conditions: when someone is coughing directly onto the plastic surface. In most everyday situations, such as in a hair salon, the wearer might be moving around in close proximity to their customers as they cut hair. The CDC does not recommend face shields for normal everyday activities or as a substitute for masks.
Kaiser Health News, August 6, 2020
Scientists know that vaccines engineered to protect the public from influenza, hepatitis B, tetanus and rabies can be less effective in obese adults than in the general population, leaving them more vulnerable to infection and illness. More than 107 million American adults are obese, and their ability to return safely to work, care for their families and resume daily life could be curtailed if the coronavirus vaccine delivers weak immunity for them.
Wall Street Journal, August 5, 2020
Racial and ethnic minority groups are more likely to be hospitalized and die from the new coronavirus, partly due to socioeconomic factors and underlying health conditions, data show. But clinical trials to evaluate drugs and vaccines historically underrepresent minorities, and researchers are concerned enrollment now under way to test Covid-19 vaccines will be no different.
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Gordon Galvan, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Eden Health District, announced yesterday that the District has launched a public education campaign to encourage the use of masks and face coverings in public to counter the spread of the coronavirus.
Working in collaboration with the Alameda County Public Health Department and the Cities of Hayward and San Leandro, the District has printed “Mask On” posters for each city and community in the Eden Health District area. The posters are free and intended for businesses, health clinics, schools, churches, public agencies and nonprofit organizations to display in their entrances.
“Increasing the use of masks among the general public is critical to reversing the growth in the spread of the coronavirus in Alameda County,” stated Galvan. “Our ‘Mask On” public education campaign, combined with the District’s ongoing support of the free Covid-19 testing centers in Hayward and San Leandro and the distribution of over 100,000 KN 95 masks to health care workers and nonprofit organizations, demonstrates the District’s commitment to addressing the unprecedented public health challenges from Covid-19. We thank our community partners for assisting in the distribution of the posters.”
Posters may be retrieved during business hours from the lobby of the Eden Health District office building located at 20400 Lake Chabot Road, Castro Valley. The public is also welcome to download and print or share “Mask On” posters from the District’s website. Posters are available in English, Spanish and Chinese languages.
“Wearing a mask is the easiest and most effective way for individuals and families to prevent transmission of Covid-19 in public settings,” said Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan. “As the virus continues to spread throughout Alameda County, I implore all residents to take this simple yet essential precaution to help keep our communities safe.”
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Eden Health District Director Mariellen Faria and Hayward Chamber of Commerce CEO Kim Huggett |
Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan |
San Leandro Mayor Pauline Cutter |
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LA Times, August 7, 2020
The death toll from the coronavirus in California surpassed 10,000 people on Thursday, a mark that underscores how a state that was once hailed as a pandemic success story is now struggling to slow outbreaks.
Los Angeles County has by far the most deaths in the state, with at least 4,869. On Thursday, the county hit another somber milestone, topping 200,000 total cases. A big problem persists in agricultural areas of California, such as the Central Valley. The eight-county San Joaquin Valley has seen hospitalizations increase 500% over the last two months. There are some signs that the surge may be peaking in California on average, although it will take a few more weeks to know for sure.
LA Times, August 7, 2020
It was once said that California’s coronavirus pandemic was hitting dense urban areas the hardest. Now, it’s rural, agricultural areas that are among the most severely affected. “The epidemic is moving from urban Latino populations to rural Latino populations,” Dr. George Rutherford, epidemiologist and infectious-diseases expert at UC San Francisco, said Wednesday. The risk factors are the same: low-income essential workers who live in crowded housing and must leave home to work and earn money and who may be less likely to speak up to call attention to problematic workplace safety conditions.
The Central Valley is among the areas of the nation that federal officials are particularly worried about. The 14-day positive test rate climbed to 24% in Kern County on Monday, more than triple the state’s average of 7% on that day.
Mercury News, August 6, 2020
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic and its economic toll are hitting people of color in California especially hard, and a new poll illustrates just how alarming the disparity has grown among the state’s families. Black, Latinx and Asian residents are more likely than white residents to say Covid-19 has had a negative impact on their family’s health and financial situation, according to the poll of more than 8,000 registered voters by the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley.
In one of the most dramatic findings, while just 16% of white voters say the virus has seriously hurt their ability to pay for basics like food and rent, that figure skyrockets to 72% among Spanish-speaking Latinx voters. A similar percentage say the virus has caused very serious problems when it comes to their family’s ability to get necessary medical care.
SF Chronicle, August 6, 2020
A bug in California’s electronic system for collecting infectious disease data is causing mass confusion over the state coronavirus response at a time when public health, education and business leaders already are struggling to plan for an uncertain future. The malfunction, which state officials have not fully explained, also is hampering some counties’ ability to do critical case investigation work that relies on quick identification of new infections to stop spread of disease.
SF Chronicle, August 6, 2020
Nearly five months into the pandemic, many nursing homes continue to leave families in the dark about their relatives’ test results or the prevalence of the virus in the facility. The state requires nursing homes and assisted living facilities to notify family members immediately after a positive test anywhere in the facility. But families and nursing home experts say that doesn’t always happen.
Associated Press, August 7, 2020
Worried about the unpredictable coronavirus wreaking havoc on the November election, Gov. Newsom on Thursday signed a law to let counties offer fewer in-person polling places in exchange for opening the sites earlier.
The change follows another law Newsom signed in June requiring counties to mail ballots to every active registered voter ahead of the Nov. 3 election. It’s part of the state’s strategy to keep people from gathering at polling places and risk further spread of the coronavirus that has killed nearly 9,900 Californians.
While every active registered voter in California will get a ballot in the mail, some people must vote in person for various reasons, the need for language assistance or help due to a disability, or because they want to register to vote on Election Day, which California law allows at polling places.
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Wall Street Journal, August 7, 2020
The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus pandemic passed 160,000, as parts of the country showed signs that the virus’s spread was easing.
Nine states have seen the seven-day average of new confirmed cases rising faster than the two-week average as of Aug. 6, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Johns Hopkins data. That held true in 40 states a month earlier, so the data reflect declines in reported new cases in a swath of the country. The seven-day average for new cases has been falling for about two weeks, from more than 67,000 on July 22 to 55,510 on Thursday.
CNN, August 6, 2020
Researchers behind an influential model are projecting that the US death toll from coronavirus could reach nearly 300,000 by December 1 -- but that can be changed if Americans consistently wear masks. The model doesn't have to come true, said IHME Director Dr. Christopher Murray: "The public's behavior had a direct correlation to the transmission of the virus and, in turn, the numbers of deaths. The statement said that if 95% of the people in the US wear face coverings, the number would decrease to 228,271 deaths, and more than 66,000 lives could be saved.
NPR, August 7, 2020
America has neither the staff nor the resources to be able to trace the contacts of every new case — a key step in the Covid-19 public health response. Only four states — Alaska, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, along with Washington, D.C. — currently have enough workers to investigate their coronavirus cases, according to an NPR analysis of how contact tracing staffing matches up with need. Three more states — Michigan, Montana, and Hawaii — have enough when reserve staff are included. And 38 states do not have enough.
The Hill, August 7, 2020
The U.S. gained 1.8 million jobs in July as rising coronavirus cases across much of the country hindered the economic rebound from the first wave of the pandemic, the Labor Department reported Friday. The unemployment rate fell to 10.2 percent in July from 11.1 percent in June, according to the July jobs report, as the pace of the labor market recovery slowed due to surging cases and fading fiscal stimulus. But July's gains were far less than the the increases of 4.8 million in June and 2.7 million in May, leaving 10.6 million people who lost their jobs during the onset of the pandemic still searching for work.
NY Times, August 7, 2020
In many states, child welfare workers are deemed essential workers with life-or-death duties. But unlike police officers or firefighters, most child welfare workers are now working from home in an effort to limit the spread of the virus. As a result, records and interviews show, scores of investigations into allegations of abuse or neglect have been delayed or sharply curtailed during the pandemic. Many vulnerable children are largely out of sight, many of them cooped up in crowded apartments, often cared for by parents reeling from job loss and all the other stresses brought on by a pandemic with no discernible end.
NY Times, August 6, 2020
Across the United States, Black women are three to four times more likely to die of childbirth-related causes than white women. In New York City, however, Black women are eight to 12 times more likely to die. Black infants in the city are also three times more likely to die than white newborns — a gap that is nearly 50 percent greater than the national average. Researchers say most of these deaths are preventable.
“Black birthing people are already more likely to die, regardless of their income or education,” said Joia Crear-Perry, an obstetrician and president of the National Birth Equity Collaborative, a nonprofit dedicated to eliminating racial disparities in birth outcomes. “Now, with Covid, resources are scarce and hospitals don’t have what they need. Who bears the brunt? The people least likely to be listened to.”
Washington Post, August 7, 2020
After each long day of working on the United States’ pandemic response, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert power-walks through his Northwest Washington neighborhood with his wife and their daughter’s dog. Recently, Anthony S. Fauci’s nightly jaunts through the neighborhood where he has lived since 1977 have taken him past at least a dozen signs bearing his name — tokens of appreciation for his service.
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Oaklandside, August 6, 2020
The Oakland Unified School District and the Oakland Education Association teachers’ union have been locked in negotiations since July 9 about how the school year will start. Both sides recently released statements criticizing the other for not prioritizing students, or dragging on the debate. Meanwhile, time is running out. School is set to start on August 10, 2020. Despite the disagreements, district spokesman John Sasaki said he is confident the district will be ready for school to start next week, and that distance learning in the fall will be better than it was in the spring.
SF Chronicle, August 6, 2020
San Francisco school district officials and teachers union representatives have reached a tentative agreement for distance learning instruction for the upcoming school year in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The agreement — if ratified by a vote of union members and the San Francisco Unified School District — will remain in effect until June 30, 2021, “or until students return to in-person instruction,” according to a summary of the agreement released by the United Educators of San Francisco.
CalMatters, August 6, 2020
More than 97% of California’s 6.1 million K-12 students live in the 38 counties on the state’s Covid-19 monitoring list, effectively shutting the door on in-person instruction until their counties stabilize infection rates and stay off the list for 14 days. The other 164,000 students live in the 20 counties not on the watch list.
A handful of schools, such as those in Inyo County’s Bishop Unified School District, will be among the first in the state to reinstate physical school reopenings, offering case studies on when and how to safely bring children and adults back to campuses. The challenges such rural districts face in reopening might not apply to large, urban schools. But just about every California school district and community at some point this year will likely be in the same shoes as Bishop, grappling with the decision over whether and how to physically reopen schools once they have the green light from the state public-health authorities.
LA Times, August 6, 2020
Just days before the fall semester is set to begin, California colleges and universities are scrambling to finalize reopening plans without guidance from the state. College administrators campuses say the lack of clear and timely state guidance has caused them to spend enormous energy and money preparing for varying reopening scenarios, without knowing what will be allowed.
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Washington Post, August 7, 2020
Dr. Anthony Fauci cautiously supported the Trump administration's push to reopen elementary and secondary schools — and in some cases, college campuses — this fall. But he leavened his advice by explaining sending kids back into classrooms depends on how bad the virus is in various places.
“The default principle should be to try as best you can to get the children back to school,” Fauci told us. “The big, however, and qualifier in there is that you have to have a degree of flexibility. The flexibility means if you look at the map of our country, we are not unidimensional with regard to the level of infection.”
Kaiser Health News, August 7, 2020
Thousands of essential workers have had no choice but to use day care, and thereby run the risk of exposing their children to possible coronavirus infection over the past several months. In effect, they have been part of an unplanned national experiment of deep relevance to parents weighing the pros and cons of letting their children return to school this fall. So far, it seems fairly successful. The number of reported outbreaks at child care centers is low. There are no guarantees, however. An overnight summer camp in Georgia saw an outbreak despite several measures to mitigate risk, infecting 76% of those for whom test results were available. Fifty-one percent of kids ages 6 to 10 became infected, while 44% of those 11-17 were infected as well
USA Today, August 7, 2020
All New York schools will be able to open this fall, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday, leaving the ultimate decision on reopening up to local authorities. Cuomo said COVID-19 infection rates in every region of the state are low enough that the districts can begin to reopen next month.
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Washington Post, August 7, 2020
After nationwide public outcry, a school district in the Atlanta suburbs has lifted the suspension of at least one high school student who shared images of a crowded campus hallway jammed with mostly maskless classmates, according to the student and her mother.
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Ironman triathlete urges fellow Covid-19 survivors to donate life-saving plasma |
Emmanuel “Manny” Lopez, a 34-year-old middle school teacher from the South Texas border town of Mission, is a die-hard triathlete who survived Covid-19 and now is on a mission to urge all survivors to donate their life-saving plasma.
Lopez was training to compete in the Ironman World Championships later this year when the coronavirus pandemic began and all competitions stopped. Nevertheless, he continued to train, riding his bike at least two hours or 40 miles daily; running 50 miles per week; and swimming at a friend’s home pool three times per week.
Then on June 19, Lopez suddenly developed chills, fever, and body aches. The next day he went in for a coronavirus test and learned he was positive. He was never hospitalized but said he had extreme fatigue that made it difficult, even for an athlete, to sit upright in a chair.
He wasn’t alone. His wife of four years, Natalie, also an Ironman triathlete, also got Covid-19. However, it took her upwards of three weeks to recover from the symptoms, which included chest tightness and difficulty breathing, he said.
After about five days, Lopez’s body rallied back and he began to get better. He believes that the hours of training helped condition their bodies to fight the virus that has killed so many. But he also realizes the ferocity of the virus, and that has prompted him to become an outspoken advocate on social media and within his circle of athletic friends, urging anyone who has survived Covid-19 to donate plasma.
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“I like to think I follow a healthy lifestyle and that might have been the reason I overcame Covid easily, but if there’s anything we have learned about this virus is that it is not biased. It doesn’t care who you are. We can all get sick and it affects us all in so many different ways,” Lopez said on Tuesday as he stood a nonprofit blood donation center.
Lopez vows to continue donating every seven days, the maximum possible, as long as the antibodies live in his blood. “I stand here today 42-days symptom free and about to donate plasma for the third time,” he said.
Survivors can donate once they are symptom-free for 28 days. Lopez said the process is simple, pain-free and equivalent to donating blood. He says it takes about 45 minutes, and he is able to give four bags of blood, and then a special machine separates the plasma.
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The Guardian, August 7, 2020
The World Health Organization has warned against “vaccine nationalism,” cautioning richer countries that if they keep treatments to themselves they cannot expect to remain safe if poor nations remain exposed. As global cases of Covid-19 passed 19 million on Friday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it would be in the interest of wealthier nations to help every country protect itself against the disease.
“Vaccine nationalism is not good, it will not help us,” Tedros told the Aspen Security Forum in the United States, via video-link from the WHO’s headquarters in Geneva. “For the world to recover faster, it has to recover together, because it’s a globalized world: the economies are intertwined. Part of the world or a few countries cannot be a safe haven and recover.
The Hill, August 7, 2020
Africa has reached 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday, a number that many experts say is probably considerably lower than the actual toll. The milestone comes five months after Egypt reported the continent's first confirmed case of coronavirus on February 14.
Africa CDC director John Nkengasong told the Associated Press that estimating the true number of cases on the continent is “very tricky” because more than 70% of cases are asymptomatic and testing continues to lag.
Wall Street Journal, August 6, 2020
The pandemic has devastated hundreds of thousands of businesses across Latin America, setting back the clock on the social and economic gains made over the past two decades when a global commodities boom powered breakneck growth.
Economists predict it will take until around 2023 for Latin America to return to pre-pandemic levels, the slowest rebound among the emerging-market regions. The International Monetary Fund forecasts developing economies will contract 3% this year, with a 4.7% fall in the Middle East and a 3.2% decline in sub-Saharan Africa. The U.S. economy is projected to contract 8%.
The virus has dealt a hammer blow to businesses ranging from department stores and construction companies to small, family-owned restaurants and the neighborhood shops that are the backbone of so many Latin American economies.
Reuters, August 7, 2020
India, the country hardest hit in Asia by the coronavirus pandemic, reported on Friday a record daily jump in infections, taking its total number of cases over two million, as government struggled to contain the spread amid striking health workers.
More than 3.5 million health workers, who have been the foot-soldiers in the Covid-19 detection efforts across India, embarked on a two-day strike from Friday to secure better wages and proper protective equipment. A total of 10 unions representing the workers, who also include ambulance drivers and cooks at community centers, joined the strike.
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NPR, August 6, 2020
By December 1, the U.S. death toll from Covid-19 could reach nearly 300,000. That's the grim new projection from researchers at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation — one of the more prominent teams modeling the pandemic. The new forecast, released Thursday, projects that between now and December, 137,000 people will die on top of the roughly 160,000 who have died so far.
Here are nine takeaways to help make sense of the projections:
1. The coronavirus is on track to be the third leading cause of death in the U.S.
2. The hardest-hit states probably won't bend their curves much
3. There could be a roller coaster effect
4. Starting in November, cold weather could turbocharge this cycle
5. Things could be worse than projected if hard-hit states don't return to lockdowns
6. Things might be better than projected if mask use takes off
7. Even with universal masking, many states may need to lock down
8. New solutions could change the model
9. Not all forecasts are as pessimistic as IHME's
USA Today, August 7, 2020
The devastating spread of Covid-19 has put a spotlight not only on physical vulnerabilities, but also on the nation’s mental health. Both depression and anxiety were already far more prevalent in women and, as early data pours in, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the pandemic has exacerbated that disparity.
Experts say that much of the growth stems from the pandemic’s cultural and economic fallout: child care burdens, lost income and efforts to navigate children’s education — all of which are disproportionately affecting women. Researchers are also finding that transgender and non-binary people — who are also already at greater risk for depression and anxiety — may be facing greater psychological stress as well.
NY Times, August 6, 2020
Wired, August 7, 2020
Question: But people aren’t getting their tests back quickly enough.
Answer: Well, that’s just stupidity. The majority of all US tests are completely garbage, wasted. If you don’t care how late the date is and you reimburse at the same level, of course they’re going to take every customer. Because they are making ridiculous money, and it’s mostly rich people that are getting access to that. You have to have the reimbursement system pay a little bit extra for 24 hours, pay the normal fee for 48 hours, and pay nothing [if it isn’t done by then]. And they will fix it overnight.
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Over the last two weeks, Alameda County officials have confirmed 3,015 new cases, which amounts to 183 cases per 100,000 residents. The number of confirmed infections is currently doubling every 33.5 days. This data, however, is likely inaccurate inaccurate due to technical issues with state data system. |
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Over the last two weeks, Contra Costa County officials have confirmed1,944 new cases, which amounts to 172 cases per 100,000 residents. The number of confirmed infections is currently doubling every 40.9 days. This data, however, is likely inaccurate due to technical issues with state data system. |
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Top 8 Locations of Cases in Alameda County, cases as of 8/6/20
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Oakland: 5,085
Hayward: 1,809
Eden MAC: 740
Fremont: 785
San Leandro: 639
Livermore: 558
Union City: 395
Castro Valley: 351
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Top 8 Locations of Cases in Contra Costa County, cases as of 8/7/20
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Richmond: 1,808
Antioch: 1,106
Concord: 1,014
Pittsburgh: 844
San Pablo: 778
Bay Point: 403
Walnut Creek: 395
Brentwood: 362
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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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We have posted 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.
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Your feedback is welcome. Please share the Bulletin. |
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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.
Each bulletin includes a summary of the top health, Bay Area, California, national, education and international news on the pandemic plus links to a diverse range of commentary and analysis. We publish the Bulletin on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
We welcome your feedback on our bulletin. Please contact editor Stephen Cassidy.
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