Eden Health District COVID-19 Bulletin
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“Four tiers. Four different colors. A very simple way of finding out information.”
"Why is aerosol transmission so important to understand? Because this disease can be transmitted by people who do not yet know they are ill. These people are not coughing or sneezing, they are just breathing and talking, & releasing respiratory particles with virus in it."
Dr. Shelly Miller, environmental engineering professor, 8/31/20
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California Metrics as of August 30, 2020
10.9: New Covid-19 positive cases per 100k
6.0% positivity rate
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Alameda County
- Status: Purple
- 10.6: New Covid-19 positive cases per 100k
- 5.6% positivity rate
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Contra Costa County
- Status: Purple
- 10.8: New Covid-19 positive cases per 100k
- 6.2% positivity rate
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California's New Color-Coded Reopening Rules |
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Goodbye to California's county watchlist; hello purple, red, orange and yellow codes.
On Friday, August 28, 2020, Gov. Newsom announced a new, color-coded statewide system called “Blueprint for a Safer Economy." The six metrics used to measure a county and determine whether it can get off the watchlist have been reduced to just two: (1) the number of coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents and (2) the percentage of Covid-19 tests that come back positive. Counties must meet certain thresholds for a minimum of three weeks before moving to the next less restrictive level.
The new system in some ways is more permissive than than the prior watchlist, allowing for more businesses and activities to reopen as of today in Purple counties with modifications, including most retail businesses and shopping centers at maximum 25% capacity (except grocery stores that may operate at maximum 50% capacity). Hair salons and barbershops may also provide services indoors.
However, county guidelines may override the state’s reopening thresholds, but only if they are stricter. For example, services at hair saloons and barbershops in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties remain limited to outdoors.
County Risk Level Definitions
Purple (widespread or extensive spread of the virus): more than 7 daily new cases (per 100k); more than 8% positive tests
Red (substantial spread): 4-7 daily new cases (per 100k); 5-8% positive tests
Orange (moderate spread): 1-3.9 daily new cases (per 100k); 2-4.9% positive tests
Yellow (minimal spread): less than 1 daily new cases (per 100k); less than 2% positive tests
There is no green level, Newsom said, because “we don’t believe that there’s a green light that says go back to the way things were or back to a pre-pandemic mindset.” Until an effective vaccine is distributed, Californians must wear a mask every time they’re with people outside their household.
After facing criticism for allowing California to reopen too quickly this summer, precipitating a boom in cases, Newsom said he recognized the need for the state “really hold strongly” to these rules “for an extended period of time."
"We’re going to be more stubborn this time," Newsom said in laying out the mandatory timelines.
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As explained by the Politico, "California is at a pivotal moment heading into the fall, torn between a demand to allow normal activities and a desire to avoid another surge right before flu season. The guidelines come just as two of California's most populous counties — San Diego and Orange — have left the state's old watch list and have clamored for the ability to reopen more businesses again.
Despite being a success story early in the pandemic, California has had more than 680,000 coronavirus infections, more than any state in the nation, as well as more than 12,500 deaths. By late June, the state had gone from a national model to joining other problem states such as Arizona, Florida and Texas."
Tier Rules
- The California Public Health Department will assess indicators weekly. The first weekly assessment will be released on September 8, 2020, and each Tuesday thereafter.
- If a county's case rate and test positivity measure fall into two different tiers, the county will be assigned to the more restrictive tier.
- Counties must remain in every tier but purple for a minimum of 21 days before being able to advance to a later tier.
- In order to move into a less restrictive tier, a county must meet that tier’s criteria for two straight weeks.
- Conversely, counties that fail to meet the metrics for their current tier for two consecutive weeks must return to the next most restrictive tier.
- A county can only move forward one tier at a time, even if metrics qualify for a more advanced tier.
School Rules
Schools in Purple counties are not permitted to reopen for in-person instruction unless they receive a waiver from their local health department for Transitional Kindergarten (TK) to 6th grade.
Schools can reopen for in-person instruction once their county has been in the Red tier for at least two weeks.
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Alameda County: 18,039
Contra Costa County: 13,802
Bay Area: 84,936
California: 704,810
U.S.: 6,009,899
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Alameda County: 257
Contra Costa County: 175
Bay Area: 1,123
California: 12,938
U.S.: 183,258
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Bay Area statistics consist of data from Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma counties.
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Press Release, August 28, 2020
Alameda County is in the State’s Purple Tier per their newly announced framework, along with 37 other counties. Although the Purple Tier is the most restricted, it implicates both loosening and tightening restrictions for allowable local activities.
At this time, this list reflects what is permitted in Alameda County and will still be in effect on Monday, August 31. We are carefully examining the additional activities that may be permitted or restricted by the State while Alameda County is in the Purple Tier and are evaluating our next steps. We plan to share an update next week.
SF Chronicle, August 31, 2020
New coronavirus cases are stabilizing or declining in eight of the nine Bay Area counties (Sonoma County is the exception), according to cases reported by county health departments and compiled by The Chronicle. The Bay Area as a whole saw a 4.8% decline in new cases for the week that ended Aug. 23, compared with the week that ended July 26, according to Chronicle data.
During those periods, the nine Bay Area counties reported 1,000 new cases per day in mid-August, down from 1,050 cases per day in mid-July. Those periods were mostly unaffected by the computer glitch that caused delays in reporting at the state level, though the July figures may be slightly underreported.
KABC News, August 30, 2020
A member of the Oakland A's has tested positive for COVID-19 and Sunday's game against the Houston Astros has been postponed. The A's member has not been identified. Major League Baseball officials say the game was postponed out of an "abundance of caution and to allow for additional testing and contact tracing to be conducted."
SF Chronicle, August 28, 2020
Pinterest terminated a massive 490,000-square-foot lease at San Francisco’s unbuilt 88 Bluxome project, citing a shift toward more remote work amid the coronavirus pandemic. The company will instead continue leasing four existing San Francisco offices, including 651 Brannan St., and pay a one-time fee of $89.5 million to cancel the Bluxome lease. The cancellation is the strongest sign yet of how the coronavirus is reducing the tech sector’s once-voracious appetite for office space.
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Adrianna Rodriguez, health reporter, USA Today, August 30, 2020
Temperature checks are becoming routine as schools, businesses and offices attempt to reopen safely in the midst of a pandemic. Does this cumbersome practice really keep anyone safe from the coronavirus? The CDC estimated last month that nearly 40% of Covid-19 patients are asymptomatic, and experts suspect only half of symptomatic patients exhibit a fever. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said last week that the White House and the National Institutes of Health abandoned temperature checks as they’re “notoriously inaccurate.”
Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be.
Apoorva Mandavilli, science reporter, NY Times, August 29, 2020
Some of the nation’s leading public health experts are raising a new concern in the endless debate over coronavirus testing in the US: The standard tests are diagnosing huge numbers of people who may be carrying relatively insignificant amounts of the virus. Most of these people are not likely to be contagious, and identifying them may contribute to bottlenecks that prevent those who are contagious from being found in time. But researchers say the solution is not to test less, or to skip testing people without symptoms. Instead, new data underscore the need for more widespread use of rapid tests, even if they are less sensitive.
LA Times, August 30, 2020
Experts say it’s possible that the social distancing measures and widespread closures of businesses in place because of Covid-19 will reduce the spread of the flu so that it’s even less prevalent than in a typical season, as appears to have happened in other countries. But they worry that if restrictions ease, this silver lining may not last. “If things are moving in the correct direction, then we could have reopening, and that might actually coincide with the middle of the flu season — you could actually have increased transmission from that,” said Dr. Geoffrey Leung, ambulatory medical director at Riverside University Hospital System.
Wall Street Journal, August 31, 2020
Some 170 Covid-19 vaccines are in development around the world, according to the WHO, each one promising to protect people from the deadly coronavirus and allow them to go back to work and school. Now, a handful are starting or nearing the final stage of testing. Depending on the results, some companies say their vaccines could be greenlighted for use as soon as this year.
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Mercury News, August 31, 2020
On the same day California’s hospitalizations from Covid-19 fell below 4,000 for the first time in more than two months, the state also became the first to cross the 700,000-case threshold — a positive sign but also the result of a six-month battle with the Covid-19 pandemic. Los Angeles and its surrounding Southern California counties have accounted for most of the decline in hospitalizations, while the Central Valley has cut its case load in half from its peak. The Bay Area had remained steady with rates lower than both regions, but now it too has seen cases and hospitalizations fall in the past week to their lowest levels since the first and second weeks of July.
There were no deaths reported in the Bay Area on Saturday, something that hadn’t occurred in a month and has only happened a handful of times since the pandemic began. However there were 11 reported in Alameda County on Sunday and another two in Contra Costa County to keep region’s seven-day average about where it has been for the past month.
CalMatters, August 28, 2020
Gov. Newsom and state lawmakers unveiled their plan Friday to protect California from a looming tsunami of evictions caused by the economic fallout from the novel coronavirus pandemic. The bill protects renters financially impacted by the coronavirus pandemic from eviction until February 2021. The bill also proposes some foreclosure protections to small landlords suffering from missed rent payments. Legislators vote on the bill on Monday.
LA Times, August 30, 2020
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the agency is rethinking the way it operates. In an effort to keep people from getting infected with or spreading the coronavirus, the DMV since March has expanded its DMV Express program statewide to speed up the Real ID process and allowed for vehicle title transfers, registrations, duplicate driver’s licenses and driver’s license renewals and other services to be completed online. Online transactions went from about 1.8 million in July 2019 to nearly 2.2 million last month.
SF Chronicle, August 31, 2020
Smoke exposure is just the latest in a long line of social ills that have fallen at the feet of a group whose labor has been essential to the Salinas Valley since before Steinbeck’s time: the field-workers who make the region an agricultural powerhouse. While Monterey County is not located within the Bay Area, it’s close enough to have felt the effects of that region’s housing crisis as people scour the state for more affordable living space. The persistently high Salinas housing costs compared to farmworkers’ pay has often resulted in families, or at least generations, living under the same roof. Those crowded conditions made the coronavirus easier to spread. Among Monterey County’s 7,619 confirmed cases of the virus as of Friday, about 74% of the patients were Hispanic or Latino, county data shows. Nearly half of the total cases are concentrated in two east and north Salinas ZIP codes where many farmworkers live with their families.
Associated Press, August 28, 2020
Owners of restaurants, gyms and nail salons criticized California’s new rules guiding when businesses can reopen during the coronavirus pandemic, saying the plan will bring financial misery to their industries and further weaken the state’s battered economy.
The California Restaurant Association said in a statement Friday that restaurants will continue to close permanently around the state because Gov. Newsom’s plan will continue to keep most indoor dining rooms closed, while others will have strict limits on capacity.
CalMatters, August 28, 2020
Across California, transit agencies are simultaneously struggling with unprecedented shortfalls in revenue, steep declines in ridership and increased expenses from new pandemic policies. Transit agencies say they are worried about additional cuts in bus and rail service next year as federal CARES Act funding runs out.
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Politico, August 31, 2020
The U.S. coronavirus case count topped 6 million on Monday, even though infections are falling in nearly every state and the death count appears to have reached a plateau. It took less than a month for the case count to rise from 5 million, on Aug. 9. But the spread of the virus appears to be stabilizing, similar to conditions in May, before premature reopenings and insufficient public health efforts like contact tracing and testing led to significant rebounds. The U.S. is now reporting just over 42,000 daily new cases on average, down from roughly 65,000 during the height of this summer's outbreak.
NY Times, August 31, 2020
Data compiled by the American Academy of Pediatrics from the summer show that cases, hospitalizations and deaths from the coronavirus have increased at a faster rate in children and teenagers than among the general public. The rise in reported cases comes in part from more widespread testing, but there was evidence that minors were becoming infected at a higher rate now than earlier in the year because hospitalizations and deaths among children had increased as well. Although much is still unknown about how the virus affects young people, like adults, Black and Latino children who contract the virus are more likely to be hospitalized.
Mercury News, August 31, 2020
Twitter on Sunday took down a tweet containing a false claim about coronavirus death statistics that was made by a supporter of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory — a post that President Donald Trump had retweeted earlier in the day. The CDC’s latest regular update to a public statistics page on the pandemic — there was nothing especially “quiet” about it — said that for 6% of the deaths included in its statistics, “Covid-19 was the only cause mentioned” on the deceased person’s death certificate.
That is not at all the same thing as saying only 6% of reported Covid-19 deaths “actually died” from Covid-19. It simply means that the other 94% were listed as having at least one additional factor contributing to their death. For example, it includes people who had diabetes or heart disease or who were obese. People can live with obesity, diabetes or heart disease for years but then get infected with Covid-19 and die quickly.
Washington Post, August 31, 2020
One of President Trump’s top medical advisers is urging the White House to embrace a controversial “herd immunity” strategy to combat the pandemic, which would entail allowing the coronavirus to spread through most of the population to quickly build resistance to the virus, while taking steps to protect those in nursing homes and other vulnerable populations, according to five people familiar with the discussions. The approach’s chief proponent is Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist from Stanford’s conservative Hoover Institution, who joined the White House earlier this month as a pandemic adviser. He has advocated that the United States adopt the model Sweden has used to respond to the virus outbreak.
CNN, August 31, 2020
Pandemic travel restrictions have made Americans prisoners of their country. Even within North America, Mexico and Canada have closed thousands of miles of border to all but essential travel, roiling plans for vacation, work, and school. For cash-strapped Americans, it has also cut off access to medicines and healthcare services that they can't afford at home -- at a time when money is tighter than ever.
StarTribune, August 29, 2020
Minnesota reported its second-highest one-day tally of new coronavirus cases Saturday. With cases continuing to grow among young people in the Upper Midwest, the region faces a difficult question, said Michael Osterholm of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “Are we in line to become the next Florida, Georgia, Texas and California?” Osterholm said. “I think that’s what we’re all concerned about.”
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SF Chronicle, August 28, 2020
San Francisco students could start heading back to classrooms in two weeks after the city gained a new state coronavirus classification allowing more businesses and community activities to resume. The state classified San Francisco as a “red” county Friday, allowing schools to conduct in-person classes if that status holds steady for 14 days.
Napa County, which has 20,000 public school and 2,500 private school students, was also put in red status. All other Bay Area counties are “purple,” which is more restrictive and means they will need to use a waiver process to reopen schools. A red classification doesn’t mean all schools will reopen, because counties can still place stricter rules on the process than the state requires. In addition, schools would still need to meet all health and safety guidelines required by health officials.
SF Examiner, August 29, 2020
Two of San Francisco’s major colleges are facing a stark drop in enrollment this fall as students start classes online. City College of San Francisco saw an 18 percent decrease between this semester and fall 2019, while San Francisco State University saw an 8 percent decrease in the same period.
University of San Francisco offered a general assessment that undergraduate enrollment is currently down a few percentage points from the same time last year, while graduate enrollment came in slightly more than expected.
East Bay Times, August 31, 2020
How do you rethink a profession that hinges on personal engagement and variety to work solely through video calls and computer screens? In the time of coronavirus, teachers like Hansel are making it work with creativity, a dizzying array of new apps and software, and a lot of patience. And they’re learning a lot along the way. One week into the new school year, classes already look a little different. A catalogue of applications and online services has helped restore some variety to their lesson plans.
Sacramento Bee, August 29, 2020
Gov. Newsom has relaxed state rules on how schools can bring back some students to campus by grouping them into cohorts or small groups, and by prioritizing the return of students with disabilities, at-risk kids and others that could benefit from the in-class structure. That move, part of a larger reopening plan by Gov. Newsom, is complicated and is requiring school officials and parents to sort out what it means.
The change comes at what may be another pivotal moment in the state’s up-and-down fight against the coronavirus. After months of new cases, the state and Sacramento Covid-19 infection numbers and hospitalization numbers are trending downward. That trend gives health officials cautious optimism about their chances of reopening more of society in the coming weeks and months. But the daily case numbers are still high, much higher than they were in March, when schools first closed.
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US & International Education News |
South Florida Sun Sentinel, August 29, 2020
In the past two-and-a-half weeks, as schools opened for in-person learning in some parts of Florida, Covid-19 cases in children jumped by more than 23% with about 9,200 new infections.
Florida Department of Health data shows 48,928 confirmed cases among children through Aug. 26, compared with 39,735 confirmed cases on Aug. 9, with most of the infections occurring in teenagers between 14 and 17 years old. The recent August numbers represent a whopping 191% increase in children infected in Florida from only about six weeks earlier on July 9.
On Friday, health department data shows 700 new cases in a single day for Florida children or young adults 24 and younger.
Washington Post, August 31, 2020
After an outcry from educators, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is extending a school meal program that has provided free meals to millions of children since the coronavirus pandemic shuttered schools in the spring. The program allows families to pick up free food from any convenient school campus, regardless of whether their child is enrolled there and even if they do not qualify for free and reduced-price meals. It’s a form of meal delivery typically offered only during the summer months.
But due to the pandemic, the Agriculture Department — which oversees the nation’s school lunch program — launched the program ahead of schedule in March and has kept it running ever since. Until this week, however, federal officials were planning to let certain key components of the meal program expire at the end of September. Most notably, starting in August, families would have had to pay for their food and to pick it up from the school their child attends.
Associated Press, August 30, 2020
Not all French classrooms can safely reopen Tuesday, the country’s education minister acknowledged Sunday, as a persistent rise in coronavirus infections jeopardizes the government’s push to get France’s 12.9 million schoolchildren back into class this week. With several thousand new infections now reported in France every day, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said that some classes will remain closed when the nationwide reopening begins Tuesday, but “as few as possible.”
Reuters, August 28, 2020
Wuhan, Ground Zero for the Covid-19 pandemic and the Chinese city hardest hit by the coronavirus, will reopen all its schools and kindergartens on Tuesday, local authorities said. The city said it has drawn up emergency plans to switch back to online teaching should risk levels change. It advised students to wear masks to and from school and avoid public transportation if possible.
Schools have been ordered to stock up on disease control equipment and to carry out drills and training sessions to help prepare for new outbreaks. They must also restrict unnecessary mass gatherings, and submit daily reports to health authorities.
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Washington Post, August 30, 2020
Japan has the world’s oldest population, with an average age of 47 and a life expectancy of more than 81 years. More than 28 percent of its residents are over the age of 65, ahead of Italy in second place with 23 percent, and compared with 16 percent of Americans. It could have been sitting on a coronavirus disaster, with the pandemic hitting seniors particularly hard, especially those in group facilities. In Japan, 14 percent of the deaths have been in elder-care facilities. That is compared with more than 40 percent in the United States, despite a lower proportion of U.S. seniors living in nursing homes.
The contrast is partly because Japan reacted more quickly than Western nations to developments in nearby China, swiftly tightening controls on staff and visitors at its eldercare homes, said Reiko Hayashi, deputy director general of the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. But culture also appeared to play an important role: Experts point to a higher priority given to elderly care within society, stronger measures already in place at care homes to prevent infections and high standards of hygiene. “Japan’s elderly care facilities have taken great care in protecting the elderly, not just from this virus but from norovirus, influenza and other germs,” said Kayoko Hayakawa, an infectious-disease specialist at the National Center for Global Health and Medicine (NCGH). “Day-to-day precautions were already in place.”
The Guardian, August 30, 2020
Climate change and multinational corporations have long posed a threat to the people of the Amazon rainforest. Now, however, the region’s indigenous tribes face an even more immediate danger: coronavirus.
Despite living deep in the heartland of Ecuadorian rainforest, the indigenous Achuar tribal people have fallen victim to the pandemic. Over the last several weeks, Covid-19 has struck at the heart of the Achuar community in Ecuador, which is made up of 13,000 people living in 88 groups over 800,000 hectares (3,000 sq miles) along the Pastaza River basin. A further 15,000 Achuar are based in neighboring Peru.
Indigenous populations like the Achuar are extremely vulnerable to disease due to their geographical isolation, as well as inequality, exclusion and discrimination in access to public services.
Reuters, August 31, 2020
More than 90% of countries have seen ordinary health services disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, with major gains in medical care attained over decades vulnerable to being wiped out in a short period, a World Health Organization survey showed. “The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on essential health services is a source of great concern,” said a report on the study released on Monday. “Major health gains achieved over the past two decades can be wiped out in a short period of time.”
Associated Press, August 31, 2020
The government in China’s far northwest Xinjiang region is resorting to draconian measures to combat the coronavirus, including physically locking residents in homes, imposing quarantines of more than 40 days and arresting those who do not comply. Furthermore, in what experts call a breach of medical ethics, some residents are being coerced into swallowing traditional Chinese medicine, according to government notices, social media posts and interviews with people in Xinjiang.
BBC, August 31, 2020
India's former president Pranab Mukherjee has died 21 days after it was confirmed that he had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The 84-year-old was in hospital to remove a clot in his brain, when it was discovered he also had Covid-19.
Reuters, August 30, 2020
India reported 78,512 novel coronavirus infections on Monday, more than any other country but fewer than the previous day when it posted the world’s biggest, single-day tally, as authorities looked to open more sectors of the economy.
Bloomberg, August 30, 2020
The pandemic is upending food supply chains, crippling economies and eroding consumer purchasing power. Some projections show that by the end of the year, Covid-19 will cause more people to die each day from hunger than from virus infections. What makes the situation unmatched: The massive spike is happening at a time of enormous global food surpluses. And it’s happening in every part of the world, with new levels of food insecurity forecast for countries that used to have relative stability.
Reuters, August 29, 2020
New coronavirus cases in Australia’s state of Victoria returned to the triple digits on Sunday, while neighboring New Zealand said it would ease curbs slightly in its largest city, hit by a resurgence of infections.
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Boston Globe, August 29, 2020
The first Friday in August outside the Tri Town Baptist Church was one of those quintessential summer Maine days. At the ceremony’s end, the crowd headed to the Big Moose Inn. Each guest had his or her temperature checked at the door, and once cleared, went inside. Few of the 62 wedding and reception attendees wore masks. The pandemic, in many ways, seemed like a far off phenomenon — largely confined to cities such as Boston, five hours south and lacking the space and quiet of Millinocket. Only about 150 people had been infected in the neighboring counties of Penobscot and Piscataquis over the last six months. Millinocket itself had not recorded a single case.
One celebration would change all that. The virus had begun to sweep through the community, and well beyond it. An unidentified wedding guest reported feeling symptoms a day after the ceremony. Within four days, several others fell ill, according to state authorities. In all, nearly half of the attendees, 30 in all who ranged in age from 4 to 78 years old, would test positive. More than 100 cases of Covid-19, including one death, have been linked to the wedding reception.
Olga Khazan, The Atlantic, August 31, 2020
Robyn Openshaw urged her 212,000 fans to stand up to a new menace: contact tracing. “Are you willing to hand over your freedom and create a health police state?” she asked her viewers, punctuating her statements with a karate chop to the air. Contact tracers recommend that infected people self-isolate, but they have no power to enforce isolation. Most countries with coronavirus outbreaks have started contact tracing, and of them, only China is Communist. But Openshaw’s outraged reaction to the concept helps explain a major problem bedeviling the American pandemic response: Contact tracing does not work as well here as it has in other rich countries.
Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, August 31, 2020
It is finally time to talk, in this pandemic, about the importance of not talking in this pandemic. “Every route of viral transmission would go down if we talked less, or talked less loudly, in public spaces,” Jose L. Jimenez, a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who studies disease transmission, told me. “This is just a very clear fact. It’s not controversial.” Silence is golden as an antiviral strategy because of how this disease spreads. The coronavirus seems to move primarily through viral particles that erupt from our faces when we sneeze, cough, talk, or sing.
Scott Gottlieb, Former FDA Commissioner, August 30, 2020
The Trump administration’s Covid response seems increasingly to reflect a policy preference among some conservatives: Protect the elderly and let others try to get on with their lives. This thinking assumes that herd immunity will slow the pandemic if more younger people are infected. Many features of federal policy seem to be following this philosophy.
It’s important to protect the old and the vulnerable, who are at the highest risk of severe illness and bad outcomes. But like most issues of medicine, it isn’t a binary choice. Given the uncertainties of how this virus spreads and its high risk of infirmities, it would be unwise to abandon efforts to limit Covid spread wherever possible. That means continued universal masking, social distancing, and diagnosing and tracing of individual cases.
Alice Miranda Ollstein and Dan Goldberg, Politico, August 30, 2020
A tenfold surge in coronavirus infections and hospitalizations over the last month has triggered new shutdown orders. When Hawaii was locked down and caseloads were smaller, a key to the state's success was quick testing and contact tracing to find people exposed to the virus. But failure to build up that capacity for reopening, along with growing public complacency around social distancing measures, allowed the outbreak to spiral out of control, say numerous state officials. The state's worsening outbreak is a stark reminder that this virus will easily exploit gaps in defenses
USA Today, August 30, 2020
Six months since the United States declared the coronavirus pandemic a state of emergency, millions of isolated Americans are at their wits' end, exhausted from making a seemingly endless series of health and safety decisions for themselves and their loved ones. There's a name for this phenomenon, and researchers call it decision fatigue.
Like a mental gas tank, the human brain has a limited capacity of energy, and as you make decisions throughout the day, you deplete that resource. As you become fatigued, you may be inclined to avoid additional decisions, stick to the status quo or base a decision on a single criteria. When we're able to maintain daily routines, the brain can automate decisions and rely on heuristics – or mental shortcuts – to avoid fatigue. But the pandemic has disrupted many of our routines, forcing us to allocate more mental energy to decision-making
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Over the last two weeks, Alameda County officials have confirmed 2,917 new cases, which amounts to 177 cases per 100,000 residents. |
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Over the last two weeks, Contra Costa County officials have confirmed 2,574 new cases, which amounts to 227 cases per 100,000 residents. |
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Top 8 Locations of Cases in Alameda County, cases as of 8/30/20
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Oakland: 7,345
Hayward: 2,558
Fremont: 1,202
Eden MAC: 1,112
San Leandro: 990
Livermore: 771
Union City: 612
Castro Valley: 466
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Top 8 Locations of Cases in Contra Costa County, cases as of 8/30/20
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Richmond: 2,659
Antioch: 1,840
Concord: 1,796
Pittsburgh: 1,539
San Pablo: 1,226
Bay Point: 709
Walnut Creek: 510
Brentwood: 505
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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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Working in collaboration with the Alameda County Public Health Department, the Cities of Hayward and San Leandro, and the Castro Valley and Eden Area Municipal Advisory Councils, 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.
“Wearing masks in public or any gatherings, including events with friends and extended families, is essential for slowing the spread of the virus,” stated Eden Health District Director Pam Russo. “We are seeing signs of progress in California, Alameda County remains a Covid-19 'hot spot' in the Bay Area. Please wear a mask to protect yourself while protecting others.”
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The public is welcome to download and print or share “Mask On” posters from the District’s website. Posters are available in English, Spanish and Chinese languages.
Posters may also be retrieved during business hours from the lobby of the Eden Health District office building located at 20400 Lake Chabot Road, Castro Valley. Posters for the City of Hayward are also available from the Hayward Chamber of Commerce located at 22561 Main Street, Hayward.
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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, unless the day fall on a public holiday.
We welcome your feedback on our bulletin. Please contact editor Stephen Cassidy.
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