Eden Health District COVID-19 Bulletin
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“The Eden Health District continues to seize opportunities to leverage public resources to help slow the spread of the coronavirus in the community. We are pleased to join with Alameda County and the City of San Leandro in bringing a testing center to San Leandro.”
Charles Gilcrest, Director, Eden Health District Board of Directors,
6/8/20
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In Alameda, local musicians and music lovers join forces on Friday evenings when they participate in the Alameda Porch Concert series. The concept has grown to include singers, musicians, poets, and writers who come out onto their porches at 6 pm every Friday for live performances that are live streamed.
A map of each week’s lineup is available through Facebook; people are encouraged to stop by a location, bring a chair, and enjoy each performance in a socially distant location near the front porch.
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The concerts are a great way for performers to enjoy playing in front of an audience and, noted art series founder Irene Nexica, "music is the perfect medium to unite people."
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Alameda County:
3,985
Contra Costa County:
1,774
California:
137,144
U.S.:
1,988,491
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Alameda County:
102
Contra Costa County:
43
California:
4,749
U.S.:
112,311
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Berkeleyside, June 9, 2020
The state of California has opened a new testing site in Berkeley that allows anyone, even those without symptoms, to get tested for Covid-19 for free. The new site is in the Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Center at 1730 Oregon St. Those who want to get tested must make an appointment. Mayor Jesse Arreguín was one of the first to get tested at the center and he posted photos of himself, wearing a Cal face mask, on Twitter
.
Berkeley
has lagged behind other jurisdictions in testing its residents
. Before this site opened, only 3,577 Berkeley residents had been tested for Covid-19.
KQED, June 9, 2020
Beginning Friday, June 12, San Francisco will allow sit-down dining in outdoor restaurant spaces, Mayor London Breed
announced Tuesday
. Restaurants can apply to use parts of outdoor spaces such as sidewalks, parking lanes or streets, and public parks or plazas for outdoor seating through a permitting program the city has dubbed the
Shared Spaces Program
. Diners can enter a restaurant's indoor space to use the restroom or to place an order, but must otherwise remain outside, according to the order. Customers must also wear a face mask whenever they are not seated at their table.
SF Chronicle, June 9, 2020
Landlords will be permanently barred from evicting tenants if they can’t pay rent due to coronavirus-related issues, like job loss or getting sick from the virus, under legislation passed by the Board of Supervisors Tuesday.
SF Chronicle, June 10, 2020
The coronavirus pandemic is driving rents down in San Francisco and across the region, reshaping a housing market that for the past decade has generated enormous profits for residential developers while displacing tens of thousands of workers from the inner Bay Area. Rents are
down 9% from a year ago
in San Francisco and over 15% in some tech hubs in the South Bay, according to a recent report by Zumper, a rental housing search engine. That trend will likely accelerate as layoffs mount and workers, newly liberated by work-from-home options, flee the Bay Area for cheaper cities, according to housing experts.
Mercury News, June 10, 2020
Some Tesla workers at the company’s facility in Fremont reportedly tested positive for coronavirus shortly after the electric carmaker got the go-ahead from Alameda County officials to start up vehicle production at the massive plant in late May.
SF Chronicle, June 9, 2020
Both Santa Cruz and Monterey counties announced that they will open to outside leisure travelers on Friday. Both counties have received permission to move more quickly through the state’s reopening plan. That means, on June 12, lifting shelter-in-place restrictions on hotels, wineries, restaurants, bars, vacation rentals, museums, zoos, gyms, swimming pools, campgrounds and other outdoor areas. Notably, Santa Cruz County is extending restrictions on beach access through July 6, according to a county statement issued Tuesday. The rules ban sedentary activity, like sunbathing and picnicking, on all beaches in the county but allow people to cross the sand to exercise between the hours of 11 a.m. and 5 p.m.
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Beth Skwarecki, Senior Health Editor, Lifehacker, June 9, 2020
People who get the virus and show symptoms seem to be infectious for one to three days before their symptoms appear. They are then infectious while they are sick and possibly for some time afterward. One study found that people with “mild” symptoms were infectious for eight days after the onset of symptoms, with the highest viral load toward the beginning of their illness. Sicker people may be infectious for longer.
New York City Health, June 8, 2020
While we should stay home as much as possible and minimize contact with others to reduce the spread of Covid-19, consensual, adult sex is a normal part of life and part of sustainable living. The New York City Health Department offers practical strategies to reduce the risk of spreading Covid-19 during sex.
Melinda Wenner Moyer, science journalist, NT Times, June 8, 2020
The reality is, people need social contact, and some families are struggling without it. So we need to find ways to socialize safely. One idea that some families are considering, and that infectious disease epidemiologists think might be a smart way to balance mental health needs with physical safety, is to create quarantine “pods” or “bubbles,” in which two or three families agree to socialize with one another but no one else. In a pod, families hang out together, often without regard to social distancing, but outside of the pod, they follow recommended social distancing rules.
Dr. James Hamblin, The Atlantic, June 10, 2020
Making music has benefits beyond tradition. In a pandemic, though, it’s also riskier than staying silent. Donald Milton, an environmental-health professor at the University of Maryland, has advised the groups not to gather again to sing in person until a vaccine or treatment for COVID-19 becomes widely available, even if that takes years. This is the expert consensus, unfortunately. But the dangers don’t erase the fact that singing is integral to all sorts of cultural traditions, religious and otherwise, and a fundamental way of bonding, communicating, and expressing emotion.
Kaiser Health News, June 9, 2020
Once the epitome of efficiency for moving masses of people quickly to where they needed to go, the elevator is the antithesis of social distancing and a risk-multiplying bottleneck. As America begins to open up, the newest conundrum for employers in cities is how to safely transport people in elevators and manage the crowd of people waiting for them. To mitigate those risks, elevator experts stress, those riding elevators should wear masks, resist touching surfaces as much as possible and use items such as disposable tissues or, indeed, those toothpicks to touch the buttons. Also, use hand sanitizer frequently. The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
recommends limiting time in elevators and taking one-directional stairs instead, when possible, as well as maintaining
6 feet of distance
.
Beth Skwarecki, Senior Health Editor, Lifehacker, June 10, 2020
The truth is, you’ll almost certainly have lost strength. Even if you kept working out during quarantine, your strength won’t necessarily show up your first day back in the gym. So set low expectations. Do not try to test your one-rep maxes your first day back.
John Briley, wellness writer, Washington Post, June 9, 2020
Starting sometime in our 30s (the data aren’t precise), we lose up to 8 percent of our muscle mass per decade, a decline called sarcopenia, along with up to 30 percent of our strength and power. Just about every exercise you can do in a gym you can do at home, albeit with some modification.
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LA Times, June 9, 2020
The number of coronavirus infections throughout California continues to rise steadily as counties further lift stay-at-home restrictions amid increasing efforts to restore the battered economy. On Monday, health officials reported
nearly 3,100 cases
,
bringing the total to more than 134,000 infections in the state. California surpassed 100,000 cases a little less than two weeks ago and has reported at least 2,000 infections every day since.
Cal Matters, June 9, 2020
A medical equipment supplier that was once raided by the FBI. A business executive fined for making false or misleading statements in financial reports. A corporation fined for Medicaid fraud. At least two companies that had existed less than a week. These are among the hundreds of vendors the state of California has contracted with, or nearly gone into business with, as government officials rushed to prepare for the coronavirus pandemic.
Sacramento Bee, June 10, 2020
Sacramento County has seen a
notable rise in confirmed COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations
in the last two weeks, prompting state officials on Tuesday to say they will step in to work with Sacramento and several other counties in an effort to tamp down the resurgence. Sacramento County health officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye said her contact tracing team is noting increased cases after families have gathered in homes in violation of the state and county health orders, which still say people should not be gathering in groups inside homes. Kasirye said it appears that the recent reopenings of restaurants, stores, barbers and hair salons may have convinced people that the virus risk has gone away.
NY Times, June 10, 2020
As California
has released guidelines
for reopening more and more businesses, nail salons have been notably absent. Now, salon owners and industry advocates say they’re still waiting for the state to give the green light. “I’m worrying more and more,” stated Lan-Anh Truong, a nail salon owner in the City of Alameda. She’s worried about paying the roughly $3,000 per month on rent once the salon reopens at reduced capacity. Truong hasn’t been able to pay employees. She’ll have to rely on customers keeping their appointments and won’t be able to accept walk-ins, which made up about half of her business before.
LA Times, June 10, 2020
The order from Orange County’s health officer was simple and far from radical: Residents should wear cloth face coverings while in a public place, at work or visiting a business to protect against the spread of coronavirus. But almost immediately, Dr. Nichole Quick faced a fierce backlash from residents and some elected officials, who questioned the need for masks. People came to a Board of Supervisors meeting carrying a poster with Quick’s photo on it with a Hitler mustache on her face and swastikas. Then, she got a death threat, and required a security detail.
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Washington Post, June 10, 2020
Coronavirus-related hospitalizations in at least nine states, including California, have been
on the rise since Memorial Day
, when a spate of large, crowded gatherings and
raucous pool parties
provoked warnings from health officials.
Record numbers
of patients requiring inpatient care have been reported in Arizona, where crowds packed tourist spots like Lake Havasu over the long weekend, and Texas, which was one of the first states to ease stay-at-home orders.
NY Times, June 9, 2020
In a wide-ranging talk to biotech executives, Dr. Anthony Fauci delivered a grim assessment of the devastation wrought around the world by the coronavirus. Covid-19 is the disease that Dr. Fauci always said would be his “worst nightmare,” a new, highly contagious respiratory infection that causes a significant amount of illness and death. “In a period of four months, it has devastated the whole world,” Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Tuesday during a conference. “And it isn’t over yet.”
Politico, June 10, 2020
Coronavirus outbreaks among farm workers are popping up in rural communities across the country, sparking fears within the agriculture industry that cases will skyrocket as harvest season stretches into summer. In the coming weeks, more crews will be sent into fields to pick, pack and ship ripening crops. About a quarter of the 2.5 million-person workforce follows the harvest into other regions, bringing concerns that migratory workers could spread the disease to more farms and states. Farms in nearly every region are seeing a spike in positive cases.
Washington Post, June 8, 2020
Fewer than half the states are following federal recommendations to report probable novel
coronavirus
cases and deaths, marking what experts say is an unusual break with public health practices that leads to inconsistent data collection and undercounts of the disease’s impact. A Washington Post review found that the states not disclosing probable cases and deaths include some of the largest: California, Florida, North Carolina and New York. That is one reason public health experts say the virus’s true toll is above
the U.S. tally
as of Sunday of about 1.9 million coronavirus cases and 109,000 deaths, benchmarks that shape policymaking and public opinion on the pandemic.
The Guardian, June 10, 2020
Protesters in
New York
have been unnecessarily arrested and detained for as long as 48 hours in “abysmal” conditions without access to masks, food and water, according to legal experts. More than 2,000 people had been
arrested
in the city as of Thursday, around a fifth of the total of over
10,000 arrested
nationally, on charges such as resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and violating the
now cancelled
city-wide curfew.
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Sixteen-year-old Sierra Rogers from Chicago was greeted with a parade of cars when she returned home last week after 8 weeks in the hospital battling Covid-19.
Family, friends, and local lawmakers joined in the celebration of her recovery, waving and honking as they passed her as she sat at a table on the sidewalk in front of her house, some cars slowed down to drop off cards and other tokens of good wishes for her family.
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East Bay Times, June 9, 2020
California schools will look different when they reopen next year, according to
new statewide guidance
.
Students should expect to wash their hands and have their temperature taken as they enter campus. They will likely wear masks and only attend classes a few days a week with a small group of classmates. Signs and taped marks on the floor will tell them which direction to walk and where to stand. Ultimately, local school district officials will decide how to reopen campuses. The guidance, the document states, “honors the varied local context of each of our local education authorities.
SF Chronicle, June 8, 2020
California school district officials knew reopening schools this fall for the state’s 6 million students, in an ongoing pandemic, wouldn’t be easy or inexpensive. But for some, it feels all but physically and financially impossible after reading the
62-page, how-to guide
released by the state Monday. With the clock ticking toward the start of school, district officials say time isn’t the only problem. Even with a plan in place, they might not be able to afford it. The guidelines from the state education and health departments will require additional staff, more bus drivers, more technology, better ventilation in schools, handwashing stations, “and the list goes on,” said Troy Flint, spokesman for the California School Boards Association.
Cal Matters, June, 8, 2020
State education officials released recommendations for reopening more than 10,000 public schools this fall. They illustrate a number of drastic changes that will need to be made in order for students to practice social distancing. Most notably, hybrid class schedules will mean a mix of classroom and online learning.
KPIX 5 News, June 8, 2020
The Palmer School for Boys and Girls, a Walnut Creek-based private school that has served students in Contra Costa County since 1939, has abruptly shut down. The school’s headmaster cited in an email to parents that restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the health threat posed to students in any event, were too much to overcome.
California Resources
- Road to Re-Opening Workbook, Alameda County Office of Education
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Washington Post, June 9, 2020
School leaders across the nation are preparing to reopen campuses in the fall. And they’re quickly learning that, when it comes to necessary supplies, it isn’t going to be easy, or cheap. Schools will need gallons of soap, thousands of containers of disinfectant wipes, hundreds of thermometers and masks for students and staffers. On top of that, there are the costly crews that will need to routinely come into school buildings for intensive cleans. KIPP DC, the District’s largest charter network, serving 7,000 students across seven campuses, provided The Washington Post with a list of its first bulk order of cleaning supplies and personal protective equipment, including 26,352 containers of disinfectant wipes and 188 gallons of soap. The supplies are expected to last the charter network only three months, according to Dane Anderson, KIPP DC’s chief operating officer.
USA Today, June 9, 2020
Though all colleges have been hurt by coronavirus closures and face uncertainties in the fall, the impact is particularly acute for historically black colleges and universities. The same history of oppression and institutional racism that ignited
protests against police violence across the USA
has left most black schools underfunded, often operating on shoestring budgets and unprepared to absorb sudden shock. Most HBCUs depend more on enrollment and have smaller endowments than other universities. Some were struggling financially before the coronavirus, leaving experts to wonder how many will survive if the pandemic leads to a prolonged dip in enrollment.
Politico, June 9, 2020
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam on Tuesday said that the state will allow schools to slowly resume in-person classes this summer and in the fall. But school districts also will have discretion on how to implement Northam's plans and may decide their schools will have additional restrictions, depending on local public health conditions.
Associated Press, June 9, 2020
With North Carolina's COVID-19 numbers reaching new highs, Gov. Roy Cooper warned the public Monday that public school building openings set for August could be delayed unless health precautions are taken seriously by everyone. Cooper shut down school buildings in March and they never reopened this school year.
Chattanooga Times Free Press, June 9, 2020
When classes begin again this fall, schools across Tennessee might reopen campuses right away or gradually, stagger student schedules,
continue providing virtual distance learning
or even adopt year-round models that only allow a set number of students on campus at a given time.
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Associated Press, June 10, 2020
A scientist whose modeling helped set Britain’s coronavirus strategy said Tuesday that the country’s death toll could have been cut in half if lockdown had been introduced a week earlier. Britain has the second-highest confirmed death toll in the world from Covid-19, at more than 41,000. Including cases where coronavirus was suspected but not confirmed by a test, the total is over 50,000. Neil Ferguson, professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London, told lawmakers that when key decisions were being made in March, scientists underestimated how widely the virus had spread in the U.K.
The Guardian, June 10, 2020
China has been accused by Brussels of running disinformation campaigns inside the
European Union
, as the bloc set out a plan to tackle a “huge wave” of false facts about the coronavirus pandemic. The
European commission
said Russia and China were running “targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns in the EU, its neighbourhood, and globally”. While the charge against Russia has been levelled on many occasions, this is the first time the EU executive has publicly named China as a source of disinformation.
AFP, June 10, 2020
President Jair Bolsonaro's government stopped publishing the total number of deaths from the new coronavirus Friday, saying it was adopting a new methodology and would only report the number of deaths recorded in the past 24 hours in its daily bulletin. That drew accusations of foul play from a long list of high-profile critics, as well as a ruling from Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Monday that the government must return to the old format. The health ministry did so Tuesday, indicating the death toll had risen by 1,272, to a total of 38,406 people killed by the virus, the third-highest toll in the world, after the United States and Britain.
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Paul Krugman, NY Times, June 10, 2020
It now looks likely that by late summer the US will be the only major wealthy nation where large numbers of people are still dying from Covid-19. Why are we failing the test? It’s easy to blame Donald Trump. But America’s impatience, its unwillingness to do what it takes to deal with a threat that can’t be beaten with threats of violence, runs much deeper than one man. America in 2020, it seems, is too disunited, with too many people in the grip of ideology and partisanship, to deal effectively with a pandemic. We have the knowledge, we have the resources, but we don’t have the will.
The Guardian, June 10, 2020
Despite the perceived advantages of immunity, creating a system that publicly identifies people with antibodies opens safety and privacy issues. Eric Klinenberg, sociologist and director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University, says immunity is not “the new golden ticket” it is perceived to be. “That just opens up a Pandora’s box of questions about how we determine who’s immune, about how we record and register who’s immune, about how we track people and what happens to people who are not?” he says. “So I can very easily see it becoming yet another source of controversy in an already divided country.”
Virginia Postrel, political writer, USA Today, June 9, 2020
Officially or not, the United States is adopting the
Swedish model
of dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, on a much larger scale and with a more divided and rambunctious population. “Flatten the curve” worked as a slogan, because most Americans wanted to avoid overrun hospitals. They didn’t want what happened in Lombardy to happen here. And, outside of New York City, flattening the curve has worked. But once you’ve solved that problem, then what? Officials never offered a coherent and realistic plan for going forward.
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Alameda County Data and Resources
: 999 n
ew cases have been recorded over the last two weeks. The number of confirmed infections is currently doubling every 35.4 days.
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Contra Costa County Data and Resources
: 421 new cases have been recorded over last 2 weeks. The number of confirmed infections is currently doubling every 26. days.
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Top 8 Locations of Cases in Alameda County
, data as of 6/9/20
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Oakland:
1,549
Hayward:
731
Eden MAC:
247
Fremont:
202
San Leandro:
176
Union City:
142
Castro Valley:
128
Newark:
120
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Top 8 Locations of Cases in Contra Costa County
, data as of 6/9/20
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Richmond:
402
Concord:
206
Antioch:
147
San Pablo:
142
Pittsburgh:
124
Bay Point:
96
Pleasant Hill:
71
Brentwood:
68
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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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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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Press Release: Alameda County Partners with City of San Leandro and Eden Health District to Bring FREE COVID-19 Testing to San Leandro
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June 8, 2020 - The Eden Health District, Alameda County and the City of San Leandro announced today that free COVID-19 testing will start on Tuesday, June 9, at the Marina Community Center located at 15301 Wicks Boulevard, San Leandro, California.
The testing is available to all frontline and essential workers, seniors, persons with diabetes, hypertension and other health conditions making them vulnerable to COVID-19,
even if they do not have any COVID-19 symptoms
.
The testing is also available to all persons with COVID-19 symptoms. These symptoms include, separately or in combination, cough, fever, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat or a new loss of taste or smell.
Testing is free and no insurance is required. People will not be asked their immigration status. Testing is open to all Alameda County residents regardless of where they live.
“This site adds testing capacity to an area with limited testing options and is adjacent to communities that are being greatly impacted by COVID-19,” said Alameda County District 3 Supervisor Wilma Chan. “Partnering with the City of San Leandro and the Eden Health District on this site deepens our connections to residents who need to hear about this new testing opportunity.”
For the first week of testing at the Marina Community Center, the dates and hours of operation are as follows: Tuesday, June 9 through Saturday, June 13 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Starting on Monday, June 15, the testing center will be open Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Testing at the Marina Community Center is expected to continue through August 2020.
Testing is by appointment only and can be made by visiting the website
https://lhi.care/covidtesting
or calling toll free 1-888-634-1123. Both the website and phone line provide information in English and Spanish.
“Safeguarding the health and wellness of our residents as we navigate the challenges posed by the pandemic is one of San Leandro’s highest priorities.” stated Mayor of San Leandro Pauline Cutter. “We are grateful to partner with Alameda County and the Eden Health District in establishing free Covid-19 testing in San Leandro. Anyone with a reason to be tested is welcome.”
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“The Eden Health District continues to seize opportunities to leverage public resources to help slow the spread of the coronavirus in the community while maximizing service to all parts of our district.” stated
Eden Health District
Director Charles Gilcrest. “We were honored to assist the City of Hayward in continuing its COVID-19 testing program and are pleased to join with Alameda County and the City of San Leandro in bringing a testing center to San Leandro.”
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To determine where to locate new testing sites, the State evaluated underserved areas for known disparities and median income. The County then overlaid its own data and leveraged partnerships with community-based organizations and clinics to ensure appropriate follow-up care and other resources.
Increased access to testing is a cornerstone of Alameda County’s COVID-19 response strategy, which includes contact tracing to identify cases early, and health and social supports for people who need to isolate or quarantine.
The County is also serving as a resource to provide much needed testing supplies to clinics, hospitals and other entities, like Skilled Nursing Facilities, that serve vulnerable populations in order to equip more sites to test effectively and support increased access.
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Your feedback is welcome. Please share the Bulletin.
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The
Eden Health District Board of Directors
are Gordon Galvan, Chair, Mariellen Faria, Vice Chair, Charles Gilcrest, Secretary, Roxann Lewis and Pam Russo. The Chief Executive Officer is Mark Friedman.
The Eden Health District is committed to ensuring that policy makers and community members receive accurate and timely information to help make the best policy and personal choices to meet and overcome the challenges posed
by
the Covid-19 pandemic.
Each bulletin includes a summary of the top health, Bay Area, California, national and international news on the pandemic plus links to a diverse range of commentary and analysis. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday the bulletin includes an education section.
We welcome your feedback on our bulletin. Please contact editor
Stephen Cassidy
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