COVID-19
breaking news & updates
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Nearly Half Of Biden’s 500M Free COVID Tests Still Unclaimed
Order Yours Online
Nearly half of the 500 million free COVID-19 tests the Biden administration recently made available to the public still have not been claimed as virus cases plummet and people feel less urgency to test. On the first day of the White House test giveaway in January, COVIDtests.gov received over 45 million orders. Now officials say fewer than 100,000 orders a day are coming in for the packages of four free rapid tests per household, delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. AP Read more
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COVID Test Resources
Food Pantries
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Eden Health District Holding Public Hearing Wednesday
2022 Redistricting Draft Map Boundaries To Be Presented
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What The New CDC Mask Guidelines Mean For The Bay Area
Almost all Bay Area counties on Friday suddenly dropped out of the federally defined “high transmission” category for COVID-19, after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised its mask guidelines and announced new criteria for assessing local risk. Under the new guidelines, more than 70% of U.S. residents live in an area defined as having low to medium levels of disease and are no longer advised to wear masks indoors. Six of the nine Bay Area counties are now in that lowest tier, and only two — Napa and Solano — remain in the high-risk category. Santa Clara County is defined as medium risk. The change in guidance likely will not have an immediate effect in the Bay Area, where eight counties already dropped indoor mask mandates for vaccinated people on Feb. 15, and the ninth — Santa Clara County — expects to lifts its next week . All Bay Area counties still strongly recommend that everyone wear masks indoors. SF Chronicle Read more
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Parents Rally In S.F.’s Golden Gate Park Against School Masks
It was only after Carolyn Selig’s 9-year-old son developed COVID-19, then contact dermatitis, that she became a protester for the first time in her life, contending the mask requirement at his school didn’t prevent the virus but did irritate his face. “Mask choice for kids. Let them breathe,” Selig, 40, yelled to passing cars, bicyclists and pedestrians entering Golden Gate Park on Sunday. Her orange T-shirt proclaimed “Parents for Mask Choice,” and she rotated a selection of handmade placards. SF Chronicle Read more
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What’s Next For Parklets, Evictions In Berkeley As COVID-19 "Emergency" Ends
Nearly two years after COVID-19 began upending daily life in Berkeley, the pandemic has already outlasted some of the changes it inspired. The city’s Healthy Streets program, which sought to give pedestrians and bikes more space by closing a handful of roads to traffic, ended late last year. A city-mandated “hazard pay” raise for grocery store workers expired a few months after it was enacted in early 2021. But other changes appear to have secured their permanent place in the post-pandemic future — such as the restaurant patios that materialized in parking spots, and virtual City Council meetings that let members of the public share comments from their living room rather than showing up in-person. Berkeleyside Read more
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South Bay Church Fined $2.8 Million For COVID Violations Hasn’t Paid A Cent As Lawsuit Drags On
The most notorious offender of Santa Clara County’s COVID-19 public health orders — San Jose’s Calvary Chapel — hasn’t yet paid the county a cent despite racking up more than $2.8 million in fines for repeated violations. That’s because county officials have been locked in a legal battle with Calvary Chapel since October 2020, when they sued the church for hosting large, mask-free indoor services for months in violation of health directives. But County Counsel James Williams hopes the church will soon cough up the money after Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Christopher Rudy earlier this week rejected a request by Calvary and its senior pastor, Mike McClure, to dismiss the lawsuit.
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Free COVID-19 Testing Available At Alameda County Fairgrounds
KindlyTest, a medical diagnostics company based in Santa Clara, has opened a free COVID-19 testing site at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton. The site, at Gate 12 of the fairgrounds off Valley Avenue, will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week, according to a company announcement. Testing is available for anyone ages 2 and older and no appointments are necessary.
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Google Restores Bay Area Office Perks, Loosens Vaccine Mandate For Remote Workers
Google is restoring its signature perks like shuttle buses, massages and cafes in the Bay Area as the pandemic eases and it moves toward bringing back most office employees for at least a few days a week. The Mountain View tech giant is also lifting a temporary weekly testing policy for on-site workers in the Bay Area, but vaccinations will remain mandatory. SF Chronicle
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U.S. Vaccination Drive Grinds To A Halt As Omicron Declines
The average number of Americans getting their first shot is down to about 90,000 a day, the lowest point since the first few days of the U.S. vaccination campaign, in December 2020. And hopes of any substantial improvement in the immediate future have largely evaporated. About 76 percent of the U.S. population has received at least one shot. Less than 65 percent of all Americans are fully vaccinated. Vaccination incentive programs that gave away cash, sports tickets, beer and other prizes have largely gone away. Government and employer vaccine mandates have faced court challenges and may have gone as far as they ever will. And with COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths subsiding across the U.S., people who are against getting vaccinated don’t see much reason to change their minds. NBC News Read more
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$27 Million Awarded To 153 California Community-Based Organizations To Boost Vaccinations In Communities Hardest Hit By The Pandemic
The California Department of Public Health (CDPH), and the Labor and Workforce Development Agency (LWDA), in partnership with The Center at Sierra Health Foundation, recently announced the continuation of their community engagement efforts by awarding more than $27 million in contracts to 153 community-based organizations throughout California. These organizations will continue to encourage COVID-19 vaccination, including boosters, especially among communities hit hardest by the pandemic. California Department of Public Health Read more
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Canada Authorizes First Plant-Based COVID-19 Vaccine
Canada has become the first country to authorize use of a plant-based COVID-19 vaccine. Canadian regulators said Thursday Medicago’s two-dose vaccine can be given to adults ages 18 to 64, but said there's too little data on the shots in people 65 and older. The decision was based on a study of 24,000 adults that found the vaccine was 71% effective at preventing COVID-19 — although that was before the Omicron variant emerged. Side effects were mild, including fever and fatigue. ABC News Read more
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A Kennedy’s Crusade Against COVID Vaccines Anguishes Family And Friends
Kerry Kennedy remembers how much she admired her older brother Robert as they grew up in Hickory Hill, the family estate in McLean, Va. She still talks about how he took her along to ford streams, crawl through drainpipes and catch frogs and snakes, ignoring his friends who did not want a 6-year-old girl tagging behind on their outdoor adventures.
“He was an extraordinary older brother,” she said the other day. “He’s brilliant, he’s well read, he cares deeply, he is extremely charismatic. He has a childlike buoyancy and lightness to him. He’s a beautiful person in a million different ways. “And then he has this.” NY Times Read more
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New York City Could Lift Its Vaccine Mandate For Indoor Spaces As Soon As March 7
New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Sunday that a dramatic drop in coronavirus infections could lead to the lifting of vaccine mandates on restaurants, bars and theaters as soon as March 7.
His announcement came shortly after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced her own plans Sunday to lift the state's mask mandate on schools, effective Wednesday. Adams said the city would also lift the mask mandate on about 1 million of the city's schoolchildren in the country's largest school system. NPR Read more
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Moderna Faces New Lawsuit Over Lucrative Coronavirus Vaccine
Moderna faces yet another patent challenge over its coronavirus vaccine after Arbutus Biopharma and Genevant Sciences, both small biotechnology companies, filed a lawsuit on Monday alleging Moderna hijacked its technology to develop the multibillion-dollar vaccine. Arbutus and Genevant said in their lawsuit that Moderna infringed on their patent for so-called lipid nanoparticle technology, which they say was key in the development of Moderna’s mRNA vaccine and took scientists from Arbutus and Genevant “years of painstaking work to develop and refine.”
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State/National/International News
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Debate Rages As California Prepares To Lift School Mask Rule
Long-simmering disputes over California’s statewide mask requirement for K-12 schools are boiling over as California prepares to lift the mandate as early as next month, just weeks after easing face-covering rules in most other indoor areas amid falling but still-high COVID-19 case counts. State leaders are set to announce today when they will lift the mandate for schools, which they say has helped California campuses stay open and largely outbreak-free this year. “Masking has been a valuable tool to help reduce transmission,” Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said earlier this month. Mercury News Read more
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Studies Reveal New "Stealth" Omicron Variant Is 30% More Transmissible. Should California Be Worried?
New studies of the BA.2 sub-variant of the Omicron strain of COVID — known as “stealth” Omicron — show that the lineage is more transmissible than the original omicron, but may not be more severe. And so far, it doesn’t seem to be provoking another surge in cases. While experts are keeping a close eye on BA.2 as it circulates around the world — it is already in all 50 U.S. states — many aren’t worried that it will upend recent progress in winding down the pandemic. BA.2 is a sub-variant of the omicron variant of COVID-19. It’s known as “stealth” Omicron not because it’s harder to detect on coronavirus tests, said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at UCSF, but because it is not always recognized as Omicron. SF Chronicle Read more
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COVID-19 Has Turned Deadlier For Black Californians, Who Have The State’s Lowest Vaccination Rate
Deondray Moore sat in a plastic folding chair, rolled up his sleeve and got his first COVID-19 shot in the parking lot of Center of Hope Community Church in Oakland a week ago. He was the last in his family to get vaccinated after putting it off for more than a year, and only acquiesced because he wants to be in the delivery room when his son is born this summer. “My mom has been trying to get me vaccinated forever, since the (vaccines) came out,” Moore said. “My partner got it quick, and her kids got it as fast as they could. She wasn’t playing around. She was like ‘Don’t miss out on the baby.’” The 35-year-old Oakland native, an African American, knows multiple people who have contracted COVID-19 and died. Moore wears a mask and doesn’t go out much. But he’s suspicious of the vaccine and the way it was developed. “I just don’t trust the government,” he said. CalMatters Read more
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New Research Points To Wuhan Market As Pandemic Origin
Scientists released a pair of extensive studies on Saturday that point to a market in Wuhan, China, as the origin of the coronavirus pandemic. Analyzing data from a variety of sources, they concluded that the coronavirus was very likely present in live mammals sold in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in late 2019 and suggested that the virus twice spilled over into people working or shopping there. They said they found no support for an alternate theory that the coronavirus escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan.
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How Bad Is "Red COVID" In California?
Last week, the New York Times published an update on the "Red COVID" phenomenon, or the fact that during the COVID-19 pandemic, death rates tend to be higher in counties won by former President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election than in counties won by President Joe Biden. "This phenomenon is an example of how the country’s political polarization has warped people’s thinking, even when their personal safety is at stake," wrote Times journalist David Leonhardt. "It is a tragedy — and a preventable one, too. In California specifically, "Red COVID" exists — but only after April 2021 when the COVID-19 vaccines became widely available. Counties that voted for Biden in the 2020 presidential election typically have higher vaccination rates than counties that voted for Trump, and the COVID-19 vaccine is highly effective at protecting against severe disease and death. SFGate Read more
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More Than 5 Million Kids Lost A Parent Or Caregiver To COVID
At least 5.2 million children have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19, putting them at risk of poverty, exploitation and abuse and highlighting the lasting scars of the pandemic, a study shows. More than 1.2 million children under nine years of age were orphaned between March 2020 and October last year, along with 2.1 million kids between 10 and 17, according to a new modeling study published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health journal. The estimates on orphaned children, however, are probably higher as the death toll from COVID-19 has been vastly underestimated, especially in Africa where cases could be 10 times higher than official figures. Bloomberg Read more
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As Long COVID Cases Grow, Clues Emerge About Who Is Most At Risk
Eliana Uku wasn’t too worried when she got sick from COVID-19 in March 2020. She was 26 and healthy, she exercised most days, and at first her symptoms were mild. Even with a low fever, cough, fatigue, and mild headache, she kept working in her job as a corporate strategist in New York City. Three weeks after her first symptoms appeared she felt well enough to resume running. But her cough persisted, and after a month or so, new symptoms appeared, such as memory lapses and sensitivity to sound. By May she had insomnia, restless legs, and severe nausea. Her heart rate would skyrocket into the 160s after standing for a few minutes. National Geographic Read more
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Total Confirmed Cases
Bay Area: 1,266,594
California: 8,961,636
U.S.: 78,940,748
Alameda County
Total Vaccines Administered: 3,514,289
Total Cases: 252,793
Total Deaths: 1,734
Test Positivity (7-day rate): 3.6%
Hospitalized Patients (as of 2/28): 144
ICU Beds Available (as of 2/28): 83
As of February 28, cases have decreased recently but are still very high. The number of hospitalized COVID patients has also fallen in the Alameda County area. Deaths have remained at about the same level. The test positivity rate in Alameda County is high, suggesting that cases may be undercounted. NY Times
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Total Reported Deaths
Bay Area: 7,720
California: 85,043
U.S.: 948,438
Contra Costa County
Total Vaccines Administered: 2,436,889
Total Cases: 187,813
Total Deaths: 1,230
Test Positivity (7-day rate): 5.0%
Hospitalized Patients (as of 2/28): 85
ICU Beds Available (as of 2/28): 38
As of February 28, cases have decreased recently but are still very high. The number of hospitalized COVID patients has also fallen in the Contra Costa County area. Deaths have remained at about the same level. The test positivity rate in Contra Costa County is high, suggesting that cases may be undercounted. NY Times
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Natural Immunity Vs. Vaccine-Induced Immunity To COVID-19
Check out a Q&A about the difference between infection-induced immunity and vaccine-induced immunity, and more, published by UCLA Health. Read more
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- COVID-19 testing is a good idea, but keep in mind, people who test negative can still harbor the virus if they are early in their infection.
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A viral test tells you if you have a current infection.
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An antibody test might tell you if you had a past infection.
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Over the past week, Alameda County has averaged 698 new cases and 2.3 new death per day.
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Over the past week, Contra Costa County has averaged 275 new cases and 2.7 new deaths per day.
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Top 10 Locations of Cases in
Alameda County, cumulative
as of 2/28/2022
Oakland: 74,251
Hayward: 33,137
Fremont: 25,667
San Leandro: 15,512
Eden MAC: 14,443
Livermore: 12,705
Berkeley: 12,700
Union City: 11,146
Alameda: 8,652
Castro Valley: 8,642
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Top 10 Locations of Cases in
Contra Costa County, cumulative
as of 2/28/2022
Richmond: 27,761
Antioch: 25,289
Concord: 20,267
Pittsburg: 16,394
San Pablo: 11,847
Brentwood: 11,263
Oakley: 9,464
Walnut Creek: 9,252
San Ramon: 7,960
Martinez: 6,212
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About Eden Health District
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The Eden Health District Board of Directors are Chair Mariellen Faria, Vice Chair Pam Russo, Secretary/Treasurer Roxann Lewis, Gordon Galvan and Ed Hernandez. The Chief Executive Officer is Mark Friedman.
The Eden Health District is committed to ensuring that policy makers and community members receive accurate and timely information to help make the best policy and personal choices to meet and overcome the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
We welcome your feedback on our bulletin. Please contact editor Lisa Mahoney.
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