COVID-19
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Uptick In COVID Cases Force Some Mask Requirements In Alameda County
Alameda County residents may be required to wear masks due to a spike in COVID cases. Health officials on Friday announced Alameda County is now in the "yellow" COVID transmission level according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's rules. As a result, mask mandates will go into effect for homeless and emergency shelters, along with heating centers. "We have observed worsening increases in COVID-19 case reports and hospitalizations since October," Alameda County Health Officer Dr. Nicholas Moss said in a statement. "Taking actions like masking and staying home when sick can prevent spreading illnesses like COVID-19, flu, and RSV and help protect our health care system from strain." Masks will also be required in all health care settings in the county. NBC Bay Area Read more
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Santa Clara County Moves Into "High" COVID Tier, Triggering New Mask Guidelines
COVID-19 community levels continue to rise across the U.S., with 14% of Americans now living in a region classified in the “high” tier on Friday, based on hospitalization and case metrics used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the Bay Area, Santa Clara County became the first in the region to slip back into the “high” tier, for which the CDC recommends people wear a high-quality mask or respirator in public spaces and counsels those who are high-risk to consider avoiding non-essential indoor public activities. SF Chronicle Read more
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COVID Cases Are Soaring In San Francisco And Los Angeles — Here's How They Compare
As COVID-19 cases rise across the state, how does the situation in the Bay Area compare to that of Los Angeles? Case rates in San Francisco, Los Angeles County and the wider Bay Area are all on the rise, but, so far, L.A. is faring worse. As of Dec. 6, the giant southern California jurisdiction reported a seven-day average rate of 34 new cases per 100,000 people, while San Francisco’s came in lower at just under 27 and the Bay Area’s rang in at 27.4. San Francisco and Los Angeles are showing similar test positivity numbers, however — a telling indication of the prevalence of coronavirus in the community. In San Francisco, 11.1% of tests are currently coming back positive, according to state data, while L.A.’s rate is a bit higher at 11.5%. The statewide average is 11.7%. SF Chronicle Read more
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Is Bay Area "Tripledemic" Bad Enough To Rethink Indoor Dining? Here's What Experts Say
This holiday season, restaurants in the Bay Area are operating closer to pre-pandemic normal than ever before — though a confluence of respiratory illnesses on the rise could mean trouble, already forcing the temporary closure of one popular San Francisco eatery. During the first winter of the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020, restaurants were completely shuttered except for takeout. While vaccines and boosters led to the easing of public health measures during the holiday season in 2021, many Bay Area restaurants temporarily closed down as the original Omicron variant sent cases soaring to unprecedented heights. This year, while wastewater samples indicate a new coronavirus surge is under way, restaurants are allowed to operate essentially without COVID restrictions. That means they’ve welcomed back big group reservations and large holiday parties, and especially with the recent chilly weather, more people are opting to dine indoors. SF Chronicle Read more
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COVID Vaccine/Treatment News |
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Bivalent COVID Shot For Young Kids, Ages 6 Month to 6 Years, Gets Federal Approval, Will Be Available Within Days
Children ages 6 months to 6 years will soon be getting a slightly different COVID-19 vaccine for their third dose. As with adults and older kids, their third shot will be a so-called bivalent vaccine, targeting both the original virus and a variant that was widely circulating for much of this year. The Food and Drug Administration signed off on the vaccine change Thursday morning and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention followed suit Friday. The change applies to third doses of both the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, called Comirnaty, and Moderna's vaccine, named Spikevax, though there are slight differences in age and dose between the two. USA Today Read more
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Key Partner In Covax Will Stop Giving Free Vaccines To Middle-Income Nations
A key partner in Covax, the organization that has led the effort to bring Covid vaccines to poor and middle-income countries, will stop supplying the shots to a huge part of the global population in the year ahead, and provide them only to the lowest-income nations. The board of governors of Gavi, the nonprofit that supplies immunizations to developing countries, voted at a meeting in Geneva on Thursday to end Covax support for 37 countries, including Egypt and Indonesia, where hundreds of thousands of people have died from the coronavirus. NY Times Read more
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U.S. Military Braces For Impact Of COVID Vaccine Mandate Repeal
As a repeal of the US military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate took a step closer to becoming law on Thursday, military officials and experts are warning it’s a change that could have adverse ripple-effects on military readiness and the ability of service members to deploy around the world. “This isn’t just our side of the equation,” a defense official told CNN regarding the possible impact of the change. “It’s what our partners and people that we would train and work with are asking us to do to enter the country.” CNN Read more
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State/National/International News |
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It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Another COVID Surge
Here we go again: For the first time in several months, another wave seems to be on the horizon in the United States. In the past two weeks, reported cases have increased by 53 percent, and hospitalizations have risen by 31 percent. Virus levels in wastewater, which can provide an advance warning of spread, are following a similar trajectory. After the past two years, a winter surge “was always expected,” Nash said. Respiratory illnesses thrive in colder weather, when people tend to spend more time indoors. Thanksgiving travel and gatherings were likewise predicted to drive cases, Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at UCLA, told me. If people were infected then, their illnesses will probably start showing up in the data around now. “We’re going to see a surge [that is] likely going to start really increasing in velocity,” she said. The Atlantic Read more
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New COVID Subvariants Are "The Most Immune Evasive Yet." Here’s What That Means
More than previous versions of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the emerging BQ.1, BQ.1.1 and XBB subvariants — descendants of the dominant Omicron strain — are capable of getting around the immunity gained from vaccination or prior infection, studies warn. Their wily evasiveness makes approved vaccines less effective at preventing infection and jeopardizes treatments meant to protect immunocompromised individuals, experts said, though noting that the latest booster is still better than no booster at all. SF Chronicle Read more
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California’s COVID Hospitalizations Reaching Summer Peak. So Why Are Case Counts Much Lower?
For the first time since July, California hospitals have topped daily totals of 5,000 patients with COVID, an alarming sign as cases continue to spike from Thanksgiving with the next round of holiday gatherings on the horizon. Hospitalizations are one of the most significant indicators of the virus’ impact, because fewer people are reporting positive tests in this third winter of the pandemic. Across the Golden State, hospitals are now just a few dozen beds shy of the peak of 5,181 from this summer’s surge, despite the official COVID case rate registering at just half of this summer’s peak. Mercury News
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How To Avoid Illness As COVID-19 And The Flu Surge
A one-two punch of COVID-19 and the flu is striking California, sickening residents — some so severely they’ve had to go to the hospital — interrupting daily life and threatening to upend holiday plans. But while both diseases are spreading widely, officials stress that Californians aren’t powerless. There are steps everyone can take to better protect themselves and those around them. LA Times Read more
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The COVID Pandemic’s Hidden Casualties: Pregnant Women
Of all the groups still threatened by COVID-19 — including the elderly and the immunocompromised — it is pregnant women who seem the most unaware of the risks. Covid can kill pregnant women and can result in miscarriage, preterm births and stillbirths even when the women have asymptomatic or mild illness. The infection may also affect the baby’s brain development. NY Times Read more
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Why Pandemic Fatigue And COVID-19 Burnout Took Over In 2022
2022 was the year many people decided the coronavirus pandemic had ended. President Joe Biden said as much in an interview with 60 Minutes in September. “The pandemic is over,” he said while strolling around the Detroit Auto Show. “We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over.” His evidence? “No one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape.” But the week Biden’s remarks aired, about 360 people were still dying each day from COVID-19 in the United States. Science News Read more
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COVID Science Is Moving Backwards
Paul Sax is an infectious-disease physician and professor at Harvard Medical School. Even so, when Sax’s kids asked him whether they should get the updated COVID vaccine this fall, he wasn’t really sure what to tell them. His two children are in their 20s, healthy, and at no special risk of complications from disease. Each had recovered from COVID, and thus, he reasoned, had extra immunity on top of what they’d gotten from their prior shots. Another injection would likely cause them a day or two of unpleasant side effects, and expose them to a very small risk of heart inflammation. The Atlantic Read more
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Long COVID Is Distorting The Labor Market — And That’s Bad For The U.S. Economy
Weeks after Charlotte Hultquist got COVID-19 in November 2020, she developed a severe pain in her right ear. “It felt like someone was sticking a knife in [it],” said Hultquist, a single mother of five who lives in Hartford, Vermont. The 41-year-old is one of millions of Americans who have long COVID. The chronic illness carries a host of potentially debilitating symptoms that can last for months or years, making it impossible for some to work. For about a year, Hultquist was among those long COVID patients sidelined from the workforce. CNBC Read more
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Sick Leave And Family Leave Priorities For Workers Heading Into New Year
The bitter negotiations that nearly brought the country’s freight rail system to a halt last week hinged on one quality of life issue: worker leave. Rail workers nearly went on strike over paid sick leave. They lost their fight, but in the post-pandemic era, the issue of how and when workers can take leave from their jobs is at the core of several major labor negotiations. At Delta, nearly 15,000 pilots threatened a work stoppage due in part to disagreements about time off and scheduling before they reached a tentative agreement with the airline this week. NBC News Read more
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Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV)/Flu |
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Hospital Financial Decisions Play A Role In The Critical Shortage Of Pediatric Beds For RSV Patients
The dire shortage of pediatric hospital beds plaguing the nation this fall is a byproduct of financial decisions made by hospitals over the past decade, as they shuttered children’s wards, which often operate in the red, and expanded the number of beds available for more profitable endeavors like joint replacements and cancer care. To cope with the flood of young patients sickened by a sweeping convergence of nasty bugs — especially respiratory syncytial virus, influenza, and coronavirus — medical centers nationwide have deployed triage tents, delayed elective surgeries, and transferred critically ill children out of state. Kaiser Health News Read more
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Flu Testing Now Available At State’s COVID-19 Test Sites
Given a rise in respiratory illnesses and the increase from medium to high levels of flu across the state, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) is expanding its no-cost testing program for COVID-19 to include flu testing at the state's COVID-19 testing sites. "Respiratory infections are spreading quickly now and could continue throughout the winter. I urge everyone six months of age and older to get vaccinated against flu and COVID-19 as soon as possible," said State Public Health Officer and CDPH Director, Dr. Tomás Aragón. "And should you become ill, please promptly seek testing and appropriate treatment." CDPH Read more
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Flu Surged After Thanksgiving, As Early Season Continues To Worsen
Flu surged in the United States after Thanksgiving, bringing the most severe week yet in a season that hit the county extra early. More than a third of all flu hospitalizations and deaths so far this season were reported in just the past week, and cases also jumped nearly as much. New data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there have been at least 13 million illnesses, 120,000 hospitalizations, and 7,300 deaths from flu so far this season. CNN Read more
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Governor Newsom Announces An Unprecedented $480.5 Million In Grants For Youth Mental Health
Governor Gavin Newsom on Dec. 7 announced $480.5 million in awards for 54 projects to improve California’s behavioral health infrastructure for children and youth. As part of Governor Newsom’s Master Plan for Kids’ Mental Health, this historic investment provides grant funding to construct new facilities and expand existing facilities that help children, youth, transition-age youth, and perinatal individuals with a mental health and/or substance use disorder. Office of Gov.Gavin Newsom Read more
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As Student Mental Health Needs Soar, Schools Turn To Telehealth
In the southwestern suburbs of Denver, the Cherry Creek school system has been tackling the mental health crisis gripping students here, as in the rest of the country. Social workers and psychologists are based in schools to help. But this month, the district debuted a new option: telehealth therapy for children. Washington Post
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Total Confirmed Cases
Bay Area: 1,830,773
California: 11,623,042
U.S.: 99,428,476
Alameda County
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the Latest Figures
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Total Reported Deaths
Bay Area: 9,446
California: 97,834
U.S.: 1,084,496
Contra Costa County
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the Latest Figures
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You’ve Got COVID — But What Are The Rules These Days?
Someone at your office had COVID a few days ago and is now back at their desk in the cubicle next to yours. That can’t be okay, can it? What exactly does it mean to test positive now that masks are off and life is back to normal? What are the COVID rules anyway? The rules for isolating, staying home from work or parties, and masking include a lot of gray areas now that everyone seems ready to move on from the pandemic that ruined past holidays. Official guidelines often differ from unofficial recommendations that individuals and employers follow. Mercury News 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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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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