COVID-19
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Berkeley Vaccination Rate Tops 93%
At a time when many parts of the country are still battling misinformation-fueled vaccine hesitancy, the city of Berkeley is closing in on what from a public health standpoint is ethereal territory. The East Bay city has fully vaccinated more than 93 percent of eligible residents (those who are at least 12 years of age), among the highest rates of any U.S. city. Berkeley has consistently been among the Bay Area's most vaccinated communities for months. Berkeley Patch Read more
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East Bay Residents Turned Away From CVS Vaccine Booster Appointments As They Face Shortages
As Pfizer boosters are becoming available for people 65 years old and older or those with underlying health conditions, we are getting reports of Bay Area residents who are showing up to their appointments to find out there are no boosters. According to the CVS pharmacist at the 2000 Mountain Blvd, Montclair location (Oakland) they give out close to 80 vaccines a day. On Tuesday, zero. "I thought I had an appointment for Friday for my booster shot. I was just notified that there's a sign on the door," said Jan Yager, Montclair resident. ABC7 News Read more
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Kaiser Suspends Thousands Of Employees Who Shunned Vaccine
Kaiser Permanente has suspended more than 2,000 employees who have chosen not to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. “More than 92 percent of our employees have been vaccinated - and the number continues to grow,” the Oakland-based health care giant said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. “As of October 4, just over 2,200 have not responded to our vaccine requirement, and have been put on unpaid administrative leave across the country.” The move was not unexpected. Kaiser announced a vaccine requirement for employees in early August and had given employees until Sept. 30 to get their shots. Mercury News Read more
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Unvaccinated Employees Could Mean S.F.'s Muni Service Will Be Scaled Back - By Halloween Weekend
With less than a month before the city’s vaccine deadline, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency sounded alarms on Tuesday over how its sagging vaccination rates would impact city services in the coming weeks. If vaccine rates don’t improve, SFMTA Director Jeffrey Tumlin told the agency’s Board of Directors Tuesday, riders could start seeing Muni service effects by Halloween weekend, when the city is set to host its massive Outside Lands music festival at Golden Gate Park. “If several hundred of our employees are still unvaccinated as of Nov. 1 and are terminated, it will significantly impact transit operations and parking control in San Francisco,” the SFMTA said in a Tuesday email alert. SF Chronicle Read more
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Santa Clara County Employees To Receive Millions Of Dollars In "Hero Pay" COVID Pandemic Checks
Making use of an infusion of federal money aimed at helping government agencies recover from the devastating economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Santa Clara County plans to dole out a total of $76 million in “hero pay” bonuses to all its employees. Full-time employees will get $2,500, while part-time employees will receive a pro-rated version of that amount. In addition, In-Home Support Services workers, who provide help to adults over 65 years old, will get $500. Mercury News Read more
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Mayor Breed Stresses The Importance Of Being COVID-19 Safe During Fleet Week
San Francisco is in full Fleet Week mode, and with the 1 million people expected for the week-long event, comes concerns about a super-spreader COVID event. Fleet Week in the Bay Area means many sights and many sounds, not just the Blue Angels. The Navy Brass Quintet sounded off at the city’s Noe Valley Town Center. Fleet Week also means a million people coming out, with COVID-19 still around. Organizers say up to just a few weeks ago, it was touch and go as to whether the event would be virtual, like last year. NBC Bay Area Read more
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Pfizer Asks U.S. To Allow COVID Shots For Kids Ages 5 To 11
Pfizer asked the U.S. government Thursday to allow use of its COVID-19 vaccine in children ages 5 to 11 in what would be a major expansion that could combat an alarming rise in serious infections in youngsters and help schools stay open. If regulators give the go-ahead, reduced-dose kids’ shots could begin within a matter of weeks for the roughly 28 million U.S. children in that age group. Many parents and pediatricians are clamoring for protection for children under 12, the current age cutoff for COVID-19 vaccinations in the U.S. Not only can youngsters sometimes get seriously ill, but keeping them in school can be a challenge with the coronavirus still raging in poorly vaccinated communities. AP Read more
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Vaccines May Have Prevented A Quarter-Million COVID-19 Cases And 39,000 Deaths Among Seniors
Before vaccines, the San Francisco Department of Public Health needed three whiteboards to capture all the names of senior facilities that had COVID-19 outbreaks. "We had been dealing with outbreaks the whole time. Everywhere, at a ton of facilities, big, small, rich, poor, it didn't matter," said Dr. Louise Aronson,a professor with the UCSF Division of Geriatrics. But by February, when seniors were starting to get vaccinated in greater numbers, the department started to erase names from these outbreak lists. "I think it was April when all the whiteboards were empty. I took a picture of it with my phone. It was so quick. The vaccines were transformational," Aronson told CNN. "It was sort of a very visible miracle." CNN Read more
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Pfizer Vaccine’s Protection Wanes Over time, And Not Because Of Delta, Study Says
Research conducted in Southern California has confirmed the dramatic erosion of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine’s protection against “breakthrough” coronavirus infections. The new study, one of the largest and longest to track the effectiveness of a vaccine in Americans, found that the vaccine’s ability to protect against infection stood at 88% in its first month, then fell to 47% after just five months. But even as the Delta variant became the predominant strain across the Southland, the vaccine’s effectiveness at preventing COVID-19 hospitalizations held steady at close to 90% for as long as six months. What’s more, it maintained that power across vaccine recipients of all age groups. LA Times Read more
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U.C. Davis Researchers Studied COVID Viral Loads In Vaccinated Cases Here’s What They Found
Viral loads of the Delta variant of coronavirus are similar between unvaccinated and vaccinated persons who are infected, as well as between symptomatic and asymptomatic cases, UC Davis and UC San Francisco researchers wrote in a recent study that aligns with similar findings from other research teams. This does not mean that vaccinated people are as likely to spread COVID-19 as the unvaccinated, because the vaccinated are less likely to get infected in the first place. Vaccinated residents are also much less likely to grow severely ill or require hospitalization due to the virus, the researchers noted. Sacramento Bee Read more
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COVID Vaccine Mistrust Is Fueling A Spike In Rural Deaths
Here's What's Fueling The Mistrust
When we think of the painful toll of COVID-19, we often picture urban scenes: lines for tests, overflowing hospitals, refrigerated trucks serving as makeshift morgues. Yet, staggering new data shows that the death rate from COVID in rural areas is now double what it is in urban ones. You would think that fact, coupled with medical professionals pleading with people in rural America to get vaccinated, would lead more to get their shots. Yet, people in rural states lead the list of those who remain unvaccinated, putting themselves and others at risk. Many in rural America aren’t vaccinated because two pernicious forces - the implosion of the rural health care system and the decay of local news - have left them with limited sources of information. That has allowed them to become prey to misinformation and overconfident quacks. NBC News Read more
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L.A. To Require Proof Of COVID Vaccination At Indoor Restaurants, Salons And Other Venues
The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved a new ordinance that requires proof of vaccination against COVID-19 to enter indoor restaurants, shopping centers, movie theaters, hair and nail salons and many other indoor venues. Under the new law, businesses must require proof of vaccination when customers enter indoor facilities starting on Nov. 4, including coffee shops, gyms, museums, bowling alleys, spas and a range of other venues. LA Times Read more
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Flu Shots And COVID: Do You Need To Worry About Vaccine Timing?
Flu vaccinations are rolling out in the Bay Area and nationwide, with experts warning of a potentially strong comeback for an illness that virtually disappeared last year during the coronavirus pandemic. But with intense focus still on COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters, this will be the first time that many people will be juggling inoculations for both respiratory diseases - leading to new questions about the effects, duration and timing of the flu shot.
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State/National/International News |
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"We’re Not Out Of Danger": A Threat Lingers Even As New U.S. Cases And Deaths Decline
New coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths are falling as the United States begins to recover from a persistent summer surge that strained hospitals across the country and killed over 100,000 Americans in just three and a half months. Public health officials, however, said the pandemic remained a potent threat. Most of the COVID deaths in that span were people who were unvaccinated, and about 68 million eligible Americans have yet to be inoculated. That leaves the country vulnerable to continued surges. NY Times Read more
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Study Confirms Pandemic Hit Black Americans, Native Americans And Latinos Harder Than Whites
A study published Monday confirms that the pandemic hit Black Americans, Native Americans and Latinos far harder than Whites early on, killing greater proportions of these groups. People from these groups were more likely to die from all causes - COVID-19 and others - than were Whites and Asians, the National Cancer Institute-led team said. "An estimated 2.88 million deaths occurred between March and December 2020. Compared with the number of expected deaths based on 2019 data, 477,200 excess deaths occurred during this period, with 74% attributed to COVID-19," they wrote in their report, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. CNN Read more
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Rapid At-Home COVID Tests Area About To Become Much More Widely Available, The F.D.A. Says
Rapid at-home COVID-19 testing is about to become much more widely available in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration says, following authorization of a mass-produced testing kit. Competing at-home tests have been on the market for months, but Acon Laboratories’ test, authorized by the agency on Monday, “is expected to double rapid at-home testing capacity in the U.S. over the next several weeks,” Dr. Jeffrey E. Shuren, the director of the F.D.A.’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said.
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A Popular Rapid COVID Test May Be Giving "False Positives"
Here's What To Do If You Took One
A popular coronavirus rapid test sold in most drugstores could give people “false positives” due to a manufacturing glitch, according to the Food and Drug Administration. In a press release Tuesday, the F.D.A. warned the public about the potential for false positive results with certain batches of the Ellume COVID-19 Home Test, one of the few rapid antigen tests for the coronavirus available over the counter. A recently identified manufacturing issue could result in users testing positive when they are not actually infected with the virus, the agency said. SF Chronicle Read more
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A New Study Points To The Power Of Wearables To Predict Even Presymptomatic Infections, Suggesting Use One Day Against COVID-19
A new study that infected willing participants with common cold and flu viruses provides the most rigorous evidence yet that wearable health monitors could predict infections, even before a person starts experiencing symptoms. If the wearables can similarly predict infections in real-world conditions, the technology could add to existing disease surveillance and testing methods. But unresolved issues with standardizing wearables and testing them on diverse populations raise questions about their immediate utility. STAT Read more
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Family Dinners More Frequent During Pandemic, Says Study
Family dinners in the United States reportedly last 15 minutes longer since COVID-19 broke out, with six in ten people saying that their family gets together for meals more frequently, according to a study of over 2,000 people that was published in StudyFinds last month. According to the study, families have been gathering for dinner five times a week compared to only four times before the coronavirus pandemic. Jerusalem Post Read more
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Four Pandemic Mistakes America Can’t Quit
In the film Groundhog Day, Bill Murray’s character can’t escape his nightmarish time loop until he realizes some serious personal growth. America likewise needs to shed its bad pandemic habits in order to break the cycle. Even with all our hard-earned knowledge about masks, transmission, vaccines, and the coronavirus itself, certain things still elude us - not only as individuals, but as a society. Here are four mistakes we keep repeating. The Atlantic Read more
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Confirmed Cases
Bay Area: 582,370
California: 4,755,541
U.S.: 44,019,917
Alameda County
Vaccines Administered: 2,373,097
Cases: 115,404
Deaths: 1,352
Test Positivity: 1.6%
Hospitalized Patients: 142
ICU Beds Available: 90
Cases have decreased recently but are still high. The number of hospitalized COVID patients has also fallen the Alameda County area. Deaths have increased. The test positivity rate in Alameda County is relatively low, suggesting that testing capacity is adequate for evaluating COVID spread in the area. NY Times
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Reported Deaths
Bay Area: 6,420
California: 69,635
U.S.: 706,861
Contra Costa County
Vaccines Administered: 1,687,104
Cases: 96,488
Deaths: 950
Test Positivity: 2.3%
Hospitalized Patients: 82
ICU Beds Available: 38
Cases have decreased recently but are still very high. The numbers of hospitalized COVID patients and deaths in the Contra Costa County area have also fallen. The test positivity rate in Contra Costa County is relatively low, suggesting that testing capacity is adequate for evaluating COVID-19 spread in the area. NY Times
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Do I Still Need A Pulse Oximeter?
When my daughter returned to school this fall, I sent a care package that was perfect for a college student living through a pandemic. It included cookies, a coffee mug - and a pulse oximeter. A pulse oximeter is a small device that clips on your finger and measures your blood oxygen levels. Even though my daughter and her friends are all vaccinated against COVID-19, I wanted her to have the device handy just in case she got a breakthrough infection. New research from South Africa shows that using a pulse oximeter to check oxygen levels after a COVID diagnosis really does save lives.
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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 past week, Alameda County has averaged 159 new cases and 3.1 new deaths per day.
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Over the past week, Contra Costa County has averaged 140 new cases and 1.9 new death per day.
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Top 10 Locations of Cases in
Alameda County, as of 10/6/21
Oakland: 36,607
Hayward: 16,765
Fremont: 10,152
Eden MAC: 7,344
San Leandro: 7,198
Livermore: 6,207
Union City: 4,941
Berkeley: 4,918
Castro Valley: 3,570
Newark: 3,411
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Top 10 Locations of Cases in
Contra Costa County, as of 10/6/21
Richmond: 14,715
Antioch: 14,109
Concord: 10,860
Pittsburg: 9,250
San Pablo: 6,408
Brentwood: 5,990
Oakley: 5,085
Walnut Creek: 4,135
Bay Point: 3,699
San Ramon: 3,089
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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 Varsha Chauhan. 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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