COVID-19
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Alameda County Virtual Town Hall Tonight
Home for All: A Discussion on Affordable Housing in Alameda County
Housing affordability in Alameda County has reached a crisis point. With rents and home prices continuing to spiral upward, more individuals risk becoming homeless. How did we get here, and most importantly, what can we do about it? Join Supervisor Keith Carson and other local leaders as we continue our discussion on homelessness and housing in Alameda County tonight, March 2, from 5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Register
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California’s COVID-19 State Of Emergency Is Over. Has The Bay Area Moved On?
The last remnants of California’s COVID-19 state of emergency expired Tuesday with little fanfare from the governor who proclaimed it almost three years ago, gave daily briefings at the height of the pandemic, and issued nearly 600 virus-related provisions along the way. So are Californians ready to move on? After 100,000 deaths and more than 11 million cases, the Golden State may no longer be under a state of emergency. But with infections once again on the rise and masked faces easy to spot in cafes and stores around the Bay Area, it is clear COVID won’t be turned off with the flip of a switch. As many as half the shoppers, most of the pharmacists and all the check-stand staff at the Safeway supermarket off Oakland’s Broadway Avenue on Tuesday wore face coverings that now are optional but once were a flashpoint of division over individual freedom and public health. East Bay Times Read more
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Alameda County Supervisors Allow Eviction Moratorium To Remain Until End Of April
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday evening declined to hold a much-anticipated review of the county’s ongoing eviction moratorium — a move that all but guarantees the pandemic tenant protections, among the last anywhere in the Bay Area, will remain in place until the end of April. With dozens of landlords and tenant advocates in attendance at the public hearing in Oakland, supervisors explained that regardless of whether there were enough votes to sunset the moratorium, the soonest the ban could stop taking effect was just a few days before it’s already set to lapse April 29. Supervisors said that meant there was little point in discussing it Tuesday. During the meeting, board members also refused to approve three tenant protection ordinances supported by local renter advocates. Earlier this year, the proposed regulations had appeared almost certain to pass. East Bay Times Read more
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SF Residents Demand City Keep Some COVID Protections In Place As Emergency Declaration Ends
San Francisco's COVID-19 emergency declaration was one of many slated to end Tuesday. Many residents say that's good news and signals progress in the fight to contain COVID. But for some of the city's most vulnerable residents, it raises new concerns and they're hoping the city will keep some protections in place. Wearing N95 masks and holding signs that read “no body is disposable” and “keep masks in healthcare”, a small group of residents gathered at city hall demanding a simple answer from the mayor. “We’re here to ask, ‘what’s the plan as the public emergency ends?'” said Kristin Urquiza. NBC Bay Area Read more
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Vaccine/Testing/Treatment News |
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Novavax Raises Doubts About Ability To Remain In Business, Shares Fall
COVID-19 vaccine maker Novavax Inc. on Tuesday raised doubts about its ability to remain in business and announced plans to slash spending as it works to prepare for a fall vaccination campaign, and its shares plunged more than 25%. The company said there is significant uncertainty around its 2023 revenue, funding from the U.S. government, and pending arbitration with global vaccine alliance Gavi. But its cash flow forecast indicates it has sufficient capital to fund operations over the next year. Reuters Read more
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FDA Panel Narrowly Backs Pfizer RSV Vaccine For Older Adults
Federal health advisers on Tuesday narrowly backed an experimental vaccine from Pfizer that could soon become the first shot to protect older adults against the respiratory illness known as RSV. The Food and Drug Administration panel voted 7-4 on two separate questions of whether Pfizer’s data showed the vaccine was safe and effective against the respiratory virus for people 60 and older. One panelist abstained from voting. The recommendation is non-binding and the FDA will make its own decision on the vaccine in the coming months. The positive vote came despite concerns about rare potential reactions and questions about how the vaccine fared in people who face the greatest risks from RSV. Pfizer’s shot was more than 85% effective at preventing severe disease in a company study, but panelists noted there were few people with underlying health problems. AP Read more
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FDA Warns Of Guillain-Barre Syndrome As Possible Risk Of Pfizer’s RSV Vaccine
The Food and Drug Administration has flagged Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological condition, as a potential risk for Pfizer’s respiratory syncytial virus vaccine. Two people in their 60s who received the shot were diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome, out of about 20,000 vaccine recipients who participated in Pfizer’s Phase 3 clinical trial, according to the FDA document. One person’s illness had completely resolved after three months, while the other continues to show signs of improvement six months later. There were no cases in the trial’s placebo group or among those who did not receive the shot. Mercury News Read more
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State/National/International News |
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No One Really Knows How Much COVID Is Silently Spreading … Again
In the early days of the pandemic, one of the scariest and most surprising features of SARS-CoV-2 was its stealth. Initially assumed to transmit only from people who were actively sick — as its predecessor SARS-CoV did — the new coronavirus turned out to be a silent spreader, also spewing from the airways of people who were feeling just fine. After months of insisting that only the symptomatic had to mask, test, and isolate, officials scrambled to retool their guidance; singing, talking, laughing, even breathing in tight quarters were abruptly categorized as threats. Three years later, the coronavirus is still silently spreading—but the fear of its covertness again seems gone. Enthusiasm for masking and testing has plummeted; isolation recommendations have been pared down, and may soon entirely disappear. “We’re just not communicating about asymptomatic transmission anymore,” says Saskia Popescu, an infectious-disease epidemiologist and infection-prevention expert at George Mason University. The Atlantic Read more
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If getting infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus was nothing more than a kind of flu that you could catch again just weeks after your last infection, that would be bad enough. If it was just something that involved a kind of Russian roulette where the bullet was hidden in a hundred barrels, that would be terrifying. But it’s worse than that. Because for a lot of people an infection with COVID-19 means developing some symptoms of “long COVID.” Depending on the study and the criteria used, symptoms that linger beyond three months after the initial infection may affect as few as 10% of those infected, or as many as 43%. Considering that some of the first people to come down with COVID-19 in the United States are still displaying symptoms, there’s every reason to believe that some of those who contract long COVID may find themselves with possibly debilitating issues for the rest of their lives. Daily Kos Read more
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Catching COVID May Increase Chances Of Developing An Autoimmune Disease, Study Says
A coronavirus infection may make it more likely for someone without an autoimmune disease to develop at least one in the months after the infection subsides, new research suggests. Viral infections are known for the potential to lead to autoimmune diseases, when the immune system launches an attack against the body. Now, the large study, published as a preprint on the server medRxiv in late January, specifically pinpoints the likelihood of autoimmune disease risks linked to COVID-19. The preprint, which has yet to undergo peer review, examined 40 autoimmune outcomes, representing 30 different diseases. Mercury News Read more
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A Condition Called POTS Rose After COVID, But Patients Can’t Find Care
A life-changing condition called POTS, which can cause fainting, irregular heartbeats and dizziness, particularly among young women, appears to be on the rise as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. But the condition isn’t well understood, and many patients are dismissed as having anxiety, delaying diagnosis. Once diagnosed, many patients face waiting lists as long as two years to get treatment from specialists. POTS stands for postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, a disorder of the autonomic nervous system, which regulates involuntary functions like heart rate, blood pressure and digestion. Washington Post Read more
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Japan To Ease COVID Border Measures For Travelers From China
Japan is easing its coronavirus border measures for tourists from China beginning March 1 by testing only random passengers, a top government spokesman said Monday. Since December, Japan has been testing all travelers from mainland China at four designated airports on grounds of surging infections in that country and a lack of information. Visitors from China are also required to show a proof of pre-boarding negative test. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said that as of Wednesday, only random testing will be carried out on passengers from China. ABC News Read more
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Hong Kong Lifts COVID-19 Mask Mandate
Hong Kong was to lift its mask mandate on Wednesday, ending the city’s last major restriction imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The city's chief executive, John Lee, said masks will no longer be required both outdoors and indoors, including on public transit, but some high-risk areas including hospitals and elderly homes can still require their use. Lee’s announcement at a news briefing Tuesday came a day after neighboring Macao eased its mask rule and brings the financial hub closer to life in pre-pandemic days. ABC News
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Deadline Looms For S.F. To Create Court For Severely Mentally Ill People. Can It Make A Difference?
When Gov. Gavin Newsom introduced the idea of creating a new system to get more of California’s mentally ill homeless people into treatment and housing, he said he was driven by his outrage about people dying on San Francisco’s streets. The Legislature passed Newsom’s bill, and now San Francisco is among the first batch of counties tasked with launching the program by Oct. 1. Dubbed CARE (Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment) Court, the program could refer hundreds of people in San Francisco to court-ordered care plans, offering hope to families who’ve long struggled to get their loved ones into care, but drawing opposition from disability and civil rights advocates. The law requires counties to establish the system for family members, health workers and others to refer people with untreated schizophrenia or psychotic disorders to the program, and requires the county to provide treatment, housing and other services as part of a court-ordered plan. SF Chronicle Read more
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Why Aren’t Doctors Screening Older Americans For Anxiety?
Susan Tilton’s husband, Mike, was actually in good health. But after a friend’s husband developed terminal cancer, she began to worry that Mike would soon die, too. At night, “I’d lie down and start thinking about it,” recalled Ms. Tilton, 72, who lives in Clayton, Mo. “What would I do? What would I do?” The thought of life without her husband — they’d married at 17 and 18 — left her sleepless and dragging through the next day. “It was very hard to shut it off,” she said of her worrying. “How could I get along by myself? What would I do with the house?” NY Times Read more
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Teens Turning To TikTok For Mental Health Advice Are Self-Diagnosing
It's a relatable feeling. You're feeling unwell, have multiple symptoms, and you decide to Google what might ail you. Sometimes doom takes hold and you self-diagnose with the worst-case scenario. But it's not just physical ailments. CBS News found that as the mental health crisis among American teens deepens, they seek out alternative forms of support and information. Increasingly young people turn to social media platforms like TikTok and diagnose themselves with serious mental health problems. With qualified therapists expensive and increasingly hard to find many young people search for answers on social media platforms where the answers are abundant and free but not necessarily accurate. CBS News Read more
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The Phone in the Room - Smart Phones And Teenage Mental Health
Digital technology has caused the biggest changes to teenage life in many decades. Typical American teenagers spend about half of their waking hours on their smartphones. They are on the phones when they are alone at home and when they are hanging out with friends. This transformation has surely had broader consequences. To put it another way, if there have been major swings in teenage well-being over the past 15 years — good or bad — we should assume that the reshaping of life by digital technology has helped cause them. NY Times Read more
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Fentanyl Crisis/Drug Trends |
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What Is Fentanyl And How Can You Recognize It?
Even though the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided, the fentanyl pandemic rages on in the Bay Area. The synthetic drug, 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, is often mixed into other drugs to make them cheaper, stronger and more addictive, and then sold on the street. And it has become more and more prevalent. In 2022, the leading cause of drug overdose in San Francisco was fentanyl with a total of 456 deaths, according to data collected by KRON4. In second was meth, with a total of 355. There are two types of fentanyl: pharmaceutical fentanyl and illicitly manufactured fentanyl. Both are synthetic opioids. But one, pharmaceutical fentanyl, is used in hospitals to treat pain and prescribed by doctors. The other – illicitly manufactured fentanyl – is what street drugs are being laced with. KRON4 Read more
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FDA Acts To Restrict Illicit Import Of Xylazine, Animal Tranquilizer Linked To Overdose Deaths
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced on Tuesday that it was taking action to restrict unlawful importing of the veterinary drug xylazine, which has been "increasingly found" in the nation's illicit drug supply. The action, an import alert, allows for the detainment of shipments of xylazine and the ingredients used to make it. The alert "aims to prevent the drug from entering the U.S. market for illicit purposes," the agency said in a news release. An import alert allows the FDA to detain shipments of products that appear to be in violation of the FDA's laws and regulations. The drug, an animal tranquilizer used by veterinarians to sedate large animals like horses, will still be made available for "legitimate uses." CBS News Read more
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Not Just COVID: 4 Other Ways Face Masks Can Help Your Health
By now, most of us know the preventive measures that can help to keep COVID-19 at bay: vaccines and boosters, improved ventilation, staying away from people who are sick and yes, wearing a face mask in crowded indoor settings. But, it turns out, a face mask can come in handy for more than COVID protection, with potential benefits that range from allergy relief to lowering the risk of heart disease. Learn about four other ways a face mask may benefit your health. AARP 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 Pam Russo, Vice Chair Ed Hernandez, Secretary/Treasurer Roxann Lewis, Mariellen Faria and Surlene Grant. 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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