Doctors say now is the time to start protecting yourself against a possible winter surge by getting a booster. Holiday drinks are back at Starbucks, Thanksgiving is three weeks away and Christmas is soon after that. It's many people's favorite time of year, but it's also the time that we've seen some of our biggest surges of COVID-19. ABC7 News Read more

In the past two years, practices such as social distancing and masking against the coronavirus served also to suppress other respiratory viruses that usually rear their heads in the colder months. This season is off to a different start. Influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, cases are rising earlier than normal in the U.S., already testing pediatric hospitals in some regions. Add in a potential swell in COVID-19 infections this winter, and health officials are concerned about a convergence of the respiratory viruses — a “tripledemic” — that could tax health care systems this winter. SF Chronicle Read more

At Twitter, new owner Elon Musk reportedly may require all remaining employees to return to the office, altering the company’s remote work policy. When he enacted a similar mandate at Tesla, Musk told workers that being based at “some remote pseudo office” counted as “phoning it in.” But elsewhere in the tech world, many companies have made very different business calculations. A growing number of Bay Area companies are letting employees decide whether and when to work at their physical offices. They say productivity remains high, while employee satisfaction has soared thanks to better work-life balance and ability to relocate. SF Chronicle Read more

Local wildlife specialists are preparing for the worst as avian influenza, also known as bird flu, spreads in the Bay Area. The virus is highly contagious, has no cure and impacts species ranging from pigeons and poultry to owls and raptors. If it continues to spread, millions of Bay Area birds could die. The virus was first detected in Northern California in July. “To date, there’s been 55 detections of [highly pathogenic avian influenza] in wild birds in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma counties,” Ken Paglia, a spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said. SFGate Read more

A new study by Pfizer and BioNTech suggests that their updated coronavirus booster is better than its predecessor at increasing the antibody levels of people over age 55 against the most common version of the virus now circulating. Federal officials are hoping that the encouraging results will improve what has so far been a dismal public response to the retooled shots. Only about 8 percent of Americans ages 5 and up have received the new boosters from Pfizer and Moderna since they were introduced in September. Pfizer and BioNTech announced the study results in a news release on Friday. The companies said that one month after getting the new booster, clinical trial participants over 55 had antibody levels that were about four times as high as those who received the original booster. The study measured the levels of neutralizing antibodies against two sister subvariants of Omicron known as BA.4 and BA.5. NY Times

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Pfizer and BioNTech have launched a clinical trial on a vaccine targeting both COVID-19 and influenza, the companies announced Thursday. The phase 1 trial is being done in the United States with 180 participants between the ages of 18 and 64, with the first participant dosed this week, the companies said. The follow-up period for each participant will be six months. "By combining both indications in one vaccine approach, we aim to provide individuals with an efficient way to receive immunization against two severe respiratory diseases with evolving viruses that require vaccine adaptation," Dr. Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech, said in a statement. ABC News

More than one million lives might have been saved if COVID-19 vaccines had been shared more equitably with lower-income countries in 2021, according to mathematical models incorporating data from 152 countries. The impact of vaccine sharing would have been even greater if the distribution of more vaccines to poorer countries had happened alongside wealthier countries keeping other mitigation measures — such as limiting gatherings and wearing masks — in place for longer. In that case, the models suggest, as many as 3.8 million lives could have been saved. Nature Read more

White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci on Thursday said the U.S. is at a crossroads in the COVID-19 pandemic as new Omicron subvariants are gaining ground across the country. Fauci, in a radio interview Thursday, said the pandemic has clearly eased since last winter, but deaths, which average more than 2,600 per week, remain far too high. At the same time, the new omicron variants are knocking out key tools used to protect the most vulnerable. “We’re really at a point that may be a crossroads here. As we’re entering into the cooler months, we are starting to see the emergence of sublineage variants of omicron,” Fauci said on the “Conversations on Health Care” radio show. CNBC Read more

For almost two years, COVID-19 vaccine holdouts have been the objects of earnest pleading and financial inducements, of social-media shaming and truth campaigns. They’ve missed weddings, birthday celebrations and recitals, and even forfeited high-stakes athletic competitions. Until last month, they were barred from entering the United States and more than 100 other countries. Now the unvaccinated are suddenly back in the mix. They’re dining in restaurants, rocking out a music festivals and filling the stands at sporting venues. They mingle freely in places where they used to be shunned for fear they’d seed superspreader events. It’s as if they’re no longer hazardous to the rest of us. Or are they? LA Times Read more

Travelers are both the conduit and the canary in the coal mine for new COVID-19 variants, and U.S. health officials are trying to use those realities to keep ahead of variants coming into the country. At four U.S. airports — John F. Kennedy in New York, Newark in New Jersey, San Francisco International, and Atlanta Hartsfield — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is partnering with private companies XpresCheck and Concentric by Ginkgo to test incoming passengers for COVID-19. (Washington Dulles is expected to join the program in November.) The testing gives the CDC a heads up on which variants are entering the country and which new ones might be gaining ground and become a threat for the U.S. Time Read more

One of the most impressive impacts of the pandemic was a decline in greenhouse gases across the Golden State, according to the California Air Resources Board (CARB). California’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory indicates that in the year 2020 carbon pollution experienced the largest decline since the Great Recession in 2008. In 2020 greenhouse gas emissions in the Golden State fell by 9% to 35.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. KRON4 Read more

Welcome to this year’s flu season. This year’s flu strain has already begun spreading across the United States, according to new data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There have been at least 880,000 cases of influenza, nearly 7,000 hospitalizations and, tragically, 360 deaths from the flu this fall, including one pediatric death. Not since 2009, during the height of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, have there been this many cases of influenza so early in the season. Despite these numbers, many people wonder if the flu is really that serious of an illness. What’s the benefit of the vaccine, especially if some people may still get the flu despite being vaccinated? Could you get the flu from the vaccine? If you get the Covid vaccine, do you still need the flu vaccine? CNN Read more

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Bay Area children's hospitals are packed with sick kids prompting emergency room doctors to sound the alarm. "This situation right now with RSV and other respiratory viruses is basically our March 2020 - this is our pandemic," aid Dr. Jackie Grupp-Phelan, division chief of Pediatric Emergency Medicine at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals, overseeing both the Oakland and San Francisco facilities. "We've had our highest volume days at Oakland and San Francisco (than) at anytime that we've been recording in the past five years," said Grupp-Phelan, noting RSV and other respiratory illnesses are hitting kids much harder than COVID-19. ABC7 News Read more

The number of people with the respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, has surged, with cases hitting a two-year high, according to data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. RSV is twice as high among people of all ages at this point this year compared to last year, with the U.S. seeing more than twice as many cases per week, according to ABC News contributor Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital. ABC News Read more

As respiratory illnesses spread rapidly among children across the country, an increased demand for amoxicillin is causing a shortage of the commonly prescribed antibiotic. Parents filling their kids’ prescriptions may have to try a few pharmacies or end up with a different strength or form than originally prescribed, but amoxicillin in some form is generally still available, pharmacists said. The supply of the liquid version is most strained, along with some chewable tablets. Washington Post Read more

Sources: Johns Hopkins University, SF Chronicle, and dashboards for California and Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

Maybe you’re going to a packed bar every Friday night. Or, maybe you’re still avoiding crowded spaces and keeping a mask on outside the house. Now more than ever, people’s attitudes toward COVID comfort and risk are changing, experts say. That means it’s harder than ever to find two people with the same approach toward the virus, and it’s making our relationships harder to manage. CNBC Read more