COVID-19
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City Of Hayward, Avellino Lab Mark Two-Year Anniversary Of Leadership In COVID-19 Testing
The City of Hayward marked the two-year anniversary last week of the launch by the Hayward Fire Department of the nation’s first no-fee, city-initiated COVID-19 testing center. The testing center opened on March 23, 2020, at the Hayward Firehouse Clinic in South Hayward and was made possible through an innovative partnership with Avellino Lab USA, Inc., (Avellino) of Menlo Park and other local and Bay Area nonprofit organizations. During the crucial first few months of operation—at Hayward Firehouse Clinic and later at Cal State University East Bay—the center provided more than 26,000 tests with follow-up support to anyone meeting age, exposure, or symptom criteria and regardless of immigration status or place of residence. City of Hayward Read more
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BART Records Highest Single-Day Ridership Since March 2020
After the COVID-19 pandemic forced many to work remotely from home for the last two years, it seems a lot of those workers are slowly going back to their pre-pandemic commute. Factoring in record-high gas prices in the Bay Area, BART ridership might’ve seen its most significant increase since the pandemic began. BART reported 133,246 riders on Thursday March 17 — the highest number of riders in a single day since March 2020, the agency announced recently. KRON4 Read more
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Bay Area, California Rocket To Big Job Gains In February, Post-COVID Rebound Widens
The Bay Area and California powered to sturdy job gains in February, officials reported Friday, accelerating their recovery from coronavirus-linked maladies. The nine-county Bay Area added 22,500 jobs last month backed by big increases in the East Bay and the San Francisco-San Mateo corridor, according to the state Employment Development Department, while the state posted its strongest performance since the summer of 2021. “Spring has sprung,” said Russell Hancock, president of Joint Venture Silicon Valley. “Our economy’s strong underpinnings never went away, despite the pandemic.”
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COVID’s "Great Resignation" Continues To Buffet Bay Area Employers
Bay Area businesses can now welcome customers without masks or social distancing as COVID rules have loosened. But there’s one thing some still can’t do: hire enough workers. Though by many metrics the Bay Area is returning to a post-COVID normal, many local businesses say they’re still experiencing the fallout of what has become known as the “Great Resignation.” People quit their jobs in droves during the pandemic. Some couldn’t find child care or elder care when it was time to return. Others received increased unemployment benefits and didn’t need to rush back. And some left jobs they didn’t like to find something better. The resulting worker shortage has affected everything from restaurants and retail to offices, hospitals and homeless shelters. Mercury News Read more
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Cruise Ship Leaves Late In San Francisco After Multiple COVID-19 Cases
A cruise ship finally left San Francisco Sunday evening after being delayed for hours because of multiple COVID-19 cases on board. The Ruby Princess cruise ship left San Francisco for a 15-day cruise to Hawaii. It arrived earlier Sunday after a 15-day Panama Canal cruise. During that time, an unknown number of guests and crew members tested positive for COVID-19. That forced a delay for people who hoped to get on the ship and leave for Hawaii. The cruise line said 100% of the ship's crew has been vaccinated and all of the cases were either asymptomatic or involved minor symptoms. NBC Bay Area Read more
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Census Data Shows How Many People Left the San Francisco Bay Area In The Pandemic
A lot has been written about the so-called "Bay Area Exodus" during the pandemic — the floods of people who fled the region's high prices and frenzied lifestyle for places like Bozeman, Montana and Austin, Texas, for an easier, more affordable life. The latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that people did indeed leave the San Francisco Bay Area counties during the COVID-19 pandemic. The San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley metro area saw the third-highest number of residents in the country packing up and moving between July 1, 2020, and July 1, 2021, with a net migration loss of 128,870 people. SFGate Read more
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Communities Across America Are Closing COVID Vaccination and Testing Sites
With America in a pandemic lull, communities across the country are choosing to shut down COVID testing and vaccination sites, even as experts warn that another wave could be on the horizon. Colorado announced last week its intention to close 14 state-run testing and vaccination sites by the end of the month, and it ended a program to ship at-home rapid tests to residents. Axios Read more
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Rich Countries Getting New COVID Vaccine Before Poorer Ones
The company behind a COVID-19 vaccine touted as a key tool for the developing world has sent tens of millions of doses to wealthy nations but provided none yet to the U.N.-backed effort to supply poorer countries, a sign that inequity persists in the global response to the pandemic. A quarter-million doses from the company were supposed to be available to the vaccine-sharing initiative, called COVAX, by March. But the U.N. agency in charge of deliveries says the first shipments now likely won’t be made until April or May. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The company, Novavax, got $388 million from one of the organizations leading COVAX to fast-track the vaccine’s development and help make the shot available in poorer countries. Mercury News Read more
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Second COVID Vaccine Booster Significantly Lowers Death Rate, Israeli Study Shows
Senior citizens who received a second booster of the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccination had a 78% lower mortality rate from the disease than those who got one only, a study from Israel showed on Sunday. The country's largest healthcare provider, Clalit Health Services, said the 40-day study included more than half a million people aged 60 to 100. Some 58% of participants had received a second booster - or two shots in addition to the basic two-shot regimen. The remainder had received only one booster. Researchers recorded 92 deaths among the first group and 232 deaths among the second, smaller group. Reuters Read more
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Evidence Grows That Vaccines Lower The Risk Of Getting Long COVID
The chance of even a mild case of COVID-19 turning into a long-term, debilitating medical condition is one of the greatest fears of Americans trying to navigate the pandemic, which is again taking a turn as new data shows the BA.2 subvariant is taking hold in the U.S. Unfortunately, the only sure way to avoid long COVID is not to catch the virus in the first place. But there is now a growing body of research that's offering at least some reassurance for those who do end up getting infected — being fully vaccinated seems to substantially cut the risk of later developing the persistent symptoms that characterize long COVID. NPR Read more
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Pfizer, Moderna And J&J Face Shareholder Pressure To Broaden COVID-19 Vaccine Access
Socially conscious investors and global-health activists are turning to shareholders to press COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers Pfizer Inc., Moderna Inc. and Johnson & Johnson to make more of their shots available to people in poorer countries. Groups including the antipoverty organization Oxfam have succeeded in placing proposals on shareholder proxy ballots that ask drugmakers to do more to widen access to the COVID-19 vaccines, such as exploring the transfer of their technology to other manufacturers.
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A Glaxo Antibody Drug Is Restricted In The U.S. Northeast As An Omicron Subvariant Spreads
Federal health officials on Friday restricted use of a Covid monoclonal antibody drug in eight states in the Northeast and two territories, citing evidence that it is unlikely to be effective against the highly transmissible Omicron subvariant known as BA.2 that is now dominant in those regions and quickly gaining ground across the United States. The federal government said it would immediately pause shipments of the infused treatment, known as sotrovimab, to the 8 affected states, and Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
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State/National/International News |
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There’s One Big COVID Rule Still In Place. Will We Soon See Isolation Guidance Change?
California has rolled back most of its COVID-19 measures since the Omicron surge died down, and Bay Area counties have followed suit, removing indoor mask mandates and loosening other precautions like vaccination mandates for indoor dining and gyms. Yet there is still one critical tool for controlling the spread of the virus that remains in place: the five-day isolation for those who test positive for the coronavirus. SF Chronicle
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Why More People May Get Reinfected With COVID As the BA.2 Subvariant Spreads
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic some scientists had hoped that even if much of the world failed to control the coronavirus, at some point nearly everyone would be infected and there would be too few susceptible people left to sustain the spread of disease. But that scenario depended on one key premise that has since proved false: that reinfection with this novel coronavirus would be rare. The Omicron surge — which was fueled by lots of COVID cases among those who had already been infected, including many who were also fully vaccinated — may have clinched the demise of that dream.
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Will We Soon Be Able To Schedule Our Lives Around "COVID Season"? Here’s What Experts Say
Throughout the pandemic, we’ve experienced time and time again the roller-coaster pattern of a spike in COVID cases followed by a descent, then a lull before another seemingly inevitable wave. After two years and multiple surges, many people in California may be feeling that we can know what to expect from here — and that, perhaps, it’s becoming easier to predict when we might see surges and valleys in new coronavirus cases. But experts stress that’s anything but the case, and that the idea of being able to forecast a “COVID season,” or to know when surges can be expected, is still beyond our capacity. SF Chronicle Read more
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Get Ready For A Wave Of Missed Infections
COVID-19 tests were in such short supply during the winter’s Omicron surge that most infections—affecting up to three out of four Americans by some estimates—went entirely undiagnosed. Now, with abundant rapid tests and another looming wave of cases, we may soon confront a different problem: Large numbers of infections will be missed in the coming months because these tests are so widespread. Because rapid results are rarely reported to public-health agencies, that means our early-warning system may now be somewhat less sensitive than it was before. More important, these tests’ ubiquity could bring a wave of false-negative results in tandem with the next wave of illness—and thus a wave of missed opportunities for treatment. The Atlantic Read more
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How COVID Brain Fog May Overlap With "Chemo Brain" And Alzheimer’s
People with “chemo brain” and COVID brain fog could not seem more different: Those with “chemo brain” have a life-threatening disease for which they’ve taken toxic drugs or radiation. Many of those with COVID brain fog, in contrast, describe themselves as previously healthy people who have had a relatively mild infection that felt like a cold. So when Stanford University neuroscientist Michelle Monje began studies on long COVID, she was fascinated to find similar changes among patients in both groups, in specialized brain cells that serve as the organ’s surveillance and defense system. “It was really quite striking,” Monje said. Washington Post Read more
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White House Diverges From CDC, Focuses On Aerosol COVID Spread
Last week, the White House published a blog post titled "Let's Clear the Air on COVID," describing the virus as primarily transmitted through aerosols—small, tiny airborne particles. Though some experts around the world have been arguing that point for years, and subsequently advocating for respirator use and enhanced ventilation systems, this is the first time the White House has formally acknowledged that aerosol transmission has been the primary driver of the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, it has turned away from the language used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). CIDRAP Read more
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Shanghai Starts China’s Biggest COVID Lockdown In 2 Years
China began its most extensive lockdown in two years Monday to conduct mass testing and control a growing outbreak in Shanghai as questions are raised about the economic toll of the nation’s “zero-COVID” strategy. China’s financial capital and largest city with 26 million people, Shanghai had managed its smaller, past outbreaks with limited lockdowns of housing compounds and workplaces where the virus was spreading. But the citywide lockdown that will be conducted in two phases will be China’s most extensive since the central city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected in late 2019, confined its 11 million people to their homes for 76 days in early 2020.
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Hawaii Lifts Indoor Mask Mandate And Travel Restrictions, The Last State To Do So
Hawaii became the final state in the nation Saturday to remove its indoor masking requirement as the Omicron surge recedes. The state also suspended its Safe Travels program, allowing American travelers to enter without submitting proof of vaccination or the results of an approved coronavirus test for the first time since the pandemic began. In keeping with the national trend, Hawaii’s hospitalizations and deaths have subsided to a fraction of last winter’s peak. Mercury News Read more
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California Legislative Leaders Move To Extend COVID Rent Relief, Eviction Protections
A week before California’s eviction moratorium was scheduled to expire, top Democrats in the Legislature announced a proposal on Thursday to extend COVID-19 pandemic protections for tenants by another three months so the state can finish sending out rent relief payments. Assembly Bill 2179 would move the date on which landlords may initiate eviction proceedings from April 1 to July 1, as long as an application is submitted by March 31 to a rent relief program. LA Times Read more
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Total Confirmed Cases
Bay Area: 1,287,918
California: 9,089,859
U.S.: 79954,968
Alameda County
Primary Vaccine Series Completed: 85.2%
Total Cases: 257,088
Total Deaths: 1,824
Test Positivity (7-day rate): 1.5%
Hospitalized Patients (as of 3/28): 52
ICU Beds Available (as of 3/28): 103
As of March 28, cases have decreased recently but are still high. The numbers of hospitalized COVID patients and deaths in the Alameda County area have also fallen. The test positivity rate in Alameda County is relatively low, suggesting that testing capacity is adequate for evaluating COVID-19 spread in the area. NY Times
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Total Reported Deaths
Bay Area: 8,213
California: 88,597
U.S.: 976,705
Contra Costa County
Primary Vaccine Series Completed: 85.7%
Total Cases: 190,032
Total Deaths: 1,287
Test Positivity (7-day rate): 2.2%
Hospitalized Patients (as of 3/28): 32
ICU Beds Available (as of 3/28): 32
As of March 28, cases have decreased recently but are still 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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What Is The Link Between Vitamin D Levels And COVID-19?
A recent study has shown a correlation between vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19 severity and mortality. The study is based on data from Israel’s first two coronavirus waves before vaccines were widely available. It found that people with a vitamin D deficiency are more likely to develop a severe or critical case of COVID-19 compared to people who had sufficient levels of the vitamin in their blood. UC Davis Health
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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 110 new cases and 1.1 new death per day.
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Over the past week, Contra Costa County has averaged 112 new cases and 1.3 new deaths per day.
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Top 10 Locations of Cases in
Alameda County, cumulative
as of 3/28/2022
Oakland: 75,231
Hayward: 33,455
Fremont: 26,182
San Leandro: 15,733
Eden MAC: 14,633
Berkeley: 13,268
Livermore: 12,929
Union City: 11,325
Castro Valley: 8,831
Alameda: 8,820
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Top 10 Locations of Cases in
Contra Costa County, cumulative
as of 3/28/2022
Richmond: 28,003
Antioch: 25,535
Concord: 20,522
Pittsburg: 16,525
San Pablo: 11,950
Brentwood: 11,447
Oakley: 9,571
Walnut Creek: 9,407
San Ramon: 8,134
Martinez: 6,307
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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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