Alameda County on Wednesday extended coronavirus vaccinations to everyone at least 16 years old, jumping a week ahead of California’s eligibility expansion, but only in 12 ZIP codes across Oakland, Hayward, San Leandro and San Lorenzo, where thousands of COVID-19 cases have devastated communities. Statewide, people aged 16 to 49 won’t become eligible for vaccinations until April 15. But in the targeted Alameda County ZIP codes, county officials said there was no time to waste. SF Chronicle Read more

Walmart has begun offering COVID-19 vaccines at 137 of its California pharmacies - including in San Leandro. Six Sam's Club stores are also part of the Golden State vaccination effort. Appointments are being scheduled now. Walmart has an online scheduler. Appointments at participating Sam's Club stores can be made here.

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California hit a key milestone Tuesday in its coronavirus vaccination progress: 4 million shots administered in low-income communities. The achievement triggered an adjustment to state reopening tiers, allowing three more Bay Area counties to move to the orange level. Contra Costa, Sonoma and Napa counties advanced to the less restrictive orange tier under the new metrics, leaving Solano County as the sole Bay Area outlier still in the red tier, the second-most-restrictive category. SF Chronicle

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The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) on Tuesday announced that a total of 4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to Californians in some of the state's hardest-hit communities, increasing immunity where the state's transmission rates and disease burden have been the highest during the pandemic. With this equity metric met, and because vaccines slow the spread of disease and serious illness, the state has updated the Blueprint for a Safer Economy California Department of Public Health Read more

President Biden said Tuesday that he is speeding up the deadline for states to make all adults eligible for a coronavirus vaccine - to April 19 (the original deadline was May 1). The announcement comes as nearly every state in the nation has already heeded earlier calls by the president to accelerate the timelines for when all adult residents will be eligible to be vaccinated - a vast majority now meeting or coming ahead of the April 19 target. On Tuesday, Oregon said those who are 16 or older will be eligible for vaccination on April 19. NY Times Read more

The U.S. Army will start testing among adult volunteers an Army-developed COVID-19 vaccine that researchers say may protect against a variety of coronavirus variants. Army doctors plan to start testing next Tuesday the protein-based shot in as many as 72 adults ages 18 to 55 at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Md., the institute said. The team will test whether the vaccine safely induces the desired immune response in study subjects. Initial results of the study could become available by midsummer. If the data are positive, the Army likely would try to join with a drug company to further test and develop the vaccine, said Kayvon Modjarrad, director of the institute’s emerging infectious-disease branch. Wall Street Journal Read more

Still waiting for your coronavirus shot? Let’s just say the country’s vaccine pipeline has been suffering a few clogs. Yes, we’re all frustrated. And that includes Desi Kotis, chief pharmacy executive at UC San Francisco Health. She has been helping lead UCSF Health’s vaccine distribution program and insists they are just itching to get a shot into everyone’s arm if it wasn’t for the three ugliest words in the vaccine world these days: lack of supply. “There’s no rhyme or reason to how vaccine is being allocated from week to week,” she said. “Everything is sporadic and random.” Riverside Press Enterprise

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

The U.K. variant of the coronavirus is now the most dominant strain circulating in the United States, health officials said Wednesday. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a news briefing that the prevalence of "variants of concern" is increasing and that the U.K. variant, known as B.1.1.7, has taken hold across the country. "Based on our most recent estimates from CDC surveillance, the B.1.1.7 variant is now the most common lineage circulating in the United States," Walensky said. The spread of the U.K. variant, which scientists have found to be more contagious, adds to growing concerns that the country may be on the cusp of another surge. NBC News Read more

As millions more people become vaccinated every day, dread over COVID-19 is finally giving way to optimism. Americans are less worried now about contracting COVID than at any point since the pandemic began a year ago, according to a new Gallup poll released Tuesday. Overall, 35% of Americans say they are “very or somewhat worried” about contracting COVID-19. That’s down from 57% three months ago, and is the lowest point in Gallup’s trend since it began polling on the pandemic in April 2020, not long after cases began to grow significantly. Worry about contracting COVID-19 is falling among all age groups, but most among people over age 65, the group which has so far received the widest access to vaccines. Mercury News Read more

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidance on cleaning and disinfecting everyday household surfaces, saying that in "most situations" with no known coronavirus exposure, a thorough scrub with soap and water will suffice - rather than disinfectant sprays and wipes - to ward off COVID-19. "Routine cleaning performed effectively with soap or detergent, at least once per day, can substantially reduce virus levels on surfaces," the CDC said at a White House briefing Monday. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said "disinfection is only recommended in indoor-setting schools and homes where there has been a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19, within the last 24 hours." ABC News Read more

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By this point most people know someone, or at least know someone who knows someone, who has gotten COVID. We’ve become armchair experts in the unpredictability of the infection’s trajectory, its disproportionate impact on communities of color, and the struggles experienced by the so-called long haulers who spend months in pain or cognitively impaired or physically exhausted. But there are other recurring, interrelated themes that have nothing to do with the strictly medical or epidemiological aspects of the pandemic. Instead they involve more difficult-to-quantify psychological mechanisms that come into play when a virulent infectious disease like COVID enters the life of an individual and that person’s community: judgment, self-justification, and, one of the most potent, shame. Mother Jones Read more

When not caring for COVID-19 patients - her latest was a man with bacterial lung and blood infections superimposed on SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia - Krutika Kuppalli has been helping oversee the rollout of pandemic vaccines at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), where she's an infectious disease physician. She has also been meeting with vaccine-hesitant hospital staff, sitting on a committee that reviews all planned COVID-19 clinical trials at MUSC, applying for funding to study patients with Long COVID, and handling online harassment that has followed her numerous media appearances and two rounds of congressional testimony last summer. Asked recently during a Zoom interview how she is doing, she paused for nearly 20 seconds, struggling to regain her composure. “We have been busting our butts for 12, 14 months,” she says. “I just feel I'm empty.” Science Read more

A very small number of Americans have been infected with the coronavirus after getting the COVID-19 vaccine. Called “breakthrough cases,” they have been making headlines recently, and they raise a question: What are your chances of getting COVID-19 if you are fully vaccinated? The answer, studies suggest, is very low - probably just a fraction of a percentage point. Still, a few breakthrough cases are inevitable, even with highly effective vaccines. AARP Read more