COVID-19
breaking news & updates
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Got The Vaccine At CVS In Castro Valley or San Leandro?
Big Prizes Could Await
A trip to the Super Bowl, an international vacation and a VIP package to the iHeartMedia Radio Music Festival could await people in Castro Valley and San Leandro who have received the coronavirus vaccine at a CVS Health pharmacy, or plan to schedule theirs at a CVS before mid-July. The pharmacy chain released its initial plans for its "#OneStepCloser sweepstakes" that began Tuesday as a way to encourage vaccinations at CVS pharmacies across America. Thousands of winners will be selected in various drawings over a six-week period this summer, the pharmacy said in a news release. Castro Valley and San Leandro Patch
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Providers Relocating COVID-19 Vaccination Site From Pleasanton Fairgrounds
Alameda County, Stanford Health Care-ValleyCare and Sutter Health have announced that COVID-19 vaccinations previously offered at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton will relocate to the medical providers' respective campuses. The site has administered 140,000 vaccine doses to more than 75,000 people since February. Pleasanton Weekly Read more
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Marin, Monterey Counties Advance to Yellow Tier
Marin, Monterey and San Benito counties have moved into California’s least restrictive COVID-19 tier just two weeks before the state phases out its color tiers entirely as part of a major easing of pandemic rules and restrictions. The three counties were moved to the yellow tier on Tuesday, indicating that the spread of the virus there is “minimal.” The change is a positive indication that efforts to control the virus have met some success. It also allows those counties to reopen for some indoor service bars that don’t serve food, as well as expanding indoor capacities for some businesses such as gyms, museums and water parks. Mercury News Read more
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Tourists Returning to Bay Area
It might be a somewhat unscientific measurement, for a place dedicated to science. But if crowds at the ticket window are any indication, tourism at the California Academy of Sciences is back. And the uptick wasn't lost on the Director of Guest Operations Leah Van der Mei. "Oh, we were delighted in the last three weeks, spring break was really strong. And it wasn't just our local Bay Area visitors which we love, but we had folks from Southern California, out of state, we even had international," says Van der Mei.
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"Hamilton" to Return to S.F. With "100% Capacity" Audiences
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s blockbuster musical “Hamilton” is set to reopen the Orpheum Theatre with a four-week run Aug. 10-Sept. 5, BroadwaySF announced Tuesday.
The theater plans to offer tickets to all its more than 2,200 seats, which makes the Orpheum the first major indoor San Francisco theater venue to operate without audience capacity restrictions.
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Bay Area Hotel Deal Hints At Recovery In Region’s Lodging Market
A San Jose hotel has been bought by a Louisiana real estate firm in a deal that hints at the early stages of a recovery in the Bay Area’s COVID-battered lodging market. Aloft Santa Clara, a 175-room hotel in north San Jose, has been bought by an affiliate of New Orleans-based HRI Properties, whose specialties are owning, developing, and managing hotels and residential complexes in the United States. East Bay Times
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Still Need a COVID-19 Vaccine? Find Out Where You Can Get One
If you're still looking for a location to get the COVID-19 vaccine, you're in luck. Using data from Vaccine Finder, a partnership of the Boston Children's Hospital and the CDC, ABC7 created an interactive map that allows you to find a vaccination site near you. It's updated every day, and locations are only included on the map if they have vaccine doses in stock. ABC7 Read more
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Mixing and Matching COVID-19 Shots in Fully Vaccinated People Is Subject of New Study
Federal health officials have started a new study exploring whether mixing different Covid-19 vaccines can prolong immunity and better protect people from concerning variants of the coronavirus. The new study will enroll adult volunteers who have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and give them booster doses of different vaccines, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said Tuesday. Wall Street Journal Read more
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Misinformation Remains The Biggest Hurdle As Vaccination Effort Turns to Cash Incentives
San Diego County will soon reach 2 million residents who have had at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine. But in a region with more than 3.3 million residents, that means there are still more than 1 million who have not yet come forward to get stuck. Some just haven’t gotten around to it yet, and the state’s new $115 million lottery - which rewards vaccination with cash rewards - will surely push some off the fence and into vaccination clinics. But it is clear that misinformation, not money, has often driven vaccination decisions. San Diego Union-Tribune Read more
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Some U.S. States Have Higher Vaccination Rates Inside Prisons Than Outside
While most of the United States’ prison systems have struggled to vaccinate inmates, those in California and some other states have outperformed vaccination rates among the general public. And experts say their success may offer clues about how to persuade skeptical people outside correctional facilities to get vaccinated. “Education is really key,” said Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine who leads the COVID Prison Project, a group that tracks coronavirus cases in correctional settings and compiled the data on vaccination rates. NY Times
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Who Benefits? U.S. Debates Fairest Way to Share Spare Vaccine
In April, the Biden administration announced plans to share millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses with the world by the end of June. Five weeks later, nations around the globe are still waiting - with growing impatience - to learn where the vaccines will go and how they will be distributed.To President Joe Biden, the doses represent a modern-day “arsenal of democracy,” serving as the ultimate carrot for America’s partners abroad, but also as a necessary tool for global health, capable of saving millions of lives and returning a semblance of normalcy to friends and foes alike. The central question for Biden: What share of doses should be provided to those who need it most, and how many should be reserved for U.S. partners? AP Read more
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Why You Shouldn’t Get a COVID Antibody Test After a Vaccine
Some people are thinking about antibody tests as a way to check how effective their vaccines are. But antibody tests don’t paint a full picture. They are not an effective way of making sure your vaccine and immune system are on task, said Dr. Jesse Goodman, who formerly directed the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research and is a senior scholar with the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. PBS
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Foster And Migrant Kids Shut Out From COVID Vaccinations
Nearly a half-million foster children in the U.S. and unaccompanied migrant teens at the southern border could be prevented from receiving coronavirus vaccines because of federal and state consent laws that require a parent or guardian’s approval. That means kids in many states can only receive the vaccine with a parent or guardian’s consent - a hurdle that’s impossible to meet for many children separated from their biological parents. Politico Read more
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State/National/International News |
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Only Four States Are Now in COVID "High Risk" Level
With the country increasingly opening up and air travel hitting its highest levels since the pandemic broke out, the U.S. showed continued signs of progress toward normalcy over Memorial Day weekend - bolstered by data from the coronavirus infection front.
According to nonprofit data website COVID Act Now, nearly the entire country is in the second-lowest “medium risk” category, just one away from the lowest risk tier.
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Americans Are Celebrating Steps Toward Normalcy - But The Real Test of COVID-19 Progress is Two Weeks Away, Expert Says
While Memorial Day was a milestone for a return to a sense of normalcy from the COVID-19 pandemic, it could take another two weeks to determine where the U.S. really stands, an expert said. "In some ways, this was the first big stress test," CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen said. "We have restrictions lifted en masse, people going about their normal lives. We know that in the past after major holidays and an increase in travel that we then had a substantial uptick in the rate of infections." CNN Read more
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The "Grief Pandemic" From COVID-19 Will Torment Americans For Years, Experts Say
With nearly 600,000 in the U.S. lost to COVID-19 - now a leading cause of death - researchers estimate that more than 5 million Americans are in mourning, including more than 43,000 children who have lost a parent. The pandemic - and the political battles and economic devastation that have accompanied it - have inflicted unique forms of torment on mourners, making it harder to move ahead with their lives than with a typical loss, said sociologist Holly Prigerson, co-director of the Cornell Center for Research on End-of-Life Care in New York. USA Today Read more
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Brazilian Town Experiment Shows Mass Vaccination Can Wipe Out COVID-19
A small commuter town surrounded by sugarcane fields in southeastern Brazil, one of the countries hardest hit by COVID-19, has shown that even a vaccine that had low efficacy in some clinical trials can dramatically control the pandemic virus. As part of an unusual experiment to track the real-world effectiveness of CoronaVac, a COVID-19 vaccine made by a Chinese company, almost all adult residents of Serrana, in the state of São Paulo, received the required two shots between February and April, long before most would otherwise have become eligible for the vaccine. The results were dramatic. Symptomatic cases of COVID-19 have dropped by 80% since the start of mass vaccination, related hospitalizations fell 86%, and deaths plummeted 95%, the research team in charge of the experiment reported. Science Read more
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Masks, Distancing Still Important Even With Vaccination, Study Suggests
Vaccination alone might not be enough to end the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers reported Tuesday. Even with a majority of the population vaccinated, the removal of pandemic precautions could lead to an increase in virus spread, the researchers reported in the medical journal JAMA Network Open. Mehul Patel, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues used a mathematical model to simulate coronavirus spread among the approximately 10 million people of North Carolina. CNN Read more
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Leading Scientist Says That Without a Full Investigation of Lab Leak Theory, The World Will Face "COVID-26 And COVID-32"
A prominent scientist has added his voice to the growing number of experts calling for a full investigation into the origins of the novel coronavirus, saying the future of public health is at stake. “There’s going to be COVID-26 and COVID-32 unless we fully understand the origins of COVID-19,” Peter Hotez, a professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine and a leading expert on the virus, said. Washington Post Read more
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Vaccinated Children Can Go Mask-Free At Summer Camp, Says CDC
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put out its new COVID-19 guidelines for camps last week The CDC said staff and campers who are fully vaccinated don't need to wear masks, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, territorial regulations or if it is a business or workplace policy. "Although fully vaccinated persons do not need to wear masks, camps can be supportive of staff or campers who choose to continue to wear a mask," the new guidelines said. CNN
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Little-Known Illnesses Turning Up in COVID Long-Haulers
The day Dr. Elizabeth Dawson was diagnosed with COVID-19 in October, she awoke feeling as if she had a bad hangover. Four months later she tested negative for the virus, but her symptoms have only worsened. Dawson is among what one doctor called “waves and waves” of “long-haul” COVID patients who remain sick long after retesting negative for the virus. A significant percentage are suffering from syndromes that few doctors understand or treat. Kaiser Health News Read more
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Confirmed Cases
Bay Area: 444,481
California: 3,791,334
U.S.: 33,306,775
Alameda County
Vaccines Administered: 1,894,548
Cases: 88,955
Deaths: 1,693
Test Positivity: 0.7%
Hospitalized Patients: 68
ICU Beds Available: 109
Cases have decreased over the past week and are at a moderate level. 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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Reported Deaths
Bay Area: 6,609
California: 63,282
U.S.: 595,818
Contra Costa County
Vaccines Administered: 1,314,696
Cases: 69,693
Deaths: 799
Test Positivity: 1.5%
Hospitalized Patients: 41
ICU Beds Available: 37
Cases have decreased over the past week but are still high. The number of hospitalized COVID patients has also fallen in the Contra Costa area. Deaths have remained at about the same level. 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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Uneasy About Returning to Pre-Pandemic Life?
Here Are 100 Fun, Productive Things to Do At Home
A recent survey by the American Psychological Association found 46% of American adults said they don't feel comfortable going back to their pre-pandemic life. If you're still spending more time than usual at home, check out these 100 suggestions to help make it as interesting - and perhaps even as productive - as possible. USA Today 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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COVID Test Resources
Food Pantries
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Over the last seven days, Alameda County officials have reported 290 new coronavirus cases, which amounts to 18 cases per 100,000 residents. |
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Over the last seven days, Contra Costa County officials have reported 239 new coronavirus cases, which amounts to 21 cases per 100,000 residents. |
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Top 10 Locations of Cases in
Alameda County, as of 6/2/21
Oakland: 27,741
Hayward: 13,750
Fremont: 8,090
Eden MAC: 5,980
San Leandro: 5,535
Livermore: 4,323
Union City: 4,037
Berkeley: 3,620
Newark: 2,812
Castro Valley: 2,594
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Top 10 Locations of Cases in
Contra Costa County, as of 6/2/21
Richmond: 11,687
Antioch: 9,716
Concord: 8,119
Pittsburg: 6,896
San Pablo: 5,289
Brentwood: 3,859
Oakley: 3,264
Walnut Creek: 2,893
Bay Point: 2,799
San Ramon: 2,126
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Mask On!
Protect Yourself While Protecting Others
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Working in collaboration with the Alameda County Public Health Department, the cities of Hayward and San Leandro, and the Castro Valley and Eden Area Municipal Advisory Councils, the District has printed "Mask On" posters for each city in the Eden Health District area. These posters are free of charge and intended for businesses, health clinics, schools, churches, public agencies and nonprofit agencies to display in their entrances. The posters are available in English, Spanish and Chinese languages. The public is welcome to download and print or share "Mask On" posters from our website. |
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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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