Second Harvest Silicon Valley and Alameda County Community Food Bank are the two major suppliers that distribute for a network of nonprofits across the region. Each has doubled the number of people they serve, jumping from a quarter-million people a month pre-pandemic to a half a million now.

Get a free flu shot and go home with a free frozen turkey. That’s the win-win deal Alameda County is offering Wednesday, December 16th, at the San Leandro Senior Community Center, 13909 E 14th St..

The county clinic will be open by appointment only between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. To make an appointment, call 510-577-3462. There is no cost for vaccination and no insurance is required. People with appointments can either walk through or drive through to receive a flu shot.

All San Leandro residents are eligible to receive a vaccination, as are residents from nearby communities such as Oakland and Hayward, as well as those who live in the county’s unincorporated areas.

The vaccine will be in short supply initially and it will take months before it’s available to everyone. The federal and state government will determine which groups of people will be first in line to get vaccinated.

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A phased distribution is planned, with health care workers and nursing-home residents likely to be the first to be vaccinated, followed by other frontline workers. The majority of people will be able to get vaccinated in later stages. Contra Costa Health Services has formed an Ethical and Equitable Vaccine Allocation Committee that will review federal and state guidelines in the context of Contra Costa County, and to provide local, technical recommendations based on our specific considerations.

The CDC said on Sunday said people who have experienced severe reactions to prior vaccines or injectable drugs can still get the Pfizer vaccine for Covid-19, but should discuss the risks with their doctors and be monitored for 30 minutes afterward.

The guidance is a shift from a prior proposal laid out Saturday that would have recommended against vaccination for that group of people. During a webinar with physicians, CDC officials said patients with a history of severe reactions should take precautions because of two documented cases of anaphylaxis in British health care workers who received the Pfizer vaccine.

One event dominated in 2020: a deadly and previously unknown virus wreaked havoc across the globe, killing more than 1.5 million people, infecting many more and causing economic devastation. And although there were other newsworthy research developments in 2020, the pandemic set the course of science to an extraordinary degree.

Despite the horrifying surge of Covid-19 cases and deaths in the United States right now, one bit of good epidemiology news is emerging this winter: It now looks unlikely that the country will endure a “twindemic” of flu and the coronavirus hitting at the same time. “Overall flu activity is low, and lower than we usually see at this time of year,” said Dr. Daniel B. Jernigan, director of the influenza division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “I don’t think we can definitively say there will be no twindemic; I’ve been working with flu for a long time, and I’ve been burned. But flu is atypically low.”

On Sunday night, California received 327,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in its initial shipment, which are now being distributed to hospitals and health departments throughout the state. By the end of the year, it expects another 300,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and another 627,000 from Moderna, whose vaccine is still awaiting final approval in the U.S. but has been shown to be similarly effective to Pfizer’s.

Newsom and other leaders, as well as health experts, have cautioned that it will take months before the vaccine is available to much of the general population. Health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities are first in line. State officials said they hope to vaccinate 2.16 million people by the end of the year. However, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines each requires a second dose, and the initial batch doesn’t cover all of the 2.4 million health care workers in the state.

The Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech cleared another hurdle in California on Sunday, when a working group of scientists and experts endorsed its safety. The group, representing California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, reviewed the vaccine separately from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which on Friday issued emergency use authorization. The group made its recommendation to the governors of the four states Sunday morning, officials said in a news release.

Hospitals in much of the San Joaquin Valley are crowded with Covid-19 patients. As of noon Saturday, availability of ICU beds in the region was zero. Fresno, a metro area with more than 1 million people, hit that dubious marker two days earlier. The valley is a diverse place, with complex opinions on the pandemic. Farmworkers and other essential Latino workers have been hit hard and are scared that the coming months will be even tougher. But with many lacking legal immigration status and unable to receive state aid, they must work to put food on the table.

Smartphone Covid-19 exposure alert system signs up 4 million Californians

A weeks-long surge in coronavirus transmission, leading to an average of more than 210,000 new infections and nearly 2,500 deaths a day this month, has public health experts considering the next major round number practically inevitable. According to Johns Hopkins University data, the USA had recorded more than 299,000 coronavirus deaths as of 5 a.m. EST on Monday. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned the country could reach 450,000 fatalities before Feb. 1, days short of the one-year anniversary of the first known Covid-19 death in the U.S. By comparison, about 405,000 American service members perished in World War II over nearly four years.

President Trump said on Sunday night that he would delay a plan for senior White House staff members to receive the coronavirus vaccine in the coming days, hours after The New York Times reported that the administration was planning to rapidly distribute the vaccine to its staff at a time when the first doses are generally being reserved for high-risk health care workers.

But the COVID‑19 pivot has also revealed the all-too-human frailties of the scientific enterprise. Flawed research made the pandemic more confusing, influencing misguided policies. Clinicians wasted millions of dollars on trials that were so sloppy as to be pointless. Overconfident poseurs published misleading work on topics in which they had no expertise. Racial and gender inequalities in the scientific field widened.

Nicholas Kristof, NY Times, December 11, 2020

Just as the United States is preparing to distribute the first vaccines for the virus, the entry ticket to the nation’s reopening is set to come largely in the form of a digital health credential. In the coming weeks, major airlines plan to introduce a health passport app, called CommonPass, that aims to verify passengers’ virus test results — and soon, vaccinations. The app will then issue confirmation codes enabling passengers to board certain international flights.

Part of it is surely the work itself—we’re exhausted from back-to-back video calls. We’re scared of losing our livelihoods. And then there’s the health crisis: 78% of participants in an American Psychological Association survey of 3,409 adults said the pandemic was a significant source of stress, so it’s no surprise that’s bleeding into our work lives.

What might help? Some employers say they’re planning to discount mental health services next year. And some employees say it’s time for a change. A November survey by public relations firm Weber Shandwick finds that 66% of people polled were planning to make a shift like switching jobs, moving out of town or cutting their hours to part-time as the pandemic wears on.