October 30, 2024

Do You Need a Second Dose of the New COVID-19 Vaccine?

Yes, older Americans should get yet another COVID shot — but if you have already gotten the latest version, there’s no rush.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week said that people 65 and older or who are immunocompromised need a second dose of the new vaccine released in September.

But you should wait six months after the first dose. This means next March is the earliest you’d be eligible.

Why is the CDC promoting two doses when the first one is still being rolled out?

“It’s predictive,” based on previous years’ infection trends, said Castro Valley’s Dr. Jeffrey Silvers, Medical Director of Pharmacy and Infection Control for Sutter Health. This is the second year in a row that the CDC has made a biannual recommendation. East Bay Times Read more

Governor Newsom Awards $827 Million to Combat Homelessness - The Bay Area Received 20% of the Total

The money came in the form of 37 new grants to help more than 100 communities and organizations create long-term solutions to address homelessness, Newsom said, adding that this money comes with "strong accountability and transparency measures and clear expectations" to help ensure that the programs initiated are measurable and effective.

These new grant awards are part of the state’s Homeless Housing and Assistance Prevention program, which provides flexible grant funding to help communities support people experiencing homelessness by creating permanent housing, rental and move-in assistance, case management services, rental subsidies, among other eligible uses.

As a condition of receiving the new funding, the awardees must agree to increased accountability, transparency, and compliance measures, Newsom's office said. Grantees will report monthly fiscal progress that will be available live on the California Housing and Community Development’s website through the HHAP fiscal dashboard. 

Grantees were required to work regionally on these applications and they were required to explicitly commit to coordinating with one another, clearly stating who was responsible for which parts of their joint regional homeless efforts, as a condition of receiving funding.

The funding requires grantees to commit to addressing racial inequities in homelessness, prioritize permanent housing rather than temporary shelters, and include people with lived experience of homelessness in program design. The East Bay region was awarded $55.9 million. KTVU Read more

Redondo Beach Brought Its Homeless Numbers to "Functionally Zero"

Over the first six months of this year, the city reached a milestone: the median time it took Omura and her colleagues to get homeless people off the street fell to 14 days. That was more than it needed to earn the rare designation “functionally zero,” a term broadly meaning that services are in balance with homelessness. The recognition came from the South Bay Cities Council of Governments which picked Redondo Beach to lead the way to a goal of getting the upper hand on homelessness regionally.

“We felt like our cities were doing well,” said Ronson Chu, the council’s senior project manager for homeless and senior services. “We were making a lot of progress, especially Redondo Beach. We wanted to measure the progress so we can say to our constituents that these services are working, so we can hold ourselves accountable and educate the public.”

At a ceremony this week recognizing the city’s achievement, three more cities — Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Torrance —will accept the challenge, Chu said.

The first step, born out of quality of life complaints pressuring the City Council, was to get control of the city’s petty-crime problem. Homeless people were being arrested for trespassing, disorderly conduct and drug offenses. In 2020, City Attorney Mike Webb persuaded the Superior Court in nearby Torrance to send a judge to Redondo Beach one day a month to conduct a homeless court using the power of the bench to lead defendants toward shelter and treatment.

This summer it opened 20 units of permanent housing in a motel conversion funded by state Project Homekey and obtained a county grant to double the size of its tiny home village.

The number of homeless people on the streets has steadily dropped. In 2017, the annual homeless court found 105 people sleeping unsheltered on the city’s streets. This year, the tally of the count conducted in January was down to 18. Vehicles occupied by homeless people were also down from 79 to 47.

The city is now developing a pilot mental health response program with a $570,000 grant from the healthcare plan Health Net. LA Times Read more

Trick or Trigger? Managing Mental Health During Halloween

The ghouls are out, the bats are flying, and the zombies are rising up from their graves. Halloween has arrived.

While dressing up and getting candy is fun, some people see Halloween as a time where their mental health is in jeopardy. The most spooktacular season is here. It’s a time of ghouls, ghosts and goblins. While Halloween is fun for some, others may see it as a trigger for stress and fear.

“There are certain themes of Halloween that can be disturbing or bothersome or fearful for some people,” said Kathleen McHugh, PhD, Licensed Psychologist. Scary costumes, horror movies, haunted houses, decorations and unwanted physical contact can trigger past traumatic experiences, cause anxiety, panic, fear, flashbacks, nightmares and distress.

McHugh said one way to cope with the Halloween horrors is to be with friends.

“You don’t want to totally isolate yourself, cocoon yourself into your safe house ‘cause that kind of reinforces the idea, that I’m only safe if I’m at home,” said McHugh.

Another way to cope with your Halloween fears is to accept it and explore why you’re feeling this way. Trace your steps and see where exactly where those fears and anxiety are coming from. Ivanhoe Newswire Read more

Medicaid limits access to life-saving doses of addiction care

Consensus is growing around the idea that for some patients higher doses of a gold-standard opioid addiction treatment drug may be better than lower doses at keeping patients healthy and in treatment, especially for those who use fentanyl.

But whether someone can access higher doses of buprenorphine — which works by curbing cravings and withdrawal from opioids — depends on where they live.

In most states, Medicaid — the largest payer of substance use disorder treatment in the U.S. — caps the doses it will pay for at arbitrary levels, typically at no more than 24 milligrams.

Providers say higher doses, sometimes up to 32 milligrams, are necessary in the face of a drug supply dominated by highly potent fentanyl.

“It’s probably the most significant challenge that we’re facing in our community because so many patients are needing higher doses to have the desired outcome the medicine is designed to achieve,” said Ryan Alexander, addiction medicine physician and medical director for substance use programming at McNabb Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. TennCare, Tennessee’s Medicaid program, won’t pay for doses higher than 16 milligrams except in limited circumstances.

The FDA appears to be considering changing the labeling. It held a meeting in December, along with the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, to collect data on the safety and efficacy of buprenorphine doses over 24 milligrams to “inform federal guidelines and policies with the latest evidence and practice experiences.”   East Bay TImes Read more

Your Guide to Coping with Election Anxiety Nervous about the election? Try these tips to stay calm.

Feeling jittery and unsettled about the upcoming election? If you’re anything like the 69 percent of American adults who said the 2024 presidential election was a “significant” source of stress in their lives, per this year’s American Psychological Association’s Stress in America poll, you’re not alone.

Elections are common wellsprings of anxiety because they’re rife with uncertainty, says David H. Rosmarin, the founder of the Center for Anxiety. You’re unsure of the outcome, and unsure of what life may look like for you under a new administration, especially when the difference between the two choices is undeniably vast. Some of the proposed policies may threaten people’s safety and freedoms, resulting in even more anxiety. Research shows political anxiety can impact people who aren’t generally anxious otherwise.

Get to the root of your anxiety

To properly address your fears, you first need to specify what triggers your feelings of anxiety beyond not wanting the other side to win, Rosmarin says.

Take control where you can

Uncertainty about the future is a major source of general anxiety and can lead to a sense of powerlessness. With so much out of an individual’s control, it’s important to focus on areas where you do have authority. You can, of course, vote, volunteer as a poll worker, and get involved with get out the vote or activist organizations in your community

Lean into community

Feeling supported by friends and family helps combat anxiety, so try to avoid spending the next few weeks in isolation. Instead, reach out to friends and family (preferably discussing anything but politics) or attend a safe and affirming community event. Find people who fill you with calm instead of dread and with whom you can talk things through and problem-solve.

Care for your mind and body

In the days leading up to the election and immediately following, especially if a clear winner is not apparent, stressed-out Americans should pay extra care to their minds and bodies. This might mean curbing your consumption of news and social media. Proper sleep, a healthy diet, and physical activity can ward off anxiety, so experts recommend getting enough to eat, moving a bit, and prioritizing rest.

Difficult as it may be, try to incorporate joy however you can, Lewis says. Spend a few minutes each day on pleasurable activities that reduce stress, like listening to music, getting together with friends, or meditation.

Regardless of what happens over the coming days and weeks, remind yourself that your concerns are real, Hill says. What matters is finding coping strategies that work for you — and will continue to be effective no matter the outcome. Vox Read more