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breaking health news & updates

July 3, 2024

COVID Trend Teaches "High" Level Across Western U.S. In Latest CDC Data

A key indicator for tracking the spread of COVID-19 has officially reached "high" levels across western U.S. states, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now shows. But the agency says it remains too early to say whether this year's summer COVID-19 surge has arrived nationwide.

Levels of SARS-CoV-2 virus showing up in wastewater samples are climbing in most parts of the country, according to figures from the agency through June 27.

Health authorities have increasingly relied on analyzing samples from sewers to get a sense of COVID-19 trends, now that cases are largely no longer being tested or reported. The CDC also relies on data from emergency rooms and hospitals to track the virus.

Nationwide, levels of the virus in wastewater are still "low,"the CDC says. But across the West, preliminary figures from the most recent weeks show this key COVID-19 trend has now passed above the threshold that the agency considers to be "high" levels of the virus. CBS News Read more

“Elderly, and people who may have sensitivity to heat should try and stay inside as much as possible. Even young healthy people who are going out for hikes and spending time in the heat can really be impacted by this if they don't prepare."

Dr. Christopher Colwell, UCSF

Intense Bay Area Heat To Crank Up Even More, And It May Last Longer Than Anticipated

As temperatures prepared to crank up to well past 100 degrees in parts of the Bay Area on Tuesday, the National Weather Service delivered news that hardly offered any relief.

“Nothing is pushing this high pressure,” NWS meteorologist Nicole Sarment said. “It’s just staying stagnant and showing no signs of breaking down anytime soon. So this is going to be going on a while, maybe longer than we thought.”

The weather service extended an excessive heat warning for another day. The warning, which went into effect at 11 p.m. Monday, now runs through Sunday night at 8 p.m. Sarment said. The conditions are such that the warning could be extended into next week, she said.

A red flag warning for severe fire conditions also went into effect at 11 p.m. Monday in the East Bay Hills, Marin Coastal Range, Sonoma Coastal Range and the Santa Cruz Mountains. Wind gusts are expected to be at least 25 mph and will combine with the low humidity and heavy grasses to make for the dangerous conditions. Mercury News Read more

Local News

Bay Area Cooling Centers Open As Heat Wave Blasts Region

Bay Area counties on Tuesday opened cooling centers as the region settled into the most intense part of a heat wave that is expected to last into the weekend, if not longer. An excessive heat warning has been extended from 11 a.m. Tuesday until Sunday at 8 p.m., and National Weather Service meteorologist Nicole Sarment said it’s possible that warning could be extended.

Public safety officials urged people to be aware of the dangers of the heat, to minimize their activity and to drink fluids enough to avoid being thirsty. They also urged they stay inside cool places. There are a number of cooling centers around the region. East Bay Times Read more

Signs Of Avian Flu Found In San Francisco Wastewater

Signs of H5N1 bird flu virus have been detected at three wastewater sites in California’s Bay Area, according to sampling data. While positive wastewater samples have been found in seven other states, California is the only one that has yet to report a bird flu outbreak in a herd of dairy cows. Genetic evidence of bird flu was detected in San Francisco wastewater on June 18 and June 26. Additional H5 “hits” were seen at a site in Palo Alto on June 19, and another on June 10 from the West County Wastewater facility in Richmond. According to the San Francisco Department of Public Health, officials have been closely monitoring H5N1 along with federal, state and local partners, and are “aware of the recent detections of fragments of H5N1 in San Francisco’s wastewater.” LA Times Read more

San Mateo County Farmworkers To Receive PPE Amid H5N1 Bird Flu Concerns

Personal protective equipment will be distributed to dairy and poultry farmworkers in San Mateo County to protect against the H5N1 virus, county health officials said last Wednesday. Due to a rising concern of H5N1, or bird flu, spreading among dairy cows nationally, the county health department will be participating in a program through the California Department of Public Health to provide a one-time supply of personal protective equipment to businesses and organizations that employ or serve dairy and poultry farmworkers. According to the California Department of Public Health, the types of personal protective equipment that can be requested include air purifying respirators, N95 masks, gloves, goggles, face shields and bouffant caps. CBS News Read more

COVID News

New COVID Shots Recommended For Americans 6 Months And Older This Fall

All Americans ages 6 months and older should receive one of the new Covid-19 vaccines when they become available this fall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday. The recommendation comes as the nation faces a summer wave of Covid, with the number of infections rising in at least 39 states and territories. Most Americans have acquired immunity against the coronavirus from repeat infections or vaccine doses, or both. The vaccines now offer an incremental boost, remaining effective for only a few months as immunity wanes and the virus continues to evolve. Still, across every age group, a vast majority of Americans who were hospitalized for Covid did not receive one of the shots offered last fall, according to data presented at a meeting on Thursday of the C.D.C.’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. NY Times Read more

How Do I Know If I Have COVID? Only A Test Can Say For Sure

As the nation enters yet another summer COVID wave, doctors say it’s nearly impossible to diagnose a person with the illness based on symptoms alone. “Every week, we test someone for COVID who I didn’t think had it who tests positive. Then we have others who I’m pretty sure have COVID who test negative,” said Dr. Steven Furr, a family physician in Jackson, Alabama, and president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. “It’s really hard to separate COVID from any other respiratory illness right now,” he said. “Some people have a very classic sore throat, runny nose, cough and low-grade fever,” said Dr. Paul Sax, the clinical director of the division of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “In others, it’s mostly nausea and diarrhea with very minimal respiratory symptoms. It can vary from A to Z and beyond.” NBC News Read more

COVID-19 Emergency Room Visits, Deaths Are Up. Should You Be Worried?

More people are ending up in emergency rooms and dying in recent weeks from COVID-19, federal health data showed. The information agencies collect, known as surveillance data, that tracks cases and the spread of COVID-19 has become limited in the years since the start of the pandemic. However, COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths are indicators of the disease’s spread. The numbers for emergency room admissions and deaths have risen, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's latest data. There has been a 23% increase in emergency department visits in the past week, according to CDC data posted on Monday. The data was taken from the week of June 22, the latest available data, which showed the weekly percentage of emergency room visits diagnosed as COVID-19 was at 0.9%. USA Today

Drinking Water Of Nearly 1 Million Californians Failed To Meet State Requirements

Almost 400 water systems serving nearly a million Californians don't meet state requirements for safe and reliable drinking water supplies — and fixing them would cost billions of dollars. More than two-thirds of these failing water systems serve communities of color, and more than half are in places struggling with poverty and pollution, according to an annual assessment released last week by the State Water Resources Control Board. These water systems failed to provide water "which is at all times pure, wholesome, and potable," as required. Some violated drinking water standards for chemicals, bacteria, taste or odor. Others rely on bottled water, or have failed to meet treatment, monitoring or other requirements. CBS News Read more

The U.S. Will Pay Moderna $176 Million To Develop An mRNA Pandemic Flu Vaccine

The U.S. government will pay the vaccine maker Moderna $176 million to accelerate development of a pandemic influenza vaccine that could be used to treat bird flu in people, as concern grows about cases in dairy cows across the country, federal officials announced Tuesday. Moderna already has a bird flu vaccine in very early-stage testing that uses the same mRNA technology that allowed rapid development and rollout of vaccines to protect against COVID-19. The new funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services include continued development of the vaccine, including a late-stage trial next year if those early study results are positive. AP Read more

FDA Approves Eli Lilly’s Early Alzheimer’s Treatment

Eli Lilly’s early Alzheimer’s treatment was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday, making it the second drug on the U.S. market aimed at slowing progression of the debilitating neurological disease. The treatment, whose scientific name is donanemab and will be sold under the brand name Kisunla, will compete with Eisai and Biogen’s Leqembi, which got full approval last year. The clearance of Kisunla comes after several regulatory hurdles. The drug was originally expected to be approved earlier this year, but the FDA convened a panel of advisers to weigh the risks and benefits of the treatment. The committee unanimously backed the treatment in a meeting last month. While this is a win for Lilly, the drug is not expected to be a big growth driver for the company. Investors are much more focused now on Lilly’s obesity business, led by its GLP-1-based treatment Zepbound. STAT Read more

Older Women Are Different Than Older Men. Their Health Is Woefully Understudied

Medical research has shortchanged women for decades. This is particularly true of older women, leaving physicians without critically important information about how to best manage their health. Late last year, the Biden administration promised to address this problem with a new effort called the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research. That inspires a compelling question: What priorities should be on the initiative’s list when it comes to older women? Stephanie Faubion, director of the Mayo Clinic’s Center for Women’s Health, launched into a critique when I asked about the current state of research on older women’s health. “It’s completely inadequate,” she told me. One example: Many drugs widely prescribed to older adults, including statins for high cholesterol, were studied mostly in men, with results extrapolated to women.

Mercury News Read more

The Concierge Catch: Better Access For A Few Patients Disrupts Care For Many

“You had to pay the fee, or the doctor wasn’t going to see you anymore.” That was the takeaway for Terri Marroquin of Midland, Texas, when her longtime physician began charging a membership fee in 2019. She found out about the change when someone at the physician’s front desk pointed to a posted notice. At first, she stuck with the practice; in her area, she said, it is now tough to find a primary care doctor who doesn’t charge an annual membership fee from $350 to $500. But last year, Marroquin finally left to join a practice with no membership fee where she sees a physician assistant rather than a doctor. “I had had enough. The concierge fee kept going up, and the doctor’s office kept getting nicer and nicer,” she said, referring to the décor. With the national shortage of primary care physicians reaching 17,637 in 2023 and projected to worsen, more Americans are paying for the privilege of seeing a doctor — on top of insurance premiums that cover most services a doctor might provide or order. Many people seeking a new doctor are calling a long list of primary care practices only to be told they’re not taking new patients. KFF Health News Read more

Study Suggests Connection Between Anxiety And Parkinson’s Disease

People over 50 with anxiety may be up to twice as likely to develop Parkinson’s disease as their peers without anxiety, a new analysis suggests. The study, published in the British Journal of General Practice, looked at primary care data from the United Kingdom. Researchers compared a group of 109,435 people 50 and older who were diagnosed with a first episode of anxiety between 2008 and 2018 with a control group of 987,691 people without anxiety. Researchers said, of those in the study, 331 patients with an anxiety diagnosis developed Parkinson’s disease over the decade, and the average patient who developed the disease did so 4.9 years after their first anxiety diagnosis. Washington Post

Med Schools Face A New Obstacle In The Push To Train More Black Doctors

Jerrian Reedy was 9 when his father was admitted to the hospital in Hattiesburg, about two hours northeast of New Orleans, after sustaining three gunshot wounds. Reedy recalled visiting his dad in the intensive care unit that summer in 2009, even though children weren’t typically permitted in that part of the hospital. “Just seeing him laid up in bed, in a hospital bed, it was traumatizing, to say the least,” Reedy said. His father died within a week of being admitted, in the middle of a nine-month span when Reedy also lost an aunt and a grandmother. “They say death comes in threes,” he said. That chain of events prompted him to pursue a career in medicine, one that might help him spare other children from losing loved ones too soon. NPR

Supreme Court Gives Cities In California And Beyond More Power To Crack Down On Homeless Camps

The U.S. Supreme Court last week granted cities more power to arrest, cite and fine people who sleep outside in public places — overturning six years of legal protections for homeless residents in California and other western states. In Grants Pass v. Johnson, the court sided with Grants Pass in a 6-3 decision, ruling that an ordinance passed by the Oregon city that essentially made it illegal for homeless residents to camp on all public property was not unconstitutional. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — all Democratic appointees — dissented. The much-anticipated decision overturns a prior influential Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, and means cities no longer are prohibited from punishing unhoused residents for camping if they have nowhere else to go. It will have major ramifications for how California leaders and law enforcement handle homeless encampments. CalMatters Read more

When Little Kids Don’t Have Stable Housing, It Can Affect Their Health Later

Not having secure housing is a huge stress for anyone. But when children experience this, especially in early childhood, it can affect their health years down the line. That’s the finding of a new study in the journal Pediatrics, which says that teens who experienced housing insecurity earlier in life were more likely to report worse health. “Pediatricians, for a long time, have suspected that housing insecurity is associated with negative health outcomes,” says Dr. Hemen Muleta, a pediatrician at The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in New York City. But this is important evidence from a longitudinal study that follows children from infancy to adolescence and connects their experiences of housing insecurity with long term health, she adds. NPR

Summertime Sadness Could Be A Type Of Seasonal Affective Disorder

Has the heat got you down? You’re probably not alone. Wintertime — with its long, dark nights — is the season most associated with low mood and depression. But sun-filled summer days can also bring on the doldrums, particularly for the subset of people who experience a summertime version of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) — a type of depression with a periodic pattern. Those with a lesser-known and lesser-studied summer SAD variant may feel “out of sync with the rest of the world” because they experience depression just as summer breaks and pool party invites pick up, says Thomas Wehr, a psychiatrist and scientist emeritus at the National Institutes of Health. Scientific American Read more

Beyond PMS: A Poorly Understood Disorder Means Periods Of Despair For Some Women

For the most part, Cori Lint was happy. She worked days as a software engineer and nights as a part-time cellist, filling her free hours with inline skating and gardening and long talks with friends. But a few days a month, Lint’s mood would tank. Panic attacks came on suddenly. Suicidal thoughts did, too. She had been diagnosed with anxiety and depression, but Lint, 34, who splits her time between St. Petersburg, Florida, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, struggled to understand her experience, a rift so extreme she felt like two different people. “When I felt better, it was like I was looking back at the experience of someone else, and that was incredibly confusing,” Lint said. Then, in 2022, clarity pierced through. Her symptoms, she realized, were cyclical. Lint recognized a pattern in something her doctors hadn’t considered: her period.

KFF Health News Read more

Fentanyl Crisis/Drug Trends

Money For California's Opioid Fight In Limbo After U.S. Supreme Court Ruling

After a Supreme Court’s decision last week jeopardized a massive nationwide settlement over Purdue Pharma’s role in the U.S. opioid epidemic, hundreds of millions of dollars that the deal earmarked for addiction treatment in California could be in limbo. Some of the funds allocated for the state would go to services in San Francisco, which previously brought its own lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, best known as the manufacturer of OxyContin, and the billionaire Sackler family that owns it. San Francisco’s case was put on pause when Purdue filed for bankruptcy in 2019 — launching settlement negotiations between the company and thousands of plaintiffs, including California. Under the settlement deal that was eventually struck in bankruptcy court, Purdue was dissolved, the Sacklers agreed to pay billions toward addressing the opioid crisis, and members of the family — among the wealthiest in the U.S. — were shielded from future liability. KQED Read more

Microdosing And Tripping On Mushrooms Is On The Rise In U.S.

Psychedelics have entered the mainstream in a big way: Investors have staked billions on potential medical treatments, scientific research has skyrocketed and public sentiment signals growing acceptance. And yet the major sources of data on drug use have big gaps when it comes to psychedelics, making it hard to gauge exactly how consumption is changing and in what ways. Two reports out this week offer some much-needed data points on the public’s psychoactive preferences. Together, they suggest that psilocybin-containing mushrooms are now the most popular choice. And many people are opting to microdose, consuming a fraction of the usual dose, rather than taking a full trip. NPR Read more

Fast Facts

Are The New Weight Loss Drugs Too Good To Be True?

Whether you view the latest weight loss drugs as a miracle or a menace, the hype around them is impossible to ignore. Ozempic seized the spotlight first; a weekly injection intended to treat diabetes, it was quickly repurposed by people trying to trim down. Then came Wegovy, a high-dose version officially marketed as an obesity treatment. The drugs have proven so popular that the market value of the Danish company behind them recently exceeded the entire economy of Denmark. In November, Eli Lilly’s Zepbound joined their ranks. The medications have inspired a lot of hope but also intense debate. Do they deepen our bias against fat and make life more miserable – draining patients not just of money but also dignity and joy? Or are they the cure that people with obesity – roughly 40% of American adults – have been waiting for? Before you make up your mind, consider what UCSF experts have to say about the new wave of weight loss drugs. UCSF Read more

About Eden Health District

The Eden Health District Board of Directors are Chair Pam Russo, Vice Chair Ed Hernandez, Secretary/Treasurer Roxann Lewis, Mariellen Faria and Surlene Grant. 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 as well as other health issues.

We welcome your feedback on our bulletin. Please contact editor Lisa Mahoney.

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