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Stay Well
breaking health news & updates
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A Day With No COVID Deaths? It Finally Happened In California | |
It was a regular Tuesday in spring, sunny and warm, and a little foggy at the coast. But as April 2, 2024 came to a close, a silent victory emerged: the day had passed without a single Californian dying from COVID.
Over the next several weeks, as death certificates were filed and processed, it would become the first day without an official COVID death since March 18, 2020, the day before Governor Gavin Newsom announced a statewide stay-at-home order.
“That’s quite a notable day,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, a UCSF infectious disease expert whose passion for working with HIV patients brought her to the Bay Area at the height of the AIDS epidemic.
It reminded her of another time, decades ago, when the Bay Area Reporter declared that there were “no obits,” to run for victims of HIV for the first time in 17 years. “It was just such a beautiful significant day for us in history.”
Like an obituary section with no HIV deaths, a day with no COVID deaths is merely a symbolic moment in a pandemic’s roller coaster timeline, statistically likely to happen once the average daily deaths drop low enough, but noteworthy nonetheless.
The deadly virus had already crept into the Golden State, when by late March 2020 it was responsible for deaths every single day. East Bay Times Read more
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Latest COVID Worry, FLiRT Variants, Sparks Concern About Vaccination Rates
A new family of COVID variants nicknamed “FLiRT” is spreading across the country, as vaccination rates remain concerningly low for some public health experts.
While symptoms and severity seem to be about the same as previous COVID strains, the new FLiRT variants appear to be more transmissible, said infectious disease expert Dr. Robert Murphy.
FLiRT is not one specific strain. It is a nickname given to a series of mutations — S:F456L and S:R346T — culled from the letters in the technical mutation names.
“A new, more contagious variant is out there,” said Murphy, executive director of Northwestern University’s Institute for Global Health and a professor of infectious diseases at the Feinberg School of Medicine. “COVID-19 is still with us, and compared to flu and RSV, COVID-19 can cause significant problems off-season.” East Bay Times Read more
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"For people who have fragile immune systems, they should take precautions around large crowds and places where they can be exposed. For older people, it’s generally a good idea to stay up to date on vaccinations since immunity does wane with age.”
Dr. Elizabeth McNally, Director of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Center for Genetic Medicine
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Alameda County’s Homeless Count Decreases For First Time In A Decade
Homelessness across Alameda County decreased for the first time in nearly a decade, according to this year’s preliminary point-in-time count data released Wednesday. The county saw a 3% drop overall, down to 9,450 from 9,747 unhoused individuals in 2022. One potential reason for the drop, according to Jonathan Russell, the county’s director of Housing and Homelessness Services, is a countywide initiative to spend $2.5 billion over five years to address homelessness. That plan is now in its third year. “We have really ramped up a system that is housing more and more people than ever,” Russell said. During the fiscal year that ended in June, more than 4,000 people were placed into housing, he said. “These efforts we’ve funded do have impact and the more we scale those, the more we can affect this crisis.” KQED Read more
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SF, Contra Costa County Look To Fill Emergency Responder Staffing Shortages
Bay Area communities are sounding the alarm over a shortage of first responders, from nurses to dispatchers to paramedics. Leaders in Contra Costa County and San Francisco are calling on voters to approve charter amendments to boost staffing. On Monday, the Contra Costa County fire chief sounded the alarm about a shortage of ambulances and paramedics and limited capacity at local emergency rooms. Chief Lewis Broschard said some patients are waiting as long as an hour to be taken in at John Muir Health in Walnut Creek. NBC Bay Area Read more
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New UCSF Study To Find Out What Drives Cancer In Asian Americans
UC San Francisco researchers have received $12.45 million from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to lead the first long-term study of cancer among Asian Americans, a highly diverse yet understudied group. Despite a growing incidence of cancers that in some cases exceed those of other groups, there has never been a national longitudinal study of cancer in the Asian American community, and there are many open questions. For example, the researchers are seeking to understand why Asian American women who never smoked are susceptible to lung cancer, and why Asian Americans have become the first racial/ethnic group for whom cancer is the leading cause of death. UCSF Read more
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Marin Seniors Advised To Consider COVID-19 Booster
Marin County public health officials have endorsed a federal recommendation for adults aged 65 years and older to receive an additional dose of the updated COVID-19 vaccine. “But it’s definitely not with the same fanfare as in the past,” said Dr. Lisa Santora, Marin deputy public health officer. The decision is complicated for anyone contemplating getting the booster now. That is because a four-month interval is required between inoculations. “The challenge right now,” Santora said, “is that you would have to wait at least four months to get your fall booster. We’re already into May so you would have to wait until October.” Santora said the amount of virus circulating in the community currently is relatively low. It could be much higher by fall. On Friday, the county’s public health department said in its newsletter that wastewater samples indicate that local transmission is on the rise, with 27% of samples taken last month testing positive for KP.2, also referred to as the FLiRT variant. Marin Independent Journal Read more
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The Most Common COVID Symptoms Doctors Are Seeing This Spring
As we head into summer, there’s a new dominant COVID-19 variant that’s infecting people across the United States. KP.2 now represents 28% of COVID-19 infections in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “KP.2 is one of several variants being referred to as ‘FLiRT variants,’ named after the technical names for their mutations,” Dr. Purvi Parikh, an immunologist at NYU Langone Health, told HuffPost via email. KP.2 is a descendent of the JN.1 strain from the winter, Parikh added. Most people who get infected will generally feel unwell and have symptoms such as a sore throat, fever and cough, Parikh said.
A runny nose is also common, noted Dumford, as is fatigue, headache and muscle aches, according to the CDC. If you have symptoms such as trouble breathing, confusion and a fever above 103 degrees, you should see a doctor immediately. HuffPost Read more
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COVID-19 Linked To Increased Preterm Birth, Other Problems In Pregnancy
Findings from a large study in California, which distinguished the COVID-19 pandemic period from individual SARS-CoV-2 infections, suggest that SARS-CoV-2 infection is tied to increased preterm birth (PTB), high blood pressure during pregnancy, and severe maternal morbidity. The study is published as a research letter in JAMA Network Open. Researchers looked at live birth data from California hospital discharge records for 2019 to 2020. They compared pregnant women with COVID-19 in 2020, pregnant women without COVID-19 in 2020, and prepandemic pregnant women in 2019. Overall, parents with COVID-19 infections were more likely to be Hispanic, have lower education, receive public insurance, and live in lower income neighborhoods compared with the other groups, the authors said. CIDRAP Read more
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State/National/International News | | |
Newsom Boosted California’s Public Health Budget During COVID. Now He Wants To Cut It
When a Pasadena doctor reported in October that a hospital patient was exhibiting classic symptoms of dengue fever, such as vomiting, a rash, and bone and joint pain, local disease investigators snapped into action. The mosquito-borne virus is common in places like Southeast Asia, East Africa, and Latin America, and when Americans contract the disease it is usually while traveling. But in this case, the patient hadn’t left California. Epidemiologists and public health nurses visited 175 households to conduct blood draws and local pest control workers began fumigating the patient’s neighborhood. In the process, they discovered a second infected person who hadn’t traveled. Both patients recovered, and in that neighborhood nearly 65% of the carrier mosquitoes, part of a genus called Aedes, were eradicated within seven days, said Matthew Feaster, an epidemiologist with the Pasadena Public Health Department. The swift and intensive response was funded largely by a new bucket of money in the state budget for public health and preparedness across California, said Manuel Carmona, Pasadena’s deputy director of public health. California Healthline Read more
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C.D.C. Warns Of A Resurgence Of Mpox
With Pride events scheduled worldwide over the coming weeks, U.S. officials are bracing for a return of mpox, the infectious disease formerly called monkeypox that struck tens of thousands of gay and bisexual men worldwide in 2022. A combination of behavioral changes and vaccination quelled that outbreak, but a majority of those at risk have not yet been immunized. On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned of a deadlier version of mpox that is ravaging the Democratic Republic of Congo and urged people at risk to be vaccinated as soon as possible. No cases of that subtype have been identified outside Africa so far. But the escalating epidemic in Congo nevertheless poses a global threat, just as infections in Nigeria set off the 2022 outbreak, experts said. NY Times Read more
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The Lure Of Specialty Medicine Pulls Nurse Practitioners From Primary Care
For many patients, seeing a nurse practitioner has become a routine part of primary care, in which these “NPs” often perform the same tasks that patients have relied on doctors for. But NPs in specialty care? That’s not routine, at least not yet. Increasingly, though, nurse practitioners and physician assistants are joining cardiology, dermatology, and other specialty practices, broadening their skills and increasing their income. This development worries some people who track the health workforce, because current trends suggest primary care, which has counted on nurse practitioners to backstop physician shortages, soon might not be able to rely on them to the same extent. KFF Health News Read more
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Certain Vegetarian Diets Significantly Reduce Risk Of Cancer, Heart Disease And Death, Study Says
Eating a vegan, vegetarian or lacto-ovo vegetarian diet significantly reduces the overall risk of developing cancer, heart disease and dying early from cardiovascular disease, according to a new “umbrella” analysis of more than 20 years of research. An umbrella review looks at existing metanalyses of large numbers of studies, providing a high-level view of existing research on a topic. In addition to lowering cardiovascular risk factors such as blood pressure and cholesterol, the umbrella analysis found a “protective effect” for specific cancers, including “liver, colon, pancreas, lung, prostate, bladder, melanoma, kidney and non-Hodgkin lymphoma,” said lead author Dr. Angelo Capodici, a graduate student in health science, technology and management at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, Italy. CNN Read more
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Wearable Devices Generate Powerful Data But It’s Not Useful To Doctors, Yet
Just because the Food and Drug Administration has given the Apple Watch and other wearable devices the OK to market the health benefits of their tracking and algorithms doesn’t mean that the data they generate are useful for either patients or their doctors, experts said last Thursday at the STAT Breakthrough Summit West in San Francisco. “Yesterday, I saw a patient with type 2 diabetes who has a continuous glucose monitor, and so she’s been tracking her blood sugar every five minutes,” said Ida Sim, a primary care physician and chief research informatics officer at the University of California, San Francisco. “[I] sat with her for almost an hour yesterday. I couldn’t get to her CGM data — she had it on her phone, but the report goes into a website that I didn’t have the login to, and it hadn’t been downloaded into my electronic medical record. So all this tracking data, I didn’t have it.” STAT Read more
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Most Sunscreens Don’t Work - Here’s What to Look For
As summer approaches, sunscreen inevitably comes to mind, yet a recent study reveals that only a quarter of sunscreen products on the U.S.
market offer truly safe and effective protection. The nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Environmental Working Group conducted a review of over 1,700 sunscreens for its annual report and found that roughly 25% meet contemporary standards for sustained protection, while the rest fall short. Many of these products also contain toxic ingredients that can do more harm than good to people and the environment.
The group blames outdated federal regulations for allowing these products to remain on the market. SF Chronicle Read more
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People Using Popular Drugs For Weight Loss, Diabetes Are More Likely To Be Diagnosed With Stomach Paralysis, Studies Find
Injected medications that treat diabetes and obesity increase the risk of a rare but serious side effect: stomach paralysis, according to new data on the real-world use of the drugs. At least three new studies based on large collections of patient records show that the risk of being diagnosed with stomach paralysis, or gastroparesis, is higher for people who take GLP-1 agonists than for those who don’t. njected medications called GLP-1 agonists are in high demand because they have proved to be so effective for weight loss. The drugs curb hunger by slowing passage of food through the stomach. CNN Read more
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Potential Tough-On-Crime Ballot Measure Promises Less Homelessness. Experts Aren’t Convinced
Homelessness gets top billing in a measure likely to make it onto your November ballot. Whether the measure has anything to do with homelessness is debatable. The initiative proponents are calling the “Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act” would increase penalties for some drug and theft crimes, by rolling back Proposition 47 — the criminal justice changes California voters passed a decade ago. It also would force some people arrested three or more times for drug crimes into treatment. But where does homelessness factor into this tough-on-crime measure? The initiative includes no money for housing, shelter or treatment beds — leading some experts to question how it would help get California’s more than 181,000 unhoused residents off the street in a state where recent research shows loss of income is the leading cause of homelessness. Nor does the measure allocate or create new funding sources to pay cities or counties to enforce it. CalMatters Read more
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Hayward Showing Progress In Sheltering Of People Experiencing Homelessness
Newly released findings of the 2024 count of people experiencing homeless in Alameda County show Hayward is sheltering a greater share of its homeless population — a continuation of a positive trend amid concern homelessness appears to be on the rise in City. According to Point in Time (PIT) Count estimates, which were arrived at based on a physical count carried out across the County on the morning of Jan. 25, Hayward is sheltering 44 percent of its homeless population — up from 30 percent in 2022, 24 percent in 2019 and 21 percent in 2017. While overall numbers of people experiencing homelessness are beyond any one city’s direct control, how cities respond is not — and by that measure Hayward is making sustained progress moving people off the streets and out of encampments and into emergency and transitional shelter programs. City of Hayward Read more
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S.F. Set Out To Cut Youth Homelessness In Half. Here’s Why It Failed
Five years after Mayor London Breed launched a $50 million initiative to cut San Francisco’s youth homeless population by half, the city remains far from reaching its bold goal. The initiative, called Rising Up, brought together city officials, philanthropists and nonprofit groups in hopes of sharply reducing homelessness among young adults from 1,243 to about 622 within five years. They planned to reach that target, in part, by providing housing subsidies to more than 400 people ages 18-24 by 2024. The city covered about half of the program costs, while the rest came from individual donors and corporate and nonprofit contributors, including Airbnb, Tipping Point and Crankstart Foundation. Since the program began in January 2019, the city has helped more than 450 young people secure housing, but San Francisco’s overall youth homeless population has only dipped 4% — a disappointing reality far from the 50% goal, according to recently released results from the latest point-in-time count. SF Chronicle Read more
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San Mateo Teen Uses AI To Develop Website Connecting People To Mental Health Service
A high school junior from San Mateo has created a platform she created to help people of all ages access mental health resources powered by artificial intelligence. She is hoping to spread the word about the website during May, which is Mental Health Awareness Month. The goal of the website - SearchMentalHealth.com - is to make the process of finding help less overwhelming when people need the support the most. It's a challenge she knows first-hand from losing a loved one when she was only a student in middle school. "I really want to make it a lot easier and faster for people to get that critical help that they might need," said 17-year-old website creator Charlotte Rosario. "My dad actually passed away by suicide when I was just 12 years old. And through that experience, I really had to learn how to heal and move forward by actually leaning into mental health advocacy." CBS News Read more
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How Teens View Social Media’s Impact On Their Mental Health
A new report details the role social media plays in the lives of young people, and how they manage the various pros and cons — including in the context of being a person of color or LGBTQ+, or having depression. Those benefits and drawbacks include valuing online platforms for social connection, self-expression and information, while also feeling the brunt of social media’s effects on their attention span, confidence and contentedness, according to the report released Tuesday by Common Sense Media and Hopelab, a social innovation lab and impact investor aiming to support the well-being of young people. "Most conversations and headlines surrounding social media and youth mental (health) focus solely on the harms, portraying young people as passive consumers. This research shows that it’s much more complex,” said Amy Green, head of research at Hopelab, in a news release. CNN Read more
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Teletherapy Can Really Help, And Really Hurt
The U.S. has a therapist shortage. Even if you can find one, good luck snagging an appointment with a therapist who is affordable or covered by your insurance. That’s where
online therapy platforms like BetterHelp come in. Even if you’re not a user, you’ve almost certainly heard of them. For years, BetterHelp blanketed the online world with advertisements and enlisted an army of podcasters, influencers, and creators to produce sponsored content
that promotes their service as a solution. But the efficiency behind BetterHelp’s infinite expansion, it seems, can come at a cost to patients, as about 800,000 current or former clients are learning this week. In 2023, the FTC said that BetterHelp shared the sensitive data it collected on its users with advertisers, seemingly without their consent, or with provisions in place to limit how that data was then used. According to the AP, BetterHelp has said it was simply adhering to practices that were “standard for the industry.” VOX Read more
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Fentanyl Crisis/Drug Trends | | |
Clean Needles Save Lives. In Some States, They Might Not Be Legal
Kim Botteicher hardly thinks of herself as a criminal.On the main floor of a former Catholic church in Bolivar, Pennsylvania, Botteicher runs a flower shop and cafe. In the former church’s basement, she also operates a nonprofit organization focused on helping people caught up in the drug epidemic get back on their feet. The nonprofit, FAVOR ~ Western PA, sits in a rural pocket of the Allegheny Mountains east of Pittsburgh. Her organization’s home county of Westmoreland has seen roughly 100 or more drug overdose deaths each year for the past several years, the majority involving fentanyl. Thousands more residents in the region have been touched by the scourge of addiction, which is where Botteicher comes in. She helps people find housing, jobs, and health care, and works with families by running support groups and explaining that substance use disorder is a disease, not a moral failing. But she has also talked publicly about how she has made sterile syringes available to people who use drugs. KFF Health News Read more
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Justice Department Formally Moves To Reclassify Marijuana As A Less Dangerous Drug In Historic Shift
The Justice Department on Thursday formally moved to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a historic shift in generations of U.S. drug policy. A proposed rule sent to the federal register recognizes the medical uses of cannabis and acknowledges it has less potential for abuse than some of the nation’s most dangerous drugs. The plan approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland would not legalize marijuana outright for recreational use. The Drug Enforcement Administration will next take public comment on the proposal in a potentially lengthy process. If approved, the rule would move marijuana away from its current classification as a Schedule I drug, alongside heroin and LSD. Pot would instead be a Schedule III substance, alongside ketamine and some anabolic steroids. AP Read more
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Legalized Weed Is Landing More Seniors In The E.R.
As more places legalize marijuana, policymakers and health officials have worried about the health risks that the drug may pose to adolescents. But a new study suggests that an additional demographic is at risk: seniors. The study, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, found that after Canada legalized marijuana, the number of emergency room visits for cannabis poisoning rose sharply among people ages 65 and older. Poisonings doubled after Canada legalized sale of the cannabis flower, and then tripled just 15 months later, when Canada legalized the sale of edibles. “It’s often a baked good, a chocolate or a gummy,” said Dr. Nathan Stall, a geriatrician at Mount Sinai Hospital and researcher at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, and lead author on the study. Dr. Stall noted that researchers and emergency room doctors were finding that seniors used drugs intentionally but also sometimes by accident, when edibles were mistaken for regular food or snacks. NY Times Read more
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Should You Measure Exercise In Steps Or Minutes?
Aiming for 7,000 or 10,000 steps a day is an easy way to increase your physical activity, which can decrease your risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and other conditions. But the current U.S. physical activity guidelines recommend that people measure their physical activity in minutes, rather than steps — specifically, at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity per week. So, is it really better to count the minutes you spend exercising instead of counting your steps? A new study suggests no. Step- and time-based targets were both associated with lower risks of death from any cause and from cardiovascular disease events in older women, researchers found. This suggests that finding what works for you may be the best way to meet your health goals. Healthline
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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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