Bay Area News Group: All Californians Required To Wear Masks Indoors In Public Spaces
Confronting a jump in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, California will once again require that masks be worn indoors in all public settings. “We are proactively putting this tool of universal indoor masking in public settings in place to ensure we get through a time of joy and hope, without a darker cloud of concern and despair,” Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, announced on Monday. (Krieger, 12/13)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Indoor Mask Mandate Is Back Effective Wednesday, State Says, Even If You're Vaccinated 
Starting Wednesday, masks will once again be required in public places from grocery stores, restaurants and bars to gyms, movie theaters and churches. Announced Monday afternoon by Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary of health and human services, the return of mask mandates elicited immediate vows of civil disobedience from some grassroots organizations, but came as the Omicron variant continued to spread throughout the Golden State, causing case rates to increase from San Diego to San Francisco. (Sisson, 12/13)

Los Angeles Times: California Orders Statewide Mask Mandate Amid Rise In COVID 
Faced with rising coronavirus cases and growing concerns about the Omicron variant, California is ordering a statewide mask mandate for indoor public spaces to go into effect on Wednesday. The move comes as coronavirus case rates in California have risen by almost 50% in the last 2½ weeks, and COVID-19 hospitalizations are up by nearly 15%. County health officials across the state say they suspect they may be seeing the start of a winter jump in coronavirus cases. (Lin II, 12/13)

CalMatters: California Mandates Masks Again 
Starting Wednesday, Californians will once again be required to wear masks indoors in public places regardless of vaccination status, state health officials announced today. The renewed masking requirement follows a 47% increase in COVID-19 case rates since the Thanksgiving holiday and the arrival of new variant, said Dr. Mark Ghaly, the state’s health secretary. (Ibarra, 12/13)

Los Angeles Daily News: In LA County, Newsom’s Indoor Mask Mandate Arrives Where We’d Been There And Are Doing That 
for Los Angeles County — where public health officials issued a universal indoor mask order back in July — it was just more of the same. Take the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, for example: “We will continue to support local and state guidelines and comply with all mandates,” read a statement. Cities, schools and businesses echoed that point. (Carter, 12/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Mask Mandate Dates And Details: What To Know
With coronavirus cases climbing statewide amid growing concerns about the highly mutated omicron variant, California made a sweeping decision Monday to reimpose a universal indoor mask mandate this week. The new requirement comes with the holiday season in full swing, with gatherings that could further fuel transmission of the virus. (Hwang, 12/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area Says Goodbye To Mask-Free Offices And Gyms
People in offices and gyms in the Bay Area must mask up again starting Wednesday, after California reimposed an indoor mask mandate in public settings for all residents, regardless of their vaccination status. The state mandate will override mask exemptions in San Francisco, Marin and all other jurisdictions in the region, local officials said. (Vaziri, 12/13)

Orange County Register: OC Supervisor Expects ‘Whole Lot Of Noncompliance’ With Mask Mandate 
Some people in Orange County were concerned Monday, Dec. 13, that the state’s indoor mask mandate will lead to the kinds of confrontations that regularly popped up early in the pandemic. If business owners are expected to enforce the mandate with there customers, problems could resurface. Then again, Orange County District 3 Supervisor Don Wagner said the new state mandate is unlikely to have an impact locally, where he expects to see “a whole lot of noncompliance.” (Robinson, Goulding and Valdespino, 12/13)

CBS News: First Members Of Military Are Discharged For Refusing COVID Vaccine 
The Air Force has discharged 27 service members for refusing to receive a COVID vaccine, marking the first service members to be involuntarily discharged for balking the rule. A spokesperson for the Air Force said the 27 active duty members discharged received counseling about the vaccines, and when they still refused, commanders made the decision to discharge them for refusing to comply with the Pentagon's vaccine rule, a lawful order. All 27 have been in the Air Force for less than six years and may have had additional reasons for their discharge but refusal to get a COVID vaccine was one of the reasons for the discharge. (Watson, 12/13)

Bloomberg: Omicron Vaccine Efficacy: Pfizer Shots Stop 70% Of Hospitalizations
A two-shot course of Pfizer Inc.’s vaccination may offer 70% protection against being hospitalized with the Covid-19 omicron variant, South Africa’s largest medical-insurance provider Discovery Ltd. said. The protection is maintained across age groups and in the face of a range of chronic illnesses, Ryan Noach, the chief executive officer of Discovery Health Ltd., said at a briefing Tuesday. Pfizer is 33% effective against infection by the omicron variant, he said. (Kew, 12/14)

USA Today: COVID Omicron Variant Is 'Highly Transmissible': South Africa Study
The new omicron variant is substantially more contagious and reduces the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, but people who are fully vaccinated are still largely protected against severe disease, according to a study from South Africa released Tuesday. The variant, which is believed to have emerged this fall in southern Africa, looks poised to take over the world, as delta did before it. Omicron accounts for 90% of COVID-19 cases in South Africa and is a growing problem in Europe. It has been seen in at least 30 U.S. states, though the delta variant still dominates the American outbreak. (Weintraub and Weise, 12/14)

The Washington Post: Omicron Study Concludes Variant More Resistant To Vaccines, Causes Less Severe Covid 
Omicron appears to cause less severe illness than earlier variants of the coronavirus but is more resistant to the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine widely used in South Africa, according to the first major private study since omicron was first detected last month. The study by Discovery Health, South Africa’s largest health insurer, of 211,000 positive coronavirus cases showed that risk of hospital admissions among adults who contracted covid-19 was 29 percent lower than in the initial pandemic wave that emerged in March 2020. (Wroughton, 12/14)

Axios: Pfizer Omicron Study Points To Tidal Wave Of U.S. Cases 
New data from South Africa and Europe hint that Omicron cases are poised to explode in the U.S., where the vast majority of the population isn't well protected against infection. A new analysis by South Africa's largest private insurer paints a picture of Omicron's clinical risk: Two doses of Pfizer's vaccine appear to be significantly less effective against severe disease with Omicron than previous variants. But the variant is less likely to lead to hospitalization in adults than the original version. (Owens, 12/14)

CNN: Omicron Is Spreading Fast. That's Alarming Even If It's Mild 
The Omicron variant of coronavirus is spreading quickly in several countries where it has been discovered. Even if it causes only mild disease -- and that's far from certain -- that could still mean many people end up in the hospital and dying. It's killed at least one person in the UK and put 10 into the hospital -- most of them vaccinated, according to government authorities. "It is spreading faster than the Delta variant in South Africa where Delta circulation was low, but also appears to spread more quickly than the Delta variant in other countries where the incidence of Delta is high, such as in the United Kingdom," the World Health Organization said in a technical briefing last week. (Fox, 12/14)

The New York Times: More Than 50 Million Total Coronavirus Cases Have Been Found In The U.S.
The total number of known coronavirus cases in the United States surpassed 50 million on Monday, according to a New York Times database. Fifty million can be a difficult number to grasp. It is more than the combined populations of Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Ohio. More than the entire population of Spain. Nearly 18 times the number of dollars an American college graduate can expect to earn in a lifetime. (Astor, 12/14)

The New York Times: Merck’s Covid Pill Might Pose Risks For Pregnant Women
A new Covid-19 pill from Merck has raised hopes that it could transform the landscape of treatment options for Americans at high risk of severe disease at a time when the Omicron variant of the coronavirus is driving a surge of cases in highly vaccinated European countries. But two weeks after a Food and Drug Administration expert committee narrowly voted to recommend authorizing the drug, known as molnupiravir, the F.D.A. is still weighing Merck’s application. Among the biggest questions facing regulators is whether the drug, in the course of wreaking havoc on the virus’s genes, also has the potential to cause mutations in human DNA. Scientists are especially worried about pregnant women, they said, because the drug could affect a fetus’s dividing cells, theoretically causing birth defects. (Mueller, 12/13)

Capital & Main: Veteran Nurse Says COVID's Brutal Disparities Show Why We Need Health Care For All
As emergency rooms and intensive care units began filling and then straining beyond capacity last year, Cathy Kennedy knew what she was seeing. The COVID-19 pandemic had erupted in California, pushing hospitals and medical facilities almost immediately into crisis mode. There weren’t enough health workers, let alone hospital beds, to keep up with the need for care. But Kennedy, a registered nurse with 41 years of experience, also understood the underlying racial and socioeconomic context of the grim scene that was unfolding — a context that had been decades in the making. Some of the worst COVID cases were occurring in the same marginalized groups — Blacks, Latinos, immigrant workers, the homeless — that have long suffered under a health system that is broken. (12/13)

Sacramento Bee: Want COVID Booster In Time For Christmas? Time Is Running Out
Christmastime is here, and so is another potentially more infectious coronavirus variant that early data suggests can evade COVID-19 vaccines to some degree. But this year anyone ages 16 and up can receive a coronavirus booster shot that could give them the extra protection their body needs to prevent infection or serious illness. (Camero, 12/13)

City News Service: LA County Tops 15 Million COVID Vaccine Doses, But Push More To Get Shots 
Los Angeles County health officials marked a significant milestone on Monday, Dec. 13, announcing that more than 15 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in the county, but they said more needs to be done to reach people still resistant to the shots. As of last Thursday, more than 15.2 million doses of vaccine have been administered in the county, a number that rose dramatically in recent weeks thanks to the expanded availability of booster doses. (12/13)

AP: One Year Of Vaccines: Many Lives Saved, Many Needlessly Lost
One year ago, the biggest vaccination drive in American history began with a flush of excitement in an otherwise gloomy December. Trucks loaded with freezer-packed vials of a COVID-19 vaccine that had proved wildly successful in clinical trials fanned out across the land, bringing shots that many hoped would spell the end of the crisis. That hasn’t happened. A year later, too many Americans remain unvaccinated and too many are dying. The nation’s COVID-19 death toll stands at around 800,000 as the anniversary of the U.S. vaccine rollout arrives. A year ago it stood at 300,000. An untold number of lives, perhaps tens of thousands, have been saved by vaccination. But what might have been a time to celebrate a scientific achievement is fraught with discord and mourning. (Johnson, 12/13)

Southern California News Group: LAUSD To Consider Vaccine Mandates For More Charter Schools 
The same day that the Los Angeles Unified school board will discuss whether to postpone enforcement of its COVID-19 vaccination mandate for students, elected officials are scheduled to vote on a proposal to expand both its staff and student vaccination mandates to include all district-authorized charter schools. L.A. Unified currently authorizes 277 charter schools, of which 51 are affiliated with the district while another 226 are considered “independent” schools with their own governing bodies, but which still must rely on the LAUSD school board to approve their charters. (Tat, 12/13)

CalMatters: California Back To Campus Under COVID
With COVID-19 vaccines widely available, California colleges welcomed students back for a mix of in-person and online classes this fall. After months of studying virtually from childhood bedrooms and other remote locations, students could once again ask questions of professors face to face and socialize with their peers IRL. The transition didn’t always go smoothly. (Doshi, Forschen, Luna, Mendez, Taylor, Vargas and Zapelli, 12/13)

CBS News: Surge In Americans Skipping Medical Care Due To Cost, Gallup Says
Nearly a third of Americans — triple the share since March— say they've skipped medical care for a health problem in the previous three months due to concerns about the cost, according to a new study from Gallup and West Health. High medical costs are even impacting higher-income Americans, with 1 in 5 households earning more than $120,000 annually saying they also have bypassed care, the research shows. That's an almost seven-fold increase for higher-income families since March. (Picchi, 12/14)

The Hill: Nearly One-Third Of Americans Skipped Care In Past Three Months Due To Cost: Poll
Twenty percent of those from households that earn more than $120,000 also reported they postponed health care due to financial reasons — an increase from 3 percent in March. Tim Lash, president of the West Health Policy Center, told The Hill that the data showing those earning “significantly higher” than the median income struggling “tells you that we have a real problem.” “It tells me that we're at a breaking point and that it's not just … those that are desperate are not just low-income individuals but even those that are more affluent,” he said. “And we’re gonna have to find a way out of that.” (Coleman, 12/14)

Bay Area News Group: COVID Didn't Increase Poverty In The Bay Area, New Report Says
Despite the massive hit the economy took during the COVID-19 crisis, a new study suggests the pandemic didn’t push huge numbers of Bay Area residents into financial trouble — a surprising finding that experts say highlights the success of emergency cash assistance programs. Before COVID hit, 29% of people who responded to a Tipping Point Community survey reported having a hard time making ends meet. Ten months into the pandemic, that number had barely budged — 31% of people reported struggling. Similarly, the study found the Bay Area’s poverty rate didn’t jump — it rose from 17% in 2018 to 18% in early 2021. (Kendall, 12/13)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Blood Shortage Prompts Hospitals To Plan For Surgery Cancellations 
An ongoing blood shortage has some San Diego County hospitals nervous that they may soon need to start delaying surgeries due to lack of available units. Increased demand for blood, combined with pandemic-driven difficulties running blood drives and also getting the public to come out and participate, have left shelves empty of the red gold needed for everything from saving the lives of car accident victims to treating those with stomach ulcers. (Sisson, 12/13)

Capital & Main: The Crossing: How Californians' Health Is Tied To Wealth And Race
With 41 years as a registered nurse and a lived experience as the biracial daughter of Japanese and African-American parents, Cathy Kennedy, co-president of the California Nurses Association, is certain of one thing. “Health care,” she says, “is a human right.” (Disclosure: The CNA is a financial supporter of this website.) But in California, as elsewhere across the U.S., health care is a human right only in theory. Increasingly and unerringly, health outcomes in the state are driven by such factors as race, ethnicity and income — and the divide between the haves and have-nots is growing. (Kreidler, 12/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Embraced Plan To Reform Broken Mental Health Care Two Years Ago. Has It Helped?
The city is spending $607 million this fiscal year on a behavioral health system that serves around 20,000 people. That includes $55.5 million going to MentalHealthSF. The city has made strides on the plan, adding Street Crisis Response Teams and opening 87 new treatment beds, a bit less than a quarter of what’s planned. But architects of the plan and some mental health professionals are frustrated at slow progress on the bigger challenge of connecting a still-disjointed system of care. The city hasn’t yet opened a promised office to coordinate care across providers or fleshed out a centralized access center for referrals. The public health department and experts said the hurdles include pandemic and hiring delays in the city’s notoriously slow system. (Moench, 12/13)

Stat: As A Logic Song Took Off, Helpline Saw More Calls And Fewer Suicides  
During the time that a song whose title is the number of a national suicide prevention helpline topped charts, calls to the helpline increased and suicides decreased, a new study shows. The song, “1-800-273-8255,” depicts a fictitious exchange between someone expressing suicidal thinking and an operator of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline who counsels a person and ultimately changes that person’s mind. ... Josh Dominguez, 22, of California, said he listened to “1-800-273-8255” shortly after its release in April 2017, when he was dealing with a recent breakup and the emotions of graduating from high school. Speaking to one of the call operators at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline was therapeutic, he said, and years later, he wrote a note to Logic telling him that his music saved his life. (Bender, 12/13)

Orange County Register: As Deaths Pile Up, Lawmaker Tells Addiction Rehab Regulators Blood “On Your Hands” 
Just days before a delirious Henry Lehr bolted from a licensed Newport Beach detox, forced his way into a neighbor’s house and was killed, the detox operator was cited for eight deficiencies by state regulators. Newport Beach Police investigate the scene where an occupant of a Newport Beach home shot and killed a man on Thursday morning, Aug. 26 2021, after the man forced his way into the residence, police said. Lehr died on Aug. 26, and later Gratitude Lodge was cited for failing to get him to a higher level of care in a timely manner. But today, Gratitude Lodge’s three addiction treatment facilities — two in Newport and one in Long Beach — remain open and licensed by the state. (Sforza, 12/13)

AP: Vehicle Emission Declines Decreased Deaths, Study Finds
Researchers say that thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars have been saved in the United States by recent reductions in emissions from vehicles. Harvard University researchers who study the environment and public health examined the impact of declines in emissions from vehicles over a decade. They found deaths dropped from 27,700 in 2008 to 19,800 in 2017 and that the economic benefits of the reduction in emissions totaled $270 billion. (Costley, 12/13)

CBS News: Listeria Recall For Ham And Pepperoni Balloons To 2.3 Million Pounds 
A recall of fully cooked ham and pepperoni products shipped to retail stores nationwide has ballooned to more than 2.3 million pounds that may be contaminated with listeria — 10 times more than first announced. (Gibson, 12/14)

CapRadio: Several Sacramento Respite Centers Open After Being Closed During First Night Of Rainstorm 
The city of Sacramento refused to open emergency warming centers Sunday night as unhoused people scrambled to stay dry and warm during a rainstorm. On Monday, after backlash from advocates and internal push from the mayor, the city announced it would open the City Hall lobby as night two of the storm bears down on the region. On Monday, the City Hall lobby will open at 8 p.m. tonight and close at 7 a.m. Tuesday. Blankets, snacks, water and restrooms will be available, as will protected outdoor space to accommodate pets in kennels or crates, according to a city news release. (Nichols, 12/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: Soggy Storm Intensifies Hard Choices Around Sausalito Homeless Encampment
People living at a homeless encampment in Sausalito will be relocated to tennis courts nearby, following the latest ruling from a federal judge that upholds the city’s plans. But efforts at solutions for those without shelter are not easy: The tennis courts were still locked Sunday and Monday as rain pounded the Bay Area, and residents say a gym where the city sent them to shelter from the storm was closed to them during the day Sunday due to an event there. The events are the latest in a long-running dispute about where the unhoused residents can camp out in Sausalito. The battle has pitted encampment residents against the city in court, and this past summer saw them moved out of an earlier location and relocated to Marinship Park — to a new camp that then was found to be contaminated with fecal matter. That led the city last month to begin readying the tennis courts as a new temporary camp while testing and cleanup takes place. (DiFeliciantonio, 12/13)

Modesto Bee: Modesto-Area Homeless Count Needs Volunteers For Next Effort 
Organizers of the annual count of homeless people in Stanislaus County need as many as 250 volunteers to help with the latest tally, which takes place Jan. 27. Volunteers need to be at least 18 years old and complete a volunteer/safety training class. People can register to become a volunteer at stanislaus.pointintime.info. You can also register by calling 209-558-2961 or emailing csoc@stancounty.com. (Valine, 12/13)