San Francisco Chronicle: Airlines Begin Dropping Mask Mandates After Federal Judge Strikes Down Requirement
Major airlines began announcing Monday that masks are now optional for travelers for the first time in more than a year, hours after a federal judge annulled the federal mask mandate for airplanes and other modes of public transportation. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa, Fla., said the mask mandate was implemented unlawfully and that it went beyond the authority of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The decision effectively ends the federal directive that since February 2021 has impelled transportation companies and the agencies that run transportation hubs to require travelers to wear masks as a way to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. The Biden administration has not said whether it will appeal the ruling. (Picon, 4/18)

KQED: TSA Will No Longer Enforce Travel Mask Mandate After Federal Judge Strikes It Down 
The federal travel mask mandate will not be implemented as the Biden administration reviews a Florida federal judge's ruling against it. "The agencies are reviewing the decision and assessing potential next steps. In the meantime, today's court decision means CDC's public transportation masking order is not in effect at this time," according to a Biden administration official. (Franklin, 4/18)

Bay Area News Group: Still Need A Mask To Fly Or Ride After Judge's Ruling?
Face mask foes won a key victory Monday when a federal judge in Florida ruled the national COVID-19 mask mandate covering planes, trains, buses and other public transportation exceeded U.S. health officials’ authority. By Monday evening, the country’s largest airlines — Southwest, United, Delta and Alaska — had all declared masks optional on their flights, but travelers shouldn’t toss that KN95 in the trash just yet. Bay Area airports and transit agencies were still reacting to the ruling and waiting for more guidance from federal officials. (Woolfolk and Kamisher, 4/18)

The Hill: White House Urges Travelers To Keep Wearing Masks After ‘Disappointing’ Ruling 
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday the Biden administration still recommends that individuals wear masks on public transit after a judge struck down the federal mask mandate for travel on planes, trains and buses. Psaki told reporters during the daily briefing that administration officials are “still reviewing” the ruling from a federal judge in Florida, which she called “disappointing.” The press secretary left the door open to the administration appealing the ruling. (Gangitano, 4/18)

San Francisco Chronicle: Not All Bay Area Counties Will Follow California’s Relaxed COVID Quarantine Rules — Here’s Why
California last week lifted its five-day quarantine for people who have no symptoms after being exposed to COVID-19 — but not all Bay Area counties were immediately on board. Alameda County health officials on Monday announced that they would continue to follow more restrictive guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which advises people who are not up to date on their COVID vaccinations to stay home for at least five days after their last contact with an infected person. (Hwang, 4/18)

The New York Times: Supreme Court Rules Against Air Force Officer Who Refused Vaccine 
The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the Pentagon may take disciplinary action against a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserve who refused to be vaccinated against the coronavirus on religious grounds. The court’s brief, unsigned order gave no reasons, which is common when the justices act on emergency applications. The court’s three most conservative members — Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch — noted dissents but did not explain their thinking. (Liptak, 4/18)

Bay Area News Group: COVID: Have We Reached The End For Vaccine Mandates? 
After COVID-19 vaccines became widely available last year, federal, state and local leaders were tripping over themselves to show their tough-on-the-virus bona fides by mandating the shots for the workplace, the classroom, the bar and the ballgame. Now, vaccine passports are being put on the shelf and many mandates dialed back, with delayed implementation and softened penalties. For a variety of reasons – practical, medical, political – there’s less appetite now for forcing the reluctant to get the jabs, especially now with case rates so low. (Woolfolk, 4/18)

Sacramento Bee: Trucker Convoy Comes To Sacramento For COVID Protests 
A group referred to as the “People’s Convoy” arrived in Sacramento on Monday morning, circling downtown streets and blaring horns in trucks and other vehicles. It’s the first of an apparent three-day stint of events planned at California’s state Capitol in protest of coronavirus restrictions. (McGough, 4/18)

The New York Times: Disneyland Hugs Return: Mickey Mouse Embraces Guests After Covid Ban 
As the smell of cinnamon rolls and suntan lotion wafted through the spring air at Disneyland on Monday morning, Rory Sutherland flung herself on the sidewalk and had what can only be described as a hissy fit. She was ready for a hug from Mickey Mouse — in fact, beyond ready: For more than two years, ever since the pandemic began, Disneyland’s furry inhabitants have been off limits. The park was closed for 14 months. When it reopened last April with extensive health-related modifications, Mickey and Minnie and their cohorts were kept at a distance from guests. No hugs. No autographs. No secrets whispered in little ears. Only waving from afar, which bummed out some families so much that they canceled or postponed their trips. (Barnes, 4/18)

San Francisco Chronicle: Does It Feel Like Everyone Has COVID? Why Some Experts Say S.F. May Be In A Surge Now Even Though Cases Are Low
Peter Chin-Hong doesn’t normally like relying on anecdotal evidence. But in the last few weeks, he said, it has become harder to ignore what feels like an undercounted coronavirus surge in San Francisco. “There’s been so many people getting COVID,” Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF, told The Chronicle. “The amount of people and outbreaks I've been hearing about are not in sync with the official numbers.” While San Francisco’s case counts are showing an increase as the omicron BA.2 subvariant spreads across the U.S., Chin-Hong said that he and other researchers do not believe current case rates reflect the scale of the increase, in part because fewer people are getting tested than before. (Neilson, 4/19)

The Washington Post: CDC Drops All Countries From Its Highest-Risk Covid Category
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its international covid-19 travel advisory system Monday, designating its highest-risk category for extreme scenarios. As of Monday, the CDC dropped all countries from its “Level 4” category, now labeled “Special Circumstances/Do Not Travel.” About 120 destinations now have a Level 3 advisory — including Australia, the United Kingdom, Italy and many other popular European destinations — for “high” levels of the coronavirus, while 12 destinations sit at Level 2. Another 55 are designated Level 1, its lowest-risk level. (Diller, 4/18)

CIDRAP: Extending Time Between MRNA COVID Vaccine Doses May Boost Efficacy
COVID-19 mRNA vaccine effectiveness (VE) against infection was 5% to 7% higher when the two primary doses were given at least 7 weeks rather than 3 to 5 weeks apart, according to an observational study of hospital and community healthcare workers (HCWs) in British Columbia published late last week in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. ... After adjustment, mRNA VE against infection was 71% for one dose at a median of 7 weeks and 90% for two doses at 13 weeks. Seven months after the second dose, VE was still greater than 80%. Two-dose VE was consistently 5% to 7% higher when given at least 7 weeks apart than after a 3- to 5-week interval. (4/18)

Bay Area News Group: Thousands Of Sutter Nurses Strike At Bay Area Facilities For Better Staffing, Health And Safety Measures
Holding signs that read, “On strike for safe patient care,” dozens of Sutter Health nurses and health care workers gathered Monday morning outside the Eden Medical Center to demand better staffing and health and safety measures amid ongoing contract negotiations with the healthcare giant. More than 8,000 nurses and health care workers participated in a one-day strike at 15 facilities across the Bay Area in order to urge management to invest in “pandemic readiness protections” after 10 months of contract negotiations, including adequate stockpiles of personal protective equipment, increased nursing staff and an equal voice on health and safety committees. (Lin, 4/18)

Sacramento Bee: Sutter Health Nurses In CA Strike Over Staffing, Pandemic 
Honking horns and the shouts of at least 200 registered nurses rang all the way to the front doors of Sutter Roseville Medical Center on Monday, though trees and a sea of parking lots kept the pickets a quarter-mile away and well out of eyesight. More than Northern California 8,500 nurses and technicians protested at the Roseville hospital and 14 others operated by the Sacramento-based system, saying they have reached a standoff in contract negotiations over staffing and pandemic preparedness. (Anderson and McGough, 4/18)

Oaklandside: Nurses In Oakland, Berkeley Join Statewide One-Day Sutter Health Strike
Union nurses at Alta Bates hospitals in Berkeley and Oakland joined a region-wide strike against Sutter Health, demanding better staffing and work conditions as healthcare providers continue to be overextended during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sutter Health owns two Alta Bates locations in Berkeley and another in Oakland, among nearly two dozen throughout Northern California. Nurses at hospitals from Santa Cruz to Crescent City joined in the strike, according to National Nurses United, which supported the action with California Nurses Association. (Yelimeli, 4/18)

The Bakersfield Californian: New Rehabilitation Hospital Expands Local Capacity For Inpatient Therapy 
Kern County residents in need of intensive therapy following an accident or serious medical procedure got a new treatment option with the recent opening of the 50-bed Bakersfield Rehabilitation Hospital off Highway 178 near Morning Drive. Since receiving its first patients last month, the two-story, 60,000-square-foot facility has achieved certification by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and, separately, the California Department of Public Health. The facility qualifies for Medicare reimbursement and contracts with private insurers are in the works. (Cox, 4/18)

Modesto Bee: UC Davis Program Tries To Bring More Docs To Stanislaus Area
As medical student Benjamin Vincent learns patient care at the Kaiser Permanente medical offices in north Modesto, he is only three miles from his former high school and his parents’ home. Vincent has spent his third year of medical school at Kaiser Modesto Medical Center as part of an initiative to bring more doctors to a region that’s notorious for physician shortages and barriers to health care. (Carlson, 4/18)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Local Startup Carlsmed Lands $30M To Bring Personalized Spine Surgery Tech To More Patients
Med-tech startup Carlsmed said Tuesday that it picked up an additional $30 million in venture capital to drive its digital platform for personalized, 3-D printed spinal implants to improve the success rate of certain back surgeries. The second round of venture funding was led by B Capital Group, a global investment firm. Existing investors, U.S. Venture Partners, The Vertical Group, Cove Fund and Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health also participated. (Freeman, 4/19)

Orange County Register: Family Deserves Compensation For Coroner’s Mix-Up In Body ID, Attorney Tells Jurors 
An attorney for a father and daughter who in 2017 buried a stranger thought to be their loved one, due to an Orange County Coroner’s Office mix-up, said Monday, April 18, his clients deserve financial compensation — not just an apology — for the devastating error. “When you make a mistake you own up to it,” attorney  V. James DeSimone said during closing arguments, capping the end of a civil trial in Orange County Superior Court that spanned several days over three weeks. “You don’t just apologize.” (Schwebke, 4/18)

San Francisco Chronicle: President Biden Has Confidence In Sen. Feinstein, Press Secretary Says
President Biden continues to have confidence in California Sen. Dianne Feinstein after The Chronicle reported last week that some of the senator’s congressional colleagues have concerns about her fitness for the job, the White House press secretary said Monday. “Yes, she’s a longtime friend, a proud public servant, and someone he has long enjoyed serving with and working with,” Jen Psaki said in response to a question from a reporter at the daily White House briefing. (Kopan, 4/18)

People: Dianne Feinstein Was 'Lucid' In Interview About Memory Problem Claims
(Sen.) Feinstein told The San Francisco Chronicle on Thursday in a call with the paper's editorial board that she does not plan to step down before her term ends in 2024.The board, in a column, described Feinstein as "diminished but lucid and responsive." ... Though she acknowledged to the editorial board some slip-ups, Feinstein blamed her state of mind in part on the stress caused by husband Richard Blum's death in February, which she also cited in a statement issued separate from her interview. (Dado, 4/18)

San Diego Union-Tribune: County To Open Its Second Stand-Alone Mental Health Crisis Center In Oceanside 
The county is poised to open its second stand-alone crisis stabilization center early next week, with local leaders gathering at the new location in Oceanside Monday to get a look at the facility, which has the capacity to treat residents experiencing moderate to severe symptoms of mental illness. After cutting a red ribbon, officials made their way through the 8,000-square-foot center built on the ground floor of the county’s North Coastal Live Well Center on Mission Avenue, a short distance east of Interstate 5. (Sisson, 4/18)

Voice of OC: Should OC Taxpayers Be Paying The LA Angels $6 Million For Suicide Prevention Ads?
Throughout the pandemic, there’s been a recurring community conversation in Orange County over how critical funds from the federal government – meant to help local communities cope with Covid – are being invested at the local level. In recent days, questions have centered on whether it makes sense to steer most of the county’s suicide prevention outreach dollars during the pandemic to the local Major League Baseball franchise. (Gerda, 4/18)

CapRadio: Sacramento City Schools’ Strike Is Over, But Parents Still Have A Lot On Their Minds 
For Sacramento City Unified School District students, spring break ends today, but it’ll be their second return-to-school in the past month. This comes after students’  impromptu leave from classrooms in late March, as a result of the eight-day strike staged by district employees that ended on April 3. That work stoppage is over now — but parents still have a lot on their minds. ... Among the provisions of the resulting tentative agreements between the district and teachers and workers are: higher pay and one-time stipends for teachers and staff, recruitment and retention stipends for new bus drivers and the continuation of fully-employer-paid health care through both HealthNet and Kaiser. If ratified, the agreements will last through the 2023-24 school year. (Salanga, 4/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Contaminated-Baby-Formula Investigation Turns Murky 
A federal investigation into popular baby formulas and serious infant bacterial infections has been complicated by conflicting evidence that could make it difficult to prove or disprove a definitive connection, government officials and food-safety experts say. Federal officials received complaints over four months beginning last September of four babies who were hospitalized with rare bacterial infections after being fed powdered baby formula made at an Abbott Laboratories manufacturing plant in Sturgis, Mich. Two of the babies later died. (Walker, 4/18)

Washington Post: Drop Boxes Are Making It Easier To Get Rid Of Old Medication 
If there’s anything the pandemic has taught us, it’s that we have a lot of excess stuff in our homes — including bottles and bottles of expired or no-longer-needed medications. That’s a problem, according to Elizabeth Skoy, an associate professor at North Dakota State University’s School of Pharmacy. “In recent years, there’s been a spotlight on medication disposal, because of the opioid epidemic,” she said. “It’s important to get rid of any medication when you are done with it to prevent misuse or having it fall into the hands of others.” Plus, having old medications in the home increases the chances of accidental poisoning of children or pets. (Daily, 4/19)

NBC News: Viagra And Nitrates Don’t Mix, So How Are Some Men Still Taking Both?
As any sports fan knows, thanks to the incessant drumbeat of game-time Viagra and Cialis commercials, mixing erectile dysfunction drugs with nitrates for chest pain can cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. Most medical guidelines strongly warn men not to take both types of medications. Researchers in Denmark and the U.S., however, have recently found that a substantial number of men are nevertheless obtaining overlapping prescriptions for both classes of drugs. But evidence suggests that they don’t appear to suffer negative health outcomes, such as heart attacks, as a result. (Ryan, 4/18)

The New York Times: The Pandemic Has Been Hard On Our Feet 
There is no hard data on the increase in foot pain, but Dr. James Christina, the executive director of the American Podiatric Medical Association, said it’s been a clear trend for many of his 12,000 members. Members like Dr. Rock Positano, the co-director of the Non-surgical Foot and Ankle Service at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, who has seen foot pain increase so much — 20 to 30 percent — that he called the phenomenon “pandemic foot.” (Altman, 4/18)

CBS News: GE Recall: Refrigerators Sold At Home Depot, Lowe's And Best Buy Recalled After 37 Injuries
GE Appliances is recalling six models of free-standing French door refrigerators sold nationwide because of handles that may detach, posing a fall risk to those trying to pull the freezer doors open. Louisville, Kentucky-based GE has received 71 reports of freezer drawer handles detaching, resulting in 37 injuries, including three serious falls, the company said Thursday in a notice posted by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. GE is a division of Chinese multinational Haier Group. (Gibson, 4/18)

Voice of San Diego: La Mesa Taps Outreach Workers, Not Cops, To Reach Homeless Population 
Earl Childress is not who one may expect from a homeless outreach worker. He joined the military to get away from the life of a minister’s son, and much of his worldview is shaped by his time serving. He’s regimented, unequivocal and preaches the importance of self-reliance and tough love. Childress likes to joke that if his sole colleague Matthew Smiley, who has a master’s degree in social work, is the velvet glove, then he’s the iron fist.  The pair work for a La Mesa program called Homeless Outreach and Mobile Engagement, or HOME, that’s housed within the La Mesa Police Department. But Childress and Smiley are outreach workers, not cops.  (McWhinney, 4/19)

The New York Times: A Rising Tally Of Lonely Deaths On The Streets 
Their bodies were found on public benches, lying next to bike paths, crumpled under freeway overpasses and stranded on the sun-drenched beach. Across Los Angeles County last year, the unsheltered died in record numbers, an average of five homeless deaths a day, most in plain view of the world around them. Two hundred eighty-seven homeless people took their last breath on the sidewalk, 24 died in alleys and 72 were found on the pavement, according to data from the county coroner. They were a small fraction of the thousands of homeless people across the country who die each year. (Fuller, 4/18)