Bay Area News Group: Masks Now Optional For Travelers In Many Places, But Not All
Travelers faced mask confusion Tuesday, discovering they could shed their KN95s and show off their smiles at Bay Area airports and aboard major airlines but not on local buses and commuter trains as transit agencies sorted through the fallout of Monday’s federal court ruling voiding the requirement nationwide. (Woolfolk, Kamisher, Bedayn and Toledo, 4/19)

CapRadio: Sacramento International Airport, SacRT Drop Mask Mandates After Federal Rules Struck Down 
Travelers in Sacramento are navigating a new set of COVID-19 regulations after a Florida judge struck down the federal rule mandating masks on public transportation on Monday. Like airports throughout the country, the Sacramento International Airport is lifting its mask mandate. "It's still a fluid situation as you can imagine, but as of today the signage and protective barriers and things are beginning to be removed," said Scott Johnston with the Sacramento County Department of Airports. (Milne, 4/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: California COVID Mask Mandates And Travel News
Major airlines have begun announcing that masks are now optional for travelers for the first time in more than a year, after a federal judge Monday annulled the nationwide mask mandate for airplanes and other modes of public transportation. A patchwork of conflicting mask policies emerged across the Bay Area’s transit agencies and three major airports — San Francisco, Oakland and Mineta San Jose International — after the ruling. BART police officers reportedly are not enforcing the transit agency’s mask mandate, and Uber and Lyft have also dropped their mask requirements. (Vaziri, Buchmann, Ho and Beamish, 4/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: Transit Riders And Travelers At SFO Tread Cautiously As Mask Mandates Suddenly Drop
All of the Bay Area’s airports, along with Uber and Lyft, shed their mask mandates on Tuesday, a day after a judge struck down federal masking requirements on public transportation. BART did not officially lift its mandate, but the agency’s police officers were told to stop enforcing it. Most Bay Area transit operators still hung on to their mask mandates for passengers and employees — for now — and many transit riders, airline passengers, and Uber and Lyft riders kept their masks on, even though they didn’t have to. (Swan, Cano and Cabanatuan, 4/19)

Los Angeles Times: New Mask-Optional Phase Of The Pandemic Fuels Fears, And Some Cheers 
A new mask-optional phase of the pandemic is arriving, sparking concern from some experts that the shift is occurring too soon. For months, local officials have been easing mask rules in public places, such as supermarkets and shopping malls. But a federal court ruling Monday striking down the federal mask-wearing order on public transportation systems accelerated the trend, with Uber, Lyft, many airlines and transit agencies making face coverings optional. (Money, Choi, Reyes and Lin II, 4/20)

San Francisco Chronicle: Uber And Lyft Have Dropped Their Mask Mandates
Uber and Lyft announced Tuesday that they were dropping their mask requirement for drivers and riders — a day after a judge in Florida overturned the federal masking policies for airplanes and public transportation. (Flores, 4/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: Should You Still Mask Up On Planes And Buses? Bay Area Experts Assess The Risks Of Public Transit
Air, rail and bus travelers faced an altered pandemic-risk landscape this week after a Monday ruling by a federal judge abruptly ended the nation’s mask mandate on public transportation. While videos and photos of passengers excitedly shedding their masks — some midflight — have gone viral, some Bay Area experts on Tuesday decried the sudden end of a longtime pandemic safety measure. (Hwang, 4/19)

CNN: DOJ To Appeal Mask Ruling - If CDC Says It's Still Needed
The Justice Department said Tuesday it will appeal a court ruling that struck down the federal government’s mask mandate for travelers — but only if the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determines the mandate is still necessary to protect public health. “The Department of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disagree with the district court’s decision and will appeal, subject to CDC’s conclusion that the order remains necessary for public health,” spokesman Anthony Coley said in a statement. (Vazquez, Liptak and Sneed, 4/19)

Sacramento Bee: California COVID Cases Up As Omicron Subvariants Rise In US 
As more contagious subvariants of the coronavirus emerge and begin to dominate new caseloads, and with restrictions loosening statewide and nationally, California has seen a steady increase of COVID-19 activity in recent weeks. The California Department of Public Health on Tuesday reported a daily case rate of 6.9 per 100,000 residents, up 33% compared to three weeks earlier. The state’s test positivity has doubled to 2.6% from 1.3% since late March, as the pace of lab testing slows. (McGough, 4/19)

Daily Breeze: Princess Cruises Ship Docks In LA As Passengers Test Positive For COVID-19
As the cruise industry makes its comeback in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the tale of the Grand Princess — which returned to LA this week after an unknown number of passengers tested positive for COVID-19 — serves as a reminder that the impacts of the pandemic aren’t over just yet. Vicki Herbers, a nurse from Marietta, and her 80-year-old mother tested positive for COVID-19 while on a two-week cruise to Hawaii, according to CBS Los Angeles News. Herbers, in an interview with CBSLA, criticized Princess Cruises for what she said was a lack of attention by medical staff aboard the Grand Princess. (Littlejohn, 4/19)

Los Angeles Times: If You Get The Coronavirus, How Do You Get Anti-COVID Drugs? 
If you come down with the coronavirus and are at high risk, how can you get access to anti-COVID drugs? The medications are becoming increasingly available, and there is no longer a shortage of the drugs in most locations, California health officials say. (Lin II and Reyes, 4/19)

The Washington Post: Getting Covid-19 Over 50 Increases The Risk Of Getting Shingles 
People 50 and older who have had a mild case of covid-19 are 15 percent more likely to develop shingles (herpes zoster) within six month than are those who have not been infected by the coronavirus, according to research published in the journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases. The risk, however, was found to be even greater for older people who were hospitalized because of a more severe covid case, making them 21 percent more likely to develop shingles than those who did not have covid. (Searing, 4/19)

NPR: Moderna Says Its New 'Bivalent' Vaccine Shows Promise
The pharmaceutical company Moderna announced Tuesday that a new version of the company's COVID-19 vaccine appears to provide stronger, longer-lasting protection against variants of the virus than the original vaccine. Preliminary results from a study testing a vaccine that targets both the original strain of the virus and the beta variant — a so-called "bivalent" vaccine — appears to produce high levels of antibodies for months that can neutralize the virus. "We believe that these results validate our bivalent strategy," said Stéphane Bancel, Moderna's chief executive officer, in a news release. (Stein, 4/19)

Stat: Moderna Data Yield Hope For Better Covid Boosters, But Highlight Complexity Of Figuring Out How To Give Them
New data from Moderna offer hope that booster shots against Covid-19 could become at least somewhat more effective than they already are. But the data also point to how difficult it could be to determine exactly which Covid shots to give as annual boosters. On Tuesday Moderna released data testing a booster shot that is bivalent, meaning it contains equal amounts of vaccine from two different strains of the virus. This booster, currently known by the code number mRNA-1273.211, contains equal mRNA amounts of ancestral SARS-CoV-2 and spike proteins from the Beta variant of SARS-CoV-2, which originally emerged in South Africa. It does not contain vaccine targeted specifically against the Delta or Omicron variants that caused the most recent waves of Covid-19. (Herper, 4/19)

CNN: CDC Launches Forecasting Center To Be Like A 'National Weather Service For Infectious Diseases' 
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched its Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics on Tuesday. The center aims to be like the “National Weather Service for infectious diseases,” helping to guide decision-making at all levels. Data-driven weather forecasts help leaders know when to deploy resources to respond to hurricanes and individuals decide whether they need to bring an umbrella with them when they go out. Similarly, the CDC’s new disease forecasting center aims to guide decisions about broad public health needs like developing vaccines or deploying antivirals, and helping individuals decide whether it’s safe for them to go to the movie theater, Dylan George, epidemiologist and director of operations for the new center, said during a call with reporters. (McPhillips, 4/19)

NBC News: CDC Launches Forecasting Center To Warn About Disease Threats
"How do we actually know that we need to start using and developing vaccines? How do we know that we need to deploy different antivirals? How do we know that we need to change our personal behavior when going out to dinner or to a movie? This kind of information that we’re trying to develop in the forecast would be very much similar to that," Dr. Dylan George, the CFA’s director for operations, said in a press call. During the first omicron wave, George added, the CFA gave government leaders "several weeks of advanced notice of the timing of the surge." That influenced policies on boosters, travel restrictions, and Covid testing in schools. (Bendix, 4/19)

Los Angeles Times: Opposition Mounts Against Newsom's Plan For Court-Ordered Treatment Of Homeless People
Six weeks after Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a far-reaching effort to push more people into court-ordered treatment for severe mental illness and addiction, homeless advocates are calling it legally misguided and immoral as the proposal’s first public hearing at the state Capitol has been delayed. (Wiley, 4/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: Sutter Hospital Chain Locking Out Nurses Who Staged One-Day Strike
Sutter Health has locked out thousands of nurses across Northern California who staged a one-day strike at 18 facilities this week, and said it will bar them from returning to work until Saturday morning. The action came a day after 8,000 Sutter health care workers walked off the job Monday amid stalled contract negotiations, prompting Sutter to postpone some patient procedures and hire temporary replacement workers. (Asimov, 4/19)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Sutter: Nurses Can’t Work For Five Days If They Joined Strike
Thousands of Sutter Health nurses, including dozens from Sonoma County, cannot return to work this week if they participated in Monday’s one-day strike to decry low-staffing levels. In a statement, Sutter Health indicated substitute nurses were brought in to fill vacancies during the walkout and they’re contracted for “five days of guaranteed staffing amid the uncertainty of a widespread work stoppage.” “Union leaders were made aware in advance, as were those employees who chose to strike,” the statement concludes. (Atagi, 4/19)

San Gabriel Valley Tribune: Cedars-Sinai Employees To Picket Over COVID-19 Safety Violations 
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center workers plan to picket the Los Angeles facility Wednesday, April 20 to protest workplace violations they say have put them at risk amid the COVID-19 pandemic. State health and safety regulators fined Cedars $97,700 last year for seven citations that were in violation of Cal/OSHA regulations aimed at protecting workplace safety. (Smith, 4/19)

Sacramento Bee: UC Davis Tries To Place More Doctors In Central Valley 
The UC Davis program, called REACH, is training medical students in the Central Valley environment where they grew up to motivate them to practice here after completing their medical education and training. REACH is an acronym for Reimagining Education to Advance Central California Health. The San Joaquin Valley from Stockton to Bakersfield has trouble recruiting physicians because of the strong pull of opportunities and lifestyle in coastal counties of California. (Carlson, 4/19)

KQED: San Francisco Is Limiting What Police Can Do With Your DNA 
On Tuesday afternoon, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance that would limit how police store and use DNA profiles obtained from evidence and kept in their labs. The changes happened after the district attorney’s office found the San Francisco Police Department had used DNA from a survivor’s rape kit to link her to an unrelated crime years later. It’s hard to know just how many people’s DNA was used in this way, raising concerns about what power law enforcement yields with advancements in DNA technology. (Cruz Guevara, Emslie, Esquinca and Beale, 4/20)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Approves Measure To Prevent Police From Identifying Suspects Using Their Rape Exam DNA
San Francisco supervisors unanimously approved an ordinance Tuesday meant to tighten the rules for how police use DNA stored in city-run databases in an effort to prevent crime victims from having their own DNA used against them in unrelated criminal probes. The legislation, introduced by Supervisor Hillary Ronen, comes two months after the stunning revelation that San Francisco police had used a DNA profile gathered from a victim’s rape kit to tie her to an unrelated property crime several years later. (Cassidy, 4/19)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Mental Health Head Resigning Due To 'Health Scare' 
Dr. Jonathan Sherin, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, is resigning effective July 1 because of his health, he said in a letter to staffers. Sherin, who started his post at the nation’s largest county mental health system in 2016, called it “by far the most difficult decision of my career.” (Cosgrove, 4/19)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Lawmakers, Experts Hold Town Hall Discussion On Opioids
A North Bay state senator will host a virtual town hall meeting later this month to discuss California’s ongoing battle against opioids, including fentanyl. Sen. Bill Dodd, a Democrat from Napa, will host the April 26 meeting, which will include California Attorney General Rob Bonta and other health care experts and community leaders. Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that opioids have been linked to the vast majority of the 100,306 drug overdoses, which occurred in this country during a 12-month period that ended in April 2021. (Atagi, 4/19)

Los Angeles Times: California Teen With Autism Who Went Missing In 2019 Is Found In Utah
In September 2019, then-16-year-old Connerjack Oswalt went missing from Clearlake, Calif., a town a little over an hour’s drive northeast of Santa Rosa. For more than two years, his family scoured missing children postings from all over the country, hoping for a sign that Oswalt, who is autistic, was alive. (Martinez, 4/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: Family Of Mentally Ill Man Shot In A Walmart By Police Sues San Leandro, Officers
The family of a man who was tased and fatally shot by a San Leandro police officer two years ago while holding a baseball bat in a Walmart store has sued police and the city for $10 million, saying the officer — later charged with manslaughter — ignored the man's obvious mental problems and needlessly resorted to lethal force. Although Steven Taylor was still holding the bat, he was bent over after two Taser shots and posed no threat when Officer Jason Fletcher shot him in the chest, his family’s lawyers said in a suit filed Friday in San Francisco federal court. (Egelko, 4/19)

Los Angeles Times: O.C. Said Living Man Was Dead. Now It Has To Pay $1.5 Million 
Soon after the Orange County coroner’s office told him his eldest son had died, 81-year-old Francis Kerrigan went to the scene. It was a patch of blood-smeared pavement outside a Verizon store at a Fountain Valley strip mall. Frankie Kerrigan, 57, had profound schizophrenia, and had been on and off the streets for a decade. He resisted taking his medication, and tended to bolt if his family pushed. It looked like he had died violently on May 6, 2017. (Goffard, 4/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: Study: Black Students In Racially Segregated Schools More Likely To Have Alcohol And Behavioral Problems
Black students who attend racially segregated schools are more likely to drink alcohol and have other behavioral problems than their peers, according to a new UCSF study. The findings offer some of the first evidence that the de facto segregation in schools, largely tied to neighborhood demographics, which is common across the Bay Area, leads to significant health and other issues for Black students, and especially Black girls. (Tucker, 4/19)

Southern California News Group: Flash Cards, Fidget Spinners: How Donated Tools Help California Police Communicate With Autistic People
Sam Astle fidgeted in the passenger seat and kept looking over his shoulders as the car he was riding in was pulled over on the 60 Freeway in Montebello last year, his mother Joy Astle recalled. That made the California Highway Patrol officer who was trying to speak to him nervous. The 19-year-old diagnosed with autism placed his hands on the vehicle’s dashboard when instructed, his mother said, but kept shouting “what did I do?” The officer standing on his side of the car responded by speaking louder and more forcefully. That further overloaded the teen’s senses, exacerbating the meltdown he was going through. (Licas, 4/20)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Yes, Financial Strain Can Kill You 
Among older people who have been hospitalized for a heart attack, severe financial strain — having too little money each month to make ends meet — is associated with a 60 percent higher risk of dying within six months after hospital discharge, according to a Yale University study. “We found that severe financial strain was associated with increased risk of mortality. It’s a call to the clinical world that we need to pay attention to patients’ financial status,” said study author Alexandra Hajduk. (Lafee, 4/19)

Los Angeles Times: 100 Homeless L.A. Community College Students To Get Shelter, Food And Wi-Fi
The Los Angeles Community College District will fund a $1.5-million pilot program to provide housing for more than 100 students who are homeless or housing insecure. As the pandemic continues to exacerbate students’ basic food and housing needs, many have prioritized jobs over education, prompting the Board of Trustees to vote last week to green light the yearlong housing program for students in the nation’s largest community college district. State funds earmarked for student needs will pay for the initiative. (Shalby, 4/19)

Sacramento Bee: Many Sacramento Tenants Who Got Rent Relief Faced Eviction 
About one in six people who received local COVID-19 rent or utility relief had already received an eviction notice, a sign of widespread financial precarity in Sacramento when hundreds of households faced the prospect of displacement and homelessness. About $98 million in rental and utility assistance has been distributed to more than 12,000 low-income city and county households through the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency using federal and state COVID-19 funds. (Yoon-Hendricks, 4/19)

Bay Area News Group: San Jose: Measure E Bringing In More Money For Affordable Housing, Homelessness Than Expected
A 2020 ballot measure approved by San Jose voters to fund affording housing and the city’s burgeoning homeless crisis has brought in a surprised bonanza — a $65 million surplus. Measure E — a real estate transfer tax for properties over $2 million — was estimated to put $40 million a year into the city’s coffers in both the 2020-21 and 2021-22 fiscal years. (Hase, 4/19)