San Francisco Chronicle: Will Mask Mandates Return? Here's What Each Bay Area County Said
No other Bay Area county appeared poised to immediately follow Alameda County’s lead Friday in deciding to reinstate indoor masking mandates amid a rise in new cases. Starting midnight Friday, masks will be required in most indoor public settings across Alameda County. (Vainshtein, 6/3)

San Francisco Chronicle: Long COVID In Kids: 10-Year-Old’s Case Shows What We Know — And Don't Know
Shyne Staples leaps up and executes a flawless forward roll across a gym mat. She flips into a cartwheel, stands on her hands, then climbs a rope before spinning around a high bar in her San Mateo gymnastics class. Like many 10-year-old girls, Shyne likes flying around the gym, Simone Biles-style. But unlike most of them, Shyne begins class already in pain, and the exertion puts her to sleep 90 minutes after it’s over. (Asimov, 6/4)

CapRadio: Covid Challenges, Bad Student Behavior Push Teachers To Limit, Out The Door
Lynda White, who taught English, creative writing and social studies at El Monte Middle School in the small Central Valley town of Orosi for 21 years, started having panic attacks this school year as she drove to the campus. “I would sit in my car, taking slow breaths, trying to calm myself down because I knew when I got on campus it would be horrible,” White said. (Lambert, 6/5)

Los Angeles Times: Orange County Man To Plead Guilty To $5-Million COVID-19 Relief Loan Scam 
An Orange County man has agreed to plead guilty to a $5-million COVID-19 relief loan scam, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a release. Raghavender Reddy Budamala, 35, of Irvine allegedly used relief loans to purchase a $1.2-million “investment property” in Eagle Rock, a nearly $600,000 property in Malibu and a “personal residence” in Irvine. Budamala deposited nearly $3 million into a personal account, the U.S. attorney said. (Martinez, 6/5)

Bay Area News Group: Why Are COVID-19 Rates Higher For Boosted Than Vaccinated?
Don’t look at California’s COVID-19 case and hospitalization rates by vaccine status if you’ve had a booster or are considering one: Posted figures suggest you could be just as likely — or even more so — to get infected if you’re boosted than if you only had the initial shots. So is there a problem with the boosters? Absolutely not, one of the state’s top public health officials insists. (Woolfolk, 6/5)

NBC News: The U.S. Has Wasted Over 82 Million Covid Vaccine Doses
Pharmacies, states, U.S. territories and federal agencies discarded 82.1 million Covid vaccine doses from December 2020 through mid-May — just over 11 percent of the doses the federal government distributed, according to data the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shared with NBC News. That’s an increase from the 65 million doses the CDC told the Associated Press had been wasted as of late February. Two retail pharmacy chains, CVS and Walmart, were responsible for over a quarter of the doses thrown away in the United States in that time period, in part due to the sheer volume of vaccine they handled. (Eaton, 6/6)

CIDRAP: Data Show Paxlovid Halves The Risk Of Severe Omicron Disease, Death
A study of 4,737 COVID-19 patients in Israel conducted during the Omicron surge concludes that Pfizer's antiviral drug Paxlovid roughly halves the risk of severe COVID-19 or death, according to findings published yesterday in Clinical Infectious Diseases. (6/3)

Santa Cruz Sentinel: Santa Cruz Business Owner Pleads Guilty In Federal Fraud Case
Santa Cruz business owner Jaimi Jansen on Friday pleaded guilty to charges related to the distribution of fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination cards, and homeopathic medicine that she claimed would provide lifelong immunity against COVID-19. (Sleeper, 6/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: Here Is What To Look Out For As Monkeypox Cases Crop Up In California And The World
As the still-rare monkeypox crops up around the world, including a San Francisco case now among five in California, people on the alert for the symptoms may not always see the typical patterns and blisters. The rash is there, but experts say it may be subtle, even unnoticed, and it doesn’t always start on the face. As well, the more recent disease may present with or without the flu-like symptoms of traditional monkeypox. “The rash is similar in some senses, and different in others, to what we know about ‘textbook’ monkeypox,” UCSF infectious disease expert Peter Chin-Hong said Sunday. “The major difference in this current outbreak is that the rash appears to start in the genital area and the anus rather than the face or trunk. From the genitals, it can move to the arms and palms of the hands, and sometimes the face, including the mouth.” (Hwang, 6/5)

The Mercury News: COVID And Monkeypox Cases Keep Health Officials Wary
There were 2,975 new COVID cases and 12 deaths reported, bringing the total number of lives claimed by the coronavirus to 20,663 in Massachusetts since the beginning of the pandemic. The number of those hospitalized with COVID hit 665, with 70 in Intensive Care Units. Nineteen were intubated, meaning they had a tube inserted into their trachea for ventilation. (Szaniszlo, 6/4)

Stat: Genetic Data Indicate At Least Two Monkeypox Outbreaks Underway
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that new genetic sequencing data indicate there are at least two distinct monkeypox outbreaks underway outside Africa — a surprise finding that one official said suggests international spread is wider, and has been occurring for longer than has been previously realized. Three of 10 viruses the CDC has sequenced from recent U.S. monkeypox cases — two from 2021 and eight from 2022 — are different from the viruses that have been sequenced by several countries involved in the large outbreak that is spreading in and from Europe. That outbreak is currently being driven by infections in gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men. (Branswell, 6/3)

AP: 2 Monkeypox Strains In US Suggest Possible Undetected Spread
Analysis from many more patients will be needed to determine how long monkeypox has been circulating in the U.S. and elsewhere, said Jennifer McQuiston of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “I think it’s certainly possible that there could have been monkeypox cases in the United States that went under the radar previously, but not to any great degree,” she told reporters Friday. However, she added, “there could be community level transmission that is happening” in parts of U.S. where the virus has not yet been identified. (Stobbe, 6/3)

NPR: Here's What Monkeypox Looks Like In 2022 — And Why Doctors May Be Missing Cases
For the first time in history, the world is facing an international outbreak of monkeypox. Doctors have detected nearly 800 cases across the globe, from Argentina to the United Arab Emirates. The U.K. and Portugal have detected the most cases, with about 200 and 100 cases in each country, respectively. The U.S. has recorded 21 cases and Canada has 58. Such a broad geographic spread suggests "widespread human-to-human transmission is currently underway," said Dr. Maria van Kerkhove, with the World Health Organization, on Thursday. This transmission has "likely been ongoing for several weeks, if not months," she noted. (Doucleff, 6/3)

San Francisco Chronicle: Two Women Were Charged With Murder After Having Stillbirths. The Cases Are Rocking This California County
In early 2018, a 29-year-old Central Valley woman became the first person in decades to be jailed in California for the death of her stillborn infant. In late 2019, it happened again. Another pregnant woman who struggled with addiction delivered a stillborn baby who tested positive for methamphetamine at Adventist Health hospital in the Kings County seat of Hanford. She was also flagged by doctors, investigated by local law enforcement and charged with murder by District Attorney Keith Fagundes. The cases sparked national backlash from civil rights groups, which successfully fought to overturn the convictions. But now, as Gov. Gavin Newsom positions California as a reproductive rights sanctuary ahead of the Supreme Court’s anticipated reversal of Roe v. Wade, the cases are once again dividing residents in a bitter district attorney’s race in this corner of California’s heartland. (Hepler, 6/4)

San Diego Union-Tribune: UCSD Collaborates With Weight-Loss Surgical Center In Tijuana 
Surgeons from UC San Diego Health traveled to Tijuana on Thursday to toast the launch of a new collaboration with a weight-loss surgery center based in the northern part of the border city. Though horror stories abound involving medical tourists who have gone to Mexico for weight-loss procedures, backers of this new collaboration say medical tourism is here to stay. (Fry, 6/3)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area Family Sues UCSF For $23 Million, Saying It ‘Tore’ Son’s Heart
San Francisco Superior Court officials set a trial date for a legal case in which the mother of a 6-year-old boy charged that UCSF medical staff tore a hole in her son’s heart — leaving him permanently brain-damaged and in need of 24-hour care. The boy, Damon Davila, was 13 months old when he was taken into treatment at UCSF for what his mother, Kim Melville, 44, thought was a cold but was in fact a lung infection that rapidly worsened, Melville said. (Vainshtein, 6/3)

The Bakersfield Californian: Bakersfield's First-Ever 911 Dispatcher Tasked With Providing Mental Health Care
Delphina Rojo never imagined going into mental health care recovery. But after gaining years of experience in Kern Behavioral Health & Recovery Services and a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from CSUB, Rojo now occupies Bakersfield’s inaugural position as a recovery specialist tasked with fielding 911 calls that meet certain criteria. She provides mental health services for the Bakersfield Police Department’s Communications Center. (Desai, 6/5)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Sheriff's Department Makes Changes To Health Care Services, Drug-Treatment Programs For Inmates 
In 2014, the family of Daniel Sisson was awarded $3 million in a wrongful death lawsuit after he died in his Vista jail call from an asthma attack brought on by symptoms of heroin withdrawal. Years later, in 2019, Elisa Serna, who was a daily heroin user, was going through withdrawal when she collapsed from a seizure and died in the isolation unit at the Las Colinas Detention and Reentry Facility in Santee. Her family has filed a lawsuit alleging the department was deliberately indifferent to the 24-year-old woman’s medical needs. (Winkley, 6/4)

KQED: Next Santa Clara County Sheriff Will Face Jail's Broken Mental Health Care System
Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith is retiring next year amid civil grand jury hearings, allegations of bribery and misconduct and investigations into jail abuse cases. Four candidates are leading in the race to replace her in the primary election on June 7 and are making promises to increase mental health care resources and increase transparency under a new administration. But residents of the county are skeptical about how much can actually be accomplished by a single sheriff. (Bandlamudi, 6/3)

The Oaklandside: Fruitvale Students Tested Their Soil And Found Lead Contamination. Now They're Campaigning To Fix It
Sixth-graders at a Fruitvale middle school are raising the alarm over elevated lead levels at their school and in their neighborhoods. Students at United for Success Academy on 35th Avenue worked during the school year with the East Bay Academy for Young Scientists and Frontline Catalysts, an environmental justice organization that launched last year, to test the soil on their campus, at the nearby Peralta Hacienda Historical Park, and at their own homes. (McBride, 6/3)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Redwood Empire Food Bank’s Summer Lunch Program Feeds Sonoma County Youth In Need
While most students look forward to their annual summer break, thousands of kids in Sonoma County and Northern California lose access to free and reduced-cost lunches when schools close in June. In response to that meal gap, the Redwood Empire Food Bank will offer free and healthy breakfast and lunch to children 18 and under across Sonoma County through its long-running Summer Lunch program from June 6 through Aug. 12. (Swanson, 6/5)

Sacramento Business Journal: Yolo Food Bank Executive Director Michael Bisch Fired 
Michael Bisch is no longer executive director of the Yolo Food Bank. Bisch announced Thursday that he had been terminated by the Yolo Food Bank Board of Directors earlier this week. (Hamann, 6/2)

Sacramento Bee: Cannabis Workers Now Make Up Sacramento’s Ninth Largest Industry
The cannabis industry in the city of Sacramento has become the ninth largest employer with nearly 8,000 workers four years after recreational marijuana was legalized, shows a report commissioned by city officials. “It’s a remarkable turn of events” said David Zehnder, a managing principal with consulting firm Economics & Planning Systems and the study’s lead researcher. (Diamond, 6/6)

The Bakersfield Californian: CAPK Hopes To Build Outreach To Homeless With Safe Campsite 
From her M Street Navigation Center vantage point inside Kern County’s newest campsite, Laurie Hughey watched for several weeks as a homeless man dutifully swept the portion of the sidewalk where he sleeps, next to Weill Park, which is occasionally used as an unofficial campsite. As tents, restrooms and sanitation stations went up just behind the shelter on a seldom-used avenue, the man’s curiosity grew, his approach to the site more confident. (Smith, 6/5)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento County Board To Vote On Homeless Tiny Home Village
The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday is scheduled to reconsider a proposal to open a homeless tiny home village in south Sacramento. The board in April voted to delay consideration of the project, which would be a first-of-its kind for the county. It would include 100 tiny homes on a vacant lot at Florin and Power Inn roads, serving up to 125 people, including services. It would cost about $7.7 million to build and run for two years. (Clift, 6/6)

CapRadio: Californians Experiencing Homelessness Have The Right To Vote. Here’s How It Works.
Eligible Californians of all backgrounds — including those experiencing homelessness — can vote in the June 7 primary election. Election officials and advocates for unhoused people say it’s not well known that people without a permanent address can register and cast a ballot. But over the past four decades, state and federal courts have ruled that homeless people cannot be denied the right to vote simply because they lack a roof over their head. (Nichols, 6/3)

CNBC: Abbott Nutrition Restarts Baby Formula Production In Reopened Michigan Plant
Abbott Nutrition on Saturday resumed baby formula production at its Sturgis, Michigan, plant, a move toward addressing a nationwide shortage. The company has been given the green light from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration after meeting “initial requirements” as part of a May 16 consent decree. The company said it will restart the production of EleCare, a formula for children who struggle to digest other products, along with other specialty and metabolic formulas. (Dore, 6/4)

AP: Abbott Restarts Baby Formula Plant Linked To Contamination
Abbott said it initially will prioritize production of its EleCare specialty formulas for infants with severe food allergies and digestive problems who have few other options for nutrition. The company said it will take about three weeks before new formula from the plant begins getting to consumers. “We will ramp production as quickly as we can while meeting all requirements,” Abbott said in a statement. (Perrone, 6/4)

Fox News: US To Import Baby Formula From Mexico, But Parents Must Wait Until July To Buy It
In a Friday update, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that about 1.3 million cans of Gerber Good Start Gentle infant formula would be imported from Mexico to the U.S. The shipment of nearly 33 million full-size, 8-ounce bottles – or 2.2 million pounds – is expected to be available from Nestlé on Gerber's website and at key retailers starting in July and extending through October. "The FDA is exercising enforcement discretion for the importation of Gerber Good Start Gentle from Nestlé (Mexico) following the review of info provided pertaining to nutritional adequacy and safety including testing, labeling and facility production [and] inspection history," the agency tweeted. (Musto, 6/3)

The New York Times: A Cancer Trial’s Unexpected Result: Remission in Every Patient
It was a small trial, just 18 rectal cancer patients, every one of whom took the same drug. But the results were astonishing. The cancer vanished in every single patient, undetectable by physical exam, endoscopy, PET scans or M.R.I. scans. Dr. Luis A. Diaz Jr. of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, an author of a paper published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine describing the results, which were sponsored by the drug company GlaxoSmithKline, said he knew of no other study in which a treatment completely obliterated a cancer in every patient. “I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer,” Dr. Diaz said. (Kolata, 6/5)

Stat: With The Right Molecular Signal, A Cancer Drug Works In Every Patient
Sascha Roth was in her late 30s and feeling great. Then she noticed some bleeding when she used the bathroom. She went to see a gastroenterologist, who diagnosed her with rectal cancer. Her doctor, she recalled, “was as shocked as I was.” A friend who had had colon cancer insisted Roth see her surgeon at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. That led to her becoming patient no. 1 in a study that is a striking example of the importance of efforts to test cancer drugs in earlier stages of disease. (Herper, 6/5)

Stat: Enhertu Dramatically Extends Survival In Breast Cancer Patients
The cancer drug Enhertu cut the rate of death in a group of women with advanced breast cancer by a third in a new clinical trial, a result that oncologists said could shift the way they think about treating the disease. The makers of the medicine, Daiichi Sankyo and AstraZeneca, said that, if regulators clear the way, the number of patients eligible to receive the drug could be tripled, meaning that thousands of women in the U.S. alone could be offered a new life-extending option. (Herper, 6/5)

Stat: In Study, Gilead's Trodelvy Shows Modest Benefit In Breast Cancer Patients
The cancer drug Trodelvy reduced the risk of tumors progressing by 34% compared to chemotherapy in patients with the most common form of metastatic breast cancer — an outcome reported Saturday that met the goals of a large clinical trial conducted by its maker, Gilead Sciences. Despite the positive results, the future of Trodelvy as a new treatment for women with HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer remains unclear. Patients in the trial had advanced disease, but the drug only provided a relatively small benefit. And there’s no definitive evidence yet that Trodelvy will help this group of breast cancer patients live longer. (Feuerstein, 6/4)

Stat: Study: Weight Loss From Bariatric Surgery Tied To Reduced Risk Of Cancer
Undergoing bariatric surgery in order to lose weight may substantially reduce some patients’ risk of cancer, according to a new study. The finding, which mirrored the results of some previous studies, relied on observational data and not a randomized controlled trial, the gold standard of scientific research. Still, Ali Aminian, lead author of the study and director of Cleveland Clinic’s Bariatric & Metabolic Institute, described the data as “striking.” (Herper, 6/3)

Stat: Promising Early Results For New CAR-T Therapies For Myeloma 
Three companies presented Phase 1 clinical trial results on new CAR-T therapies for multiple myeloma on Sunday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago. Each offered innovations on the current generation of approved myeloma CAR-T therapies, ide-cel and cilta-cel, with promising — if early – results. “It’s good to see the early data,” said Saad Usmani, the chief of myeloma service at Memorial Sloan Kettering, who did not work on any of the studies but did work on Janssen’s cilta-cel. “We’re getting into second- and third-generation CARs now with faster production times.” (Chen, 6/5)

CIDRAP: In US, Millions Missed Cancer Screenings Amid Pandemic Disruptions
A US survey study published today in JAMA Network Open reveals that screenings for breast cancer and cervical cancer fell 6% and 11%, respectively, in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers from the American Cancer Society (ACS) and Emory University analyzed responses to the 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) from women eligible for screening for breast cancer (ages 50 to 74 years) and cervical cancer (ages 25 to 64), and men and women eligible for colorectal cancer screening (ages 50 to 75). Data were analyzed from September 2021 to February 2022. (Van Beusekom, 6/3)