Monterey County Herald: Omicron BA.2 Sub-Variant Appears In Monterey County As COVID-19 Trends Down
As protections against COVID-19 such as face coverings continue to be relaxed, the omicron BA.2 sub-variant is accounting for nearly a quarter of new COVID-19 cases in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control. At the Monterey County briefing Wednesday, Health Officer Dr. Edward Moreno said that testing for various COVID-19 variants has been conducted in county public health laboratories, and have seen that in January 95% of variants detected were omicron and that by February the omicron variant accounted for 100% of the variants tested from Monterey County residents. (Herrera, 3/17)

The Mercury News: Uptick In COVID In U.S. Sewage: Use This Tool To See Levels In Your Area
The CDC is closely monitoring coronavirus levels in wastewater in the U.S. and has confirmed this week that in early March there was an increase in levels across areas of the country. This is despite a recent low of reported COVID cases. The CDC captures wastewater data for about 650 sewersheds, including those in Bay Area counties, and has made the information searchable. About a third of the sites in the U.S. show an increase in COVID in sewage from Mar 1 to Mar 10, reports Bloomberg. (Vongs, 3/16)

The Mercury News: It's Time To Learn To Live With COVID. Are We Ready?
Two years after the COVID-19 virus turned our world upside down, life is slowly returning to normal. But it’s not the pre-COVID day-to-day we used to know. We won’t leave the virus behind; rather, we’ll live with it. This normal looks different. And we’re not there yet. “There will be accommodations to it,” said Dr. George Rutherford, infectious disease expert at UC San Francisco. (Krieger, 3/16)

CIDRAP: COVID Of Any Severity May Lead To Long-Term Small Airways Disease
COVID may lead to lasting disease of the small airways, regardless of infection severity, according to a single-center study published yesterday in Radiology. Based on observations that many COVID-19 survivors later showed signs of chronic lung disease, University of Iowa researchers led the study of 100 adults who still had COVID-19 symptoms more than 30 days after diagnosis, or post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC). Participants, who were prospectively enrolled from June to December 2020, were compared with 106 matched healthy controls enrolled from March to August 2018. (3/16)

AP: Diabetes & COVID-19: Scientists Explore Potential Connection 
When their 11-year-old son started losing weight and drinking lots of water, Tabitha and Bryan Balcitis chalked it up to a growth spurt and advice from his health class. But unusual crankiness and lethargy raised their concern, and tests showed his blood sugar levels were off the charts. Just six months after a mild case of COVID-19, the Crown Point, Indiana, boy was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. His parents were floored — it didn’t run in the family, but autoimmune illness did and doctors said that could be a factor. (Tanner, 3/16)

California Healthline: Covid’s ‘Silver Lining’: Research Breakthroughs For Chronic Disease, Cancer, And The Common Flu
The billions of dollars invested in covid vaccines and covid-19 research so far are expected to yield medical and scientific dividends for decades, helping doctors battle influenza, cancer, cystic fibrosis, and far more diseases. “This is just the start,” said Dr. Judith James, vice president of clinical affairs for the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. “We won’t see these dividends in their full glory for years.” Building on the success of mRNA vaccines for covid, scientists hope to create mRNA-based vaccines against a host of pathogens, including influenza, Zika, rabies, HIV, and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, which hospitalizes 3 million children under age 5 each year worldwide. (Szabo, 3/17)

AP: Biden COVID Coordinators Leaving In April, Jha To Take Over
President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients and his deputy Natalie Quillian are leaving the administration next month, the White House announced Thursday. They will be replaced by Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. Zients, an experienced manager and government executive, was brought on by Biden before he took office to devise and execute a “ wartime” federal government response to the coronavirus pandemic, including shoring up supply and distribution of vaccines, therapeutics and tests. His departure comes as the White House is shifting its posture from one of confronting an emergency to nudging Americans back to normalcy as the nation learns to live with a less-severe virus that is likely to remain endemic. (Miller, 3/17)

Los Angeles Times: The Latest COVID Rules In Los Angeles: Masks, Work And Boosters 
In recent days you might have noticed many unmasked people inside grocery stores or your favorite retailer. The lack of face coverings comes just days after Los Angeles County lifted its indoor mask mandate March 4. The county made the move with a stamp of approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which declared that the county’s level of community transmission had officially dropped into the “low” category. (Garcia, 3/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: It’s Been Two Years Since The Bay Area Went Into Lockdown. What Have We Learned?
On Thursday, March 17, we’ll have passed two years since nine Bay Area counties enforced the nation’s first orders to shelter in place. The novel coronavirus had begun to spread, but this is the closest most of us have to a beginning of the pandemic that wholly reordered our lives. Before 12:01 a.m. on March 17, 2020, life wasn’t exactly normal — some offices had closed because of the developing pandemic, events had scaled back or canceled — but it still felt like living. In the days after the lockdown, streets grew empty, stores boarded up and we turned inward. (Kost, 3/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: How To Cope With Perpetual Pandemic Fatigue
You’re getting up later and later; after work or school you collapse onto the couch, unlikely to move for a few hours. The naps are getting more frequent, and the dishes are piling up in the sink. Your brain can’t take it anymore. (Wu, 3/16)

Sacramento Bee: Xavier Becerra Urges Parents To Vaccinate Children Against COVID During California Visit 
The United States Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra urged parents to get their children vaccinated against the coronavirus in a visit to Chico, California, this week. The former California attorney general said, respecting California guardians’ ability to make the best medical decision for their children, that the science is clear: Vaccines work. (Brassil, 3/17)

Los Angeles Times: Myths, Disinformation Are Preventing People From Getting Booster Shots
Officials say circulating myths are likely keeping many people from getting vaccinated against COVID-19.In Los Angeles County, there remain 1.7 million residents who haven’t received a single vaccination dose, and 2.7 million vaccinated people who are eligible for a booster but haven’t yet received one, county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said last week. Even among seniors 65 and over, 90% of whom are considered fully vaccinated, only 63% have received a booster shot, Ferrer said. (Lin II and Money, 3/16)

Los Angeles Times: Second COVID Booster Shot Does Little To Stop Omicron, Study Finds
Israeli healthcare workers who were boosted with a fourth shot of COVID-19 vaccine at the height of the Omicron wave were only marginally more protected against reinfection than their peers who had received three jabs of vaccine, researchers reported Wednesday. Compared to getting two initial doses and one booster shot of Pfizer and BioNTech’s Comirnaty vaccine, adding a second booster shot reduced the rate of coronavirus infection by just 30%. (Healy, 3/16)

NBC News: Pfizer's Covid Vaccine Safe In People With Prior Myocarditis, Study Says
The Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine appears to be safe in people previously diagnosed with myocarditis, according to a small study presented Thursday at a European medical conference. The findings, experts say, should help reassure people who previously experienced myocarditis that Covid vaccination is safe. (Lovelace Jr., 3/17)

San Diego Union-Tribune: UCSD Health Sets 'New Normal' Rules For Operation, Effective Monday 
With daily new case numbers essentially flat and local COVID-19 hospitalizations continuing to drop, the region’s public health department, and UC San Diego Health, took steps to reframe the coronavirus effort Wednesday. The university health system sent out an all-hands memo to its clinical and non-clinical staff Wednesday, informing about 18,000 employees of a “new normal” framework for coronavirus operating procedures that will take effect Monday. Meanwhile, the county also published a new, more active, set of pandemic statistics on its website. (Sisson, 3/16)

Sacramento Bee: Jail Sentence For Caregiver Caught On Hidden Camera Struggling With Dementia Patient 
Six months after a Folsom caregiver was caught on hidden camera appearing to abuse an 89-year-old dementia patient, the worker pleaded no contest Wednesday to a single misdemeanor count of elder abuse and was sentenced to 90 days in jail. Sharan Kaur pleaded no contest in Sacramento Superior Court and was ordered by Judge Michael Sweet to surrender to jail on April 29 for what will amount to 45 days in custody and a year of informal probation. (Stanton, 3/17)

Orange County Register: Santa Ana Bans Flavored Tobacco Sales In The City
The sale of flavored tobacco will be banned in Santa Ana starting next month. The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to adopt an ordinance that prohibits the sale of the menthol, fruit and candy-flavored products criticized for luring youth into an addictive nicotine habit. “It’s a matter of health,” Councilwoman Nelida Mendoza told her colleagues. (Kopetman, 3/16)

Southern California News Group: California-Based Maker Of ‘Drinkable Sunscreen’ Agrees To Settle Case Alleging Deceptive Advertising
An Irvine-based company that marketed and sold a “drinkable sunscreen” has agreed to pay $42,500 to resolve state prosecutors’ allegations of deceptive advertising, officials said Wednesday. Dermatology Industry Inc. marketed and sold a product called UVO, claiming that people who drank it would be protected, head to toe, against the sun’s harmful rays for up to five hours. The company stopped selling the product after the state began its investigation, Attorney General Rob Bonta said Wednesday. (Percy, 3/17)

Bay Area News Group: Walnut Creek To Set Noise Limit At Planned Parenthood
Abortion protesters soon will need to keep an eight-foot distance from patients at Walnut Creek’s Planned Parenthood clinic if the City Council approves a proposed ordinance it strongly supported Tuesday night. The ordinance, which aims to prevent protesters from harassing and intimidating patients and other visitors by establishing a buffer zone between them within 100 feet of the clinic, returns to the council in two weeks for a formal vote. (Mukherjee, 3/16)

KQED: Amid Ongoing Drought, Californians Are Actually Using More Water. Are Mandatory Cutbacks In The Pipeline?
Californians used 2.6% more water this January than they did two years ago, in January 2020, before the state declared a drought emergency, suggesting urban residents are failing to take the warning seriously. The increased water use in California’s cities and towns came during the second-driest January on record, as the Sierra Nevada snowpack continues to dwindle — and another dry summer looms. (Becker, 3/16)

Sacramento Bee: CA Republicans Propose Homelessness, Mental Health Package 
California Republicans are pushing a package of bills to tackle homelessness and mental health issues — but in a way they claim would be more fiscally responsible than Democrats’ approach. Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, and a group of lawmakers on Wednesday presented a slate of bills they dubbed “ACT on Homelessness,” with ACT standing for accountability, compassion and treatment. (Holden, 3/17)

AP: Elizabeth Holmes' Ex-Lover, Business Partner Faces Own Trial 
Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, the jilted lover and business partner of former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, finally has his chance to defend himself against charges that he was Holmes’ accomplice in a Silicon Valley scam involving a ballyhooed blood-testing technology that flopped. Opening statements in Balwani’s trial are scheduled Wednesday in the same San Jose, California, courtroom where a jury found Holmes guilty of investor fraud and conspiracy in January. She was acquitted on other counts accusing her of duping patients who relied on Theranos’ flawed blood tests. (Liedtke, 3/16)