The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Two New COVID-19 Deaths Reported In Sonoma County, Bringing Total Since Start Of Pandemic To 528
Two people died of COVID-19 this month in Sonoma County, bringing the total of COVID-19 countywide deaths since the start of the pandemic to 528. (Minkler, 12/19)

CNN: CVS, Walgreens Limit Purchases Of Children's Pain-Relief Medicine
Increased demand has led CVS and Walgreens to limit purchases of children’s pain-relief medicine, the companies confirmed to CNN on Monday. CVS is restricting both in-person and online purchases to two children’s pain relief products. Walgreens has limited online purchases to six over-the-counter fever reducers per transaction, but it does not have an in-store purchase limit. (McPhillips, 12/19)

Fortune: Why Do You Have A Sore Throat When You Wake Up In The Morning. Experts Say It's Not Always COVID Or Flu 
It’s tripledemic season, with rising cases of COVID, flu, and RSV, so waking up with a sore throat can be pretty alarming. Do you have one of these potentially serious viruses? Strep throat? Just a cold? “When you first wake up with a sore throat, it’s difficult to know if you have a bacterial infection or virus without being tested for them directly,” says Dr. Barbara B. Bawer, a family medicine physician at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. It’s also possible that something such as allergies, acid reflux, or the lack of humidity in your bedroom is to blame. (Brody, 12/19)

CapRadio: Tips For Making Holiday Gatherings Safer (Or Deciding When To Skip Them)
This year’s holiday season arrives as the flu, respiratory syncytial virus — RSV — and multiple strains of COVID-19 are circulating. Sacramento County has high community COVID-19 transmission — a CDC metric meaning the county has at least 100 new cases per 10,000 people in the past 7 days — again, meaning holiday gatherings run the risk of being superspreader events. And anecdotal shortages of children’s cold and flu medicine along with filled pediatric hospitals can make it difficult to get speedy treatment for sick children. (Salanga, 12/19)

The New York Times: The ‘Tripledemic’ Holiday: How To Fly More Safely (Hint: Wear A Mask) 
You should “absolutely” be wearing masks while traveling, epidemiologists, infectious disease doctors and air-filtration experts said. Even though planes have great filtration systems, you’ll likely be on crowded planes with other travelers for extended periods of time, increasing the chances of exposure, said Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease epidemiologist and assistant professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. (Mzezewa, 12/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: Dr. Wachter Cites “Confusion & Misinformation” On Myriad COVID Topics
UCSF’s Dr. Bob Wachter, one of the Bay Area’s most prominent voices on COVID-19, says COVID confusion and misinformation abound, and he is seeing a lot of it around the basic topics of masks, vaccines, and home tests. In a lengthy thread, he told his many Twitter followers over the past couple of days that these “correct” statements are the starting point: “Wearing the wrong mask, or wearing a mask incorrectly, doesn’t work. (Beamish, 12/19)

Axios: FDA Expert Panel To Discuss The Future Of COVID Vaccines
Food and Drug Administration advisers will hold a key meeting next month to discuss the state of the pandemic and whether COVID vaccines need to be modified again to better limit the fast-changing virus. Health experts say the Jan. 26 meeting, announced on Friday, will sketch out a long-term strategy that responds to new strains and shifting threats. (Gonzalez, 12/19)

Reuters: Appeals Court Says U.S. Cannot Mandate Federal Contractor COVID Vaccines 
A U.S. appeals court on Monday said the White House could not require federal contractors to ensure that their workers are vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of government contracts. The U.S. government has contracts with thousands of companies, and courts have said the issue could affect up to 20% of U.S. workers. (Shepardson, 12/19)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego Blood Bank Calls For Increased Donations As Shortage Looms
A shortage of a key supply in the blood-collection pipeline is creating an urgent request for more blood donors in San Diego and nationwide. (Sisson, 12/19)

CalMatters: California’s Only HBCU Aims To Solve Black Doctor Shortage
Medical student Allison Leggett knows the power of her presence as a Black health professional. During her clinical training she met a young patient with social-developmental delays, who was very sick and spent a lot of time in the hospital alone because her father, her sole caretaker, worked three jobs. “At first I thought she didn’t like me, but when I told her it was my last day and I was leaving, she started crying!” said Leggett. “Afterwards, her dad pulled me aside and told me, ‘I don’t think you realize how much of an impact you made on her.’” (Story, 12/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: Narcan Would Be Required In Libraries, Bars In New California Bill
Assembly Member Matt Haney knows firsthand how fast and easy access to opioid reversal medication can mean the difference between life and death for overdose victims. (Gardiner, 12/19)

Stateline: As Fentanyl Use Spikes, Feds Urge States To Ease Methadone Rules
Advocates for people with addiction and the methadone industry have long sought the permanent rule changes proposed last week, which would allow more of the nation’s 476,000 methadone patients to take their daily dose in the privacy of their own homes. (Vestal, 12/19)

AP: California Dad Arrested After Girl, 2, Overdoses On Fentanyl
A central California man was arrested on suspicion of child endangerment after his 2-year-old daughter overdosed on fentanyl, police said. The child was treated at a hospital and she’s expected to make a full recovery, the Merced Police Department said in a statement. Her parents brought the girl to the emergency room on Sunday after she “experienced life-threatening symptoms consistent with a fentanyl exposure,” the statement said. (12/20)

Bay Area News Group: $8 Billion A Year For 12 Years Needed To End California Homelessness
California could eliminate homelessness by 2035 — if it’s willing to spend $8.1 billion a year for the next dozen years, according to a first-of-its kind report that highlights the yawning gap between what the state is contributing to the crisis and what it needs. (Kendall, 12/20)

Los Angeles Times: Why San Francisco Lags On Housing Its Homeless Population
Reyna De La Cruz had looked at 15 apartments, at least. About half of the landlords rejected her. The other half never responded at all. De La Cruz and three of her kids were living in a camper parked on a corner in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood. They’d been there since De La Cruz was laid off from her job at Wingstop in 2020. But their little family needed a real home. De La Cruz kept a wish list: enough bedrooms and bathrooms for her and her kids, a kitchen big enough to cook in regularly and, if she was lucky, a yard. (Kaur, 12/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F.’s Fillmore District Is The Latest Neighborhood In Revolt Over Homelessness And Drugs
Leaders in San Francisco’s Fillmore neighborhood are pressuring city officials to intervene with what they say is an uptick in homeless encampments, public drug use and crime. At a meeting Monday at Third Baptist Church in the Fillmore, leaders, residents and businesses described untenable conditions and the need for a plan. (Umanzor and Whiting, 12/19)

Stat: Congress Reaches Major Health Policy Deal On Medicare, Medicaid
Leaders in Congress have reached a sweeping deal to ease Medicare pay cuts to doctors, make major changes to post-pandemic Medicaid policy, and to help prepare for future pandemics. Lawmakers are aiming to pass a health care policy package along with legislation to fund the federal government by Friday. (Cohrs and Owermohle, 12/19)

Axios: Congress Saves Big Health Care Decisions For Last
There's plenty for health care interest groups in Congress' year-end spending package, but some had to make significant concessions: There will be no pandemic commission, doctors will have to swallow some Medicare payment cuts and FDA oversight of diagnostic tests will not change. The health care riders in the year-end spending package reflect which health care interests have clout, and which issues lawmakers want to punt into next year, when Congress will be divided and deals may be more elusive. (Knight, Sullivan and Goldman, 12/20)

Roll Call: Both Parties Claim Wins In Massive Omnibus Spending Bill
Both parties praised the inclusion of nearly $119 billion for veterans medical care, a 22 percent increase over fiscal 2022, not counting a $5 billion infusion for the toxic exposure benefits law enacted over the summer. ... During negotiations, the two sides tussled over the classification of veterans health care costs as Democrats aimed to make some existing funds mandatory to free up additional discretionary nondefense spending for other priorities. The GOP won that fight, although Democrats got some funds for the new toxic exposure law deemed "mandatory," or exempt from appropriations limits. (McPherson and Quigley, 12/20)

The Washington Post: Congress Unveils $1.7 Trillion Deal To Fund Government, Avert Shutdown
The omnibus also proposed nearly $773 billion for domestic programs, which included a significant increase in federal funding for veterans and new money meant to improve child-care programs, combat substance abuse and help needy families access food. (Romm, 12/20)

Politico: Why Democrats Warmed To Severing Medicaid Eligibility From The Covid Public Health Emergency
Republicans have long demanded an end to the Covid-era Medicaid policy that gives states more funding and bars them from kicking people off the rolls. Now, Democrats are prepared to join them — four people close to the negotiations tell POLITICO. Congressional negotiators are set to unveil the text of the 2023 omnibus spending bill on Monday. Lawmakers and staff have been scrambling for weeks to find ways to pay for a slew of health care programs, such as permanent telehealth flexibility, providing longer Medicaid coverage for new mothers and avoiding scheduled cuts to doctors’ payments, prompting formerly resistant Democratic members to take a fresh look at moving up the end-date of the Covid-19 Medicaid policy by at least three months — to April 1. (Ollstein, 12/19)

Stat: Congress Falls Short On Medicaid Postpartum Care
Last week, the state of Texas issued a long-awaited report that found at least 118 women in the state died from causes related to pregnancy in 2019. Most of those deaths were preventable. The report’s top recommendation was a familiar but often-bypassed way to reduce maternal mortality: Ensure that all people have access to health care during pregnancy and for at least a year afterward. (Owermohle, 12/20)

The Hill: Medicaid Expansion Linked With Improved Cancer Survival In Young Adults 
Expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is linked with better survival outcomes for young Americans newly diagnosed with cancer, research shows. The two-year survival benefit was most pronounced among individuals who identify as Hispanic or Black and those with breast cancer or stage IV cancers. (Melillo, 12/19)

Oaklandside: How Can Oakland Reduce Gun Violence? Community Advocate John Jones III Sees A Path Forward
Two years ago, The Oaklandside published a deeply personal essay by John Jones III, who shared his experiences with gun violence as a young Black man growing up in East Oakland. Interwoven with local history, his story sought to help make sense of an increase in killings in Oakland and other U.S. cities at the onset of the pandemic. Since then, things haven’t gotten much better. There have been 114 homicides in Oakland so far this year, according to police, compared to 121 last year. In 2019, before the pandemic, there were 74. At the same time, the reported number of all violent crimes committed in the city, including homicides, aggregated assaults, robberies, and rapes, is down by 8%. (Simas, 12/19)

The New York Times: Homicides Of Children Soared In The Pandemic’s First Year, CDC Reports 
As the pandemic spread across the United States in 2020, the number of children who were killed rose precipitously, as did the number injured by firearms, scientists reported in two studies on Monday. A majority of the homicides were among Black children, and almost half were among children in the southern United States. Each of those groups also accounted for most of the children brought to pediatric hospitals with gun injuries. (Rabin, 12/19)