Los Angeles Times: Biden Unveils COVID Plan As Omicron Arrives Ahead Of Winter 
Warning that COVID-19 caseloads are poised to climb this winter, President Biden said Thursday that “we need to be ready” as he announced his plan for limiting the spread of infection. Adding urgency to his efforts is the arrival of the Omicron variant, which was first reported in South Africa last week. Although scientists are still studying the variant, the World Health Organization has warned that the risk of new global outbreaks is “very high.” (Megerian, 12/02)

Roll Call: Biden Calls For Patriotic Unity, Pitches Plan To Fight Omicron
President Joe Biden said his top experts anticipate COVID-19 cases to increase in the weeks and months ahead as the omicron variant is likely to spread throughout the United States this winter, so he called on Americans to defend the nation with a unified front. “This is a point to get the nation to come together, to unite the nation in a common purpose … and to think of it in terms of literally a patriotic responsibility rather than somehow you're denying people their basic rights,” Biden said Thursday during a visit to the National Institutes of Health. (McIntire and Cohen, 12/2)

Los Angeles Times: How San Francisco Confirmed 1st U.S. Omicron Case So Quickly 
A UC San Francisco lab that analyzes positive coronavirus test results is a big reason behind the quick identification of the Omicron variant in California, the first documented case in the United States. The lab run by Dr. Charles Chiu, an infectious disease specialist at UC San Francisco, routinely analyzes positive coronavirus cases in San Francisco for their genomic sequence to identify the variant. (Lin II, Money, and Dolan, 12/02)

San Francisco Chronicle: ‘You Sure It’s The Real Thing?’ The Dramatic Story Of S.F. Scientists’ All-Night Race To Sequence First U.S. Omicron Variant
The sample arrived in Dr. Charles Chiu’s UCSF lab around 6 p.m. Tuesday, tucked into a high-tech cooler too small to hold a six-pack of beer. Already, Chiu and his team knew the sample — which contained viral material extracted from a nasal swab — came from a San Francisco resident who had tested positive for the coronavirus and recently returned from South Africa. There was a fair chance that in their hands was the first known case of omicron in the United States. (Allday, 12/02)

San Francisco Chronicle: ‘Here We Go Again’: Exhausted Bay Area Nurses Brace For Omicron’s Arrival
After nearly two grueling years battling the coronavirus, Bay Area nurses reacted with a mix of dread and determination to the news that the omicron variant has emerged not just in the U.S., but on their home turf, in San Francisco. “It’s stressful, but I’m not going to let it affect me like COVID did before,” said Kristin Cox, an acute care nurse at UCSF’s Mt. Zion campus, where she and her exhausted colleagues have worked nonstop for most of the pandemic. (Asimov, 12/02)

The Washington Post: Omicron Covid Variant Has Higher Risk Of Reinfection Than Delta, South Africa Researchers Say
Scientists in South Africa say omicron is at least three times more likely to cause reinfection than previous variants such as beta and delta, according to a preliminary study published Thursday. Statistical analysis of some 2.8 million positive coronavirus samples in South Africa, 35,670 of which were suspected to be reinfections, led researchers to conclude that the omicron mutation has a “substantial ability to evade immunity from prior infection.” (Cheng, 12/3)

Stat: How To Interpret The Coming Data On Omicron And Covid Immunity
At some point in the next few weeks, scientists will start releasing data from lab experiments that can help illuminate just how much of a threat the Omicron variant poses to existing Covid-19 vaccines and our immunity. But there won’t be one clear conclusion reported at one time. The results will come out in drips — one preprint study posted here, one company press release there. Together, these lab studies, combined with the clinical outcomes of patients infected with the variant, will help experts form a broader understanding of Omicron’s impact — and whether, if it takes off globally, we might need to adapt our vaccines. (Joseph, 12/3)

KQED: Stanford Infectious Disease Expert: What We Do And Don't Know About Omicron 
While much remains unknown about the omicron coronavirus variant, we do know it’s in Northern California. On Wednesday, federal, state and local officials announced that scientists at UCSF had detected the nation’s first confirmed case of omicron, in a San Francisco resident who returned from South Africa, where the variant was first discovered, more than a week ago. By Wednesday evening, additional cases had been reported in Colorado, Minnesota and New York. (Watt and Gonzalez, 12/02)

San Francisco Chronicle: How The Omicron Variant Could Impact COVID Transmission In The Bay Area
After San Francisco reported the country’s first confirmed omicron case this week, and the world awaits more information about the new coronavirus variant, the Bay Area was in a relatively better pandemic position with lower transmission rates compared to much of the rest of the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID transmission map on Thursday showed most Bay Area counties were in the yellow “moderate” tier of coronavirus transmission, with Solano and Sonoma in the “substantial” orange level. (Hwang, 12/02)

Bay Area News Group: Several New Cases Of The Omicron Variant Reported Across The U.S.
The COVID-19 pandemic entered its next chapter in the United States on Thursday when health officials reported at least eight new cases of the alarming omicron variant: five in New York, one each in Colorado and Hawaii and another in a Minnesota man who had recently traveled to New York City. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said during a news conference Thursday evening that five people had tested positive for omicron, including a 67-year old woman from Long Island who had traveled to South Africa. The other cases were among two residents of Queens, one resident of Brooklyn and one resident of New York City. (Woolfolk, 12/02)

AP: 'The Fire That's Here': US Is Still Battling Delta Variant
While all eyes are on the new and little-understood omicron variant that is popping up around the country, the delta form of the coronavirus isn’t finished wreaking havoc in the U.S., swamping hospitals with record numbers of patients in the Midwest and New England. “Omicron is a spark that’s on the horizon. Delta variant is the fire that’s here today,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the state Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Maine, where an unprecedented 334 people were in the hospital with COVID-19 as of midweek. (Hollingsworth, 12/3)

AP: WHO Says Measures Against Delta Work For Omicron Variant Too
World Health Organization officials in the Western Pacific say border closures adopted by some countries may buy time to deal with the omicron coronavirus variant, but measures put in place and experience gained in dealing with the delta variant should remain the foundation for fighting the pandemic. While a few regional countries are facing surges, COVID-19 cases and deaths in many others have decreased and plateaued, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific Dr. Takeshi Kasai told reporters Friday in a virtual news conference broadcast from Manila, Philippines. (Gomez, 12/3)

Axios: Coronavirus Variant Surveillance Varies Widely By State
Some states are much more likely to catch cases of the Omicron variant early on — including California and Minnesota, which did, in fact, find the first two confirmed U.S. cases. Omicron has thrust the U.S.'s genetic surveillance capabilities back into the spotlight. And the more cases sequenced, the better the chances of finding the variant before it takes off. (Owens, 12/3)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 6-Foot COVID-19 Distancing Rule Arbitrary, Study Finds
“Social distancing” quickly became part of the lexicon when the coronavirus pandemic began two years ago. The World Health Organization defined it as staying 3 feet away from one another. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doubled that. Nearly overnight, footprint decals appeared on store floors, spaced 6 feet apart. Memes and jokes popped up online, many from introverts who cheered staying away from other people. (Clanton, 12/2)

City News Service: Rapid COVID Testing Site Coming Friday To LAX International Terminal 
Amid growing concern about the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 and fears of another winter surge in cases, the county will set up a rapid-testing site at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday, Dec. 3, to offer free COVID assessments for arriving international passengers. “We’ll be messaging the need for international travelers to comply with the federal quarantine and testing guidance, and any travelers that do test positive will be required, of course, to isolate, and their close contacts will need to quarantine,” county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said. (12/2)

San Francisco Chronicle: As Omicron Arrives, Bay Area Health Officials Urge Boosters For All. But Many Sites Are Booked Up
With the arrival of the omicron variant and the holidays around the corner, state and local health officials have a consistent message: Get your booster shot as soon as possible. But in the Bay Area, that’s easier said than done. Residents looking to get an appointment in time for the holidays say that they are having a hard time finding appointments before the end of December, and that wait times at walk-in sites can be long. (Echeverria, 12/02)

Los Angeles Times: With Omicron, Officials Push COVID Testing During Holidays
Los Angeles County reported its first case of the heavily mutated Omicron variant of the coronavirus Thursday evening — a development that, while not unexpected, nevertheless underscores the need for residents to continue to take steps to protect themselves, public health officials said. “Throughout the pandemic, we have always known there would be more mutations, resulting in the possibility of a more dangerous variant than the Delta variant,” county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said in a statement. “While we can’t know for certain the impact of Omicron at this time, the good news is that we already know how to reduce transmission and slow spread using both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions.” (Lin II and Money, 12/02)

The New York Times: In Biden’s Plan For Free Rapid Tests, Legwork Will Be Required 
After a primary focus on vaccination, the White House announced on Thursday that private health insurers would soon have to reimburse patients for such tests. It also said it would make 50 million free tests available for uninsured Americans, to be distributed through health clinics and other sites in rural and underserved communities. But for consumers who do have insurance, the White House approach will require some legwork. It left some health policy experts questioning why the United States does not purchase tests on behalf of all Americans and provide them at little to no cost, as some European countries have done. Instead, Americans will have to purchase tests and then submit the receipts for reimbursement. (Kliff and Abelson, 12/2)

CBS News: Small Percentage Of Migrants Processed By U.S. In 2021 Had Access To COVID-19 Vaccines
Just a small percentage of the hundreds of thousands of migrants processed by the U.S. this year have received COVID-19 vaccinations while in federal custody, and half of them are unaccompanied children, according to unpublished government data obtained by CBS News. Collectively, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have administered vaccine doses to more than 90,000 immigrants in deportation proceedings, the statistics show. (Montoya-Galvez, 12/2)

The Washington Post: Federal Mask Mandate For Airplanes Extended Through March 18
The Biden administration on Thursday extended a requirement that people wear masks on airplanes, trains, buses and other modes of transportation through March 18. The extension of the federal mask mandate, which had been set to expire next month, is one of a series of actions the White House announced aimed at allaying concerns about the emergence of the new omicron variant. The U.S. reported its first case of the variant Wednesday. (Aratani, 12/2)

CapRadio: Status Of COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Is Still Up In The Air 
The Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate in the U.S. is on hold because of legal challenges, but employers can still require the shots, according to the Associated Press. The regulation says businesses with 100 or more employees need to require COVID-19 vaccinations or have workers tested weekly for the virus. It was set to take effect Jan. 4, 2022, but has faced legal challenges from businesses, Republicans and others. (12/02)

AP: Biden, Allies Increasingly Pushing Back At GOP's Virus Barbs
President Joe Biden looked out over an audience of government scientists and framed his latest plan for fighting COVID-19 as an opportunity to at last put an end to divisiveness over the virus, calling the politicization of the issue a “sad, sad commentary.” And then he tacked on a political dig. Some people “on the other team,” he said Thursday, were threatening to hold up government spending and endangering the nation’s credit out of pique over vaccination requirements. “Go figure,” he added. (Miller, 12/3)

Politico: Congress Thwarts Shutdown After Vaccine Mandate Clash
Congress averted a government shutdown Thursday night after Senate leaders mollified a group of Republicans who demanded a vote targeting President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate. The Senate passed an 11-week stopgap spending bill in a 69-28 vote, sending the measure on for Biden’s signature. The legislation, known as a continuing resolution, will keep government funding at levels set almost a year ago, when Donald Trump was president. (Emma, Scholtes and Ferris, 12/2)

Los Angeles Times: O.C. Education Board Sues Newsom Over COVID State Of Emergency
For the second time in recent months, the Orange County Board of Education is mounting a legal challenge to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pandemic-related state of emergency declaration. In August, the California Supreme Court declined to hear the board’s previous petition seeking to overturn Newsom’s emergency rule-making authorities that included allowing state officials to issue a mask mandate for K-12 students this summer ahead of the new school year. (San Román, 12/2)

San Diego Union-Tribune: UC San Diego Tells Students Who Traveled Over Thanksgiving To Get Tested For COVID-19 
UC San Diego on Thursday sent a message to its nearly 43,000 students telling them that they should get tested for COVID-19 “as soon as possible” if they traveled over the Thanksgiving break, whether they are vaccinated or not. “While cases have not increased significantly in San Diego County or on our campus, they are expected to trend upward due to Fall Break travel,” the message said. (Robbins, 12/2)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Judge Denies Request To Halt San Diego Unified's COVID Vaccine Mandate 
A San Diego County judge Thursday denied a group’s request to immediately halt San Diego Unified’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate and instead said it will take up the matter later this month. The school district’s vaccine mandate already was temporarily blocked by some 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judges in a different lawsuit that focuses on religious exemptions. However, district officials say they expect that block will be lifted soon because the district has removed a policy those judges objected to. (Taketa, 12/2)

Bay Area News Group: Santa Clara University Students Call On Administrators To Increase Mental Health Services 
Chants of “Do better, be better, SCU” rang out over the trickling of the fountain in front of Mission Church at Santa Clara University on Thursday afternoon. Students had gathered in between classes to demand policy changes by university administrators to the school’s mental health services following the death of three students this quarter — two of whom died by suicide. (Hase, 12/2)

Orange County Register: Newport Beach Extends Agreement With Hoag Hospital For More Development To 2040 
Hoag Hospital has secured an extension until 2040 of its right to build out space on the upper and lower portion of its campus in Newport Beach under a previously negotiated development agreement that gives it flexibility in what additional facilities it would add to meet future health care needs. The City Council recently approved this fifth extension to the development agreement first reached in 1994, allowing the hospital to finish building out about 450,000 square feet of the property within certain design parameters. (Ritchie, 12/02)

Modesto Bee: ‘Physician Administrator’ Takes The Helm At Turlock Hospital 
The new chief executive officer of Emanuel Medical Center said he learned pretty quickly that Turlock residents are frustrated with long wait times in the hospital’s emergency department. Dr. Murali Naidu said a new practice at the hospital should shorten the waiting period for patients and make sure they get an expert evaluation for their next step in care. (Carlson, 12/02)

California Healthline: A Title Fight Pits Physician Assistants Against Doctors
Physician assistants are pushing to be renamed “physician associates,” complaining their title is belittling and doesn’t convey what they do. “We don’t assist,” they insist. Doctors’ groups fear there’s more than just a name in play. (Rau, 12/3)

Stat: Hospitals And Doctors Fail To Stop End-Of-Year Medicare Cuts For Now
Hospitals and physicians lost a lobbying battle to stave off Medicare cuts of up to 10% in a must-pass government spending bill, though the defeat may not be final. Lawmakers reached a bipartisan deal on Thursday that would extend government funding at current levels through Feb. 18, with very few extra provisions added on. They chose not to stop cuts, some of which are set to take effect Dec. 31, that could reduce Medicare pay by 6% for hospitals and as much as 10% for physicians. (Cohrs, 12/2)

KQED: The Dobbs Arguments And Abortion Access In California 
As the Supreme Court weighs a challenge to abortion rights established in the Roe v. Wade decision, Scott and Marisa talk to Katie Orr about the landscape of abortion access in California. Then, Jodi Hicks, CEO and President of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California  joins to discuss the oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson and the case's potential impact on California and the 2022 midterms. (Shafer, Lagos and Orr, 12/02)

Axios: Overturning Roe Could Strain Abortion Access Even In Blue States 
If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, abortions could be harder to access even in states where they remain legal, because those clinics could be flooded with patients from states that have cracked down. This has happened before, and clinics fear the crush of demand would be a major problem in the immediate wake of a decision that would allow states to ban abortion. (Reed, 12/3)

AP: Roe 'Settled' Law? Justices' Earlier Assurances Now In Doubt
During his confirmation to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh convinced Sen. Susan Collins that he thought a woman’s right to an abortion was “settled law,” calling the court cases affirming it “precedent on precedent” that could not be casually overturned. Amy Coney Barrett told senators during her Senate confirmation hearing that laws could not be undone simply by personal beliefs, including her own. “It’s not the law of Amy,” she quipped. But during this week’s landmark Supreme Court hearing over a Mississippi law that could curtail if not outright end a woman’s right to abortion, the two newest justices struck a markedly different tone, drawing lines of questioning widely viewed as part of the court’s willingness to dismantle decades old decisions on access to abortion services. (Mascaro, 12/3)

California Healthline: ‘What The Health?’: Roe V. Wade On The Rocks
A Supreme Court majority appears ready to overturn nearly 50 years of abortion rights, at least judging by the latest round of oral arguments before the justices. And a new covid variant, omicron, gains attention as it spreads around the world. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet and Shefali Luthra of The 19th join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Blake Farmer of Nashville Public Radio about the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” episode. (12/2)

San Francisco Chronicle: She Set Out To Save Her Daughter From Fentanyl. She Had No Idea What She Would Face On The Streets Of San Francisco
She quit her job, gave up her apartment and packed her almost entirely purple wardrobe in boxes. To save her daughter’s life, Laurie Steves gave up her own. ... The spunky little girl with the huge smile and love of the limelight was long gone. Laurie didn’t know much about Jessica’s life now, but she knew she was homeless in the Tenderloin and addicted to fentanyl and had escaped death from overdosing many times with a lucky shot of Narcan. Laurie, 56, couldn’t lose another child. Jessica’s little brother, Zachary, had died alone in December after overdosing on fentanyl and ketamine. He was just 25. Laurie began her drive with Zachary’s ashes by her side. (Knight, 12/3)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. Voters Back Right To Shelter For Homeless People 
Los Angeles County voters broadly support a legal right to shelter for all but offer tepid backing for new taxes that might pay for it, a poll finds. The contrast highlights a key tension in voter attitudes toward solving the region’s persistent homelessness crisis: Even as voters want to see dramatic government action to reduce the number of people sleeping in streets and parks, many doubt the capacity of the region’s leaders to get the job done. (Oreskes and Lauter, 12/03)

CIDRAP: CDC: Homeless Americans Have Low COVID-19 Vaccination Rates
Today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that just 19% to 45% of the homeless population in six metropolitan areas were fully vaccinated against COVID-19. To assess coverage levels, the CDC tracked vaccination coverage from Dec 13, 2020, to Aug 31, 2021, in six US metro areas: Chicago; Minneapolis; Los Angeles; Detroit; Washington, DC; and Fairfax, Virginia. (12/2)

AP: New Data Suggests 1 In 44 US Children Affected By Autism
New autism numbers released Thursday suggest more U.S. children are being diagnosed with the developmental condition and at younger ages. In an analysis of 2018 data from nearly a dozen states, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that among 8-year-olds, 1 in 44 had been diagnosed with autism. That rate compares with 1 in 54 identified with autism in 2016. U.S. autism numbers have been on the rise for several years, but experts believe that reflects more awareness and wider availability of services to treat the condition rather than a true increase in the number of affected children. (Tanner, 12/2)

Roll Call: Infrastructure Law Has A Mandate For Tech To Stop Drunken Drivers 
In the months after her sister and brother-in-law and their three children died in a January 2019 crash caused by a drunken driver, Rana Abbas Taylor, consumed by grief, traveled to Washington, D.C., to talk to lawmakers about her loss. In the midst of that visit, Stephanie Manning, the chief government affairs officer for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, turned to Abbas Taylor. Her sister and her sister’s family, Manning vowed, would be the “reason we’re going to save thousands of lives in this country.” Now, nearly three years after her loss, Abbas Taylor is closer than ever to seeing that promise come to fruition. (Wehrman, 12/2)

NBC News: Lead, Mercury, Other Pollutants Could Affect Birth Ratios Of Boys To Girls
Lead, mercury and other pollutants could be affecting the ratio of boys to girls born each year, according to a study published Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS Computational Biology. The analysis, which reviewed data from about half of the U.S. population and everyone in Sweden, suggested common pollutants are affecting children before they’re born and having similar effects across large groups of people and on separate continents. (Bush, 12/2)

Stat: Lab-Grown Embryos Prompt A Question: Are They Getting Too Real? 
The stem cells were no more than a week old when scientists moved them from their slick-walled plastic wells into ones lined with a thin layer of human endometrial tissue. But in that time, the cells had multiplied and transformed, organizing themselves into semi-hollow spheres. Per the instructions of the chemical cocktail in which they’d been steeping, they were trying to turn into embryos. Video cameras captured what happened next: The balls of cells rotated until they were cavity-side-up, before finally touching down and grabbing onto the endometrial layer, a cellular proxy for a human uterus. Days later, when the scientists dipped paper test strips into the wells, pink lines appeared. Their Petri dishes were pregnant. (Molteni, 12/2)

KQED: California Failed To Protect Outdoor Workers From Wildfire Smoke Under Biden's New OSHA Chief
President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the nation’s worker health and safety efforts largely failed in his previous job to enforce protections for California outdoor workers exposed to toxic wildfire smoke. That’s according to an investigation by KQED and The California Newsroom. As the state faced its largest wildfire seasons on record, employers were required to take steps to prevent millions of outdoor workers from breathing harmful levels of smoke — such as by providing N95 masks or moving them indoors on days with unhealthy air. (Jhabvala Romero, 12/2)

Bay Area News Group: Google Again Delays Return To Offices, With Omicron Emergence
As businesses struggle to adjust to an evolving COVID pandemic, Mountain View digital advertising giant Google has for the fourth time delayed a mandatory return of its workforce to offices, it said Thursday. Google had planned to bring in workers three days per week under a hybrid model mixing office and remote employment starting Jan. 10, which would have ended the “voluntary work-from-home period,” the company said in an email. (Baron, 12/02)

KQED: A Second Pandemic Holiday Season For Food Banks
During the first few weeks of sheltering in place, food banks saw a huge explosion in demand as thousands lost their jobs and income. Food banks also had to stop or restrict volunteer programs for fear of spreading COVID-19. Now, as we go into our second holiday season during the pandemic, many still can’t afford to buy the food they need for themselves and their families. And on top of that, prices for many food items have increased as well. (Cruz Guevarra, Severn, Cabrera-Lomelí and Montecillo, 12/03)

Sacramento Bee: Omicron COVID-19 Variant Affects US, California Gas Prices 
Crude oil prices initially decreased more than $10 to $68 a barrel on Friday after international news broke of the newest COVID-19 variant, omicron, which was first detected in the U.S. Wednesday after a San Francisco resident returned from foreign travel. The national average price for a gallon of regular gas dropped to $3.39 last week — and currently sits at $3.37. It’s still about $1.27 more than this time last year. (Taylor, 12/02)