Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
Finding Connections And Comfort At The Local Cafe
For Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers, social and emotional isolation is a threat. But hundreds of “Memory Cafes” around the country offer them a chance to be with others who understand, and to receive social and cognitive stimulation in the process. (Heidi de Marco, )
Good morning! Here are your top California health stories of the day.
5 Americans Who Were Evacuated To San Diego Now Hospitalized With Coronavirus Symptoms: There is no proof yet that any of the five has coronavirus. Many illnesses, including the common cold, can cause the symptoms the repatriated travelers showed. Additional DNA-based testing at the CDC will be necessary to determine what is causing those symptoms. Read more from Paul Sisson of the San Diego Union Tribune and David Downey of the Southern California News Group.
Public officials are trying to ease fears across the state about the coronavirus. Dr. Sunny Pak, acting medical director of the Chinatown Public Health Center in San Francisco, said many of his patients rely on social media apps for news about the outbreaks. “Unlike what happened with SARS 17 years ago, right now the spreading of information, whether true or false, is even faster,” Pak said, which can lead to panic, especially among people with family and friends in China. Read more from Peter Arcuni of KQED and Anna Bauman of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Meanwhile, disease sleuths at a California lab will soon be receiving samples of the coronavirus, accelerating efforts to provide more rapid results than currently offered by federal authorities. Behind gates, locked doors and security cameras, the lab has long been a bulwark in the state’s defense against about 300 viral and bacterial invaders. Now its gloved and white-coated technicians will be part of the state’s 16-lab team to guide prevention and care for people who may have been exposed to the new coronavirus. Read more from Lisa M. Krieger of the Bay Area News Group.
In related news:
San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus Impact: No China Flights In Or Out Of SFO, SJC For Close To Six Weeks
The Mercury News: Marin Man In Chinese Virus Zone Details ‘Scary’ Scene
Below, check out the full round-up of California Healthline original stories, state coverage and the best of the rest of the national news for the day.
More News From Across The State
The Associated Press:
San Francisco To Open Tent 'Sobering' Center For Meth Users
A center for people experiencing methamphetamine-induced psychosis will open in San Francisco to help them get sober in a safe place, the latest effort to address the city's rising drug overdoses and rampant street drug use. The center, believed to be the first in the U.S. specifically for people who are high on methamphetamine, will open late this spring on a city-owned parking lot in the Tenderloin neighborhood, where streets are littered with syringes and addicts congregate, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday. (2/6)
The Mercury News:
California Bans Pesticide Linked To Brain Damage In Children
A ban on the sale of a controversial but widely used pesticide that has been linked to brain damage and other health problems in children took effect across California on Thursday, in a rebuke to the Trump administration, which has worked to keep it legal. The chemical, chlorpyrifos, is an insecticide used by farmers to control worms, insects and other pests on a variety of crops, including grapes, walnuts, lemons, oranges, alfalfa and cotton. But an increasing body of studies linked it with reduced IQ, attention disorders and low birth weight in children. (Rogers, 2/6)
The Hill:
Five New Measles Cases Reported In Los Angeles Area
Five cases of measles were confirmed in Los Angeles County on Wednesday, with the local Department of Public Health warning that the local outbreak included four residents and an “unimmunized, international visitor.” The department listed 33 public places where that confirmed case was known to have been between Jan. 26 and Sunday. (Budryk, 2/6)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Shelter Versus Housing: SF Officials Debate Beds For Homeless In Every District
Does it make sense for San Francisco to open a homeless shelter in every part of the city that doesn’t have one? That’s the question under discussion at City Hall, where the Board of Supervisors is considering a proposal by Supervisor Matt Haney to spread homeless shelters beyond the neighborhoods where they’re now concentrated. (Thadani, 2/6)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Federal Government Doesn’t Want California Telling It What To Do With Prisoners
California’s ban on private prisons is being challenged by the federal government, which confines about 7,000 prisoners and immigrants in privately owned facilities in the state and says California has no right to regulate their placement. The law prohibits new contracts with private prison companies in the state and also bars renewal of existing contracts, a phase-out that would eliminate privately owned detention facilities in the state by 2028. (Egelko, 2/6)
The New York Times:
China Tightens Wuhan Lockdown In ‘Wartime’ Battle With Coronavirus
The Chinese authorities resorted to increasingly extreme measures in Wuhan on Thursday to try to halt the spread of the deadly coronavirus, ordering house-to-house searches, rounding up the sick and warehousing them in enormous quarantine centers. The urgent, seemingly improvised steps come amid a worsening humanitarian crisis in Wuhan, one exacerbated by tactics that have left this city of 11 million with a death rate from the coronavirus of 4.1 percent as of Thursday — staggeringly higher than the rest of the country’s rate of 0.17 percent. (Qin, Myers and Yu, 2/6)
The New York Times:
Chinese Doctor, Silenced After Warning Of Outbreak, Dies From Coronavirus
He was the doctor who tried to sound a warning that a troubling cluster of viral infections in a Chinese province could grow out of control — and was then summoned for a middle-of-the-night reprimand over his candor. On Friday, the doctor, Li Wenliang, died after contracting the very illness he had told medical school classmates about in an online chat room, the coronavirus. He joined the more than 600 other Chinese who have died in an outbreak that has now spread across the globe. Dr. Li “had the misfortune to be infected during the fight against the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, and all-out efforts to save him failed,” the Wuhan City Central Hospital said on Weibo, the Chinese social media service. “We express our deep regret and condolences.” (Buckley, 2/6)
Los Angeles Times:
Dr. Li Wenliang Was Arrested For Warning China About The Coronavirus. Then He Died From It
“It’s not so important to me if I’m vindicated or not,” Li, 34, said in an interview from a quarantine room with Chinese publication Caixin. “What’s more important is that everyone knows the truth.” (Su, 2/6)
The New York Times:
China Begins Testing An Antiviral Drug In Coronavirus Patients
China is forging ahead in the search for treatments for people sickened by the new coronavirus that has infected more than 28,000 people in a countrywide epidemic, killed more than 500 and seeded smaller outbreaks in 24 other nations. The need is urgent: There are no approved treatments for illnesses caused by coronaviruses. On Thursday, China began enrolling patients in a clinical trial of remdesivir, an antiviral medicine made by Gilead, the American pharmaceutical giant. (Grady, 2/6)
The Hill:
CDC Begins Shipping Coronavirus Tests To State And Local Health Departments
Coronavirus tests developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shipped Wednesday to U.S. and international laboratories, including those at state and local public health departments. Health providers and health departments previously sent samples for testing to the CDC in Atlanta, Ga. (Hellmann, 2/6)
The Wall Street Journal:
Scientists Link China Coronavirus To Intersection Of Humans And Wildlife
Scientists tracking how the deadly new coronavirus leapt from animals to humans said the likely source of the infection is bats, underscoring the health risks associated with humans’ increasing push into the habitats of wild animals. The 2019 novel coronavirus marks the third leap of its kind in 20 years following the SARS virus, which moved from bats to a mammal called a civet and then to humans beginning in 2002, and the Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, which was transmitted from camels in 2012. (Camero, 2/6)
The New York Times:
‘I Keep Hearing Painful Coughs’: Life On Quarantined Cruise Ship
Things were looking up on Thursday for the more than 2,000 passengers quarantined on a cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan: Meals were coming on a more regular schedule. The internet was upgraded to a wider bandwidth. And there was even official approval to breathe some fresh air. Still, on the second day of a planned two-week quarantine, there was persistent concern about the spreading coronavirus and dread about long days ahead stuck inside the cabins. (Kwai, 2/6)
Los Angeles Times:
Coronavirus Panic Recalls Racist Chapters In California History
As the United States, Australia, Russia, Japan and many other countries announce travel restrictions to and from China, it was only a matter of time before paranoia about coronavirus and Asians would spread as well. On Jan. 30, Los Angeles officials warned that a fake letter circulating on Facebook and email falsely claimed that five people in Carson, a city south of downtown Los Angeles, had contracted coronavirus and named five local businesses in an Asian neighborhood as being connected to the outbreak. The hoax letter is just one instance of fear-mongering directed at Asian communities that is playing out on social media. (Tamara Venit-Shelton, 2/7)
The California Health Report:
We Need A New Conversation About Health
The upcoming presidential election hinges on health care. The candidates are sparring over what’s been cast as their dramatically different visions for the public option, Medicare for All and individual mandates. Californians—and all Americans—deserve a different conversation about health. Policymakers’ discussions, no matter the party, map back to the same tired health blueprint that Americans have been using for the past 80 years. (Peter Long and Laura Landy, 2/6)
Los Angeles Times:
Trump's Pathetic State Of The Union Attack On Abortion Rights
It was beyond the pale outrageous that President Trump, in his State of the Union address, would somehow link support for (admirable) advances in neonatal medicine to asking for a (probably) unconstitutional ban on late-term abortions. On a night when he claimed he supported healthcare for all, he exhorted — bullied — the lawmakers in the room to cut off and demonize those who would exercise their right to abortion. (Carla Hall, 2/5)
San Francisco Chronicle:
SF’s Meth Epidemic: City To Open 24-Hour Sobering Center As Crisis Devastates The Streets
When it comes to the scary behavior San Franciscans see on our streets — people ranting at no one, stripping off their clothes or threatening strangers — there’s often a clear culprit: methamphetamines. Starting this spring, there will finally be a clear, short-term answer: a sobering center designed specifically for those high on meth. Believed to be the nation’s first sobering center aimed at people experiencing meth-induced psychosis rather than high on any sort of drug, the facility will open late this spring on a city-owned parking lot at 180 Jones St. in the Tenderloin. (Heather Knight, 2/6)
San Francisco Chronicle:
How To Deal With Climate Anxiety
Children in Northern California know what it’s like to live under an apocalyptic haze of hazardous smoke — just like their peers in southern Australia who are experiencing vast and devastating fires. They both have much in common with children in the Bahamas who recently lived through Hurricane Dorian, the most destructive ever to reach the Caribbean. (Robert Root, 2/1)
CalMatters:
Capitol Grinds Up Major Housing Bill
Even under optimal circumstances, California is extraordinarily difficult to govern — more like a fractious nation than a culturally homogenous state. Our size and our staggering economic, cultural, ethnic, even geographic and meteorological diversity not only create complex issues, but make the reconciliation of often bitterly disparate factions difficult, bordering on impossible. (Dan Walters, 2/3)
Sacramento Bee:
Sacramento Measure G Endorsement: Vote Yes To Support Kids
Measure G is far from perfect. It’s an example of “lockbox budgeting” – which means it asks voters to lock down part of the city’s budget instead of letting the Sacramento City Council do its job. While the measure aims to provide more money for youth programs and mental health services, it contains no provision to ensure spending by nonprofits that benefit gets audited. Yet no one disputes the fact that Measure G seeks to elevate, and invest in, Sacramento’s youth. That’s one place the City Council has long fallen short. For this reason, the Sacramento Bee Editorial Board urges you to vote yes on Measure G. (2/6)
Sacramento Bee:
Here’s What Sacramento Leaders Are Doing About Homelessness
For the last few months, Sacramento leaders of government and health care have quietly been laying the groundwork for a campus that would bring comprehensive services and housing to people experiencing homelessness. The proposed “care” campus, like Haven for Hope in Texas or a scaled-up version of our region’s Mather Community Campus, would connect the region’s most vulnerable population to an array of customized services, providing substance abuse and mental illness treatment, transitional supportive housing and even job training. (Steve Hansen, 1/31)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Nuru's Alternate Reality: Where SF Sparkles, And Homelessness Doesn't Exist
Mayor London Breed arrived at Glide Memorial Church one day in August 2018 to find an alternate reality. The heart of the Tenderloin sparkled, and homelessness didn’t exist. She was there to tour and tout the mock-up of a safe injection site for drug users. The facility inside was calm, clean and sterile — just like, strangely, the typically dirty, raucous sidewalks outside. That’s because Public Works crews and police had arrived before the mayor to clear the area of homeless people and debris and install metal barricades to prevent them from entering the park across the street. (Heather Knight, 2/4)
CalMatters:
California Is Right To Focus On Adverse Childhood Experiences, ACES
It’s time to change the conversation in health care. Rather than asking, “What is wrong with this person?” medical professionals might ask, “What happened to this person?” California Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris and an increasing number of practitioners are changing the conversation because they recognize that trauma early in life—child separation, racism, neglect, abuse or poverty, for instance—can manifest itself years later with devastating consequences. (Chuck Ingoglia, 2/2)
The California Health Report:
To Close California’s Achievement Gap, We Must Teach All Parents About Early Brain Development
In the past few years, California has overcome one of the biggest public health deficits—improving children’s learning abilities by focusing on brain development in the first three years of life. We have taught thousands of parents about the importance of exercising a baby’s brain, starting on day one. But we still have gaps to fill in reaching all parents in California with this vital public health knowledge. (George Halvorson, 1/31)
Los Angeles Times:
Birth Tourism Crackdown Turns Border Agents Into Pregnancy Patrol
As a consular officer, I issued hundreds of tourist visas to pregnant women traveling to the United States whose primary purpose was so-called birth tourism — gaining U.S. citizenship for their child by having their baby here. It was a frustrating experience for me, because I mainly saw wealthy and elite foreign nationals secure U.S. citizenship for their newborn this way, and I couldn’t help but think of the millions already here who had to wait years to become citizens. (Christopher Richardson, 2/6)