Sacramento Bee: CA COVID-19 Rates Fluctuate Amid Variant, Holiday Concerns 
California’s coronavirus rates are fluctuating to begin the new year, with some figures improving and others spiking or stagnant as health officials continue to brace for the aftermath of winter holiday gatherings, while also monitoring another concerning COVID-19 subvariant rapidly becoming the dominant strain nationwide. The California Department of Public Health in a weekly update Thursday reported the latest case rate at 15.5 per 100,000 residents, an 11% decline from one week earlier. (McGough, 1/5)

Modesto Bee: Stanislaus County Watches For Holiday Spike Of COVID-19
Hospitals are admitting a steady number of patients afflicted with seasonal flu and COVID-19, but it’s too early to know if the respiratory diseases have peaked this winter in Stanislaus County. The local risk of catching COVID-19 remains at the medium level based on monitoring by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Carlson, 1/5)

The Hill: Biden Administration Launches Pilot Program For COVID-19 Telehealth Care 
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Thursday announced the launch of a pilot program that will allow people to receive free testing, consultation and treatment for COVID-19 from their homes. The NIH estimated up to 8,000 eligible individuals will participate in the pilot program, called the Home Test to Treat program, which will be led by local and state officials in Berks County, Pennsylvania. (Choi, 1/5)

CNBC: What Long Covid Patients Need To Know About Health Insurance
Navigating the health insurance system is often difficult and overwhelming, even in the best of times. For patients with long Covid, a relatively new condition that frequently leaves patients with a lengthy and unpredictable list of debilitating symptoms, it can be especially nightmarish. (Nova, 1/5)

CIDRAP: Study Notes Racial Disparities In Kids' COVID Vaccine Uptake 
COVID-19 vaccination rates among US children aged 5 to 17 years varied widely by race as of August 2022, with the highest coverage among Asian youth and the lowest in Black children, underscoring the need for culturally relevant information, according to a study published today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. (Van Beusekom, 1/5)

CIDRAP: Study Finds Few Mpox Infections After One Vaccine Dose
A large study of patients seen at sexual health clinics in London found low numbers of mpox cases after vaccination with one dose of modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA-BN) vaccine. ... In the early months of the mpox outbreak, health officials embraced a one-dose vaccine strategy to stretch limited supplies of the vaccine while acknowledging that the immune boost following one dose of the two-dose vaccine might not be enough. (Schnirring, 1/5)

CalMatters: The California Legislature Is Back: Five Key Questions 
A soaring homeless population. A bitter battle with the oil industry over gasoline prices. A spending plan for a state with the world’s fifth-largest economy as threats of a recession hover. There’s a lot for the California Legislature to deal with this year — and it made little headway Wednesday, its first day back at the Capitol since swearing-in a new class of members last month. The brief floor sessions in the state Senate and Assembly focused more on the dearly departed than the challenges ahead. (Koseff and Kamal, 1/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Files Suit Against Homeowners Accused Of Illegally Evicting A Section 8 Renter
Three years after California barred property owners from discriminating against low-income renters who receive federal housing aid, state civil rights officials have filed their first suit under the law, accusing a Sacramento couple of illegally evicting a longtime tenant and destroying some of her belongings because she used government funding to pay her rent. The law, which took effect in 2020, prohibits owners of rental property from rejecting, or otherwise mistreating, renters and applicants because they are paying with vouchers under Section 8, a federal program of housing assistance to the poor, elderly and disabled. (Egelko, 1/5)

KVPR: A Biotech Firm Says The U.S. Has Approved Its Vaccine For Honeybees
The federal government has granted a conditional license for a honeybee vaccine, the developer of the drug announced Wednesday. The vaccine will be used to help fight American Foulbrood disease in the insects and was approved by the Department of Agriculture, Dalan Animal Health, the biotech company behind the vaccine, said. "This is an exciting step forward for beekeepers, as we rely on antibiotic treatment that has limited effectiveness and requires lots of time and energy to apply to our hives," Tauzer Apiaries, a board member of the California State Beekeepers Association, said in a news release from Dalan. "If we can prevent an infection in our hives, we can avoid costly treatments and focus our energy on other important elements of keeping our bees healthy." (Archie, 1/6)

Reuters: Moderna Signs $35 Million Deal With Cancer Drug Developer CytomX 
Moderna Inc (MRNA.O) on Thursday announced a $35 million licensing deal with cancer-focused drug developer CytomX Therapeutics to work on messenger RNA-based therapies for a wide range of diseases. Shares of California-based CytomX rose more than 50% in extended trading. (1/5)

Modern Healthcare: FTC’s Proposed Noncompete Clause Ban Could Raise Physician Wages
Absent a federal policy, noncompete agreements have been governed by a patchwork of state laws. Physician noncompete clauses are generally unenforceable in California, North Dakota and Oklahoma. Twenty-one states have either prohibited most restrictive covenants or instituted time limits, payout requirements or other conditions, according to a 2020 report from the University of California, Hastings and the University of California, Berkeley. (Kacik, 1/5)

Stat: A Year After A Nurse’s Loss To Suicide, A Peer Support Network Grows
When Michael Odell, an intensive care nurse, died by suicide a year ago this month, it thrust attention on all that nurses had endured during the pandemic. Odell’s death also motivated his friends in the field as well as other nurses to build on that attention and his legacy. In the year since, they’ve been advocating for health care worker well-being and calling for health systems to offer more support for nurses, historically a group that’s received less consideration than doctors. They also started an organization called Don’t Clock Out. (Joseph, 1/6)

Bay Area News Group: Contra Costa Health Officials Demand DA Investigation Of Martinez Refinery
Contra Costa County Health officials have asked the District Attorney to consider taking legal action against the Martinez Refining Company for violating state law by not promptly reporting it released toxic dust into the air over the Thanksgiving holiday, the agency announced Thursday. (Mercader, 1/5)

Bloomberg: Biden EPA Backs Off Plan To Crack Down On Smog From Permian Oil Drillers 
The Biden administration is deferring a plan to crack down on smog in the drilling hotbed of the Permian Basin, handing a win to oil producers along with their allies in Texas and New Mexico. The Environmental Protection Agency had been considering formally labeling parts of the region as violating federal air quality standards for ozone — a designation that would have spurred new pollution curbs and potentially deterred drilling in the world’s biggest oil field. (Dlouhy, 1/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Biden Administration Leans On Trump-Era Policies To Combat Migrant Wave 
Beginning on Thursday, the administration will use a pandemic-era border measure known as Title 42 to rapidly expel migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the countries that have posed the greatest challenge to the administration in the past year. The administration is taking the step even as the Supreme Court prepares to hear oral arguments in the case and the administration has argued that the measure is no longer justified on public-health grounds and must end. (Hackman and Parti, 1/5)

CNN: The Biden Administration Keeps Shifting Its Stance On A Controversial Policy
President Joe Biden just made a point that’s surprising to those of us who’ve been closely following his administration’s approach to migration at the southern border. “I don’t like Title 42,” Biden told reporters following a speech at the White House Thursday afternoon. That comment was startling because it came minutes after his administration announced a program that effectively expands the controversial public health restrictions yet again. (Shoichet, 1/5)

The Texas Tribune: Texas AG Ken Paxton Sues Biden Over “Public Charge” Enforcement 
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit on Thursday against President Joe Biden, accusing his administration of nullifying a federal law that prevents immigrants from obtaining a green card if they are likely to depend on government social services. ... In 2019, the Trump administration expanded a rule that would allow immigration officials to deny permanent resident status — also known as a green card — to immigrants if they previously received or in the future expected to receive food assistance, Medicaid, housing assistance or other public benefits. (Garcia, 1/5)

Politico: FDA Stays The Course On Abortion Pills, Rejecting Demands From The Left And Right 
The FDA rejected a demand from the anti-abortion group Students for Life to prohibit most prescriptions via telemedicine and revert back to the 2011 restrictions on the drug that the FDA has loosened by allowing the pill to be prescribed over the phone, sent by mail, and picked up at a local pharmacy. ... The FDA also rejected a petition from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) to make the pills easier to obtain for patients using them to treat a miscarriage rather than an elective abortion. (Ollstein, 1/5)

The Hill: FDA Rejects Petitions On Abortion Pills From Left- And Right-Leaning Groups
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week denied two citizen petitions from groups related to accessing mifepristone, a drug used in medication abortion. The petitions came from a conservative group seeking to restrict the use of the drug, and also from a medical group seeking to expand its use for a new indication. In denying both, the agency appears to be holding its ground on abortion pills, which have rapidly become the newest flashpoint in the fight over abortion. (Weixel, 1/5)

Vice News: The DEA Shut Down A Pain Doctor. Now 3 People Are Dead
First, there was the double suicide—a husband and wife from Georgia who took their lives one week after the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) suspended the license of their doctor, David Bockoff, a pain specialist in Beverly Hills. After Bockoff lost his ability to prescribe fentanyl and other powerful painkillers on Nov. 1, dozens of his patients became “opioid refugees” with nowhere to turn. The third death came barely a month later. ... Exclusive interviews with Bockoff patients and court documents reviewed by VICE News make it appear as though the devastation came only after the DEA intervened against Bockoff, sending his patients into desperate spirals to stave off withdrawals and manage their pain. (Hamilton, 1/5)

AP: Mexico Nabs Son Of Drug Lord 'El Chapo' Before Biden Visit 
Mexican security forces captured Ovidio Guzmán, an alleged drug trafficker wanted by the United States and one of the sons of former Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, in a pre-dawn operation Thursday that set off gunfights and roadblocks across the western state’s capital. ... “This is a significant blow to the Sinaloa cartel and major victory for the rule of law. It will not, however, impede the flow of drugs into the U.S. Hopefully, Mexico will extradite him to the U.S.,” Mike Vigil, the DEA’s former Chief of International Operations, said Thursday. (Verza and Sherman, 1/6)

NBC News: A New Test For Autism Hopes To Help Doctors Diagnose Before Symptoms Show
Researchers have developed a first-of-its-kind test for autism that they say can find markers of risk in a single strand of hair, an innovation that might help clinicians identify it in young children before they miss developmental milestones. (Bush, 1/5)

Los Angeles Times: Op-Ed: Abortion Pills In Pharmacies Are The Future. But The FDA Should Do More To Expand Access
On Tuesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration took a first step toward making abortion pills available at retail pharmacies. They released new rules outlining how both bricks-and-mortar and mail-order pharmacies can get certified to dispense mifepristone, the first pill in a medication abortion. But the agency also left in place unnecessary restrictions, showing how far we have to go in offering access. As a public health researcher and abortion safety expert, I welcome efforts to make abortion pills more easily available. (Ushma D. Upadhyay, 1/6)

Modesto Bee: Accessibility Laws For Disabled Are Just Feel-Good Gestures
My life dramatically declined the last week of September 2021 when I felt excruciating pain throughout my neck and back. Days later, I was paralyzed by a spinal cord infection that had gone undetected. I quickly went from being fully functional to quadriplegic. Fortunately, my paralysis is incomplete — meaning that walking again might be possible. So, I exercise daily and attend weekly physical therapy, though I still use a wheelchair. (Jim Sahlman, 1/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: What Would George Washington Have Done About COVID Vaccine Mandates?
Shortly before the new year, President Biden signed the new $858 billion National Defense Authorization Act into law. Despite its expense, the bill actually eliminated one of the most effective means of protecting our troops from harm: mandatory COVID-19 mRNA vaccination. Republicans, most notably House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, held the bill hostage until a provision to remove military vaccinate mandates was inserted.Among active duty service members, 98% have been vaccinated against COVID after Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered a mandate on Aug. 24, 2021. (Dean L. Winslow, 1/3)

Sacramento Bee: The Covid Era Has Seen An Exodus From California's Traditional Public Schools. This Is Why
Since the beginning of the pandemic, California public schools have lost more than 4% of their enrollment, about 270,000 students. That’s a lot of kids — and a lot of funding for public schools. (Heather Hough and Jeimee Estrada-Miller, 1/4)

CalMatters: How California Can Help Children In Foster Care System
After years of stalled progress on improving support for children and youth in foster care, compounded by the harm young people experienced during the pandemic, California simply can’t wait any longer to make foster youth a priority. (Stoner-Mertz, 1/5)