Los Angeles Daily News: On 3-Year Anniversary Of LA County COVID Shutdown, Pandemic Isn’t Over, But Pressures Are Easing 
It was three years ago today, March 16, that, following an extraordinary call by the governor the day before for certain kinds of businesses to close, Los Angeles County issued an unprecedented directive to its 10 million residents. (Carter, 3/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: Is The Risk Of Getting Long COVID Declining? Here’s What Experts Say
The risk of long COVID appears to be on the decline. The clue to this extraordinary possibility comes from tens of thousands of responses to U.S. Census Bureau questionnaires that show a shrinking percentage of COVID survivors reporting long COVID symptoms — the persistent, often debilitating effects of the illness that studies have historically shown in about 19% of COVID survivors. (Vaziri and Asimov, 3/17)

The New York Times: F.D.A. Advisers Endorse Paxlovid’s Benefits As A Covid Treatment 
A panel of expert advisers to the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday endorsed Paxlovid as a treatment for adults with Covid who are at high risk for progression to severe illness. The move is likely to lead to full approval of the drug, which has been available under emergency use authorization. The 16-1 vote came after the agency released a new analysis showing that Paxlovid reduced hospitalizations and deaths among both unvaccinated and vaccinated people. Agency researchers estimated, based on Covid rates in January, that Paxlovid could “lead to 1,500 lives saved and 13,000 hospitalizations averted each week in the United States.” (Zimmer and Jewett, 3/16)

Axios: Questions Still Swirl Over Paxlovid As FDA Full Approval Nears
Pfizer's antiviral Paxlovid is one step closer to gaining full approval from the Food and Drug Administration, but whether that convinces more doctors to prescribe it is an open question. (Moreno, 3/17)

CIDRAP: Paxlovid 80% Effective Against Severe COVID When Taken In First 5 Days
The antiviral drug combination nirmatrelvir–ritonavir (Paxlovid) was estimated to be 54% effective against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.2, BA.4, and BA.5 hospitalization or death but was 80% when taken within 5 days of symptom onset, according to an observational study published yesterday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. (Van Beusekom, 3/16)

The Atlantic: The Strongest Evidence Yet That An Animal Started The Pandemic
This week, an international team of virologists, genomicists, and evolutionary biologists may have finally found crucial data to help fill that knowledge gap. A new analysis of genetic sequences collected from the market shows that raccoon dogs being illegally sold at the venue could have been carrying and possibly shedding the virus at the end of 2019. It’s some of the strongest support yet, experts told me, that the pandemic began when SARS-CoV-2 hopped from animals into humans, rather than in an accident among scientists experimenting with viruses. (Wu, 3/16)

The New York Times: New Data Links Pandemic’s Origins To Raccoon Dogs At Wuhan Market 
An international team of virus experts said on Thursday that they had found genetic data from a market in Wuhan, China, linking the coronavirus with raccoon dogs for sale there, adding evidence to the case that the worst pandemic in a century could have been ignited by an infected animal that was being dealt through the illegal wildlife trade. ... The jumbling together of genetic material from the virus and the animal does not prove that a raccoon dog itself was infected. And even if a raccoon dog had been infected, it would not be clear that the animal had spread the virus to people. Another animal could have passed the virus to people, or someone infected with the virus could have spread the virus to a raccoon dog. (Mueller, 3/16)

Roll Call: Energy Department Briefs Senators On COVID-19 Origins
Department of Energy and intelligence community officials briefed members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on classified information related to COVID-19’s origins Thursday but offered no definitive revelations, according to lawmakers. The briefing follows the news that the department now concludes with “low confidence” that the virus more likely originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, rather than through natural evolution. (Clason, 3/16)

Voice of San Diego: Mayor, Downtown Councilman Pushing Homeless Camp Crackdown
Mayor Todd Gloria and downtown City Councilman Stephen Whitburn on Thursday unveiled a series of plans to attack visible homelessness amid increasing public exasperation with the city’s foremost crisis. With Gloria’s blessing, Whitburn said he will next month introduce an ordinance banning camping on public property when shelter options are available. If the City Council approves it, encampments will also be barred at all times within two blocks of schools and shelters, certain parks and along trolley tracks. (Halverstadt, 3/16)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego City Officials Call For Ban On Homeless Encampments. 'They Cannot Say No To Leaving The Sidewalk.' 
With downtown homeless encampments in his district surging in recent months, San Diego City Councilmember Stephen Whitburn on Thursday announced he will propose an ordinance banning tents and makeshift structures on public property. (Warth, 3/16)

Los Angeles Times: Los Angeles Plans To Help Stabilize Skid Row Housing Trust Buildings
The degraded state of the Sanborn Hotel Apartments is apparent from the sidewalk. Holes have been smashed in the wire-reinforced windows of its front doors. And one of the latches doesn’t work, leaving the building open to intruders, who roam the halls at night turning doorknobs, trying to get into open apartments. Inside, a rancid smell permeates the hallways, begging for Lysol. The manager’s office is dark and empty, as residents say it has been since the latest occupant left last summer. In bathroom No. 2 on the second floor there is no water in the toilet but plenty of human waste. (Smith, 3/17)

KPBS: UCSD Health ER Nurses Call Out Overcrowding As Hospital Sees ‘Unprecedented’ Demand 
Emergency room nurses at UC San Diego Health’s La Jolla hospital held a rally to point out what they said are unsafe and overcrowded conditions as the health system deals with a spike in patient volume. UCSD Health nurses with the California Nurses Association made a plea for more staff and resources Thursday outside the emergency room at the Jacobs Medical Center. (Hoffman, 3/16)

The Bakersfield Californian: Robot To Transform Landscape Of Surgery In Kern 
Adventist Health Dr. John C. Lin hunched over a $2 million machine Thursday, peering into eyepieces to control the robot a foot away above an operating table at the downtown hospital. “This has completely transformed the landscape of surgery, and in particular thoracic surgery,” Lin said. (Desai, 3/16)

KQED: Alameda County’s Answer To Black Maternal Mortality Is Working
The U.S. ranks 55th in the world in maternal mortality rates. Those rates are even worse for Black women, whose maternal mortality rate is more than two times higher than any other racial or ethnic group. Patients and advocates cite lower access to quality care and racism in the medical system as main drivers of these outcomes. A program in Alameda County is providing an answer to that problem. BElovedBIRTH Black Centering, operating through the Alameda Health System, is completely rethinking what birthing looks like for Black folks. The program provides group perinatal care by, for, and with Black people — and it’s leading to better outcomes for the families involved. (Guevarra, Herdman, Esquinca and Montecillo, 3/17)

AP: Military Moves To Cut Suicides, But Defers Action On Guns 
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a number of improvements in access to mental health care on Thursday to reduce suicides in the military, but held off on endorsing more controversial recommendations to restrict gun and ammunition purchases by young troops, sending them to another panel for study. An independent committee in late February recommended that the Defense Department implement a series of gun safety measures, including waiting periods for the purchase of firearms and ammunition by service members on military property and raising the minimum age for service members to buy guns and ammunition to 25. (Copp and Baldor, 3/17)

San Francisco Chronicle: ‘The Other Victim Is The Truth’: A Navy Veteran’s Family Says New Evidence Shows He Suffocated Under Police Officers’ Weight
Angelo Quinto’s family is asking a Contra Costa County court to change the cause and manner of death finding that the Navy veteran died of “excited delirium,” a highly disputed diagnosis often used to justify deaths in police custody. ... If Quinto’s family is successful, his death would go from being officially considered an accident to a homicide. .. The diagnosis — roughly defined as sudden, aggressive and paranoid behavior leading to cardiac arrest — isn’t supported by the American Medical Association, which says it’s been used as “justification for excessive police force, disproportionately cited in cases where Black men die in law enforcement custody.” (Sharpe, 3/16)

NBC News: Sanofi Announces Insulin Price Cap Of $35 Per Month Out-Of-Pocket
President Joe Biden praised the move in a statement on Thursday. "As of this afternoon, all three of the leading insulin producers in America have agreed to substantially reduce their prices, following my calls to expand my $35 cap for seniors to all Americans," Biden said. (Lovelace Jr., 3/16)

CIDRAP: Shortages Of 4 Drugs May Complicate Cancer Care
Amid shortages of three generic drugs widely used to treat common cancers in both adults and children, hospital officials worry that they may have to treat patients with less-effective medications or lower-than-recommended doses, Endpoints News reports. Injectable methotrexate, cisplatin, and fluorouracil are all in shortage, according to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP). Methotrexate comes in both oral and injectable forms, while the other two drugs are available only as injectables. (Van Beusekom, 3/16)

CBS News: Drug Used To Treat Advanced Prostate Cancer In Short Supply, Novartis Says
Pluvicto, a drug used to treat advanced prostate cancer, is in short supply, the Food and Drug Administration reported last week. Novartis, the pharmaceutical company that manufactures Pluvicto, outlined the causes behind the supply issues in a letter posted by the FDA last month. (Howard, 3/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: COVID Vaccine Hesitancy Has Lead To A Comeback Of Preventable Diseases
Vaccine hesitancy has long been a problem in the United States, particularly in California. Before the COVID pandemic, measles outbreaks among the unvaccinated were all too familiar in this state, which had one in 2015 linked to a visitor to Disneyland. In a little over a month, there were 125 cases of measles in seven states as well as Mexico and Canada — with 110 of them California residents. The vast majority of those who got sick, 88%, were unvaccinated or had unknown or undocumented vaccination status. (Cynthia Leifer and Pallavi Pusapati, 3/11)

Orange County Register: California Finally Ended Its COVID-19 Emergency Order But Didn’t Make Enough Telehealth Changes Permanent
Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom officially ended California’s COVID-19 “State of Emergency.” While ending that emergency order was long overdue, the state has failed to permanently change many of the laws and regulations that were waived or altered during the COVID-19 pandemic to help temporarily allow patients to access needed health care remotely. In the future, telehealth could help alleviate California’s growing shortage of primary care providers and ensure that all residents have access to the health care they need, regardless of where they live. Unfortunately, California’s antiquated licensing rules are preventing the state from reaping the full benefits of this burgeoning technology. (Vittorio Nastasi, 3/14)

Los Angeles Times: How Abortion Laws Are Hindering Wanted Pregnancies
Over the New Year’s holiday, my husband and I received the surprise of our lives: a positive pregnancy test. The pregnancy was unplanned, but very welcome. Getting pregnant with our first two children had been somewhat of a grand undertaking, so the idea that I could just get pregnant was novel to us. Two positive blood tests at my OB-GYN’s office confirmed the pregnancy was progressing as expected. For the entire month of January, my husband and I smiled more than ever before as we marveled at our surprise, miracle baby. But a few weeks later, the first ultrasound erased those smiles. The baby was measuring behind and had no heartbeat. Our miracle baby had died. (Jennifer Shinall, 3/16)

CalMatters: California Women Of Color Need Universal Health Care
Addressing racial and economic inequality in California requires policies that improve the material circumstances of those groups in our society who face the greatest hardship. One such group is women of color, and one such policy would be the introduction of universal health care coverage. (Indira D'Souza, 3/15)

San Francisco Chronicle: To Make More Doctors, The U.S. Needs More Residency Spots
On Friday, nearly 40,000 soon-to-be medical school graduates will learn which hospital-based residency program they will be joining as part of the required rite of passage toward becoming a fully licensed independent doctor. With an aging physician community and rising reports of physician burnout, the country needs these newly minted doctors now more than ever. (Jason Gomez, 3/17)

Fresno Bee: New Doctors Are Ready To Learn Their Residences In California
This marks an important week for the future of access to health care in the San Joaquin Valley. Hundreds of California’s graduating medical students are eagerly waiting to hear where they will pursue the next step in their medical education — a residency that can last anywhere from three to seven years. (Lupe Alonzo-Diaz, 3/13)

Orange County Register: California Housing Crisis Unchanged By Political Efforts – So Far
In 2017, while running for governor, Gavin Newsom pledged in a social media post that if elected “I will lead the effort to develop the 3.5 million new housing units we need by 2025 because our solutions must be as bold as the problem is big.” (Dan Walters, 3/16)