CapRadio: Health Officials Urge Residents To Mask, Get Vaccinated As Sacramento-Area Respiratory Virus Rates Spike
California — and the Sacramento region — continues to see an increase in respiratory illnesses like COVID-19, flu and RSV. State and local health officials are urging residents to mask in indoor spaces and get vaccinated before winter holiday celebrations begin. A Thursday update from the California Department of Public Health shows statewide COVID-19 rates have spiked to 19.4% per 100,000 residents, with an average of over 7,800 new cases recorded per day. (Morgan and Wolffe, 12/9)

San Francisco Chronicle: One Bay Area County Moves Into ‘High’ COVID Tier, Triggering New Mask Guidelines
COVID-19 community levels continue to rise across the U.S., with 14% of Americans now living in a region classified in the “high” tier Friday, based on hospitalization and case metrics used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the Bay Area, Santa Clara County became the first in the region to slip back into the “high” tier, for which the CDC recommends people wear a high-quality mask or respirator in public spaces and counsels those who are high-risk to consider avoiding nonessential indoor public activities. (Vaziri, 12/10)

KQED: Santa Clara County Moves Into High COVID Tier After Sewer System Tests
Santa Clara County officials are warning that the upcoming holiday season is expected to coincide with a spike in COVID-19, nearly as severe as the Omicron surge last year. The county moved into the high-risk designation over the weekend, prompting the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend people wear high-quality masks in public spaces. Dr. Sara Cody, the county’s health officer, says levels of the virus in San Jose’s sewer system — which draws from three quarters of the county’s population — are already at about 84% of the Omicron peak. (Pelit and Nguyen, 12/9)

San Francisco Chronicle: COVID Cases Rise In SF And Los Angeles; Here’s How They Compare
As COVID-19 cases rise across the state, how does the situation in the Bay Area compare to that of Los Angeles? Case rates in San Francisco, Los Angeles County and the wider Bay Area are all on the rise, but, so far, L.A. is faring worse. As of Dec. 6, the giant southern California jurisdiction reported a seven-day average rate of 34 new cases per 100,000 people, while San Francisco’s came in lower at just under 27 and the Bay Area’s rang in at 27.4. (Echeverria, 12/9)

VC Star: Coronavirus Surge Hits Ventura County; Influenza A Spreads Too
COVID-19 transmission and hospitalizations are rising across Ventura County for the third consecutive winter, pushed by highly contagious variants and holiday gatherings, the county health officer said Friday. (Kisken, 12/10)

Los Angeles Times: Surge In Flu, Other Illnesses Sends Demand For Kids' Medicine Soaring
As flu season approached, Antonieta Garcia knew it was time to replenish her supply of cough suppressants and fever reducers. But this year, she often walks into a store and finds only empty shelves. The 44-year-old East Los Angeles mother of two tries to keep a fully stocked medicine cabinet because her 2-year-old is immunocompromised and her 12-year-old has asthma. One cold or flu could mean a trip to an ER, and with a surge in respiratory illnesses driving up demand for kids’ medicine, Garcia said she feels like she’s fighting a war on all fronts. (Hernandez, 12/9)

Los Angeles Times: How To Avoid COVID-19 And The Flu During The Holiday Season 
A one-two punch of COVID-19 and the flu is striking California, sickening residents — some so severely they’ve had to go to the hospital — interrupting daily life and threatening to upend holiday plans. But while both diseases are spreading widely, officials stress that Californians aren’t powerless. There are steps everyone can take to better protect themselves and those around them. (Lin II and Money, 12/11)

San Francisco Chronicle: New COVID Subvariants Are ‘The Most Immune Evasive Yet’
More than previous versions of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the emerging BQ.1, BQ.1.1 and XBB subvariants — descendants of the dominant omicron strain — are capable of getting around the immunity gained from vaccination or prior infection, studies warn. Their wily evasiveness makes approved vaccines less effective at preventing infection and jeopardizes treatments meant to protect immunocompromised individuals, experts said, though noting that the latest booster is still better than no booster at all. (Hao, 12/10)

Black Voice News: Long Haul COVID-19: Learning To Be Your Own Advocate
“One of the most important questions your doctor should ask you is ‘tell me your story,’” Dr. NanaEfua Afoh-Manin said as she addressed the audience. A little more than a dozen people sat listening to Dr. Afoh-Manin’s presentation in the fellowship hall at Ecclesia Christian Fellowship in San Bernardino, CA, on Nov. 30. This town hall marked the fourth and final event in a series focused on Long Haul COVID in Black communities hosted by the Center for Healthy Communities (CHC) at the University of California, Riverside. (Reeves, 12/4)

CNBC: Children As Young As 6 Months Old Are Now Eligible For Omicron Covid Vaccines
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday signed off on omicron vaccines for children as young as 6 months old, giving pharmacies and physicians the green light to start administering the shots. Children ages 6 months through 5 years old who received the two-dose Moderna primary series can now get an omicron booster two months after their second dose. Meanwhile, kids ages 6 months through 4 years old who are completing their Pfizer primary series will received the omicron shot as their third dose. (Kimball, 12/9)

Stat: Coming Soon: Permanent Covid Safety Rules For Health Care Workers
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has been working since last year on rules governing masks and vaccination requirements in hospitals. After putting out proposed standards and then gathering hundreds of comments from hospitals, clinicians, unions, and others, it sent a final version of the regulation to the White House budget office for review last week. (Bannow, 12/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F.’s 911 Dispatch Struggling Amid Staff Shortage: ‘We Are Bleeding’
The 911 call came in the day before Thanksgiving. A person had been found in a bathroom, unconscious — maybe dead. It looked like a drug overdose, and 911 dispatcher Valerie Tucker was trying to figure out how to save the person’s life, if it wasn’t too late. (Moench, 12/9)

Modern Healthcare: Catholic Providers Can Deny Trans Care Over Religious Objections: Court
The case is the latest in a series of legal battles determining whether gender-affirming care is protected under the Affordable Care Act's nondiscrimination regulations. Protections based on gender identity and sexual orientation were initially enshrined into law during President Barack Obama's administration but were scrapped during Donald Trump's presidency. (Hartnett, 12/9)

San Francisco Chronicle: One Bay Area City Tried To Figure Out The True Cost Of Homelessness. Here’s What It Found
What are the costs of homelessness for Bay Area cities? In addition to the tragic human toll of the crisis, large cities in the region are pouring millions of dollars into housing, shelter, food security, mental health and addiction services. But there are costs to cities that go beyond direct services to the thousands of unhoused people in the region. (Ravani, 12/10)

The Guardian: Skid Row’s Toilet Crisis: How A Basic Necessity Became A Political Battle 
The sun is rising over Skid Row as a crane slowly lifts a shiny, two-unit toilet from the back of a truck and on to the sidewalk. The new bathroom – rectangular and off-white with a ventilated roof – is replacing another unit that has stood on this corner for over 15 years. The upgrade is a hopeful moment. But for the more than 4,400 unhoused people who call Skid Row home, finding a bathroom remains a daily trial. (Tu, 12/12)

CalMatters: California Fentanyl: The Youth Overdose Crisis
Expect a lot of debate over how California should respond to the state’s mounting fentanyl epidemic when state lawmakers return to Sacramento early next year. Bills dealing with the super-powerful synthetic opioid are already piling up, many of them focused on youth in the wake of a stunning analysis that found fentanyl was responsible for 1 in 5 deaths among 15- to 24-year-old Californians in 2021. (Hoeven, 12/9)

Los Angeles Times: Why Legal Weed Is Failing In This California County
Xong Vang and Chia Xiong arrived in Douglas City, a town of the Gold Rush era, hoping to make good from the next big California boom. After the state legalized cannabis in 2016, they joined a wave of newcomers settling in this mountainous, lushly forested Northern California region known to produce some of the world’s best weed. They believed that here in remote Trinity County, they could find their own “Green Rush,” growing pot for what was promised to be a profitable legal market. (Elmahrek, Lopez and Vives, 12/9)

KQED: For Rural Californians, Abortion Is Legal. But It's Not Always Accessible
The town of Bishop lies at the intersection of two highways, Route 395 and Route 6, that in their own ways serve as a reminder of how isolated this community is. Route 395 runs north to south, mirroring the mountainous skyline that separates the town from the rest of the state. Route 6 begins here in Bishop; a sign on the outskirts of town reads “Provincetown, Massachusetts: 3,198 miles.” This is where Megan (whose real name KQED is withholding to protect her medical privacy) has made her home for the last decade, after moving from the Bay Area. (Miller, 12/10)

American Homefront Project: Military Suicides Have Become Slightly Less Common, But Are Still A 'Massive Problem'
Though military suicide has been a problem for decades, critics say the Pentagon hasn’t come to terms with the fact that anyone can potentially be at risk. (Walsh, 12/9)

Capital & Main: Why Being A Farmworker Is A Health Risk
In the summer of 2008 Andres Cruz got a call from a crew of Triqui workers picking peas near Greenfield, a farmworker town in California’s Salinas Valley. They told him they were on strike, and because he’s a leader in their community, they asked him for help. Twenty-five pickers had been fired, they said. “They told me the labor contractor fired them because they were working on a piece rate and weren’t picking fast enough,” recalls Cruz, who himself works as a broccoli cutter. Pickers have to use their thumbnails to cut the pod from the vine. “Their nails were tearing off because of this. They tried to wrap up their hands and keep working, but they couldn’t work as fast, and the foreman wouldn’t listen to them.” (Bacon, 12/9)

Capital & Main: In Rural California, Farmworkers Fend For Themselves For Health Care
Farm laborers work and live in a chemical soup, a source of interrelated health problems. And because their homes are in remote rural areas, getting adequate health care creates additional obstacles. (Bacon, 12/8)

Los Angeles Daily News: Senior Living: Combating Loneliness In Seniors Is Important For Health 
Loneliness is a serious issue among elderly people that can have real implications on physical and mental health. Following the isolation period during the coronavirus pandemic, the number of Americans feeling lonelier has increased. (Nguyen, 12/12)

CIDRAP: Report Describes 3 Cases Of Myocarditis Following Mpox Infections 
A new case study from France described three men who contracted mpox and then developed myocarditis a few days after initial symptom development. The study is published in Clinical Microbiology and Infection. ... The men had no history of heart problems, and all were hospitalized and subsequently recovered. Only one patient was treated with the antiviral tecovirimat (Tpoxx). (Soucheray, 12/9)