KTLA and AP: New U.S. Travel Restrictions Beginning Monday
Beginning Monday, travelers heading to the U.S. will be required to show evidence of a negative test for the virus within one day of boarding their flight instead of three days prior. Also, Biden will extend the federal rule requiring passengers on planes, trains and buses to wear face masks through March 18. It was scheduled to expire in mid-January. The Biden administration’s moves come after the White House announced a ban on travel to the U.S. by foreign nationals who have been to South Africa or seven other African countries within the previous 14 days. (Telles, Abovia and Kang, 12/6)

CNN: New US Travel Rules For Omicron: What You Need To Know 
Just when we thought US travel rules were starting to stabilize, along comes Omicron. The dominoes fell quickly after South African health authorities informed the world of their discovery of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus in late November. The Biden administration rolled out controversial travel bans on arrivals from eight nations in southern Africa. Travelers found themselves unexpectedly stranded. And now US officials are tightening travel regulations again. Things are changing by the day and even by the hour, but here are some of the questions people have about US travel rules -- and answers we have as of December 5. (Hunter and Brown, 12/5)

Politico: Fauci: U.S. Reviewing Its South African Travel Ban And Hopes To Lift It Soon
President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, said Sunday that the U.S. is reviewing its travel ban on South Africa and other African countries daily and hopes to lift it “within a reasonable amount of time” even as the Omicron variant spreads through the U.S. The White House announced the travel ban over a week ago as the new Covid-19 variant rattled South Africa. Days later, the U.S. first detected a case of the Omicron variant in California. (Sheehey, 12/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: Omicron Variant In California: Fauci Says Early Reports About New Virus Strain Are Hopeful
Bay Area scientists are rushing to study local omicron virus samples for health clues. With the variant’s arrival, Bay Area health officials urge COVID-19 vaccine boosters for all, but many sites are booked up. The arrival of the omicron variant has many people wondering whether it’s time to upgrade their face coverings — here’s what you need to know. (Buchmann and Beamish, 12/06)

The Washington Post: Omicron Coronavirus Variant Possibly More Infectious Due To Sharing Genetic Code With Common Cold, Study Says 
The omicron variant is likely to have picked up genetic material from another virus that causes the common cold in humans, according to a new preliminary study, prompting one of its authors to suggest omicron could have greater transmissibility but lower virulence than other variants of the coronavirus. Researchers from Nference, a Cambridge, Mass.-based firm that analyzes biomedical information, sequenced omicron and found a snippet of genetic code that is also present in a virus that can bring about a cold. They say this particular mutation could have occurred in a host simultaneously infected by SARS-CoV-2, also known as the novel coronavirus, and the HCoV-229E coronavirus, which can cause the common cold. The shared genetic code with HCoV-229E has not been detected in other novel coronavirus variants, the scientists said. (Cheng, 12/4)

Fox News: Omicron Infects 2 Fully Vaccinated Individuals In Separate Hotel Rooms, Report Says
While health officials continue to study the COVID-19 variant called Omicron, researchers in Hong Kong said the mutation infected two fully vaccinated people staying across the hall from each other inside a quarantine hotel in the city, according to a report. Researchers from the University of Hong Kong published a report that said these individuals never exited their rooms and must have come down with the virus through airborne transmission when they opened their doors for food or COVID-19 tests, Bloomberg reported. The study highlighted the "potential concern" about its transmissibility, the researchers wrote, according to the report. (DeMarche, 12/6)

Reuters: S. African Official Says Children Sick With COVID-19 Have Mild Infections 
Higher hospital admissions among children during a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections in South Africa that has been driven by the Omicron coronavirus variant should not prompt panic as infections have been mild, a health official said on Saturday. A large number of infants admitted with COVID-19 last month in Tshwane, the metropolitan area that includes the capital Pretoria, raised concerns that the newly identified Omicron could pose greater risks for young children than other variants. (Winning, 12/4)

Stat: Early South Africa Data Hints Omicron May Cause Less Severe Covid, But More Research Needed
As the world waits for studies that give a clear picture of the Omicron variant, early clinical data emerging from South Africa hint at a virus that may cause less severe cases of Covid-19. The South African Medical Research Council posted a report Saturday of the early experiences at several hospitals in Gauteng Province, where Omicron was first spotted in the country. Strikingly, most hospitalized patients who tested positive for Covid did not need supplemental oxygen. Few developed Covid pneumonia, few required high-level care, and fewer still were admitted to intensive care. (Branswell, 12/4)

Slate: Omicron Seems To Spread Quickly. But It Hasn’t Caused Any Deaths.
Omicron continues to spread across the United States, and around the world, as scientists try to pin down how fast it spreads and how much of a threat it poses compared to other strains of the virus . As of Saturday morning, omicron cases had been reported in 12 U.S. states, pretty much all of which were among people who had traveled to South Africa recently. None of the cases so far in the U.S. have resulted in serious illness; and the World Health Organization has said that no omicron cases, which have been detected in at least 38 countries, have resulted in death. WHO officials note that it will take weeks to know how infectious omicron really is and how effective the current crop of vaccines is against the new variant. Experts emphasize that vaccines will provide some protection against the variant, especially against the worse outcomes of infection, like hospitalization and death. “There’s no reason to suppose that they won’t,” Michael Ryan, head of emergencies at the WHO said. That said, preliminary data appears to suggest omicron is able to cause reinfection at a higher rate compared to previous variants, which is of particular concern to countries where vaccination rates are low. (Politi, 12/4)

Axios: Prior Coronavirus Infections May Not Protect Well Against The Omicron Variant 
New data from South Africa suggests the Omicron variant spreads more than twice as quickly as the Delta variant, and that immunity from prior infection doesn't appear to protect a person very well against Omicron variant. The findings are extremely preliminary, and there are still many open questions about how well vaccines work against the variant. But these initial breadcrumbs of data are helping the world begin to understand what it's up against. (Owens, 12/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area Scientists Rush To Study Local Omicron Virus Samples For Health Clues
Finding the omicron coronavirus variant in San Francisco on Wednesday may have caused concern among the general public, but to the Bay Area scientists eager to study the highly mutated virus and understand the threat it may pose, having a sample in their backyard was a stroke of luck. In the mad global dash to study omicron, getting copies of the variant to analyze in U.S. labs has been a challenge. Some Bay Area scientists said they’ve been on waiting lists for at least a week — since Thanksgiving, when the variant was first reported out of South Africa. (Allday, 12/4)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego Scientists Return To War Footing As Omicron Variant Poses New Threat
Dr. Davey Smith was munching on popcorn, trying to enjoy a quiet lunch break two days after Thanksgiving, when an email popped open on his iPad with news that filled him with a deep, dark dread. The chief of infectious diseases at UC San Diego was learning from colleagues in South Africa that Omicron, the new strain of COVID-19 that had been discovered there, might be a real troublemaker. (Robbins, 12/4)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego's Hospital Leaders Say They're Ready For Omicron Variant 
With cases confirmed in at least 12 states midway through the weekend, the Omicron variant’s presence is sure to be confirmed in San Diego County soon. While awaiting the inevitable entrance of the latest mutation of the novel coronavirus, its predecessor Delta continues to show its ability to spread, with the largest single-day case total seen since early September detected Thursday, seven days after Thanksgiving. (Sisson, 12/5)

CNBC: Covid Cases On The Rise Again, But It's Still Delta, Not Omicron, Driving The Surge
Even as more and more states report their first cases of the omicron variant, it’s still the super contagious delta variant that’s driving nearly all new Covid-19 cases in the United States. What’s more, it appears cases are once again rising after Thanksgiving. Dr. Michael Saag, an associate dean for global health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has seen a “notable increase” of Covid patients in need of monoclonal antibody treatments over the past 24 hours. (Edwards, 12/4)

Newsweek: Rochelle Walensky Warns That Omicron Cases 'Likely To Rise' As U.S. Still Battles Delta
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said Sunday that Omicron coronavirus cases are "likely to rise" as the U.S. is still working to combat a surge of infections from the Delta variant. Walensky told ABC's This Week that the CDC is still working to determine information about Omicron, but maintained that a majority of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. continue to come from the Delta variant of the virus. "We have about 90 to 100,000 cases a day right now in the United States, and 99.9 percent of them are the Delta variant. We have an issue right now with Delta. And we have so many things we can do about Delta, including getting vaccinated and getting boosted," Walenksy said Sunday. (Colarossi, 12/5)

Bay Area News Group: 'Here We Go Again': Bay Area Residents Reel From Omicron Variant Threat
Ever since South African scientists first alerted the world to the new variant in Nov. 24 — with a sharp spike in cases that set off alarm bells around the world — omicron has quickly been identified in more than 35 countries and at least 12 states. On Wednesday, California scientists reported the nation’s first infection in San Francisco; the next day, cases were reported in New York, Minnesota, Colorado and Hawaii. And then, on Friday, Alameda County Health Department officials said that genomic sequencing had identified five new cases of the variant among a cluster of 12 infections among county residents who attended a Wisconsin wedding. All were vaccinated and have shown only mild symptoms, the agency said. (Kelliher and Mukherjee, 12/05)

CapRadio: With Omicron Looming Over The Holidays, Here's How To Stay Safe 
Scientists say it's still too soon to know whether the omicron variant causes more or less severe disease, though early evidence does suggest it's better at evading the immune system than previous strains. And, omicron has raised several red flags that suggest it could be the most transmissible variant yet. All this has many people wondering whether it's time to change our behavior for safety's sake. (Godoy, 12/05)

San Francisco Chronicle: Face Masks And Omicron: Should You Upgrade From Cloth To N95s? Double Mask?
Although Bay Area counties so far have not signaled any changes in their mask policies, the arrival of the omicron variant has many people wondering whether it’s time to double down on their masking habits — and upgrade their face coverings. Local experts say that regardless of omicron, the coming weeks are a good time to buy better masks and practice the same public health protocols from last year’s holiday surge. While little data is yet available on whether the newest variant is more infectious than delta, experts said upgrading your mask strategy is one way to reduce the risk of catching any version of the virus. (Wu, 12/05)

CBS News: Study Shows Men Spread COVID Particles More Than Other Populations 
A study focused on tracking the spread of COVID-19 in performing arts settings has also unveiled the population of humans who spread the most COVID-19 particles. Researchers at Colorado State University learned that men more frequently spread the coronavirus particles than women or children. The study, which lasted months, was originally developed in an effort to see what those in the performing arts can do to facilitate a safe return to the stage following the pandemic. The performing arts, from the educational level all the way to Broadway performances, were some of the most drastically impacted fields. (12/6)

The Bakersfield Californian: Post-COVID Patients Report Symptoms Long After Recovery 
Kern County has waged a war on COVID-19 for more than a year and a half. For many, a coronavirus diagnosis did not lead to a hospitalization or deadly consequences. But some residents report the virus’s lingering effects long after they are healed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said these post-COVID conditions — also known as long-haul COVID — can affect the body in a variety of ways. An individual typically displays symptoms for four weeks or more to qualify, according to the CDC. (Desai, 12/4)

Axios: Two Years Of COVID-19: How The Virus Changed The World 
Two years ago Wednesday, the first case of a mysterious new respiratory disease was discovered in Wuhan, China. Now, the Omicron variant has deepened concerns about just how much longer the coronavirus pandemic will last. More than 5 million people have died since that first case. Most people on earth have lived through some form of lockdown. 54% of the global population has had at least one vaccination, though the shots have been distributed unevenly. We know much more about the disease and how to treat it, but the end still isn't in sight. (Lawler, 12/5)

NPR: Pro-Trump Counties Now Have Far Higher COVID Death Rates
Since May 2021, people living in counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump during the last presidential election have been nearly three times as likely to die from COVID-19 as those who live in areas that went for now-President Biden. That's according to a new analysis by NPR that examines how political polarization and misinformation are driving a significant share of the deaths in the pandemic. NPR looked at deaths per 100,000 people in roughly 3,000 counties across the U.S. from May 2021, the point at which vaccinations widely became available. People living in counties that went 60% or higher for Trump in November 2020 had 2.7 times the death rates of those that went for Biden. Counties with an even higher share of the vote for Trump saw higher COVID-19 mortality rates. (Wood and Brumfiel, 12/5)

Los Angeles Times: Terrified Of COVID, She Works At Home. He Goes To The Office. What's A Family To Do? 
He’s a certified drug and alcohol counselor who opened a sober living house at the peak of last winter’s deadly COVID-19 surge and is on-site at least six days a week. She works for a production company, colonized their kitchen table for her two outsize computer monitors and has stayed largely locked up in their 600-square-foot Mar Vista apartment, where they now dine on TV trays. (La Ganga, 12/05)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Plans To Fast-Track Revamped Covid-19 Vaccines 
The Biden administration is preparing to fast-track authorization of revamped Covid-19 vaccines to combat Omicron as a study from South Africa suggests the fast-spreading variant might cause less severe illness than its predecessors. Federal regulators on Sunday said cases have been identified in 16 states and that the Food and Drug Administration is already in conversations about streamlining authorization for revamped vaccines. Agency officials have met with vaccine makers and are working to set guidelines for the type of data that will be needed to swiftly evaluate the safety and efficacy of changes to current vaccines. (Douglas and Armour, 12/5)

USA Today: Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Works Well As Mix-And-Match Booster, Study Finds
A new study found that the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine serves as an effective booster on top of full vaccination from the Pfizer vaccine. A J&J booster, administered six months after two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, increased antibody and T-cell responses, according to the study, demonstrating potential benefits of mix-and-match boosters. “There is early evidence to suggest that a mix-and-match boosting approach may provide individuals with different immune responses against COVID-19 than a homologous boosting approach,” said Dan Barouch, director of the center for virology and vaccine research at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. (Tebor and Bacon, 12/6)

CIDRAP: COVID Vaccine Affords Cancer Patients Good Protection Against Infection
A US Veterans Affairs (VA) study finds that the COVID-19 vaccine offered good protection against infection starting 2 weeks after the second dose in cancer patients, who are at increased risk for severe COVID-19.The retrospective nationwide study, published yesterday in JAMA Oncology, involved 29,152 vaccinated patients who received systemic cancer therapy at VA sites from Aug 15, 2010, to May 4, 2021. (12/3)

Los Angeles Times: TikTok Conspiracies, Infertility Myths And Other Disinformation Hinder Central Valley COVID Fight
As Marissa Zendejas waited to get her first COVID-19 vaccination shot at the headquarters of the California Farmworker Foundation, the 27-year-old rattled off the tall tales she had heard from people she knows and the internet about why she shouldn’t. “Like, your life span gets short if you’re vaccinated,” Zendejas said. “You only have this amount of time of life left. Or you’ll get sterilized and won’t have kids no more.” She laughed sheepishly and shook her head. “There are a lot of things circulating, and people get scared.” (Vega, 12/5)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Dozens Of Employees Fired For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine File Lawsuit Against Rady Children's Hospital 
More than three dozen nurses and other employees at Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego have sued the medical center alleging they were wrongfully fired for refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19.The plaintiffs, who filed their case in San Diego Superior Court late last month, accused Rady Children’s Hospital of violating their religious freedoms, among other allegations, by issuing blanket terminations rather than judiciously considering applications for religious exemptions. (McDonald, 12/4)

Bay Area News Group: Contra Costa Didn't Issue COVID Vaccine Fines In November
Despite receiving 80 complaints last month that restaurants weren’t checking indoor diners for proof that they’re vaccinated against COVID-19, Contra Costa County didn’t fine or even officially warn the eateries that were breaking its rules, health officials have acknowledged. Instead of meting out punishment, Contra Costa Health Services told this news organization in a statement it is “focusing on education to gain compliance” from restaurants that don’t ask to see vaccination cards or evidence of a negative COVID-19 test within three days. (Mukherjee, 12/05)

Marin Independent Journal: Marin County Parents Sent COVID-Infected Kids To School
Eight children contracted COVID-19 and 75 were quarantined after a family knowingly sent their infected child to a Marin County school after they were told to keep their children home, officials said Friday. The parents, who have not been identified, were notified the week of Nov. 8 by the Marin County Health and Human Services Department that one of their two children had tested positive, said Brett Geithman, superintendent of the Larkspur-Corte Madera School District. Both the siblings are students at Neil Cummins Elementary School in Corte Madera. (12/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: Marin School Sees COVID-19 Outbreak After Parents Knowingly Sent Sick Child To Class
Corte Madera school officials have vowed to take “corrective action” after the parents of an elementary school student knowingly sent the child and a sibling to class despite the child’s having tested positive for COVID-19, spurring a spate of other infections. As of Friday, school officials said eight children at Neil Cummins Elementary School had contracted the virus and 75 had been quarantined since the family, which has not been identified, allowed its two kids to attend school even after being notified by public health officials the week of Nov. 8 that one of the children was infected. The sibling later tested positive as well, the AP reported. (Hepler, 12/4)

Los Angeles Times: Students With Disabilities Struggle In COVID Remote Programs 
Maya Flores stared at her laptop screen, watching as her teacher guided classmates on how to complete online assignments. But there was a big problem. Maya, 11, is deaf. Her teacher doesn’t know American Sign Language. For more than two months Maya waited for a sign language interpreter to help her because she could not understand how to participate in the Los Angeles school district’s online independent study program. She began falling asleep during school hours. Eventually, she stopped logging in. (Gomez, 12/6)

CalMatters: California Opioids: Overdose Deaths Plague State
A jaw-dropping report released Wednesday by the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy found that nearly 1,500 people, the vast majority believed to be homeless, died on the streets of Los Angeles during the pandemic — 40% because of a drug or alcohol overdose. The staggering number is almost certainly an undercount, experts say. Also Wednesday, the California Peace Coalition — a group of parents whose kids are addicted to or have died from fentanyl or other illicit drugs — held a die-in protest in the Tenderloin, calling on the state and San Francisco to shut down open-air drug markets, prosecute dealers, and place their kids in mandatory treatment. And they slammed San Francisco leaders for their response to a drug epidemic that killed 712 city residents in 2020 — nearly triple the amount of people who lost their lives to COVID-19. (Hoeven, 12/03)

Modesto Bee: Modesto Man Charged With Murder In Fentanyl Overdose Death 
A Modesto man has been charged with murder for allegedly selling a young man a lethal dose of fentanyl in May. Anthony Taft Lee, 36, has been in custody since June on charges related to fentanyl sales but was rebooked on Friday in connection with the overdose death of 21-year-old Connor Hoffman. (Tracy, 12/05)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego Biotech Hopeful For A Diabetes ‘Functional Cure’ 
A century ago, type 1 diabetes was a death sentence. But San Diego biotech ViaCyte says two studies published this week show the company is getting closer to what it calls a “functional cure” for the disease. The pair of studies, published Thursday, are based on an early-stage clinical trial in which the company implanted small devices beneath the skin of type 1 diabetics. These devices were loaded with pancreatic cells, which researchers showed could grow into cell types that naturally keep your blood sugar from dipping too low or suddenly spiking. (Wosen, 12/3)

The Washington Post: Over Half Of Young Adults Are Obese Or Overweight, Study Says
More than half of America’s youngest adults — 56 percent of those ages 18 to 25 — are overweight or obese, according to Johns Hopkins research, published in JAMA. Using data from a nationally representative sample of 8,015 people in that age bracket, the researchers compared average weights over the past four decades. In that time, that population’s average body mass index (BMI), a measure of body fat based on a person’s height and weight, had increased by 4.6 points — from 23.1 (considered normal weight) to 27.7 (considered overweight). That shifted the number of overweight young adults from about 18 percent in the late 1970s to nearly 24 percent by 2018. (Searing, 12/5)

Fox News: Irritable Bowel Syndrome May Not Be All In Your Head
Irritable bowel syndrome, otherwise known as IBS, may be the result of an abdominal infection that triggers an allergic response, according to The New England Journal of Medicine. The journal noted gastrointestinal infections often cause abdominal pain after eating in both children and adults, with millions diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome after a negative workup, frustrating patients because of the very few effective treatments that are available. "Moreover, clinicians often have the impression that the disease is all in the head," added Dr. Marc E. Rothenberg, the director of the division of allergy and immunology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. (Sudhakar, 12/5)

Orange County Register: Council On Aging Programs Focus On Helping Older People
No senior should be forgotten. That’s the mantra at the Council on Aging – Southern California, an Orange County-based nonprofit whose programs focus on older and disabled adults around the region. Much of what the organization does depends on volunteers – whether it’s those who serve in the Ombudsman Program that sends advocates into long-term care facilities to check on the welfare of residents, the unbiased counselors who annually help Medicare beneficiaries sort through byzantine healthcare options, the watchdogs who look out for financial abuse of the elderly, or other services. (Walker, 12/05)

Los Angeles Times: How L.A.'s Mayoral Candidates Would Tackle Homelessness 
Facing an enormous public outcry to solve homelessness in Los Angeles, nearly all of the leading candidates for mayor in 2022 agree on at least one thing: The problem of thousands of people sleeping in tents and RVs across the city is a crisis deserving of a disaster-level response. In general, they concur with most of the voters in a poll released last week that thousands of new interim housing beds are needed right away. They said the city also needs to continue building permanent housing units, with roughly 40,000 homeless people in L.A., 70% of whom are unsheltered. And they largely agreed that the county’s mental health system needs to work more effectively and be expanded. Where all this new interim housing would go and how it would be funded isn’t exactly clear. (Oreskes and Wick, 12/5)

CalMatters: California Homeless: Is Right To Housing A Solution?
The law says that every student is entitled to a free public education. What if it said the same about housing? That’s what Darrell Steinberg, the mayor of Sacramento, believes to be the key to addressing California’s homelessness. He recently proposed an ordinance that would require the city to provide at least two housing or shelter options to people living on the streets. (Tobias, 12/03)

KQED: Decades After 'Cultural Genocide,' Residents Of A Bulldozed Community Get Apology From Hayward
The descendants of a once vibrant, tight-knit community in the East Bay that was wiped off the map to make way for an industrial park in the early 1960s received some positive news recently, when the city of Hayward issued a formal apology on Nov. 16 for its past racist policies and the role it played in demolishing Russell City. Once home to around 1,400 predominately Black and Latino residents in an unincorporated 12-block area of Hayward, Russell City was a cultural hub for blues music, where legends like Ray Charles and Etta James performed in clubs when they toured on the West Coast. The community saw much of its growth during and after World War II, in part because of African Americans migrating from southern states to work in shipyards and factories. (Whitney, 12/05)

Bay Area News Group: Elizabeth Holmes Trial: Stunning Testimony, But What Comes Next?
For Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, the stakes could hardly be higher: a new mother at 37, in a relationship with an MIT-educated hotel heir, she could find herself locked away for years in a prison cell if the jury in her trial decides she committed criminal fraud. Holmes, whose spectacular startup crash has led to one of the most closely-watched trials in Silicon Valley history, is accused of swindling investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars and defrauding patients with false claims that her defunct Palo Alto company’s purportedly revolutionary blood-testing machines could conduct a full range of tests using a few drops of blood from a finger stick. (Baron, 12/05)