Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
Ready for Another Pandemic Malady? It’s Called ‘Decision Fatigue’
Pandemic living has come with a barrage of daily choices that have many of us complaining of a sort of brain freeze. That exhaustion is real, and it’s got a name: “decision fatigue.” (Jenny Gold, )
Health Experts Criticize Possible Kaiser Permanente Deal: The state’s proposal for a special deal with Kaiser Permanente for a no-bid contract that will allow KP to expand its Medi-Cal coverage area has triggered anger from other health insurance plans and questions from a key legislator. They say KP is getting special treatment that bypasses state procedures and allows it to cover only certain portions of the population. Read more from CalMatters. To read the original story from California Healthline and KHN, click here.
Covid Mystery Discovered In California Sewage: A mysterious lineage of the covid-19 virus – containing a large and startling collection of mutations — has appeared in California’s wastewater system, proof that the fast-moving pathogen is continuing to test new survival strategies. Oddly, the virus has been found only in sewage, not people. Read more from the Bay Area News Group.
Below, check out the roundup of California Healthline’s coverage. For today's national health news, read KHN's Morning Briefing.
More News From Across The State
NBC News:
900,000 Dead: Covid Deaths Are Surging In Low-Vaccination States
The country has recorded 100,000 deaths since Dec. 13. During that period, Tennessee, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania have the largest number of deaths when adjusted for population. Of those states, Pennsylvania is the only one to have fully vaccinated more than 60 percent of its population. "Fully vaccinated" means that at least two weeks have passed since a person has received the second dose of a two-dose vaccine or one dose of a single-dose vaccine. (Chiwaya, 2/4)
CNN:
US Reports More Than 900,000 Total Covid-19 Deaths
Experts believe the true burden of disease to be much higher. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the number of Covid-19 deaths in the US was about 32% higher than reported between February 2020 and September 2021. (McPhillips, 2/4)
The Washington Post:
Biden Marks 900,000 Covid-19 Deaths And Urges: ‘Get Vaccinated, Get Your Kids Vaccinated’
President Biden on Friday urged all Americans to get vaccinated, as he marked another “tragic milestone” in the coronavirus pandemic. “900,000 American lives have been lost to COVID-19,” he said in a late-night statement issued Friday. “They were beloved mothers and fathers, grandparents, children, brothers and sisters, neighbors, and friends. ”The death toll would have been higher without coronavirus vaccines, Biden said, estimating they had “saved more than one million American lives,” as he urged unvaccinated Americans to “get vaccinated, get your kids vaccinated, and get your booster shot if you are eligible.” (Timsit, 2/5)
Los Angeles Times:
In Rural California, The Unvaccinated And Ill Overwhelm Hospital Staff
At Desert Valley Hospital, COVID-19 patients are still streaming into the hospital that is already well over capacity. Staffing shortages have contributed to fatigue as workers take on ever more patients. It’s no mystery why this hospital in the Victor Valley is so hard hit: Only about half the population in this rural desert area of San Bernardino County is fully vaccinated, meaning they’ve received at least two doses, according to county data. (Vives, 2/6)
City News Service:
LA County Reports Another Big Drop In COVID Hospitalizations
The number of COVID-positive patients in Los Angeles County hospitals has plunged below 3,000, falling to 2,841, according to the latest state numbers released on Sunday, Feb. 6. Along with that decrease of 171 patients from the previous day, the number of COVID patients in intensive care also fell again, dropping by 17 people to 599. (2/6)
The Bakersfield Californian:
County Touts Health Programs Amid Heightened COVID Deaths Related To Unhealthy Lifestyles
Kern County is one of the least healthy places in California, and that led to deadly results during the coronavirus pandemic. A total of 78 percent of all Kern County adults are considered overweight or obese, and more Kern County residents die from diabetes than anywhere else in California. During the pandemic, more than 50 percent of all COVID-19 deaths have occurred in people with obesity, diabetes, hypertension or heart disease. (Morgen, 2/5)
NBC News:
Low-Income, Uninsured Face Hurdles To Obtain Covid Antivirals
When Regina Schearack and her 85-year-old father began to develop Covid symptoms last month, they went to get tested at a pharmacy in Midway, Georgia. After the tests came back positive, their pharmacist, Pete Nagel, said they had two options if they wanted treatment: Get a doctor to write a prescription and then return to the pharmacy for the newly authorized antiviral drugs or get four monoclonal antibody shots right away — two in the arms and two in the stomach. (McCausland, 2/6)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Experts Chart Bay Area Life After COVID — And When It Might Arrive
Coronavirus cases have plummeted across the Bay Area since the peak of the omicron surge a month ago, and health officials increasingly are talking about the next phase of the 2-year-old pandemic: specifically, what living with endemic COVID might look like. But first it would help, these officials say, to define what endemic means. Or rather, what it doesn’t mean. (Allday, 2/6)
Crain's Detroit Business:
Entrepreneurs Launch Goodbill To Target At-Home COVID Test Reimbursement, Negotiate Hospital Bills
Navigating insurers' methods for getting reimbursed for at-home COVID-19 tests can be complicated. It usually involves cutting bar codes off the box, filling out an online form, then printing that form and mailing it to the insurer. Detroit entrepreneur Ian Sefferman and colleagues in Seattle have streamlined that process with a new website called Goodbill. The site, and eventually coordinating mobile app, works by uploading your insurance card and the appropriate bar codes on the tests and automates the reimbursement process for the user. (Walsh, 2/4)
Los Angeles Times:
Private Schools Snub L.A. County Inspectors Checking COVID-19 Rules
Trinity Classical Academy in Santa Clarita was fined $500 last winter after a health inspector stopped by and reported maskless students were doing outdoor activities that “did not adequately promote physical distancing.” Nearly nine months later, when another inspector went back to check if Trinity was following COVID-19 rules, it was hit with another citation — this time for refusing access to the health inspector. (Alpert Reyes, 2/5)
Berkeleyside:
Berkeley School Board Considers Lifting Some COVID Restrictions
The number of COVID-19 cases, while still high, is beginning to decline at Berkeley schools as the omicron surge starts to recede. Last week, 171 students tested positive for coronavirus, compared with 203 the week prior and 285 the week of Jan. 9. Before the omicron surge hit, BUSD’s typical weekly case count was in the single-digits. (Markovich, 2/4)
Bay Area News Group:
Contra Costa County: Gym Vaccination Verifications Lifted
Restaurants and gyms in Contra Costa County no longer will have to verify the vaccination status or recent negative COVID-19 test results of their customers after the county reached its targeted vaccination goal, health officials said Friday. The decision to lift the requirement came as health officials announced that 80% of its residents have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and its variants. (Hurd, 2/4)
Los Angeles Times:
Inside The Requests For Religious Exemptions From COVID Vaccine
The document looked and sounded official. It was signed by the pastor of True Hope Ministry in San Clemente. It can be purchased online for $195 as part of a vaccine exemption “concierge program.” That letter, and others like it, have become go-to tools for California employees seeking exemptions from workplace vaccine mandates. They raise questions about what constitutes a deeply held religious belief, how those beliefs should be expressed and what employers can do about a request that may not be sincere. (Nelson and Sheets, 2/6)
CalMatters:
The Omicron Effect: When City Halls, State Agencies Close Their Doors
While there’s no good time for a town to be hit by a worldwide pandemic and successive waves of highly-contagious variants, Eastvale in Riverside County has been cruelly hammered at just the wrong moment. On the cusp of new commercial development, when Eastvale sought to attract business to its modest main street, omicron threw a smothering blanket over the city’s bureaucracy. In the state’s second-youngest city, encouraging growth is a high priority. That means streamlining the creaky and byzantine civic process of approving permits, scheduling inspections and issuing business licenses. (Cart, 2/6)
The Washington Post:
N95, KN95 Masks Provide Best Protection Against Covid, CDC Study Shows
Wearing any kind of mask indoors is associated with significantly better protection from the coronavirus, with high-quality N95 and KN95 masks providing the best chance of avoiding infection, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday. In indoor public settings, surgical masks reduce the chances of testing positive by 66 percent, the CDC estimated. Top-of-the-line N95 and KN95 masks, the tightfitting face coverings often worn by health-care workers, cut the odds of infection by 83 percent, the health agency said. (Bernstein and Sellers, 2/4)
USA Today:
Omicron-Specific Booster May Not Be Needed Yet
A new pre-print study suggests that an omicron-specific COVID-19 booster may not be necessary at this point in time. The study, published Friday, found that an omicron-specific version of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine and a booster of the original vaccine generated similar immune responses in monkeys. Researchers vaccinated the primates with two shots of the Moderna vaccine, then boosted them either with the original vaccine or with an omicron-specific vaccine nine months later. The omicron-specific shot "provided no advantage" over the regular shot in producing antibodies, they found. (Tebor, 2/7)
Axios:
Kids' COVID Vaccines Create A New Dilemma For FDA, CDC
Federal health regulators will soon face their next controversial vaccine decision: whether to authorize Pfizer's vaccine for children younger than 5, despite ongoing questions around dosing and effectiveness. Once again, the pandemic is forcing health officials to choose between unconventional vaccine approval methods and the human costs of abiding by more traditional — yet time-consuming — regulatory processes. (Owens, 2/7)
Politico:
Biden Inches Back Toward Michelle Obama’s School Nutrition Standards
The Biden administration today is issuing a new rule asking schools to soon start meeting nutrition standards that were strengthened at the urging of former first lady Michelle Obama — but were suspended during the pandemic as schools struggled to procure more nutritious options. The stricter nutrition standards — which cut sodium, require more whole grains and mandate more fruits and vegetables — were also partially relaxed during the Trump administration. One of former Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue’s first moves was to “Make School Meals Great Again” by loosening rules for whole grains, sodium and flavored milks. (Evich, 2/4)
AP:
School Lunch Rules Updated To Help Ease Pandemic Disruptions
Low-fat chocolate milk instead of only non-fat. Fewer whole-grain offerings. Less severe salt limits. The Biden administration issued transitional standards for school lunches Friday that are meant to ease the path for cafeterias to get back on a more healthful course as they recover from pandemic and supply chain disruptions. Schools have struggled to meet the government’s nutrition benchmarks through the pandemic but have not been punished for falling short. The “bridge” rule announced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture extends emergency flexibilities for the next two school years as schools gradually transition back to normal. (Thompson, 2/4)
The Washington Post:
School Lunch Menus To Get Shakeup With New USDA Rule
The Biden administration will make schools and child-care providers offer low-fat or nonfat unflavored milks, and limit the fat in sweet flavored milks, among other things. At least 80 percent of the grains served in school lunch and breakfast each week must be considered rich in whole grains, under the new policies. And while the weekly sodium limit for school lunch and breakfast will remain at the current level, there will be a 10 percent decrease required for the 2023-2024 school year. These adjustments would mark a change from the direction that the Trump administration took when it came to nutrition standards at schools. Trump aides had rolled back rules, initially easing policies regarding whole grain, nonfat milk and sodium, citing food waste and nonparticipation as key rationales. (Reiley, 2/4)
Bay Area News Group:
California Nursing Homes: Why Poor Residents Can’t Go Home
Bradley Fisher, a 62-year-old retired mechanic, lived in a Bay Area nursing home for 14 years. Entering at age 39, Fisher had been partially paralyzed when bone spurs severed tendons in his spine. After a few years of rehabilitation, Fisher said, he could have lived at home with proper care. “You don’t need to be here,” Fisher remembers a certified nursing assistant telling him around 2005, seven years in, as he sat in his wheelchair in the facility’s cafeteria. “You got all your faculties.” (Bedayn, 2/6)
Los Angeles Times:
Parents Struggle To Get Nurses For Medically Fragile Kids
Families in California have long struggled to get nursing care at home for medically fragile children. Even after doctors have deemed home care necessary to keep their kids healthy and safe, many Californians have been unable to secure enough nurses to fill their allocated hours. Parents and advocates say that, despite efforts to tackle the problem before the pandemic, it has persisted with the arrival of COVID-19. Home health agencies say it has been harder to hang on to nurses when other businesses are recruiting them to handle new demands tied to the coronavirus, including administering tests and vaccines.(Alpert Reyes, 2/7)
San Diego Union-Tribune:
Couriers Thrive On Racing Life-Saving Cargo To Transplant Patients
Well before dawn last Monday, La Mesa retiree Brenda Patrick got out of bed, packed a special cooler with frozen packets, threw a backpack over her shoulder and headed for San Diego International Airport. By 8 a.m. she was on an eastbound flight to Florida to collect some very precious cargo. Patrick, a retired nurse practitioner, is one of 570 Americans who volunteer their time year-round as couriers, hand-carrying life-saving vials and bags of donated bone marrow, blood stem cells and umbilical cord blood to transplant patients for Be the Match, the donor registry maintained by the National Marrow Donor Program. (Kragen, 2/6)
KQED:
'What's The End Goal?': A Group Of Mothers Protest Drug Use At The Tenderloin Linkage Center
A group of five mothers staged a protest on Saturday outside the Linkage Center in the Tenderloin to call for an end to drug use at the site. The Linkage Center was set up as part of San Francisco Mayor London Breed's emergency declaration to address a rise in drug overdoses. The site is meant to help connect people to drug treatment, housing, and other services. The mothers who organized the protest have all been impacted by the drug epidemic, and say they support the center but they believe allowing for drug use will make it more difficult for people to get help. People have been using drugs on the Linkage Center property in a fenced off area outside the building and have not been asked to leave. (McDede, 2/6)
Inside Climate News:
A California Water Board Assures The Public That Oil Wastewater Is Safe For Irrigation, But Experts Say The Evidence Is Scant
After years of controversy, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board assured the public in the fall that eating California crops grown with oil field wastewater “creates no identifiable increased health risks,” based on studies commissioned as part of an extensive Food Safety Project.Yet a review of the science and interviews with a public health scientist affiliated with the project and other experts show that there is scant evidence to support the board’s safety claims.' The commitment I made to our board was that if we ever discovered that there was an effect on people consuming crops grown with this, we would stop it immediately.'Clay Rodgers, assistant executive officer, Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. (Gross, 2/7)
Modesto Bee:
Young Marrow Transplant Recipient Aids Cause
Two years ago, Piper Sousa was 8 years old and awaiting a bone marrow transplant. The Modesto girl finally got it in June 2020, and she is doing well today. The Sousa family is helping put on a Feb. 26 event that will raise money and awareness for the marrow donor registry. It is a five-kilometer run/walk at East La Loma Park, from 8 a.m. to noon that Saturday. (Holland, 2/5)
Press Association:
Scientists Create Spinal Cord Implants That Could Allow Paralyzed People To Walk
A scientific breakthrough may enable paralyzed people to walk again as researchers have created human spinal cord implants in a world first. The 3D implants, made using human cells, had an 80% success rate in restoring the ability to walk in paralyzed mice in the laboratory, researchers said. Tissue samples from patients are transformed into functioning spinal cord implants through a process that mimics the development of the spinal cord in human embryos. Over the next few years the scientists plan to be able to create personalized implants to repair tissue damaged from injury, and without the risk of rejection by the body. (2/7)
Fox News:
Limiting Screen Time In Infants May Decrease Risk Of Autism Spectrum Disorder, Study Finds
Male toddlers who watched more television at age one were more likely to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at age 3, compared to those without any screen time, according to a recent multi-site Japanese study published in JAMA Pediatrics. "[A]mid the recent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a rapid change in lifestyles, with electronic devices being used as the main channels of communication and social interactions," the authors wrote. "Amid this social climate, examining the associations of screen exposure with a child's health is an important public health issue." (Sudhakar, 2/4)
CNN:
Pregnant Women Who Are Overweight Are Less Likely To Affect Children's Weight Than Previously Thought
A pregnant woman's body mass index has less of an influence on her child's BMI than previously believed, according to a new study. BMI is a measure that uses height and weight data to track changes in weight. Children with a high BMI, measuring 25 or higher, were more likely to be overweight or obese due to environmental factors rather than their mother's weight when she was pregnant, found the study published in the journal BMC Medicine. Environmental factors include anything that makes children eat more and exercise less, said study author Tom Bond, senior research associate at the University of Bristol and visiting researcher at Imperial College London. (Marples, 2/7)
CNN:
Eating Disorders And Children: The Pandemic Is Making Them Worse
Like many girls in high school, Ella (not her real name) had days where she struggled with self-esteem. "I was able to cope with it because I had sports, I had friends, and I had school. Then the pandemic hit in March (2020) and I lost all of that," said Ella, who looks younger than her 15 years. "I wanted to do something proactive to help me cope, so I turned to exercise. I'd run almost every day. I went for bike rides and for hour-long walks." A runner herself, Ella's mom Alice (also not her real name) was pleased to see her daughter embracing such healthy habits during the dreary months of lockdown in their home town of Ottawa, Canada. But it wasn't long before she noticed that if Ella wasn't exercising, she appeared nervous and edgy. (LaMotte, 2/4)
NPR:
Depression Responds To Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Treatment In Studies
At the end of the first day, an unfamiliar calm settled over Emma. Even when her partner picked her up to drive home, she stayed relaxed. "I'm usually hysterical," she said. "All the time I'm grabbing things. I'm yelling, you know, 'Did you see those lights?' And while I rode home that first night I just looked out the window and I enjoyed the ride." The remedy was a new type of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) called "Stanford neuromodulation therapy." By adding imaging technology to the treatment and upping the dose of rTMS, scientists have developed an approach that's more effective and works more than eight times faster than the current approved treatment. (McClurg, 2/6)
CIDRAP:
US Flu Markers Decline Further, H3N2 Still Dominant
US flu levels dropped further and dipped below the national baseline last week, though sporadic activity continues across the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its latest weekly update. The percentage of outpatient visits for flulike illness declined from 2.8% to 2.0% last week, putting it below the national baseline of 2.5%. (2/4)
ABC News:
Pope Decries Genital Mutilation, Sex Trafficking Of Women
Pope Francis on Sunday decried the genital mutilation of millions of girls and the trafficking of women for sex, including openly on city streets, so others can make money off of them. In remarks to the public in St. Peter’s Square, the pope noted that the day was dedicated worldwide to ending the ritual mutilation, and he told the crowd that some 3 million girls each year undergo the practice, “often in conditions very dangerous for the health.” (D'Emilio, 2/6)