San Francisco Chronicle: Where To Find COVID Risk Data Before Setting Off On Summer Travels
Dr. Bob Wachter, chair of medicine at UCSF, pointed to three reliable pieces of data that offer a snapshot of how much COVID is in circulation: wastewater surveillance, hospitalizations and deaths. (Hwang and Vaziri, 7/9)

Forbes: New Insights Into Long COVID Point To Damage To The Vagus Nerve
Reports from 2022 show that more than 65 million people that were infected with Covid-19 developed long-lasting symptoms, a condition that is now defined as Long COVID. Given how difficult it can be to identify and diagnose, the incidence rates among those exposed to multiple viral infections may be much higher. Long COVID symptoms, such as fatigue, difficulty breathing, and brain fog, can significantly interfere with one’s quality of life. Emerging studies now suggest that many of these symptoms may be a consequence of damage to the vagus nerve. As the body’s primary communication superhighway, the vagus nerve extends into every major organ in the body, including the heart, lungs, and gastrointestinal tract. (Haseltine, 7/7)

CIDRAP: Increased Antibiotic Exposure Linked To Severe COVID-19 Outcomes
Repeated antibiotic exposure may be associated with severe COVID-19 outcomes, British researchers reported this week in eClinical Medicine. (Dall, 7/7)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Washington University Researchers Develop Air Monitor That Detects COVID-19 Virus
A team of researchers at Washington University has developed an air monitor that can alert users to the presence of SARS-CoV-2 — the virus responsible for COVID-19 — in just five minutes. In an article published in Nature Communications on Monday, the researchers showed the monitor’s ability to detect as few as tens of viral particles in a cubic meter. They hope to commercialize the air monitor so it can be placed in public spaces like hospitals and schools, helping prevent the spread of COVID-19. (Vargo, 7/10)

Stat: House Panel To Mark Up Pandemic-Preparedness Bill Next Week
A House subcommittee will next week mark up a package of public health bills, including pandemic-preparedness legislation, according to five lobbyists. The House Energy & Commerce Committee hasn’t yet announced the markup, and the lobbyists didn’t know the exact date. But time is running out for reauthorizing a law that created several of the federal government’s biodefense and pandemic-preparedness programs. (Wilkerson, 7/7)

KQED: California's Farmworkers Are On The Front Lines Of Climate Change
José Federico Sierra remembers the summer when ash rained down like snow and clouds of wildfire smoke reddened the sky and choked his lungs. That was three years ago, as the SCU Lightning Complex Fire raged across hundreds of thousands of acres just a few miles west of Gustine, the San Joaquin Valley town where Sierra works at a large dairy farm. (Hendricks, 7/10)

The Washington Post: Sea lions are biting people. They’re sick from toxic algae, officials say.
About a month ago, researchers knew there was a problem when hundreds of sea lions began surfacing on Southern California beaches. The charismatic but typically unaggressive sea mammals were biting people who approached them. (Melnick, 7/7)

San Francisco Chronicle: Why Is It So Hard To Solve The Drug Crisis In San Francisco?
Melvin Lopez can’t recall the number of times he was arrested for selling drugs in San Francisco. “It was a lot,” he said recently with an embarrassed laugh as he took a break from working with cattle on an island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Lopez, 28, said he hasn’t sold drugs since 2020. He now earns about half his old pay through a rotation of part-time jobs in the Bay Area and beyond. He’s worked at an Oakland pool store, on various construction sites and on a farm on Jersey Island in Contra Costa County, where he met with Chronicle reporters between administering eye medicine to calves. (Cassidy and Lurie, 7/10)

San Francisco Chronicle: How San Francisco’s Open-Air Drug Dealers Work
Dervin Amado Arteaga Ervir, a 15-year-old boy from the Honduran village of El Escano de Tepale, had just parted ways with his father when he joined other young Honduran migrants selling drugs at Seventh and Mission streets in San Francisco. It was a little after 6 p.m. on July 18, 2021, when a driver in a white Chevrolet Malibu rolled up and called out to him. (Cassidy and Lurie, 7/10)

The New York Times: Substance Abuse Is Climbing Among Seniors
Until a few years ago, even as the opioid epidemic raged, health providers and researchers paid limited attention to drug use by older adults; concerns focused on the younger, working-age victims who were hardest hit. But as baby boomers have turned 65, the age at which they typically qualify for Medicare, substance use disorders among the older population have climbed steeply. “Cohorts have habits around drug and alcohol use that they carry through life,” said Keith Humphreys, a psychologist and addiction researcher at the Stanford University School of Medicine. (Span, 7/9)

Los Angeles Times: Is Rep. Barbara Lee Too Old To Replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein? 
After some frustration with Sen. Dianne Feinstein's refusal to step aside at 90, some in California wonder whether Rep. Barbara Lee, nearly 77, is too old for the job. (Oreskes, 7/9)

KVPR: Feinstein's Return To The Senate Recalls Its Past Heroics And Persistent Problems
The framers of the Constitution knew the Congress would be subject to human frailty, but they also assumed it would consist of the most capable people the fledgling country could find. Many such people served in the earliest years of the republic and in each successive generation since. But there has never been a clear standard or guarantee of capability. Unable to ensure a level of quality, the framers also did not contemplate the existence or effects of political parties or the power and excesses of partisanship. (Elving, 7/8)

The Desert Sun: Coachella Valley Woman Dies Of Illness After Months In County Jail
A Coachella Valley woman who'd been an inmate in a Riverside County jail died in a hospital this week of an "ongoing illness" that doctors had deemed terminal, the sheriff's department announced. It said there were no signs of foul play. (Damien, 7/7)

Los Angeles Blade: Rev. Steve Pieters, Activist, Inspiration & Longtime HIV Survivor Dies
The Rev. Steve Pieters, 71, a long time activist in the HIV/AIDS and recovery communities, was an active pastor and later a field director for the as Field Director of AIDS Ministry for the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) denomination. (Levesque, 7/9)

Stat: Biden Targets Hefty Hospital 'Facility Fees' That Often Surprise Patients
As part of the Biden administration’s broader efforts to lower health care costs, the White House announced new guidelines on Friday targeting a few of the most common sources of sticker shock. The new policy initiatives target some of the usual suspects: surprise billing, which was restricted in 2020 yet persists as health care providers exploit loopholes; short-term insurance policies that often fail to cover essential treatment; and high-interest credit cards and payment plans especially marketed to help patients cover medical debt. (Merelli, 7/7)

Modern Healthcare: Medical Credit Cards Under Scrutiny By HHS, CFPB
The Health and Human Services Department, Treasury Department and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau launched a joint inquiry Friday into these financial products, requesting information on how they work, the risks they pose and the impact they have on billing services, according to a news release. The agencies opened a 60-day public comment period to gain feedback from consumers, lenders and providers. (Hudson, 7/7)

Stat: Biden’s NIH Nominee Is Languishing In Congress
Sen. Bernie Sanders’ rare move to delay President Biden’s health care nominees has put the drug pricing firebrand and the White House in a standoff — and public health advocates worry the feud could squeeze out an otherwise uncontroversial pick to lead the country’s top science agency. (Owermohle, 7/10)

Stat: Medicare Wants To Send $9 Billion To 340B Hospitals
Medicare is planning to send $9 billion in lump-sum payments to more than 1,600 hospitals that participate in a drug discount program after the Supreme Court found the program underpaid them for prescription drugs, the agency announced on Friday. To pay for the restitution, Medicare would slash all hospitals’ payments for other items and services by 0.5% for the next 16 years. (Cohrs, 7/7)

USA Today: Supreme Court Affirmative Action Ruling Detrimental To Latinos' Health
A study found Latinos are still underrepresented among certain health care professions and obstacles to advanced education may be to blame. The study, published Wednesday in Health Affairs, comes a week after the recent Supreme Court decision to strike down affirmative action policies that helped diversify medical schools across the country for decades. (Rodriguez, 7/7)