Sacramento Bee: California’s COVID-19 Positivity And Hospitalizations Climb
Over the past five weeks, California’s COVID-19 positivity rate has doubled to 16.7% from 8.3%, according to figures reported Friday by the California Department of Public Health. Earlier this year, when cases of COVID-19 soared to record levels, the department reported that the positivity rate peaked near 26% statewide. (Anderson, 7/9)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area Nears Second-Largest COVID Surge, Hospital Admissions Rise
COVID-19 hospitalizations in California and the Bay Area have reached their highest point since February, when the region was still coming out of the winter omicron surge. As of Friday, there were 4,009 people hospitalized with COVID-19 statewide, with Bay Area hospitals reporting 770 patients, according to data from the California Department of Public Health. (Vaziri, 7/9)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Got COVID Again? So Do A Lot Of Other San Diegans 
San Diego County detected 3,122 coronavirus reinfections in June, nearly twice the number spotted in May, and it is quite clear that those numbers are gross underestimates. (Sisson, 7/9)

Fortune: Move Over, Measles: Dominant Omicron Subvariants BA.4 And BA.5 Could Be The Most Infectious Viruses Known To Man 
COVID was relatively deadly, but not ultra-transmissible when it burst onto the global scene in late 2019 and early 2020. These days, due a number of factors, the reverse is true: It's considerably less lethal, but more exponentially transmissible. Globally dominant Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 are neck and neck with measles in the competition for the title of most infectious disease known to man, according to an Australian professor of biostatistics and epidemiology. (Prater, 7/9)

AP: New Coronavirus Mutant Raises Concerns In India And Beyond
The quickly changing coronavirus has spawned yet another super contagious omicron mutant that’s worrying scientists as it gains ground in India and pops up in numerous other countries, including the United States. Scientists say the variant – called BA.2.75 – may be able to spread rapidly and get around immunity from vaccines and previous infection. It’s unclear whether it could cause more serious disease than other omicron variants, including the globally prominent BA.5. (Ungar and Ghosal, 7/11)

CIDRAP: Wastewater Surveillance Tool Detects SARS-CoV-2 Variants Earlier, Cheaper
Scientists at Scripps Research Institute and the University of California San Diego (UCSD) have developed a wastewater surveillance tool that—with just 2 teaspoons of raw sewage—can identify the SARS-CoV-2 variants circulating in a population and detect new variants of concern up to 2 weeks before clinical sequencing can. (7/8)

CalMatters: How Did California Schools Spend Billions In COVID Aid?
Imagine your boss giving you a check equal to four months salary and telling you to spend it quickly or risk giving it back. That in essence is what leaders in Sacramento and Washington did for California schools after the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly shutdown classrooms. (Lewis and Hong, 7/10)

inewsource: Second COVID Boosters Might Come Too Late To Address Omicron Surge In San Diego County
Additional boosters for COVID-19 might not be available to the general public until fall, as scientists work toward updating vaccinations to better tackle Omicron. Health experts are worried that, as counties across the country continue to see high rates of infection with the spread of new strains, these new doses might be coming too late. The Food and Drug Administration said last week that it had advised coronavirus vaccine manufacturers to update their booster doses to better tackle the strains, BA.4 and BA.5, which have become the dominant variant of Omicron circulating. (Dawson, 7/11)

San Gabriel Valley Tribune: LA Enacts $25 Minimum Wage For Healthcare Workers 
Healthcare workers in Los Angeles just got a raise. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti signed an ordinance Friday, July 8 that sets a $25-an-hour minimum wage for healthcare workers in the city. (Smith, 7/8)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Nurse's Assistant Helped Take Down Patient Who Took Deputy's Gun At Scripps Mercy 
When a prisoner receiving treatment at Scripps Mercy Hospital on July 2 took a deputy sheriff’s gun and pulled the trigger during a frantic struggle, a nurse’s assistant in the room was instrumental in getting the situation under control. (Sisson, 7/9)

Sacramento Business Journal: VSP Consolidating Lens Manufacturing, Closing Six Labs Nationwide
VSP Vision is closing laboratories across the country as part of a consolidation of its network of prescription eyeglass lens manufacturing facilities. (Hamann, 7/8)

Sacramento Bee: What ‘Universal Access To Health Coverage’ Means In California
Is California Gov. Gavin Newsom exaggerating when he says Golden State residents now will have “universal access to health coverage” as a result of a budget deal that will open Medi-Cal to 700,000 undocumented immigrants ages 26 to 49? The governor’s boast is accurate, according to health policy experts, although it falls short of his 2018 campaign promise to implement a government-run, single payer health care system for Californians. (Anderson, 7/11)

Los Angeles Times: How A California Mental Health Funding Plan Fell Apart
Nearly two decades ago, California voters passed a landmark tax on millionaires envisioned as a game changer for mental health. Supporters promised the new money would drastically reduce homelessness and improve access to services for all Californians. (Garrison, Gutierrez and Luna, 7/10)

Capitol Weekly: California's Plan For 'Miraculous' Cures - At $49,000 Per Hour 
California is planning on spending $49,000 an hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week during the next year to help scientists develop what some describe as “miraculous” cures and treatments for currently deadly afflictions. The spending plan was approved with no fuss last month while state lawmakers and the governor wrestled more noisily with a $308 billion state budget that included such intractable problems as homelessness and affordable housing and lesser matters such as traffic fines and cannabis business tax credits. (Jensen, 7/8)

The Bakersfield Californian: Kern Set To Implement New 988 Hotline To Guide Residents Through Mental Health Crisis
July 16 marks when the phone number 988 — proposed as an alternative to 911 for those navigating overpowering thoughts — comes into effect as an alternative for 800-273-TALK, the current suicide prevention hotline. Kern Behavioral Health and Recovery Services is one of 13 crisis centers throughout California set to field these calls. (Desai, 7/9)

SFGate: Yosemite Sees 'Very Unhealthy' Air Quality Amid Washburn Fire
A heavy curtain of toxic air hung over California's Yosemite National Park on Sunday as the Washburn Fire continued to burn out of control through parched terrain amid hot, dry weather. (Graff, 7/11)

Sacramento Business Journal: Food Fight: How Tensions With Elected Officials Led To The Ouster Of Yolo Food Bank Leader Michael Bisch
When Michael Bisch was hired as the Yolo Food Bank’s executive director in 2018, the organization was in trouble. (Hamann, 7/8)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Cause Of Homelessness? It's Not Drugs Or Mental Illness, Researchers Say 
Ask just about anyone for their thoughts on what causes homelessness, and you will likely hear drug addiction, mental illness, alcoholism and poverty. A pair of researchers, however, looked at those issues across the country and found they occur everywhere. What does vary greatly around the country, they found, was the availability of affordable housing. (Warth, 7/11)

The New York Times: F.D.A. To Weigh Over-The-Counter Sale Of Contraceptive Pills 
More than 60 years after the approval of oral contraceptives revolutionized women’s sexual health, the Food and Drug Administration has received its first application to supply a birth control pill over the counter — just as the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has put access to contraception more squarely at the heart of the clash over reproductive rights. A Paris-based company, HRA Pharma, announced on Monday that it asked the F.D.A. to authorize its pill, which is available by prescription, for over-the-counter-sales in the United States. Cadence Health, another pill manufacturer that has been in close dialogue with the F.D.A. about switching its pill to over-the-counter status, said it hopes to move closer to submitting an application in the coming year. (Stolberg and Kelly, 7/11)

AP: Over-The-Counter Birth Control? Drugmaker Seeks FDA Approval 
An FDA approval could come next year and would only apply to HRA’s pill, which would be sold under its original brand name, Opill. The company acquired the decades-old drug from Pfizer in 2014, but it’s not currently marketed in the U.S. (Perrone, 7/11)

Reuters: Perrigo Unit Submits Approval Application To FDA For OTC Birth Control Pill
The non-estrogen pill has been used with prescription since it was FDA-approved in 1973. Perrigo said scientific evidence has shown progestin-only pills like Opill are effective at preventing pregnancy and safe for most women to use. (7/11)

AP: Biden Says He's Mulling Health Emergency For Abortion Access
President Joe Biden said Sunday he is considering declaring a public health emergency to free up federal resources to promote abortion access even though the White House has said it doesn’t seem like “a great option.” He also offered a message to people enraged by the Supreme Court’s ruling last month that ended a constitutional right to abortion and who have been demonstrating across the country: “Keep protesting. Keep making your point. It’s critically important.” (Fingerhut, 7/10)

Roll Call: Biden Issues Executive Order Responding To Abortion Ruling
The White House on Friday announced a wide-ranging executive order aimed at protecting abortion rights — its most significant response to a recent Supreme Court decision overturning long-standing precedent guaranteeing the right to an abortion nationwide since the high court made the ruling two weeks ago. ... The multipronged order would mainly focus on actions to be taken through the Department of Health and Human Services. Specifically, Biden would instruct HHS to take additional actions to expand access to medication abortion, a two-pill regimen used to end pregnancies before 10 weeks — building on actions Becerra announced last week. ... It would also direct HHS to take actions to protect all forms of contraception, including emergency contraception and long-acting reversible contraception like intrauterine devices, or IUDs.(Raman, 7/8)

CBS News: Vice President Kamala Harris Stresses Need For "Pro-Choice Congress" To Protect Abortion Rights
Vice President Kamala Harris underscored the importance of voters casting their ballots in the November midterm elections for a "pro-choice Congress" that will enshrine the right to an abortion into law after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. In an interview with "Face the Nation" that aired Sunday, Harris said the ruling from the high court last month cleared the way for states to enact new laws restricting or outright banning abortion. (Quinn, 7/10)

The Washington Post: Inside The White House Struggle To Respond To The Abortion Ruling 
To many increasingly frustrated Democrats, Biden’s slow-footed response on abortion was just the latest example of a failure to meet the moment on a wave of conservative rollbacks, from gun control to environmental protections to voting rights. ... This account of the administration’s 14-day struggle to craft a message and policy plan after the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is based on interviews with 26 senior White House officials, Democratic lawmakers, abortion rights activists, Democratic strategists and other Biden allies, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to share candid details. (Parker, Abutaleb and Pager, 7/9)

NPR: Privacy Advocates Fear Google Will Be Used To Prosecute Abortion Seekers
When police are trying to solve a crime, they often turn to Google for help. It makes sense since the Silicon Valley giant has grown into a nearly $1.6 trillion company on the strength of its most valuable asset: Data on billions of people. And often, finding out where someone was at the time of a crime, or what they were Googling before a crime occurs, can be pivotal to investigators. Now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, privacy advocates fear Google will provide users' data to authorities who may try to target people seeking abortions. (Allyn, 7/11)

CNBC: Why HIPAA Doesn't Always Protect Abortion Information
Legal experts note that search history, text messages, location data, and period-tracker apps could all potentially be used in court and in some cases already have been. (Yang and Feiner, 7/9)

Bloomberg: Abortion Bans Are Limiting What Some Doctors And Med Students Are Taught
“At the end of the day, we can't train people to provide abortion care if we can't provide abortion care,” said DeShawn Taylor, an obstetrician-gynecologist who is the owner and primary provider at Desert Star Family Planning in Phoenix. (Ceron, 7/10)

Los Angeles Times: Post-Roe, Autoimmune Patients Lose Access To A Crucial Drug
Six days after the Supreme Court struck down the right to abortion, lupus patient Becky Schwarz got an unexpected message from her rheumatologist. “This is a notice to let you know that we are pausing all prescriptions and subsequent refills of methotrexate,” the message read. “This decision has been made in response to the reversal of Roe vs. Wade. (Sharp, 7/11)