Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
Labs With No One to Run Them: Why Public Health Workers Are Fleeing the Field
Across California, public health departments are losing experienced staffers to exhaustion, partisan politics and jobs that pay more for less work. The public health nurses, epidemiologists and microbiologists who work to keep our communities healthy are abandoning the field. (Anna Maria Barry-Jester, )
Some Mask Requirements Change In Bay Area: The pandemic mask picture will look noticeably different in parts of the Bay Area today. The biggest change is in Marin County: Starting today, officials there will lift all indoor mask restrictions for people fully vaccinated against covid. The San Francisco Chronicle explains the mask rules for all Bay Area counties, and read more from the Marin Independent Journal.
Sheriff Warns Response Times Will Increase Because Of Vax Mandate: Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva continues to rail against the county’s vaccine mandate, warning it is causing a “mass exodus” in his department and threatens public safety at a time when violent crime is on the rise. Read more from the Los Angeles Times.
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
The New York Times:
FDA Clears Pfizer Coronavirus Vaccine For Young Children
The Food and Drug Administration on Friday authorized Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for emergency use in children 5 to 11, a move eagerly anticipated by millions of families looking to protect some of the only remaining Americans left out of the vaccination campaign. About 28 million children in the group will be eligible to receive one-third of the adult dose, with two injections three weeks apart. If the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signs off, as is expected, they could start getting shots as early as Wednesday. (Weiland and LaFraniere, 10/29)
AP:
Moderna: FDA Delaying Decision On Its Shot For Adolescents
Heart inflammation is an exceedingly rare risk of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and it more commonly seen in young men or boys. It’s difficult for clinical trials to detect such a rare problem. And public health officials have repeatedly stressed that COVID-19 itself can cause heart inflammation at higher rates than the rare cases caused by the vaccine. In the U.S., the Moderna vaccine is authorized for people 18 and older. (11/1)
NPR:
Parents Should Be Patient About Getting COVID Vaccines For Kids
Within minutes of the Food and Drug Administration's decision Friday to authorize the lower-dose Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, teams began packing up the vaccines to be shipped. The vials are being packed with syringes, dry ice and tracking labels and are being loaded into shipping containers that were specially designed for the pediatric vaccine. But a top White House official is cautioning that parents shouldn't expect to be able to get their kids vaccinated the very next day if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the vaccine, as it is expected to on Tuesday. Patience may be needed, as it could take several days before shots are readily available. (Keith, 10/30)
Modesto Bee:
California Vaccines Vs Other States, According To CDC Data
It’s been almost a year since the COVID-19 vaccine has been available, with its first recipients being front line hospital workers. Now, more than 190 million people, or nearly 58% of the population, are fully vaccinated in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Vaccination rates, however, vary from state to state. As of the end of October, California trails behind New Mexico, Oregon and Maine with a second-dose rate of 61%, according to CDC data. (Truong, 10/30)
Orange County Register:
Vaccines Have Prevented 245,000 Deaths In The U.S., Models Show
Vaccines can halt cases and save lives, the data and experts say. But, really, by how much? James Doti — president emeritus of Chapman University, professor of economics, teacher of statistics and author of econometric texts as well as children’s books — decided to find out. He gathered COVID-19 case and death data for all 50 states from Jan. 1 to Aug. 10 and used stepwise regression — a way to build models by controlling for variables like density, poverty and governmental COVID-19 restrictions— to find something stunning. (Sforza, 10/31)
San Francisco Chronicle:
COVID Vaccines Are Very Good. Here's How Using Your Nose Might Make Them Better
The vaccines used in the U.S. are fantastic at inciting a robust immune response to fend off the virus before it can replicate widely and cause serious infection in the lungs and other organs. They’re somewhat less effective, though, at stopping the virus at its point of entry — usually the nose — and preventing illness entirely. Around the world and in a few laboratories at Stanford and other major Bay Area research centers, scientists are working on what could be the next generation of COVID vaccines, many of them designed to be inhaled through the nose and from there to mount a frontline immune barrier. (Allday, 10/31)
AP:
COVID-19's Global Death Toll Tops 5 Million In Under 2 Years
The global death toll from COVID-19 topped 5 million on Monday, less than two years into a crisis that has not only devastated poor countries but also humbled wealthy ones with first-rate health care systems. Together, the United States, the European Union, Britain and Brazil — all upper-middle- or high-income countries — account for one-eighth of the world’s population but nearly half of all reported deaths. The U.S. alone has recorded over 740,000 lives lost, more than any other nation. (Johnson, 11/1)
Los Angeles Times:
COVID-19 Cases Are Leveling Off. Can We Avoid A New Surge?
After months of significant declines, California’s new weekly coronavirus cases and hospitalizations have plateaued just as the critical holiday season approaches. The state’s coronavirus transmission rate has long been among the lowest in the country, and officials hope vaccine requirements and other safety rules will prevent another spike in cases and deaths this winter. (Money and Lin II, 10/30)
The Washington Post:
How Does A Pandemic Start Winding Down? You Are Looking At It
The pandemic isn’t over. But new cases nationally have dropped below 75,000 a day, less than half the number in August. The United States will soon reopen land borders to vaccinated visitors and lift several international travel restrictions. More than 2 million people boarded flights last Sunday, not too far from pre-pandemic travel levels. Kids, many of them newly vaccine-eligible, are back in school, with no massive surge of new coronavirus infections. Some older students, forced to mask, wear their face coverings as if they were chin guards. (Achenbach and Abutaleb, 10/31)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Florida Touts Its Low Coronavirus Case Rate, But California Has Fared Better In The Pandemic
Last week, Florida boasted a COVID-19 case rate lower than California’s — in fact, among the lowest in the nation, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was a surprising development, considering Gov. Ron DeSantis’ very public resistance to vaccine mandates and non-pharmaceutical interventions such as wearing masks. Some partisans were quick to jump on the news as evidence that broad public health measures are unnecessary to stop the pandemic. But case rates are only a part of the picture of the impact COVID-19 has had on communities — and data shows that Floridians have suffered more from the coronavirus than residents of most other states. (Echeverria, 10/30)
City News Service:
Coronavirus Hospitalizations Climb For Second Straight Day In LA County
The number of coronavirus patients in Los Angeles County hospitals spiked for the second straight day on Sunday, Oct. 31, increasing to 672 from 659 on Saturday and 630 on Friday, according to state figures. Of those patients, 162 were being treated in intensive care, down from 172 the previous day. (10/31)
Los Angeles Times:
Unvaccinated Teens In L.A. Are More Likely To Test Positive For Coronavirus Than Adults
Unvaccinated teenagers have been more likely to test positive for the coronavirus than unvaccinated adults in Los Angeles County, officials said. The trend illustrates how a group less likely to have been vaccinated in the nation’s most populous county is playing an outsize role in continuing transmission of the highly contagious Delta variant. (Lin II and Money, 11/01)
Bay Area News Group:
San Jose Sharks, Amid COVID-19 Issues, Have Buffalo Sabres Next
A day after one of the unlikeliest regular-season wins in franchise history, several Sharks players and coaches – as part of the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol — had to return to SAP Center on Sunday to continue to get tested for the coronavirus. Other Sharks players, who were already confirmed positive cases, had to remain in isolation, still unsure as to when they would be able to rejoin the team. (Pashelka, 10/31)
Houston Chronicle:
Texas Abortion Ban Hearing Today Is First Test For U.S. Supreme Court's Conservative Majority
The U.S. Supreme Court returns Monday for another look at legal challenges to the new Texas abortion law, this time in a public hearing that could reveal larger clues about the future of abortion access nationally. The justices will take up arguments in two lawsuits, one brought by abortion providers and the other by the Department of Justice. Both argue that the law, which bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy and enlists private citizens to enforce it, violates longstanding Supreme Court precedent. (Blackman and Wermund, 11/1)
The Washington Post:
Supreme Court Embarks On Most Dramatic Reckoning For Reproductive Rights In Decades
Monday’s hastily scheduled hearing opens the most dramatic month for reproductive rights at the Supreme Court in three decades. That was when a surprising majority of Republican-nominated justices did the unexpected and affirmed rather than renounced the right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Such an outcome this time around — as the court considers the Texas law and, on Dec. 1, a Mississippi ban on abortion after 15 weeks, far earlier than current Supreme Court precedent allows — would be a bitter disappointment for antiabortion activists who feel this is their chance. (Barnes, 10/30)
The New York Times:
When Will The Supreme Court Hear Arguments On The Texas Abortion Law?
The New York Times will be streaming the oral arguments and providing live coverage of the proceedings when they begin at 10 a.m. Eastern. The first argument, in the abortion providers’ case, is scheduled to last an hour but will most likely go longer. The second argument, in the challenge brought by the Biden administration, will start soon after the first one concludes. It is also scheduled to last an hour. (Liptak and Cameron, 10/31)
Politico:
5 Questions When The Supreme Court Takes Up The Texas Abortion Law
Texas’ abortion ban goes back before the Supreme Court on Monday, where both abortion clinics and the Biden administration will argue that the law violates longstanding precedent protecting the right to terminate a pregnancy and threatens to unleash a stream of copycat laws that range far beyond abortion. Though the Court split 5-4 in declining to block the unique ban before it took effect in September, the justices now have before them evidence of the sweeping impact it’s had on the ground. After Monday’s showdown, they may come to a different conclusion. (Gerstein and Ollstein, 10/31)
The New York Times:
In Texas Abortion Law Case, A Spotlight On Brett Kavanaugh
Exactly two months after the Supreme Court let Texas effectively outlaw most abortions in the state, it will hear a pair of arguments on Monday that could allow it to reverse course. Much of the attention will be on Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. The court’s call for what amounts to a do-over suggests that something is afoot among the justices, said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University. “Someone who was not on the fence is probably back on the fence,” she said. (Liptak, 10/31)
Axios:
What Abortion Access Would Look Like If Roe V. Wade Is Overturned
Abortion would immediately become illegal in at least 12 states if the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade, and more would likely follow suit quickly. States have been preparing contingency plans for a post-Roe landscape while state Republicans ramped up efforts to get the landmark ruling overturned. And the future of Roe is on the court's docket. (Gonzalez, 10/31)
Axios:
Health Care Plagued By New Supply Chain Shortages
From medications to gloves to crutches, the strains of the global supply chain are hitting U.S. health care hard. Shortages of health care supplies can quickly jump from a nuisance to a life-or-death proposition. They indicate serious vulnerabilities in the U.S. health care supply chain. (Reed, 11/1)
Modesto Bee:
State Action: Modesto Memory Care Center Could Lose License
A state agency is taking legal action to revoke the license of a residential care facility in Modesto for seniors with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. The California Department of Social Services (DSS) filed the action Sept. 30 against Pacifica Senior Living Modesto, on St. Paul’s Way, accusing the facility of serious lapses in care and supervision of residents with dementia, as well as under-staffing, violation of personal rights and failure to notify families when residents fell and were injured. (Carlson, 11/01)
Modesto Bee:
Stanislaus County Is Pushing Flu Shots To Spare Hospitals
The Stanislaus County Health Services Agency is holding public clinics to increase access to flu vaccine. Flu shots can help people to stay protected against influenza outbreaks, which often surface in December and peak in January in the Northern San Joaquin Valley. Health officials also are hoping to keep hospitals from being overrun with a combination of influenza and COVID-19 patients this winter. (Carlson, 10/31)
Orange County Register:
Some Pediatric Dentists Say Kids’ Teeth Were Hurt By The Pandemic
Dentists are seeing the consequences of disrupted dental routines and stressful family circumstances that prompted anxious, tooth-unfriendly eating when schools were closed and students were stuck at home. “Since they were home all day, kids were eating and snacking more,” says Dr. Lydia Park, one of the full-time dentists at the clinic, shuttling between patients on a bustling Tuesday morning the week of Halloween. (Walker, 10/29)
San Diego Union-Tribune:
San Diego Forecast: ‘This Year’s Going To Be Rough For Flu’
A decline in the number of people who have gotten flu shots, combined with few infections last year, has San Diego health officials worried that there will be a surge in cases this winter. Through this week, about 72,000 fewer people across the county have gotten their flu shots, causing concern among those who predict a severe season this winter due in large part to the lack of influenza activity last year. (Sisson, 10/30)
inewsource:
Why The VA Is Stopping Doctors From Sending Veterans To Other Hospitals
An inewsource investigation in partnership with USA TODAY has found that like Russell, veterans across the country are caught in the crossfire of the VA’s battle to retain patients and funding since the passage of a landmark health care law known as the Mission Act. When Congress and then-President Donald Trump passed the bipartisan law in 2018, they said it would ensure American citizens who fight to protect the U.S. can access high quality medical care after leaving the military. When the Department of Veterans Affairs can’t deliver that care for any of six reasons, it’s supposed to pay other health care systems to do it instead. (Castellano, 11/01)
San Francisco Chronicle:
These Are The 7 San Francisco Streets Poised To Have Reduced Speed Limits In January
Seven busy street corridors in San Francisco are likely to see their speed limits lowered to 20 mph in early January as the city puts to use its newfound power to reduce speeds under a new state law. The announcement of the first batch of speed limit changes the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency plans to make under AB43 comes less than a month after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law. It reflects the city’s urgency in trying to meet its self-imposed goal to eliminate pedestrian fatalities by 2024. (Cano, 10/30)
Bay Area News Group:
Bay Area Retirement: Region A Bad Place To Retire, Residents Say In Poll
Despite the gorgeous weather, stunning views and top-notch food and entertainment offerings, half of Bay Area residents say the region is a poor place to retire, according to a recent poll by the Bay Area News Group and Joint Venture Silicon Valley. During the COVID-19 pandemic, not having enough money to retire, as well as a general lack of savings, were residents’ top two financial worries — overshadowing concerns about debt, paying for rent or a mortgage, and affording health care. (Kendall, 10/31)
Modesto Bee:
Escalon Mayor Settles COVID Eviction Lawsuit, Fraud Claim
Escalon Mayor Ed Alves and a landlord paid a renter a $12,500 settlement this month, ending a lawsuit alleging they violated the COVID-19 eviction moratorium and California law last December. Reggie Refuerzo received the settlement after vacating the Escalon rental on Oct. 15 and released them from all claims, his attorney said, including allegations Alves used the influence of his elected position. (Lam, 10/31)
Bay Area News Group:
They Were Homeless: Bay Area Politicians Share Their Stories
When Ajwang Rading reels off the qualifications he says make him the right candidate to represent Silicon Valley in Congress, he includes a personal history nearly unheard of in politics — a decade of off-and-on homelessness. Rading, a 29-year-old lawyer from the Peninsula, has never held an elective office. But he does know what it’s like to grow up sleeping in a car, washing in a public restroom and finishing your homework at fast-food restaurants because there’s nowhere else to go. And he says that experience, which allows him to see eye-to-eye with those living at the margins of the Bay Area, makes him particularly well-suited to take on longtime incumbent Anna Eshoo in the race for California’s 18th Congressional district next fall. (Kendall, 10/31)