Prison Officials Unveil Visitation Plan: A year after prisons suspended in-person visits statewide, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is beginning a phased reopening that allows limited visitation starting next month. Read more from The Sacramento Bee.
Santa Ana Schools Will Stay Remote: Students in the Santa Ana Unified School District will finish the academic year the same way they started, via online learning. “The District believes that this is the best course of action given the unique circumstances facing the SAUSD community,” Superintendent Jerry Almendarez said Wednesday. Read more from the Orange County Register.
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 Washington Post:
Senate Confirms Rachel Levine, Historic Transgender Nominee, As Assistant Health Secretary
The Senate on Wednesday voted 52 to 48 to confirm Rachel Levine as the nation’s assistant secretary for health, making her the highest-ranking openly transgender official in U.S. history. All Democrats and independents voted to support Levine, with Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) crossing the aisle to support her, prompting cheers from advocates who called the vote a breakthrough. (Diamond and Schmidt, 3/24)
NBC News:
Biden To Direct $100 Million To Medical Support Network Key To Vaccine Strategy
President Joe Biden plans to make the country's biggest investment ever in an all-volunteer army of doctors, nurses and medical support teams that has been a pillar of his strategy to accelerate the pace of Covid-19 vaccinations in the U.S., two administration officials said. Biden plans to direct $100 million from the recently enacted $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan to bolster the Medical Reserve Corps. Created shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the corps is a network of about 200,000 health professionals who can rapidly deploy to respond to public health emergencies. (Przybyla, 3/25)
CNN:
Advocates For The Elderly Call On The Biden Administration To Do Much More To Vaccinate Seniors And Fight Covid-19
In early April, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention program that delivered Covid-19 vaccines to long-term care facilities should be complete. With cases dropping faster than among the general public, the CDC calls the program a real success, but advocates are concerned about what happens when it ends. (Christensen, 3/24)
AP:
Lawmakers: Require Nursing Homes To Disclose Vaccine Data
Nursing homes have to publicly disclose their vaccination rates for flu and pneumonia but there’s no similar mandate for COVID-19 shots, even though the steepest toll from the virus has been among residents of long-term care facilities. Now lawmakers of both parties are urging the Biden administration to require disclosure of coronavirus vaccination rates for residents and staff, and to make it easy for family members, advocacy groups and researchers to access such potentially critical details. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 3/25)
The Hill:
12 State Attorneys General Urge Facebook, Twitter To Do More On Vaccine Misinformation
A group of 12 state attorneys general sent a letter to Facebook and Twitter on Wednesday urging them to more aggressively enforce platform policies against coronavirus vaccine misinformation. Led by Connecticut Attorney General William Tong (D), the group argues that content on the social media sites are increasing vaccine hesitancy, which will “slow economic recovery and, more importantly, ultimately cause even more unnecessary deaths.” (Mills Rodrigo, 3/24)
Bay Area News Group:
Bay Area Counties Agree To Vaccine Distribution Plan After Weeks Of Squabbles With State Over Blue Shield Deal
Bay Area counties will be able to retain local control over coronavirus vaccine distribution under a new agreement with the state, ending weeks of bitter negotiations with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration after it hired Blue Shield to oversee California’s vaccine supply. Santa Clara County and the state on Wednesday signed a contract that will allow the county to continue giving vaccine supply to local community clinics and to continue using the county’s own appointment sign-up system rather than moving to the state’s My Turn program, which has been plagued by technical difficulties. (DeRuy, 3/24)
San Diego Union-Tribune:
COVID-19 Vaccination Site Opens At Mexican Consulate
The Mexican Consulate in San Diego will serve as a COVID-19 vaccination site three times a week as part of ongoing efforts to reach vulnerable communities. This new walk-up vaccination hub, in partnership with San Diego County, will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. It will have the capacity to administer up to 100 doses a day, depending on supply. The consulate is at 1549 India St. in Little Italy. (Mendoza, 3/24)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Alameda County In Talks To Run Oakland Coliseum Vaccination Site After Feds And State Leave
Alameda County is in discussions with state officials about keeping the Oakland Coliseum mass vaccination site going once its planned eight-week run ends in early April, county officials said Wednesday. The talks focus on what it would mean to transition the site to county management in terms of getting vaccine supply and operational capacity, county spokesperson Neetu Balram said. (Bobrowsky, 3/24)
The Bakersfield Californian:
CSUB Vaccine Hub Aims To Complete Vaccination Of All Eligible And Willing Kern Residents By June
At first glance, it seems clear that the organizers of Cal State Bakersfield’s new COVID-19 Vaccine Hub are deadly serious about stopping the pandemic in its tracks. David Womack, senior vice president at Kaiser Permanente, which will oversee operations at the site, told a group of partners and news reporters at an unveiling held at CSUB Wednesday that the vision for the massive effort is twofold: “No. 1 ... to end this pandemic,” Womack said. “No. 2 ... to spread hope and joy.” (Mayer, 3/24)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Vaccine Rates Vary By Neighborhood In San Francisco. Here's Why
One out of three San Franciscans have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. But vaccination rates vary widely from neighborhood to neighborhood, from 50% of Japantown residents to just 14% of people living in Treasure Island. A lot of these differences can be traced back to how many high-priority residents each neighborhood has; Treasure Island’s population skews much younger than Japantown’s, for instance. But some neighborhoods with high numbers of elderly people and other high-priority groups are getting left behind — particularly Chinatown. (Neilson and Sumida, 3/25)
CIDRAP:
Risk Of COVID Very Low In Vaccinated Medical Workers: Study
COVID-19 infection was very low in a cohort of vaccinated California healthcare workers (HCWs) amid a surge of new cases, according to a research letter yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine. University of California researchers evaluated COVID-19 infection rates in 36,659 HCWs on the San Diego and Los Angeles campuses vaccinated with at least one dose of the Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine from Dec 16, 2020, to Feb 9, 2021. In that timeframe, 28,184 (77%) received the second dose of vaccine. (Van Beusekom, 3/24)
Fresno Bee:
Staples Will Laminate Your COVID Vaccine Card For Free
Staples is making it a little easier for those who’ve been fully vaccinated to keep their COVID-19 vaccine cards safe and sound. The office supply retailer will laminate COVID-19 vaccine cards for free through May 1 at stores nationwide, a representative for Staples told McClatchy News. (White, 3/24)
San Diego Union-Tribune:
Brazilian Coronavirus Variant Detected In San Diego
San Diego joins 18 regions nationwide that have reported cases of Brazilian coronavirus variants which have the ability to reinfect people who have been infected by other viral varieties. County officials announced that two cases of the COV2 lineage dubbed “P.1" have been confirmed in the San Diego region. One case is a person who recently entered the country from Mexico and is not a local resident. The second person lives in the area. (Sisson and Wosen, 3/24)
LA Daily News:
L.A. County Detects More Variants, But Coronavirus Growth Continues To Decline
Los Angeles County continued its still-decreasing rates of coronavirus growth on Wednesday, March 24, reporting 666 new cases and 92 associated deaths. Among the fatalities was a child aged 12 to 17 with underlying health conditions, however — one of three children to die in L.A. County from COVID-19 since the pandemic began. As of Wednesday, 22,960 L.A. County lives have been lost to the coronavirus. More than 1.2 million people have tested positive. (Rosenfeld, 3/24)
Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
COVID-19 Sixth Leading Cause Of Death In Sonoma County Last Year, But Drug Overdoses Surged
Coronavirus fatalities, which climbed gradually in 2020, ended the year as the sixth leading cause of death in Sonoma County, at 210 lives lost by the time the calendar turned. COVID-19 followed cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, stroke and unintentional injury — the top five listed causes of death in the county by total number in 2020, just as in recent years past, according to mortality data released Wednesday by Sonoma County Public Health. (Callahan, 3/24)
Los Angeles Times:
Long-Term COVID Side Effects Frustrate Patients, Scientists
Larry Searight awakens each morning in Palmdale, often before dawn, to the kind of pandemic nightmare that has roiled the sleep of many over the past year. A scourge that never ends. A world that thaws and moves on but leaves him stuck and unable to keep up. Terrifying physical sensations that descend without warning and disappear just as suddenly. Friends and doctors turning away in disbelief. The mounting losses — of joy, of taste and smell, of mental firepower. (Healy, 3/25)
Los Angeles Times:
Music Center Hopes UL Indoor Air Program Eases COVID Fears
The Music Center in downtown Los Angeles is expected to announce Thursday that it is the first performing arts organization in the country to receive a UL “healthy building” verification, representing high standards for air quality at four venues — Walt Disney Concert Hall, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Mark Taper Forum and Ahmanson Theatre. Don’t throw away your mask just yet, though. (Gelt, 3/25)
The Bakersfield Californian:
'We Have To Do Something': Kern County Coroner Finally Gets To Move Into New Building
The dead bodies are piling up at the Kern County coroner’s office. Constructed in 1974, the county’s building for investigating all manner of death has proven unable to accommodate the rapid growth in population over the decades. Built to house 30 to 35 bodies at any one time, just this week the coroner’s office stored 175 bodies “in various places. ”The county has even purchased trailers parked at the Lerdo Jail to hold overflow corpses. When Charles Manson died in Bakersfield in 2017, his body was held in one of those trailers alongside those of residents who had recently passed away. (Morgen, 3/24)
Fresno Bee:
Fired Fresno CA Scientist With Long Haul COVID Sues Hospital
A longtime employee at Community Hospitals of Central California, who was recovering from a bout of “long haul” COVID-19, says she was fired by her employer for missing too many days of work. Kathleen Hamada, a 33-year clinical lab scientist for the medical center, filed a lawsuit Monday in Fresno County Superior Court accusing her former employer of discrimination based on disability, retaliation in violation of medical leave laws, wrongful termination and other charges. (Rodriguez, 3/25)
Stat:
With Amazon And Ro On Its Heels, Uber Expands Prescription Delivery
After steering into prescription delivery in two cities last summer with digital pharmacy startup NimbleRx, ride-hailing giant Uber hitched itself a new and more expansive ride with medication delivery service ScriptDrop on Wednesday. The deal makes Uber the default delivery app for thousands of pharmacies and health systems in 37 states. It also comes at a critical time for the digital pharmacy sector, which has boomed alongside virtual care amid the pandemic. (Brodwin, 3/24)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Overdose Deaths Spiked In Sonoma County During 2020
Fatal overdoses in Sonoma County nearly doubled compared to previous years and suicide deaths among the county’s Latino population rose sharply in 2020, according to a newly released mortality report. In 2020, 135 people died of unintentional overdoses compared to an average of 69 deaths each year between 2017 and 2019, according to a report presented at a virtual town hall meeting Wednesday evening. The overdoses were more prevalent among people in the 35-44 age range and in the Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa and Sonoma Valley areas. (Mishanec, 3/24)
Los Angeles Times:
Crackdown At Echo Park Homeless Encampment Begins As LAPD Moves In, Clashes With Protesters
Authorities on Wednesday night moved to close down a homeless encampment in Echo Park that has become a highly charged test of city leaders’ struggle to balance constituents’ demands for clean streets and public spaces with the ever-growing tragedy of people who have no homes. Scores of police moved into the area, where they were met by more than 200 protesters who oppose the sweep. The Los Angeles Police Department repeatedly told protesters to leave, and by early Thursday morning, the crowd had dwindled and the protest had mostly wound down. (Oreskes, Smith, Ormseth, Queally and Rector, 3/24)