San Francisco Chronicle: Sacramento Shooting Victims: One Was Homeless, One Had Just Rented Her First Apartment, One Was The Father Of Three
The youngest was 21 and had just rented her first apartment. The oldest was 57 and had spent 15 years living on and off the streets of downtown Sacramento. They were among the people caught in a burst of gunfire on K Street early Sunday morning, which left six dead and 12 wounded as scores of people ran for cover. Among the victims was a tall, ebullient father of three who never missed a family picnic, and a young woman whose father waited by the phone whenever she went out at night. (Swan, 4/4)

Sacramento Bee: Why Sacramento Shooting Victims Lay On Street For Hours
The bodies of the six victims remained laying where they had died for more than 18 hours while investigators worked. The reason? The enormous task of processing all the evidence, police experts said. ... John McGinness, former Sacramento County Sheriff, said it is imperative for investigators to gather and process all the evidence before a body is removed from a scene. It can make or break a case, he said. (Sullivan, 4/4)

USA Today: Gun Violence Survivors See Spike In Disorder Diagnoses: Harvard Study
Survivors of gun violence and their families see a spike in medical costs and the prevalence of psychiatric disorders and substance use disorders in the months following an injury, according to a new study from Harvard Medical School researchers. The research, published this week in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, was based on patient records over 10 years. It included information from 6,498 survivors of firearm injuries, matched to 32,490 control individuals, and 12,489 family members, including significant others, parents and children of survivors of gun violence injuries, compared to 62,445 control individuals. It also included survivors’ records from one year before a firearm injury through one year after. (Pitofsky, 4/4)

Bloomberg: Care For Gun Violence Victims Costs US $2.5 Billion In Year After Shooting
Costs of caring for U.S. gunshot survivors come to about $2.5 billion in the first year after their injuries, according to a Harvard study of a topic on which research was long relatively silent because of federal funding restrictions. Monthly direct medical costs for the gun-wounded increased from the year before the injury by almost $2,500, researchers at Harvard Medical School found. Costs for people with severe harm like brain injuries might last for years to come, said Zirui Song, an associate professor of health care policy and Massachusetts General Hospital primary-care doctor who led the study. (Adegbesan, 4/4)

Los Angeles Times: Adults Living With Gun Owners Face Twice The Risk Of Homicide 
It is a belief that helped drive a historic rise in U.S. firearms sales and first-time gun owners during the COVID-19 pandemic: Having a handgun at home for personal protection will make you safer. Groundbreaking new research conducted over a 12-year period in California shows that the opposite is true. Between October 2004 and the end of 2016, adults in the state who didn’t own a gun but took up residence with someone who did were much more likely to die a violent death than people in households without a handgun, researchers from Stanford University found. (Healy, 4/4)

The Bakersfield Californian: Kern Public Health Changing Frequency Of Updates For COVID Dashboard 
Citing a recent change to the frequency of when state data is released, Kern County Public Health officials will now be updating the county’s COVID-19 dashboard twice a week, officials said. “We are following the California Department of Public Health who began updating their data on Tuesday and Fridays,” said Michelle Corson, spokeswoman for Kern Public Health. (4/4)

Sacramento Bee: Report: Sacramento County Failed Public Health Office In COVID 
Sacramento County supervisors “abandoned” the public health department in the early months of the pandemic, failing to quickly provide support, oversight and funds to the agency at the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis, a grand jury report concluded. The grand jury investigation lambasted the Board of Supervisors for failing to request updates about the public health department’s COVID-19 response or funding needs at any time between March and mid-August, and for not scheduling a briefing by the public health officer. (Yoon-Hendricks, 4/4)

Berkeleyside: Berkeley Families Fight The Save Virtual Academy Next Year
For the past year, a few dozen students have been enrolled in Berkeley Unified’s Virtual Academy, a distance learning option for elementary schoolers that was created this fall as a way to cater to families who didn’t want their students to attend in-person classes during the pandemic. ... When Superintendent Brent Stephens recently announced that he wanted to cut Virtual Academy next year, he received pushback from parents — many of whom have medically fragile children or family members — who said they were devastated and are asking the school board to continue the program. (Markovich, 4/4)

CIDRAP: Study: Omicron Much More Infectious In US Preschoolers Than Delta
A new study in JAMA Pediatrics shows the Omicron variant has caused six to eight times the rate of Omicron infections in US preschoolers as the Delta variant, but cases were less severe with Omicron. The study looked at outcomes in US children ages 4 and younger—the last group eligible for vaccination in the country. Outcomes were emergency room visits, hospitalizations, intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, and mechanical ventilation use within 14 days of COVID-19 diagnosis. (4/4)

ABC News: New COVID-19 Variant XE Identified: What To Know And Why Experts Say Not To Be Alarmed 
A new COVID-19 variant has been identified in the United Kingdom, but experts say there is no cause for alarm yet. The variant, known as XE, is a combination of the original BA.1 omicron variant and its subvariant BA.2. This type of combination is known as a "recombinant" variant. Public health experts say that recombinant variants are very common and often crop up and disappear on their own. (Kekatos, 4/5)

Modesto Bee: Medicare To Cover Free, At-Home COVID-19 Tests
Medicare is now covering at-home COVID-19 tests at no cost, officials said. Those enrolled in Medicare Part B and Medicare Advantage plans are able to get up to eight of the tests each month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said April 4 in a news release. (Jasper, 4/4)

The Bakersfield Californian: Black, Latino Speakers Address Lack Of Trust In Vaccination Campaigns 
Leaders within Kern's Black and Latino communities gathered Monday to explore reasons — and potential solutions — for high rates of COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy among local people of color. The late afternoon event at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center off East California Avenue focused on a deep lack of trust in government as a primary factor behind vaccination skepticism. (Cox, 4/4)

KQED: New US Senate Bill Would Ease Student Loan Debt For Frontline Health Care Workers 
Senate Bill 3828, introduced by Democratic Sens. Alex Padilla from California and Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island, would benefit medical workers who have provided COVID-related health services during the pandemic. It would include physician assistants like Diakhate, as well doctors, nurses, medical interns, home health care workers, and emergency medical technicians transporting patients to hospitals. The proposed legislation likely would have a major impact on California’s estimated 1.7 million health care workers. It comes at a time when the state is struggling to expand its health workforce to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse population, and as longtime industry staffing shortages have been further exacerbated by pandemic burnout. (Romero, 4/4)

Bloomberg: UC Berkeley Biochemist, Crispr Pioneer Expects To See Gene-Edited Babies Within 25 Years
It’s been 10 years since Crispr pioneer Jennifer Doudna published the landmark paper that landed a Nobel Prize for her and colleague Emmanuelle Charpentier, and the researcher already sees advancement toward some of its loftier goals. To some, the Crispr future has been disappointingly slow to develop. But scientists around the world are using the technology to develop potential cures for debilitating genetic conditions, create diagnostic tests, produce better crops and fight climate change. And editing the genes of babies, a controversial practice Doudna was “horrified” by when a Chinese scientist revealed he’d changed the genomes of twin girls, may arrive within our lifetimes, she said. (Peebles, 4/4)

Politico: Biden Admin Plots To Fix Obamacare's 'Family Glitch,' Expand Coverage
The Biden administration is planning on Tuesday to propose a long-sought change to the Affordable Care Act aimed at lowering health insurance costs for millions of Americans, four people with knowledge of the matter told POLITICO. The new policy is designed to close a loophole in the ACA known as the “family glitch” that’s prevented an estimated 5 million people from qualifying for subsidized health plans — even when they can’t find affordable coverage elsewhere. (Cancryn, 4/4)

The Washington Post: CDC, Under Fire For Covid Response, Announces Plans To Revamp Agency 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky announced plans Monday to revamp the agency that has come under blistering criticism for its performance leading the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying, “it is time to step back and strategically position CDC to support the future of public health.” In an agencywide email sent shortly after 1 p.m., Walensky said she has hired a senior federal health official outside of the Atlanta-based agency to conduct a one-month review to “kick off an evaluation of CDC’s structure, systems, and processes.” (Sun, 4/4)

Stat: NIH’s Cancer Chief, Ned Sharpless, To Step Down 
Ned Sharpless, the director of the National Cancer Institute, is stepping down at the end of April, he told STAT. Sharpless, 55, spent nearly five years leading the roughly $7 billion biomedical research agency, which is the largest of the 27 institutes that compose the National Institutes of Health. “I strongly support what this [administration] is doing to support cancer research, but it’s time for me to step aside,” he wrote in a text message. (Facher, 4/4)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Surgeon General Discusses Mental Health With San Diego High School Students 
Vivek Murthy’s mission as Surgeon General is to tell the American people about pressing health issues, but on Monday afternoon at a YMCA in the San Diego neighborhood of Mountain View, he came to listen. About 25 students from Lincoln High School met with Murthy at the Jackie Robinson YMCA, where they shared issues about their own mental health and told him how their lives had been affected by the pandemic. (Warth, 4/4)

Orange County Register: Trial Begins For Family Suing Orange County For Coroner’s Mix-Up In Body Identification 
A cacophony of errors and missteps by the Orange County Coroner’s Office led to the unthinkable in 2017 — a grieving father and daughter buried a stranger thought to be their loved one, who was still alive, an attorney said Monday, April 4, during opening arguments in a civil trial to determine if the county was negligent for the mix-up. Frank J. Kerrigan, 86, of Wildomar and his 60-old-daughter, Carole Meikle of Silverado, are suing Orange County, accusing the Coroner’s Office of intentional misrepresentation for erroneously telling them Kerrigan’s son, Frankie, was dead. They are seeking unspecified damages at trial, which is expected to last as long as two weeks. (Schwebke, 4/4)

Daily Pilot: Orange County Forms Task Force To Address Health-Equity Issues 
After the pandemic revealed and, officials say, worsened social and health inequities in the community, Orange County is moving forward with a task force to identify and reduce the long-standing disparities. The move is part of the Equity in O.C. initiative, which began when the county partnered last year with a nonprofit to develop a map equity tool that shows which cities and neighborhoods are the most in need. (Brazil, 4/4)

The Washington Post: Black And Hispanic Seniors Are Left With A Less Powerful Flu Vaccine 
At Whitman-Walker Health, David Fessler and his staff administer high-dose influenza vaccine to all HIV-positive and senior patients. Although the vaccine is roughly three times as expensive as the standard flu vaccine, it seems to do a better job at protecting those with weakened immune systems — a major focus of the nonprofit group’s Washington clinics. At the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque, meanwhile, Melissa Martinez runs a drive-through clinic providing 10,000 influenza vaccines each year for a community made up largely of Black and Hispanic residents. It’s open to all comers, and they all get the standard vaccine. (Allen, 4/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: Mayor Breed Backs Mental Health Bills To Reform Mandated Treatment, Address Street Crisis: ‘It Is A Disgrace’
Mayor London Breed is supporting a package of mental health conservatorship reform bills in the California legislature, expressing frustration that people with mental illness are deteriorating on the streets and calling for more options to get them into treatment. Conservatorship, a controversial issue statewide, is when a judge appoints a conservator to make decisions about treatment for people with serious mental illnesses or chronic alcoholism who can’t care for their basic needs. (Moench, 4/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: This Is The ‘Crazy’ Average Income Needed To Buy A Home In The Bay Area Today
It may pay more to work in the Bay Area compared with other regions of the U.S., but for middle-class residents, new research shows it’s a trade-off that increasingly means giving up buying a home. Households earning around $80,000 to $165,000 qualify as “middle income” here, depending on the location and family size, compared with a national median income of $67,521. Even before pandemic bidding wars, it wasn’t enough to keep up with soaring home prices: Just 24% of homes sold in 2019 in San Francisco fell into price brackets that middle-class buyers could afford, according to a report released Monday by UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation. (Hepler, 4/4)