Los Angeles Times: Got COVID? Your Symptoms May Depend On Your Vaccination Status 
The latest update comes from the Zoe Health Study, a COVID-19 symptom tracker devised by researchers at Harvard, Stanford and King’s College in London. The findings reflect symptoms reported in the past several weeks by users of the Zoe COVID Study app in the United Kingdom, where new COVID cases have been ticking ominously upward. For example: Sneezing is now a very common symptom of COVID-19, reported with increasing frequency by people who’ve been vaccinated. (Healy, 10/25)

CIDRAP: Statins May Reduce Risk Of Death And COVID-19 Severity
Commonly used cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins may reduce the risk of death and the severity of COVID-19 disease, according to a new study of more than 38,000 patients presented at the Anesthesiology annual meeting. (10/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Men Died From Covid-19 At Much Higher Rate Than Women During The First Year Of Pandemic
Men died of complications from Covid-19 at a higher rate than women in both rural and urban parts of the U.S. during the first year of the pandemic, according to a new federal report. The report, published Tuesday by the National Center for Health Statistics, examined Covid-19 deaths by sex and age group for 2020, when the virus became the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. and before vaccines against it became widely available. (Ansari and Calfas, 10/25)

Bloomberg: Covid’s Heart Effects: Infections Raise Clotting, Death Risks In Large Study
Covid-19 at any level of severity is linked to an increased risk of dangerous blood clots that start in patients’ veins and travel to the heart, lungs and other parts of the body, according to a UK study that highlights the pandemic’s role in driving up rates of cardiovascular disease. (Gale, 10/24)

The Atlantic: Is Hand-Washing Still Important In The COVID-19 Pandemic?
Way back in the early, whirlwind days of the pandemic, surfaces were the thing to worry about. The prevailing scientific wisdom was that the coronavirus spread mainly via large droplets, which fell onto surfaces, which we then touched with our hands, with which we then touched our faces. (Stern, 10/24)

Bay Area News Group: 'Massive Decline' In Learning During COVID, But California Fared Better Than Other States
In a powerful indication of how students suffered academically during the COVID pandemic, test scores plummeted across the nation in math and fell significantly in reading in 2022, and California students also performed dramatically worse this year on the state’s standardized test, according to two sets of results released Monday that amplify the debate over the impact of remote learning. (Woolfolk and Rowan, 10/25)

EdSource: US Scores Crater On National Math Test, Calif.’s Not So Much
Nationwide scores plummeted in math and fell significantly in reading in 2022 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP, providing new evidence of the pandemic’s unparalleled impact on student learning and reinforcing calls for extra help for students who have fallen behind. Scores in California followed the national pattern in math but less so in reading. (10/24)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bivalent Booster No Better Against BA.5 Than Original Vaccine, Study Finds
When given as a fourth dose, the updated bivalent mRNA vaccine targeting the omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants does not induce superior neutralizing antibody responses in humans compared to the original monovalent vaccine formulation, according to a preprint study published Monday that has not yet been peer-reviewed. (Vaziri and Buchmann, 10/24)

CNN: Covid-19 Vaccine Study Links Side Effects With Greater Antibody Response 
People who reported experiencing side effects to the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines such as fever, chills or muscle pain tended to have a greater antibody response following vaccination, according to new research. (Howard, 10/24)

CIDRAP: New Vaccine Roadmap Eyes Future Threats Of Coronaviruses 
Today the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) published a draft version of a Coronavirus Vaccines Research & Development (R&D) Roadmap (CVR), highlighting strategies to develop vaccines that are effective against new COVID-19 variants, as well as coronaviruses that have not yet emerged in people. The roadmap draft is available for public review and comment. (Soucheray, 10/24)

Los Angeles Times: Southern California Braces For Difficult Flu Season
The current levels of flu activity are “much higher” compared to pre-pandemic years, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in a bulletin to healthcare providers. “In previous years, an early start to the season was associated with a season with substantially higher influenza activity.” (Money and Lin II, 10/24)

Stat: Here's What Experts Say About Timing Of Flu And Covid Shots
Over the past few weeks, cases of flu have begun to creep up across the U.S., with spikes in the southeast and south central part of the country. Flu hospitalizations are also on the rise. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s influenza tracking team, all signs point to an earlier than usual flu season. (Molteni, 10/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: Court Rules Against Activists Who Used Fake IDs To Enter Abortion Providers’ Meeting In S.F.
After a San Francisco jury awarded more than $2 million in damages against two antiabortion activists who posed as fetal researchers to enter and secretly record meetings of abortion providers, the pair argued that they had been acting legally as undercover journalists to expose wrongdoing. But a federal appeals court says journalists — if that’s what they were — must still abide by the law. (Egelko, 10/24)

Becker's Hospital Review: California Hospitals Restructure Leadership After Summer Resignations
MemorialCare Long Beach (Calif.) Medical Center and MemorialCare Miller Children's & Women's Hospital Long Beach are making strategic changes in executive leadership months after CEO John Bishop and former COO Ike Mmeje unexpectedly announced their resignations. (Gooch, 10/24)

VC Star: Community Memorial Health System Taps Mick Zdeblick As New CEO
The leader of an Ashland, Oregon, hospital has been hired to run the Community Memorial Health System that includes hospitals in Ventura and Ojai. (Kisken, 10/24)

KQED: Multiple Bay Area Health Care Strikes Reflect A Workforce Decimated By Labor Shortage 
The Sutter nurses strike is just the latest in a slew of labor actions in recent months among health care workers throughout the Bay Area, mirroring a larger nationwide trend. (Pelit, Siler and Whitney, 10/24)

KQED: California Needs More Latinx Therapists — But The Mental Health Field Is Still Full Of Barriers To Entry 
Growing up in Daly City, Eric Valladares remembers hearing how his parents and extended family fled El Salvador during the country’s 12-year civil war that ended in 1992. After settling in California, some members struggled financially, finding it hard to adjust to a country where they didn’t speak the language and felt like outsiders. (Torres, 10/24)

Fierce Healthcare: Headway Enters California To Ease Burden On Mental Healthcare
Headway is expanding its mental health pipeline to California as the state continues to assess its relationship with behavioral health. The mental health platform will help meet the Golden State’s notable demand for behavioral health care with appointments taking place in as little as 48 hours. Headway reports that, on average, patients attend their initial appointment six days after booking and subsequent appointments 7.7 days after booking. The announcement comes amidst two notable movements in the state: the July enactment of California Senate Bill 221 and the tentative agreement between Kaiser Permanente and the National Union of Healthcare Workers. (Burky, 10/20)

The Bakersfield Californian: Kaiser Permanente Hosts Drive To Collect Expired, Unused Drugs 
The community will have a chance to get rid of expired, unused or unwanted prescription pills during a community drive Saturday hosted by Kaiser Permanente, the Bakersfield Police Department and other local agencies. (10/24)

San Diego Union-Tribune: For Every 10 Homeless People Who Found Housing In Last Year, 13 More People Became Homeless 
The number of people falling into homelessness for the first time is outpacing the number of homeless people who find housing in San Diego County each month, according to a new report. (Warth, 10/24)

AP: California School District Ordered To Pay $45M In Abuse Case
A jury ordered Southern California’s Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District to pay $45 million to the family of autistic twins who were physically abused and restrained by an aide at their elementary school. (10/25)

Berkeleyside: Center For Independent Living, Which Launched Disability Rights Movement, Turns 50
This year the center celebrates its 50th anniversary as the birthplace of the modern independent living movement, which championed the right of people with disabilities to lead independent lives. (Furio, 10/24)

Los Angeles Times: Inflation Relief Debit Cards To Be Sent Out To Californians Starting Today 
Debit cards with inflation relief payments will be mailed out to millions of Californians starting Monday and should arrive in mailboxes over the next few weeks to help ease the pain of increased prices. (Solis, 10/24)

Fox News: New Study Finds Dyslexia Is Linked To 42 Genetic Variants
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Australia, the U.S. company 23andMe Inc, and the University of Edinburgh conducted what is considered the largest genetic study of dyslexia to date and published their findings recently in the journal Nature Genetics. (Nieto, 10/24)

The Verge: Kids Who Play Video Games Score Higher On Brain Function Tests
Kids who play video games have better memory and better control over their motor skills than kids who don’t, according to a new study looking at adolescent brain function. Video games might not be responsible for those differences — the study can’t say what the causes are — but the findings add to a bigger body of work showing gamers have better performance on some tests of brain function. That lends support to efforts to develop games that can treat cognitive problems. (Wetsman, 10/24)

Sky News: Toddlers Stop Napping 'When Their Brain Has Developed, Rather Than At A Specific Age' 
Toddlers drop naps when their brains are ready, rather than at a certain age, a study had found, as experts urged parents to let their children sleep. Professor Rebecca Spencer, from the University of Massachusetts, is leading an investigation into why some four or five-year-olds favor a daily nap, while some three-year-olds have stopped. (Uddin, 10/24)