California’s Covid Emergency Will Stay In Place: California lawmakers won’t end Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2-year-old covid-19 state of emergency, despite the objections of Republicans who say it gives him too much power. The Senate Governmental Organization Committee on Tuesday rejected a resolution by Sen. Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, that would have terminated the emergency declaration. Read more from The Sacramento Bee and Desert Sun.
Golden Gate Suicide Barrier Likely To Be Finished In 2023: The $206.7 million barrier along the Golden Gate Bridge is on course to be finished by the end of next year, after decades of delays and obstacles. The steel net will flank the 1.7-mile suspension bridge on both sides and is meant to catch anyone who jumps from the bridge. In 2021, there were 21 confirmed suicides from the bridge. Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle. Scroll down for more mental health news.
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
Los Angeles Daily News:
Parents Decry LAUSD’s Still-In-Place COVID Mask Mandate; Talks With Teachers’ Union Resume Wednesday
A group of parents upset about the continuing indoor mask-wearing mandate at Los Angeles Unified School District campuses rallied outside the teachers’ union headquarters on Tuesday, March 15, demanding an end to the COVID-19 requirement that has already been lifted at most other schools statewide. (3/15)
The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat:
Sonoma County Schools Recommend Students Remain Masked When Indoors Despite Mandate Lift
It’s the first week in school without California’s mandatory face mask requirement. The state relaxed the indoor mask rule after last Friday, March 11, 2022. Sonoma County health and education officials had already said last week that indoor masking for students will be “strongly recommended.” Some school districts are leaving existing mask policies in place, while others are relaxing the rules. (3/15)
Bay Area News Group:
Two More Santa Clara County Employees Sue Over Vaccine Mandate
Two healthcare workers at Santa Clara County’s Valley Medical Center filed suit in federal court on Monday, alleging that their employer’s vaccine mandate from last year violates their religious beliefs and forced them out of their jobs. The plaintiffs include radiation therapist Shannon Hartman and Dr. Katie Lightfoot, who are currently on unpaid leave. (Greschler, 3/15)
NBC News:
Senate Passes Resolution That Would Undo Extension Of Transit Mask Rule
The Senate passed a resolution Tuesday that would undo the extended federal regulation requiring masks on planes, trains, subways and other modes of public transportation. The Senate approved the measure in a 57-40 vote, with eight Democrats joining Republicans to pass the resolution. Mitt Romney of Utah was the only GOP senator to oppose the measure. (Finn and Thorp V, 3/15)
Capital & Main:
What’s In A Word: California Preps For The Endemic Era
The lifting of California’s statewide school mask mandate, leaving local districts to decide for themselves how to approach masking at this point in the age of COVID, is only the most recent indication that the state’s leadership is ready to move on to the endemic phase of the virus. Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom explained the state’s approach toward that goal in some detail. As with many things connected to COVID-19, though, the rhetoric often runs ahead of the facts. While case rates in California have dropped significantly over the past several weeks, the rolling seven-day infection average remains well above levels recorded early last summer, another time when politicians and some special interest groups wanted to believe COVID had run its course. (Kreidler, 3/15)
Bay Area News Group:
It's Time To Learn To Live With COVID. Are We Ready?
Two years after the COVID-19 virus turned our world upside down, life is slowly returning to normal. But it’s not the pre-COVID day-to-day we used to know. We won’t leave the virus behind; rather, we’ll live with it. This normal looks different. And we’re not there yet. “There will be accommodations to it,” said Dr. George Rutherford, infectious disease expert at UC San Francisco. (Krieger, 3/16)
Modesto Bee:
Kamala Harris’ Husband Doug Emhoff Positive For COVID-19
Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, tested positive for the coronavirus, the vice president’s office announced Tuesday evening, hours after he attended an outdoor event in Washington, D.C., where he interacted with AmeriCorps members. A White House official told McClatchy that Emhoff tested for COVID-19 after he began experiencing mild symptoms. The official said he was not symptomatic when he participated in the service event. Emhoff’s first test, a rapid antigen test, was negative, the official said, but a subsequent PCR test had a positive result. (Chambers, 3/15)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Coronavirus Positive Test Rate In California Is 1.5%, Lowest Since Before Summer Delta Surge
Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations across the Bay Area have plummeted to numbers not seen since December, and Californians in all but a few counties now live in low-risk regions for transmission, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The state’s positive coronavirus test rate has dropped to 1.5%, the lowest since last summer before the delta variant wreaked havoc on the health care system. And San Francisco’s seven-day average of new cases is below 100 for the first time since December, before the omicron variant started disrupting schools and back-to-office plans. (Vaziri, 3/15)
San Francisco Chronicle:
‘Perfect Storm’ Is Causing Coronavirus Cases To Rise In Europe. Should California Be Worried?
Even as California and the Bay Area drop most coronavirus restrictions amid a precipitous decline in cases, COVID-19 is on the rise again in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe as the omicron subvariant BA.2 spreads. Throughout the pandemic, the U.K. has generally served as a harbinger of what’s to come for California, first with the alpha variant, followed by delta, and most recently with omicron. Given the pattern, does the U.K.’s latest spike signal a new surge here in the coming weeks? (Hwang, 3/15)
The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat:
Despite Case Rates Dropping To Pre-Delta Surge, Sonoma County Reports 3 New COVID-19 Deaths
Remember spring of last year? That was when Sonoma County successfully emerged from a deadly winter surge, and COVID-19 case rates were so low that many thought the pandemic was over. Now, another spring reprieve from the pandemic has resulted in virus transmission rates not seen since before the deadly delta- or omicron-fueled surges. For the week ending March 8, there were an average of 7.4 new daily cases per 100,000 residents, or an average of just under 37 new coronavirus infections a day. (Espinoza, 3/15)
CBS News:
Omicron BA.2 Sub-Variant Now Nearly A Quarter Of New COVID Cases In U.S., CDC Estimates
The BA.2 sub-lineage of the Omicron variant now makes up nearly a quarter of new COVID-19 infections nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated Tuesday, up from around 1 in 10 new cases just a week prior. Since January, Omicron has made up virtually all new infections in the U.S. Like in many countries abroad, most cases in the U.S. had been caused by a sub-lineage of Omicron known as BA.1. But while both BA.1 and BA.2 can be traced back to some of the earliest samples gathered of Omicron, BA.2 has only recently begun to climb in prevalence. (Tin, 3/15)
San Francisco Chronicle:
S.F. City Attorney Chiu Leads Crackdown On Rogue COVID Testing Sites
Unauthorized COVID-19 testing sites in San Francisco have been brought under control following a two-month effort to crack down on fraud and bring legitimate operators into compliance, City Attorney David Chiu announced. An investigation began in January with the outbreak of the omicron variant. Reports of unauthorized pop-up and sidewalk testing sites soon followed, and as many as 100 citizen complaints were recorded by Chiu’s office along with the Department of Public Health, members of the Board of Supervisors and the 311 Customer Service Centers. (Whiting, 3/15)
The New York Times:
Inside The High-Stakes Race To Test The Covid Tests
When the pandemic hit two years ago, the United States faced an acute shortage of reliable Covid-19 tests. It was the nation’s first major pandemic failure, blinding health experts and the public to the spread of the coronavirus and allowing the pathogen to spread across the country unchecked. And for much of 2020, getting tested required waiting hours just to be swabbed and a week or longer for results. Now, hundreds of millions of rapid, at-home tests are pouring into the American market every month. The federal government is mailing out free tests, Americans are trading swabbing tips on social media and children are spitting into collection tubes at school. (Anthes, 3/15)
Modesto Bee:
Ceres OKs COVID Relief Spending From American Rescue Plan
The Ceres City Council on Monday approved spending roughly $5.2 million of federal COVID-19 relief funding on various projects, with the largest chunks going toward police, engineering and public works. Approved by a 3-2 vote, the spending plan represents less than half of the the total $11.6 million allocated for the city from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). (Lam, 3/15)
Los Angeles Times:
Pfizer May Seek Approval For 4th COVID Dose For Seniors
Pfizer and its partner BioNTech asked U.S. regulators Tuesday to authorize an additional booster dose of their COVID-19 vaccine for seniors, saying data from Israel suggest older adults would benefit. Currently the U.S. urges two primary shots followed months later by a booster dose for everyone age 12 and older. The new application seeks to add a fourth shot only for the over-65 population that has been hit hardest by the pandemic. (Miller, 3/15)
The New York Times:
Mounting Data Shows J&J Vaccine As Effective As Pfizer And Moderna
Roughly 17 million Americans received the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine, only to be told later that it was the least protective of the options available in the United States. But new data suggest that the vaccine is now preventing infections, hospitalizations and deaths at least as well as the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. The reasons aren’t clear, and not all experts are convinced that the vaccine has vindicated itself. But the accumulating data nonetheless offer considerable reassurance to recipients of the vaccine and, if confirmed, have broad implications for its deployment in parts of the world. (Mandavilli, 3/15)
ABC News:
White House Says 1st Cuts To COVID Efforts Will Hit Americans Next Week As Funding Stalls In Congress
Americans will feel the impact of cuts to the U.S. COVID response as early as next week, the White House said Tuesday in a letter to congressional leaders, as efforts to get more funding sit stalled. This letter is the latest push on behalf of the White House to try to persuade Congress that the U.S. desperately needs more COVID-relief money. So far, those pleas have not had much success. (Haslett and Gittleson, 3/15)
NBC News:
White House Warns Of Covid Treatment, Vaccine Cuts Without Added Funding
Biden administration officials warned that the U.S. will soon run out of funding for future Covid booster shots, new treatments and testing efforts if the spending legislation remains stuck in Congress. The federal government will be canceling plans to purchase additional monoclonal antibody treatments that it had expected to order as soon as next week after Congress failed to provide an additional $22.5 billion in Covid funding that the White House had requested, a senior administration official said. (Pettypiece, 3/15)
CBS News:
New Law Aims To Expand Care For Sex Assault Victims, Including Access To Rape Kits
A nearly decade-long fight for better access to care for rape victims is now law. On Tuesday, President Biden signed the Violence Against Women Act, which includes provisions of a bipartisan bill to expand access to care for victims of sexual assault. Washington Senator Patty Murray drafted the legislation after hearing the story of constituent Leah Griffin, of Seattle, who said she was unable to receive a rape examination at her neighborhood hospital in 2014. (Brand, 3/15)
Sacramento Bee:
Biden, Becerra Giving Millions To Opioid, Drug Abuse Meds
The Biden administration designated $25.6 million to give entities combating the overdose epidemic medication-assisted treatments, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told McClatchy on Tuesday. The grants aim to make medication-assisted treatment more widely available for opioid-use disorder and prescription drug misuse, according to the federal agency. Grants will be available through two new programs under the department’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration division. (Brassil, 3/15)
The New York Times:
A Groggy Senate Approves Making Daylight Saving Time Permanent
After losing an hour of sleep over the weekend, members of the United States Senate returned to the Capitol this week a bit groggy and in a mood to put an end to all this frustrating clock-changing. So on Tuesday, with almost no warning and no debate, the Senate unanimously passed legislation to do away with the biannual springing forward and falling back that most Americans have come to despise, in favor of making daylight saving time permanent. The bill’s fate in the House was not immediately clear, but if the legislation were to pass there and be signed by President Biden, it would take effect in November 2023. (Broadwater and Nierenberg, 3/15)
The New York Times:
Why Is There Daylight Saving Time, Anyway?
The idea is to move an hour of sunlight from the early morning to the evening, so that people can make more use of daylight. Benjamin Franklin is often credited as the first to suggest it in the 18th century, after he realized he was wasting his Parisian mornings by staying in bed. He proposed that the French fire cannons at sunrise to wake people up and reduce candle consumption at night. Over the next 100 years, the Industrial Revolution laid the groundwork for his idea to enter government policy. (Yuhas, 3/15)
NPR:
Sleep Is Hard To Come By For 1 In 3 Americans, A Survey Finds
Americans are having a hard time sleeping, and stress seems to be a major factor according to a recent poll. The web-based survey conducted jointly by Gallup and mattress retailer Casper found that only one-third of Americans report getting high-quality sleep. A third of adults said their sleep the previous night was either fair or poor. That suggests nearly 84 million people in this country are tossing and turning. The survey of more than 3,000 adults highlighted that a person's emotional and mental state are major contributing factors, with stress increasing restlessness by 96%. Stress also more heavily impacted younger adults in the poll, with nearly seven in 10 between the ages of 18 to 29 saying that difficulty sleeping has a direct impact on their moods. (Dean, 3/15)
Fox News:
Sleeping With Lights Off And Closed Blinds May Protect Your Health: Study
Turning off all lights and drawing the curtains before hitting the bed may help protect your health, according to a recent study out of Northwestern University that was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "These findings are important particularly for those living in modern societies where exposure to indoor and outdoor nighttime light is increasingly widespread," senior study author Dr. Phyllis Zee said in the release. Researchers found exposure even to moderate ambient light while sleeping, compared to sleeping in a dimly lit room, is harmful to your cardiovascular function during sleep and can increase your insulin resistance the following morning, according to a release about the Northwestern Medicine study. (McGorry, 3/15)
Politico:
Instagram, TikTok Could Get Sued For Addicting Kids Under California Proposal
Big Tech companies could face a slew of lawsuits for harming children under a new California proposal that takes the toughest industry-accountability stance yet on the mental health toll of intense social media use. The bipartisan measure from Assemblymembers Jordan Cunningham (R-Templeton) and Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), which rolls out on Tuesday, would hold social media companies legally liable for deploying features and apps that addict children to their detriment. Significantly, the legislation is retroactive, which would put the companies at legal risk for any past damage their products caused for teens and younger children. (Luthi, 3/15)
Press-Telegram:
Long Beach Supports Statewide Mental Health Plan; Wants Local Control If Passed
Long Beach will support a newly proposed plan by Gov. Gavin Newsom to compel some people with severe mental health and addiction disorders into treatment and will explore how it can have local control over such a plan. Newsom’s plan — which was proposed earlier this month and still needs to be approved by the state legislature — would require all counties in the state to participate. Although such a plan is still in its early stages, since Long Beach runs its own health department, city officials emphasized that local control over its mental health services is important. (Singgih, 3/15)
Voice of OC:
Placentia Middle Schoolers Sent Home After Assistant Principal Took His Own Life On Campus
Kraemer Middle School students in Placentia were sent home Monday after Assistant Principal Moises Plascencia took his own life earlier this morning on campus. The death happened in a private staff area and no one was present or witnessed it, said a Monday news release sent out to parents by school principal Michael Young. (Pho, 3/14)
Mosaic:
Teen Mental Health: Cost, Stigma And Time Hamper Care
For Nhi Huynh, a University of Berkeley freshman, high school was marked by the constant pressure of trying to manage her life in an academically competitive environment. She was taking college level courses and leading several clubs — and in spring of her junior year campuses closed and cut her off from academic and social support. “I was really burnt out at the end of senior year, and I wasn’t taking care of myself well and my relationships suffered because of it,” Huynh said. (Nguyen, 3/15)
Newsweek:
'American Dream': Mom's Shocking Hospital Bill After Childbirth Sparks Fury
A video describing the cost of one woman's childbirth in California has gone viral on TikTok, with users expressing shock at the high fees. Giving birth is not cheap in the United States. For both natural and C-section births, the U.S. topped the list of the most expensive countries in which to give birth in 2017, according to figures from the International Federation of Health Plans. ... California is particularly expensive, the figures showed, with hospitals there charging an average of $26,380 for mothers to give birth to their child—75 percent higher than the national average. And in any state, if there are complications or an extended hospital stay, the bill can rise into six figures. (Browne, 3/15)
California Healthline:
How To Avoid Surprise Bills — And The Pitfalls In The New Law
Patients are no longer required to pay for out-of-network care given without their consent when they receive treatment at hospitals covered by their health insurance since a federal law took effect at the start of this year. But the law’s protections against the infuriating, expensive scourge of surprise medical bills may be only as good as a patient’s knowledge — and ability to make sure those protections are enforced. Here’s what you need to know. (Weissmann, 3/16)
Health Care Industry and Insurance
Modern Healthcare:
SCAN's Medical Group For Homeless Patients Grows Insurer Clients
SCAN Group's medical not-for-profit, specializing in care for the homeless, officially secured its first independent insurer contract, with Healthcare in Action's partnership with Molina Healthcare cementing the company's plan of leveraging local health plans and health systems as customers. Molina Healthcare, which is headquartered in Long Beach, has partnered with Healthcare in Action to provide care for its homeless members and sign the unhoused up for its Medicaid plans. Molina is one of the largest Medicaid carriers in the nation with 4.1 million enrollees, and about half of the 163,000 individuals without homes in California qualify for some form of health insurance, the company says. (Tepper, 3/15)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Two California Residents Who Started Taiwan Biopharma Firm Sentenced For Stealing Trade Secrets From Genentech
Two California residents who co-founded a biopharmaceutical company in Taiwan were sentenced to just over a year in prison on Tuesday for committing wire fraud and stealing trade secrets from another company in order to gain a competitive advantage, officials said. (Picon, 3/15)
Modern Healthcare:
Google, Meditech To Pilot Care Studio Software Integration In EHR
Google plans to bring its Care Studio clinical software into Meditech's electronic health records system, the companies said Tuesday at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society trade show in Orlando, Florida. Google Health and Westwood, Massachusetts-based EHR vendor Meditech will work together to embed Care Studio, an EHR search tool that's separately been piloted at St. Louis-based Ascension, into Meditech's Expanse EHR. Care Studio standardizes patient data and offers an interface where clinicians can search for details within a patient record to quickly find information. (Kim Cohen, 3/15)
Stat:
Doctors Often Turn To Google Translate. They Want A Better Option
The patient had just undergone a cesarean section, and now was struggling to put words to her pain in her native Taiwanese. The physician making rounds, Natasha Mehandru, was used to communicating with patients who didn’t speak English as a first language at her county hospital in Phoenix. But this time, calling in an interpreter by phone wasn’t working. “The service was not really good,” she said — and soon, she realized the patient and the interpreter weren’t even speaking the same dialect. “It was difficult to communicate, even with the interpreter.” So Mehandru turned to a familiar tool: Google Translate. Typing translations back and forth — Taiwanese to English, English to Taiwanese — she and the patient slowly came to an understanding with the help of the interpreter still on the line. (Palmer, 3/16)
Los Angeles Times:
Californians Are Saving Less Water As Drought Worsens
California will end winter in a perilous position as record-shattering dryness converges with lagging water conservation efforts in nearly every part of the state, officials said Tuesday. After months of cutting back, new data from the State Water Resources Control Board show that rather than conserving water, Californians increased urban water use 2.6% in January, compared to the same month in 2020 — the baseline year against which current savings are measured. (Smith, 3/15)
San Francisco Chronicle:
One Bay Area County Says It Could End Homelessness This Year. Can Its Approach Spread?
Joe Salcedo didn’t set out to make history when he moved out of his car and into a temporary housing complex in San Mateo County five months ago. But he’s stoked about the idea now. The 56-year-old is among hundreds of unhoused people being pulled off the streets so quickly that San Mateo is on track to become the first Bay Area county to reduce its unsheltered homeless population to functional zero. (Fagan, 3/15)
Bloomberg:
U.S. Rent Inflation Hits Record 12.6%
U.S. rent inflation reached yet another record in January, fueled by red-hot markets such as Miami. Single-family rental prices jumped 12.6% from a year earlier, according to the latest CoreLogic Single-Family Rent Index. All major metropolitan areas saw increases, but the Sun Belt experienced by far the biggest gains, with Miami’s asking rents up almost 39%. Los Angeles area rents were up 9%, by this math, 13th largest among the 20 biggest U.S. metros. (3/15)
CNBC:
Theranos Saga Returns To Courtroom As Ex-COO Balwani Set For Trial
He was the man behind the lab curtain at blood-testing start-up Theranos. Now he takes center stage in his own criminal fraud case. Opening arguments in the trial of Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, former president and chief operating officer of Theranos, begin Wednesday in the San Jose federal courthouse, where a jury in January found Theranos ex-CEO Elizabeth Holmes, guilty of four counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. A jury of six men and six women will decide the fate of Balwani, who has been charged with the same crimes as Holmes. Each carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. He pleaded not guilty. (Khorram, 3/15)