Bay Area News Group: Omicron BA.2 Subvariant Now One In Three U.S. COVID-19 Cases
New data Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show omicron’s more transmissible BA.2 subvariant now accounts for more than a third of the virus circulating in the U.S. but is not yet driving a surge in cases here as it has overseas. The CDC data show that as of March 19, BA.2 — often referred to as “stealth omicron” — accounted for 34.9% of genetically sequenced samples across the U.S., up from 22.3% as of March 12 and 12.6% on March 5. In the Northeast, BA.2 accounts for as much as 55.4% of the virus, and in Western states including California, 41.3%. (Woolfolk, 3/22)

Los Angeles Times: How Can We Prep For A Spring California Omicron BA.2 Surge? 
Is California doing enough to prepare for a potential increase in cases of the Omicron subvariant BA.2 this spring? California has made great strides in improving access to vaccinations and testing, but officials say there’s plenty of room for improvement, and that doing so is essential, given concerning trends elsewhere in the country, especially in the Northeast. (Lin, 3/22)

San Francisco Chronicle: Can The Bay Area Avoid A BA.2 COVID Surge?
Bay Area health officials say the BA.2 omicron coronavirus subvariant is quickly moving toward dominance in the region, raising concerns that the downward trend in COVID-19 cases may reverse. BA.2, which is thought to be anywhere from 30% to more than 50% more transmissible than the previous omicron variant, now makes up a majority of new cases in parts of Contra Costa County and Santa Clara County, according to wastewater surveillance. (Vaziri, 3/22)

VC Star / The Conversation: BA.2 Coronavirus Variant: What You Need To Know About Stealth Omicron
A new omicron subvariant of the virus that causes COVID-19, BA.2, is quickly becoming the predominant source of infections amid rising cases around the world. Here’s a closer look at what makes it different from previous variants, whether there will be another surge in the U.S. and how best to protect yourself. (P. Nagarkatti and M. Nagarkatti, 3/22)

The Wall Street Journal: Biden Administration To Stop Reimbursing Hospitals For Covid-19 Care For Uninsured 
Some people without health insurance will begin getting bills for Covid-19 treatments and testing after the Biden administration on Tuesday starts winding down a federal program that reimburses providers for virus-related care for the uninsured and that officials say is running out of funds. The White House says it will end the reimbursement program, which started under the Trump administration and also pays hospitals and other healthcare providers for things such as administering Covid-19 vaccines to uninsured people, by the end of April because it is running out of money. The administration and hospitals are urging lawmakers to approve more funding for the program. (Armour and Siddiqui, 3/22)

AP: COVID Budget Impasse Halts Aid To Test And Treat Uninsured
With an urgent funding request stuck in Congress, a federal agency says it can no longer cover coronavirus tests and treatment bills for uninsured people and will stop taking claims at midnight Tuesday. “The lack of funding for COVID-19 needs is having real consequences,” Martin Kramer, a spokesman for the Health Resources and Services Administration, said in a statement. “We have begun an orderly shutdown of the program.” (Alonso-Zaldivar, 3/22)

City News Service: LA Council To Vote On Ending COVID Vaccine Requirement 
The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday could lift its mandate requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination to enter many indoor establishments and large outdoor events. The city ordinance, which went into effect Nov. 8, requires people over age 12 to show proof of vaccination before patronizing indoor restaurants, gyms, entertainment and recreational facilities, personal care establishments and some city buildings. The law also requires people to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test to attend outdoor events with 5,000 or more people. (3/22)

The Washington Post: White House Officials Warn U.S. Has Exhausted Funds To Buy Potential Fourth Vaccine Dose For All Americans 
The Biden administration lacks the funds to purchase a potential fourth coronavirus vaccine dose for everyone, even as other countries place their own orders and potentially move ahead of the United States in line, administration officials said Monday. Federal officials have secured enough doses to cover a fourth shot for Americans age 65 and older as well as the initial regimen for children under 5, should regulators determine those shots are necessary, said three officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to detail funding decisions. But the officials say they cannot place advance orders for additional vaccine doses for those in other age groups, unless Congress passes a stalled $15 billion funding package. (Diamond, Roubein and Abutaleb, 3/22)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Pays Less Than Almost Every State For Ambulances To Carry Medi-Cal Patients
California has more Medi-Cal patients than any other state, but it pays less than almost all of them for ambulances to carry the low-income, disabled or older adults to where they need to go. On Tuesday, an unusual alliance of ambulance workers and their bosses announced they will urge the governor and California lawmakers to raise the reimbursement rate for Medi-Cal, the state’s version of the national program, Medicaid, which pays for medical assistance to Californians in need. (Asimov, 3/22)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Illumina Launches Lawsuit Against Guardant Health Claiming Misappropriation Of Trade Secrets 
San Diego’s Illumina filed a lawsuit last week against Guardant Health, claiming its co-founders hijacked confidential trade secrets while working at Illumina to establish the intellectual property foundation for their own new company. The complex legal action asks the court to declare Illumina the rightful owner of at least 35 issued and nine pending patents. (Freeman, 3/22)

San Francisco Chronicle: Doctors Studied More Than 2 Decades Of Golden Gate Bridge Jumps. Their Research Shows Why Some Manage To Survive
As engineers gradually expand a suicide net beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, trauma surgeons in Marin are wrapping up what they hope will be the last report on people who survive a brutal 220-foot fall from the structure. Their research, which is undergoing peer review, offers a glimpse into the grim but intricate triage system used to pull people from the water and keep them alive. Few can withstand a crash at freeway speeds into the frigid waters of the bay, but doctors and emergency responders have managed to boost the odds of survival — from 2% historically to 3% since 2010. (Swan, 3/22)

Orange County Register: Test Strips For Fentanyl, Supervised Injection Sites, Might Come To California
Heroin addicts in New York City can take their drugs to an “overdose prevention center,” where clean needles and alcohol swabs await. There, in partitioned booths worthy of a library, they can shoot or snort under the watchful gaze of health care workers armed with naloxone, oxygen and other life-saving interventions. Since opening on Nov. 30, these two centers have reversed more than 150 overdoses, officials in New York said. Staffers “meet people where they are” and can steer users toward treatment, housing and other social services to help them reclaim their lives. (Sforza, 3/22)

Los Angeles Times: Disney Had A Tight-Lipped Culture. Then Florida Happened 
On Tuesday morning, an extraordinary scene unfolded on the Burbank lot of Walt Disney Co. About 100 Disney employees gathered outside the Roy E. Disney Animation Building, known for its giant Sorcerer’s Apprentice hat, hoisting signs saying “Disney Say Gay” and "#disneydobetter.” They posed for a group photo at 9:30 a.m. before heading over to rally in front of the lot’s Alameda Avenue gate. ... The ongoing revolt by staff signifies a significant break with Disney’s normally insular company culture, in which employees have long been fiercely loyal and protective of the company. (Faughnder, 3/22)

The Wall Street Journal: Disney Workers Walk Out To Protest Company’s Response To Florida Bill 
Small groups of Walt Disney Co. employees across the U.S. took Tuesday off from work and gathered to protest what they described as the company’s continued failure to support LGBT employees. ... Disney said that in addition to the Glendale protest, about 60 to 70 people picketed Tuesday outside its main headquarters in Burbank, just north of Los Angeles. Employees stayed home from work in Orlando, Fla., where tens of thousands of Walt Disney World staff are based, and in Anaheim, Calif., the site of Disneyland. (Whelan and Sayre, 3/22)

AP: FDA Details Problems At Plant Behind Recalled Baby Formula
Baby formula maker Abbott failed to maintain sanitary conditions and procedures at the Michigan manufacturing plant recently linked to a cluster of infant illnesses, according to findings released Tuesday by federal safety inspectors. The Food and Drug Administration posted its initial inspection findings from the Abbott plant that’s been tied to several infant hospitalizations, including two deaths, due to a rare bacterial infection. Abbott recalled various lots of three popular powdered infant formulas in mid-February. FDA inspectors have been on-site inspecting the Sturgis, Michigan, facility since late January. (Perrone, 3/22)

The New York Times: Brain Implant Allows Fully Paralyzed Patient To Communicate 
In 2020 Ujwal Chaudhary, a biomedical engineer then at the University of Tübingen and the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in Geneva, watched his computer with amazement as an experiment that he had spent years on revealed itself. A 34-year-old paralyzed man lay on his back in the laboratory, his head connected by a cable to a computer. A synthetic voice pronounced letters in German: “E, A, D…”The patient had been diagnosed a few years earlier with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which leads to the progressive degeneration of brain cells involved in motion. The man had lost the ability to move even his eyeballs and was entirely unable to communicate; in medical terms, he was in a completely locked-in state. (Moens, 3/22)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Pledged To End Family Homelessness. It Failed, But There’s New Hope With A SoMa Building
Five years ago, San Francisco had its sights set on eliminating family homelessness by December 2021. At the time, the city had counted 190 unhoused families, most of them in shelters. City officials were optimistic that, through a combination of rental subsidies, supportive housing and other efforts, they could effectively reduce to zero the number of parents with children who languish for lengthy periods without a stable home or access to needed services. (Morris and Fagan, 3/22)

San Francisco Chronicle: A Plan To House Homeless Youth At The Red Victorian Hotel Fizzled. What’s Next For S.F.’s Divided Haight?
When it opened in 1904, the 21-room Haight Street Victorian was called the Jefferson Hotel and catered to visitors of San Francisco’s nascent Golden Gate Park. During the summer of love, the stately building functioned as a free hippie crash pad. Then activist Sami Sunchild bought it in the late ’70s, painted the exterior a vibrant shade of crimson and picked a name that stuck: The Red Victorian — a counterculture landmark that would go on to host peace summits, COVID-safe drag shows and Airbnb rentals. (Helper, 3/22)

Orange County Register: New Homeless Shelter In Santa Ana Won’t Open As Scheduled
A new shelter to help homeless people in Santa Ana find jobs, drug counseling and permanent dwellings is on hold as the city and the property owner haggle in court over terms of a lease. The city said Tuesday, March 22, that it filed suit to force the owners of a 29,000-square-foot industrial building on Carnegie Avenue to resume construction that will transition the interior of the property into a homeless navigation center. The city says the property owners, brothers Ryan and Jeremy Ogulnick, violated terms of the lease when they ordered construction crews to stop work on the project last week. The Ogulnicks could not be reached for comment, but court records show that they believe the city has violated the lease signed last year. (Mouchard, 3/22)

Voice of OC: Santa Ana’s Carnegie Homeless Shelter “Hangs In The Balance” As Work Halts While City Sues Developers In Federal Court
Last Friday, City of Santa Ana officials arrived at the construction site of their only city-operated emergency homeless shelter on Carnegie Avenue, expecting “the ordinary robust level of construction activity” with crews at work, as the shelter was set to open early this year. But no one was there. The front gate was closed and the area was virtually dead, according to a federal lawsuit city officials filed on Monday, which adds that all work had stopped on the site, despite it being “nearly 90% complete.” (Pho, 3/22)

Voice of OC: As OC Cities Spur Affordable Housing Near Airport, County Commission Expresses Safety Concerns
Orange County cities have struggled for years to meet their affordable housing goals, falling short of state mandates to create the most affordable units amid a housing crisis. But city council members surrounding local airports appear to have found a new idea: Sandwich affordable housing up against the airport. While OC officials struggle to find new areas for affordable housing, Newport Beach and Irvine are moving to build housing units closer to the airport. (Biesiada and Hicks, 3/22)

KQED: COVID Rent Relief: What Renters And Owners Need To Know Ahead Of March 31 Deadline
California's eviction moratorium — the state's protections for renters who have been unable to pay their rent — expired at the end of September. This means that, as of October 1, property owners in many places in California could once again evict tenants for not paying their rent. And to avoid being evicted, renters who have been financially affected by COVID-19 must pay a portion of their back rent, and can apply for rent relief through state or local programs. But the deadline to apply — March 31 — is fast approaching. (Wolffe, 3/22)

The New York Times: MacKenzie Scott Gives $436 Million To Habitat For Humanity 
MacKenzie Scott, who promised in 2019 that she would give away her fortune “until the safe is empty,” has donated $436 million to Habitat for Humanity International and its 84 affiliates, the organization said Tuesday. The gift is designed to help alleviate the global housing shortage and promote “equitable access to affordable housing,” Habitat for Humanity said in a statement. (Cramer, 3/22)

The New York Times: Another Theranos Trial Begins, This Time Without the Fanfare
A small group with cameras milled around on the sidewalk. Inside, a smattering of reporters stared into their phones. And when the defendant walked in, flanked by lawyers, barely anyone noticed. So began the federal trial on Tuesday of Ramesh Balwani, the tech executive who is accused of defrauding patients and investors about Theranos, the blood testing start-up he helped build. Mr. Balwani, who goes by Sunny, has pleaded not guilty to a dozen charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. (Woo and Griffith, 3/22)

The Wall Street Journal: Former Theranos President Ramesh ‘Sunny’ Balwani Begins His Defense 
Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani wasn’t in charge at Theranos Inc., and the blood-testing company was neither his idea nor his creation, his attorney told a jury Tuesday as the second criminal-fraud trial involving the defunct Silicon Valley startup got under way. The responsibility for the rise and fall of Theranos rests on founder and Chief Executive Elizabeth Holmes, attorney Stephen Cazares said in opening statements as he outlined the main points of Mr. Balwani’s defense. (Somerville, 3/22)