LA County Likely To Reinstate Indoor Mask Mandate Next Week: Los Angeles County is poised to impose new indoor mask rules next week as data show the hyper-infectious BA.5 omicron subvariant is pushing coronavirus case counts higher and sending increasing numbers of people to the hospital. Read more from the Los Angeles Times. Keep scrolling for more on the covid surge.
San Francisco Delaying Second Doses Of Monkeypox Vaccines: San Francisco is prioritizing first doses of the monkeypox vaccine until nationwide vaccine supply improves — which will give more people a chance to get partial protection from one dose, but likely delay second doses for those who’ve already gotten their first. Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle. More coverage of monkeypox, below.
Below, check out the roundup of California Healthline’s coverage. For today's national health news, read KHN's Morning Briefing.
The Mercury News: Bay Area COVID Case Rates Are Once Again Lower Than California's After four months of having to claim the highest COVID rates in California, the Bay Area has dropped back to its familiar position through most of the pandemic — among the state’s lowest infection rates. Earlier this month, Los Angeles and San Diego both surpassed the nine-county Bay Area as the highly contagious BA.5 variant spread throughout the state. The switch comes as L.A. considers reinstating an indoor mask mandate, which some campuses in Southern California such as UC Irvine have already done. (Rowan, 7/22)
Oaklandside: What You Should Know About The Latest COVID Surge In Oakland The COVID surge in Alameda County that began in May has continued into late July, driven by a highly transmissible sub-variant called BA.5. Compared to the omicron-fueled surge earlier this year, which caused case rates to peak quickly and fall sharply, the BA.5 surge has produced consistently high case rates over a longer period of time. Dr. Noha Aboelata, CEO at Roots Community Health Center in East Oakland, told The Oaklandside that COVID cases are “plateauing at a high rate, which you never want to see of course.” (Markovich and Piper, 7/21)
Orange County Register: Coronavirus: Vaccinations Among Ages 0-4 Continue To Climb, Up 34% The OC Health Care Agency reported 2,335,414 county residents were fully vaccinated as of Thursday, July 21. This represents about 72.4% of Orange County’s total population. Also, there have been 1,350,486 booster doses administered. (Goertzen, 7/21)
CalMatters: Some COVID Orphans To Get Trust Funds In a small town in California’s Central Valley, a trio of siblings lost both their parents to COVID-19 within two weeks of each other in 2021. Their deaths made the oldest son a pseudo-parent to his teenage siblings overnight and forced the brothers and sister to figure out a future without their mom and dad. In California, 32,000 children under 18 have experienced the death of a parent or primary caregiver from COVID-19, according to research by the Global Reference Group for Children Affected by COVID-19. Those children — so-called “COVID orphans” — are likely to face not just financial hardship but a lifetime of mental health, educational, relational and emotional challenges, researchers say. (Aguilera, 7/22)
Covid in the White House
AP: White House Tries To Make Biden's COVID A 'Teachable Moment' For more than a year, President Joe Biden’s ability to avoid the coronavirus seemed to defy the odds. When he finally did test positive, the White House was ready. It set out to turn the diagnosis into a “teachable moment” and dispel any notion of a crisis. ... It was a day that began with Biden’s COVID-19 results and included repeated assurances over the coming hours that the president was hard at work while isolating in the residential areas of the White House with “very mild symptoms” including a runny nose, dry cough and fatigue. Biden, in a blazer and Oxford shirt, recorded a video from the White House balcony telling people: “I’m doing well, getting a lot of work done. And, in the meantime, thanks for your concern. And keep the faith. It’s going to be OK.” (Weissert and Megerian, 7/22)
The Washington Post: Biden’s Bout With Covid Tests His Return-To-Normal Strategy If Biden emerges quickly from his bout with covid-19, it will be a high-profile demonstration of his broader vow: A return to normalcy is possible thanks to vaccines and treatments, despite surging cases and the ongoing pandemic. But if the president should be sick for an extended period or, worse, fall gravely ill, he’ll join many other Americans who have struggled to remain healthy in a world with scant mask-wearing and social distancing, and fuel further criticism that his virus strategy falls short, especially for the most vulnerable. (Diamond, 7/21)
NBC News: Biden Covid Risk: Though His Age Raises Chance Of Severe Covid, Experts Predict Quick Recovery Joe Biden’s age, 79, automatically puts him at greater risk for Covid complications, but infectious disease experts expect the president — who has had two Covid booster vaccines and is in relatively good health otherwise — to recover quickly. (Edwards and Bendix, 7/21)
The New York Times: Why Biden’s Second Booster Wasn’t Enough To Prevent Infection Each subsequent avatar of the virus has become still better at sidestepping immunity. BA.5, which now accounts for nearly 80 percent of cases in the United States, is the most wily yet. Detailed data collected in Qatar suggests that immunity from previous infection and vaccines is weakest against BA.5 compared with its predecessors. BA.5 is also highly contagious. The nation is recording roughly 130,000 cases per day on average; that number is likely to be a huge underestimate, because most people test at home or do not test at all. (Mandavilli, 7/21)
NPR: What To Know About Paxlovid, The COVID Drug President Biden Is Using To Speed Recovery President Biden has begun taking a course of Paxlovid, after testing positive for COVID-19. The antiviral medicine is recommended for early treatment by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Chappell, 7/21)
Palm Springs Desert Sun: Eisenhower Health Receives 120 Doses Of The JYNNEOS Monkeypox Vaccine The California Department of Public Health has released 120 doses of the JYNNEOS vaccine for monkeypox to Eisenhower Health for patients who have had a high-risk exposure to the disease, Eisenhower Health announced in a press release Thursday. (Kottmann, 7/21)
Bay Area News Group: ‘We Want To Stop The Virus’: Monkeypox Shots Still Limited As Bay Area Cases Grow Monkeypox cases have roughly doubled in some Bay Area counties in the last week as anxious residents snap up the limited supply of vaccine and many others are turned away. Cases are now past the 200 mark across six Bay Area counties, with San Francisco leading the pack with the majority of cases and Santa Clara and Alameda counties reporting a few dozen. All three counties are offering the vaccine with varied requirements and eligibility. (Greschler, 7/21)
Newsweek: Monkeypox Vaccine Should Be Given To Gay Community First, Experts Say Vaccines for the monkeypox virus should be prioritized for men who have sex with men, according to experts. (Thomson, 7/21)
Deseret News: ‘Bad Luck:’ Northern California Man Suffers COVID-19, Monkeypox At The Same Time A Northern Californian man says he had COVID-19 and monkeypox at the same time. After testing positive for COVID-19 at the end of June, Mitcho Thompson, who lives in the Sonoma County town of Sebastopol, told NBC Bay Area Monday that he started seeing red lesions on his back, legs, arms and neck, a telling symptom of monkeypox, a virus that’s spreading quickly around the globe. “The doctor was very certain that I have monkeypox and that I had both,” Thompson said. “That was the question. Could I get them at the same time? And he said, ‘Yes, yes, yes.’” (Roche, 7/21)
Politico: White House Announces $140 Million For Monkeypox Research Priorities The White House announced Thursday a $140 million, 22-target research agenda for monkeypox to better understand and handle rising case counts across the country. The agenda aims to improve data on transmission, testing, vaccines, equitable treatments and environmental factors. (Payne, 7/21)
The Hill: House Oversight Chair Calls On HHS To Address ‘Barriers’ To Monkeypox Treatments Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, on Wednesday asked the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to address the “barriers” to monkeypox treatment that people have reported dealing with so far. (Choi, 7/21)
Bloomberg: Monkeypox Latest: Study Finds Unfamiliar Symptoms Complicate Diagnosis Monkeypox patients around the world are suffering from symptoms not normally linked to the virus, leading to missed and mistaken diagnoses, researchers said. (Muller, 7/21)
AP: Monkeypox Virus Could Become Entrenched As New STD In The US The spread of monkeypox in the U.S. could represent the dawn of a new sexually transmitted disease, though some health officials say the virus that causes pimple-like bumps might yet be contained before it gets firmly established. Experts don’t agree on the likely path of the disease, with some fearing that it is becoming so widespread that it is on the verge of becoming an entrenched STD — like gonorrhea, herpes and HIV. (Stobbe, 7/22)
CNBC: Amazon To Buy Primary Health-Care Provider One Medical For Roughly $3.9 Billion Amazon is acquiring One Medical for $18 a share, an all-cash deal that values the primary health-care provider at roughly $3.9 billion, the companies said Thursday. The deal deepens Amazon’s presence in health care, which Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of Amazon Health Services, said is “high on the list of experiences that need reinvention.” (Palmer, 7/21)
Bloomberg: Amazon Gets ‘Whole Foods of Primary Care’ With One Medical Deal “This puts Amazon much further up the list” of entities trying to assemble vertically integrated health care businesses at a multi-billion-dollar scale, said Lisa Bielamowicz, president of consultancy Gist Healthcare. “If I’m Optum or I’m CVS-Aetna, I’m looking at this and saying, ‘these guys are serious and they’re starting to put their own pieces together in a way that will create a unified product.” (Tozzi and Day, 7/21)
Axios: Dr. Amazon Will See You Now Amazon's latest move to further entrench itself in health care will stoke heated competition by other major retailers to capture new customers by delivering primary care. ... Amazon will face plenty of regulatory hurdles and some challenges in gaining consumer trust. But it's positioned to capitalize on its ability to cater to consumers' whims, as well as patients' frustration with the status quo. (Reed, 7/21)
Stat: 5 Burning Questions About Amazon's $3.9 Billion Acquisition Of One Medical With its acquisition of One Medical, Amazon is setting its sights squarely on shaking up primary care. (Ravindranath, Ross and Herman, 7/21)
San Francisco Chronicle: Amazon Bought One Medical. People Are Worried About Their Privacy Amazon’s $3.9 billion acquisition San Francisco’s One Medical swiftly raised privacy concerns about what the online retail giant might have planned with the health care company’s medical data. (Echeverria, 7/21)
San Francisco Chronicle: ‘Let’s Not Have Any More Deaths’: Speakers At Hearing Urge Laguna Honda To Halt Patient Discharges Former San Francisco City Attorney Louise Renne — who once extracted half a billion dollars from the tobacco industry to help rebuild the city’s crumbling Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center — called on state and federal officials Thursday to stop forcing the facility to discharge patients during a regulatory crackdown that appears to have turned deadly. (Asimov, 7/21)
Index-Tribune: Bomb Threat Reported At Sonoma Valley Hospital A disgruntled patient leveled a bomb threat to “kill everyone” at Sonoma Valley Hospital on 1 p.m. on Tuesday, according to Sonoma Police Department Sgt. Scott McKinnon. The suspect, a young adult male, was upset over a bill the man received for medical treatment, prompting Sonoma Valley Hospital representatives to call police. (Hunter, 7/21)
Los Angeles Times: To Get Their Degrees, Mexico’s Medical Students Practice Medicine At Gunpoint When Alfredo Cortes arrived at a tiny clinic for his year of community service required of all medical students in Mexico, he found that he had no cellphone or internet access — only a radio. He lived alone at the clinic, a simple dwelling in a rural community of Michoacan state where police were a rare sight. In the early hours of a spring morning in 2020, he was roused from sleep by growling trucks and pounding on the front door. (Miller, 7/21)
CalMatters: California Counties Take Some Foster Youths' Money When she was 15 and had been a ward of the courts for half her life, Kristina Tanner learned the cost of her stays in group homes and with foster families was coming out of her own pocket. She had qualified for monthly survivor benefits checks, a Social Security program for children whose parents had died. (Kuang, 7/22)
Times of San Diego: Right To Use Contraceptives Law Passes House, But Issa And Most Republicans Reject The House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday ensuring that women have access to contraceptives, but Rep. Darrell Issa, who represents East County, and most other Republicans voted against it. “As a young woman, reproductive health care is my health care. And I’m so grateful that today we will take a step to codify that access into law,” said San Diego-area Rep. Sara Jacobs, who presided over the vote on the House floor. (Jennewein, 7/21)
NBC News: YouTube To Remove Videos With Instructions For Unsafe Abortions YouTube said Thursday it would take a tougher line on abortion-related misinformation, as the video app and other social media platforms become a battleground for debates over abortion access. The Google-owned platform said it would start removing videos and other content with instructions for unsafe abortion methods or with false claims about abortion safety. (Ingram, 7/21)
AP: GOP AGs Ask Google Not To Limit Anti-Abortion Center Results A month after some members of Congress urged Google to limit the appearance of anti-abortion pregnancy centers in certain abortion-related search results, 17 Republican attorneys general are warning the company that doing so could invite investigations and possible legal action. (Rankin, 7/21)
AP: CVS Seeks Verification On Drugs With Possible Abortion Use CVS Health is asking pharmacists in some states to verify that a few of the prescriptions they provide will not be used end a pregnancy. A spokesman said Thursday that the drugstore chain recently started doing this for methotrexate and misoprostol, two drugs used in medication abortions but also to treat other conditions. (Murphy, 7/21)
San Diego Union-Tribune: Temperatures Will Approach 120 Degrees Friday Along San Diego's Eastern I-8 And SR 78 The National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat advisory for San Diego County’s deserts where Friday’s daytime highs will be in the 114 to 118 degree range, with readings up to 120 being possible. (Robbins, 7/21)
Los Angeles Times: Homeless, Hoarding -- And Slipping Through The Cracks In his dim motel room, flies and dust swirled through a slanted blade of sunlight. A shoulder-high heap of boxes, trash bags, electronics and clothes prevented him from opening the curtains. Mario Blanco, 53, sat at the edge of his bed with his dog, Leo the Lion, staring at the items he’s been hoarding in his room for a year. Empty cups, medication bottles, stacks of paper, old photos, McDonald’s bags, scattered toiletries, dog food cans, a dirty fan. (Vives, 7/22)
San Francisco Chronicle: Piedmont Saw Its Official Homeless Count Spike. Now Its Unsheltered Residents Are Nowhere To Be Found How many homeless people live in Piedmont, a wealthy East Bay enclave surrounded by Oakland? It seems like a simple question, but the answer isn’t clear. According to a recent count, Piedmont saw its homeless population rise from zero in 2019 to 42 in 2022. The count found four people in tents, nine in cars or vans, 14 in RVs and 15 on the street or outside. But a recent foray to find the unhoused in the exclusive town found no tents, people sleeping outside or in RVs and a city official said the town isn’t sure where they live. (Ravani, 7/21)
Los Angeles Times: We Are Botching The Monkeypox Response. Blame Homophobia State Sen. Scott Wiener, who represents San Francisco, was at a birthday gathering of mostly gay men recently when the conversation turned to monkeypox. “We are on our own as always,” Weiner recalls someone saying. “We can’t count on anyone else. ”Sadly, such feelings of isolation and frustration are being borne out by a so-far sluggish and botched response to monkeypox, mostly at the federal level, as the disease spreads among bisexual, transgender and communities of men who have sex with men. (Anita Chabria, 7/21)
Los Angeles Daily News: Fire L.A. County Health Director Barbara Ferrer Over COVID Handling A behind-the-scenes disagreement over L.A. County’s COVID response has now become public. On July 13, the CEO of L.A. County-USC Medical Center, Jorge Orozco, held a video town-hall meeting for employees. With him were two doctors: LAC-USC’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Brad Spellberg, and epidemiologist Dr. Paul Holtom. (Susan Shelley, 7/21)
Sacramento Bee: Congress Could Put More Of California At Risk From COVID More than two years into the pandemic, it’s unsettling to imagine a scenario in which hundreds of thousands of Californians are exposed to evasive coronavirus subvariants without access to health care while others experience further financial strain amid record inflation. Yet Congress’ reluctance to extend COVID subsidies could force an estimated 220,000 people in the state to forgo insurance and burden middle-class residents who have benefited from lower premiums. (7/20)
Los Angeles Times: The COVID Mask Mandates May Be Back. Don't Worry L.A., We've Got This The highly transmissible BA.5 form of the coronavirus has jacked up infection rates again to the point where Los Angeles County officials are preparing for a new indoor mask mandate in public places unless our high community-level infection rates recede before the end of the month. Rates could reach — or even exceed — those of the midwinter surge. (Karin Klein, 7/20)
Los Angeles Times: Should You Still Wear A Mask? It’s the summer of the subvariants. The summer you or at least someone you know got COVID. The summer masks were off all over town, but not for much longer. I’m a doctor and I know better than most that there is bad news — and good news — about the never-ending pandemic. (Nina Shapiro, 7/21)
San Francisco Chronicle: COVID Keeps Evolving. Clinical Drug Trials Need To Evolve Along With It Alpha. Beta. Delta. Omicron. BA.5. The list of COVID variants and subvariants continues to grow. And the threat of prolonged symptoms from long COVID becomes clearer every day. Our best defense — research to produce new and effective treatments — must keep advancing. But our clinical research system has a problem, and the Food and Drug Administration is only now making some headway in trying to fix it. (Tom Rico Pamukcu, 7/19)
Los Angeles Daily News: Bureaucracy No Cure For Rising Healthcare Costs Healthcare costs in California and throughout the United States have long been outpacing inflation rates for a variety of complex reasons — some related to government regulation and mandates, with others involving market conditions. Yet leave it to progressive California to believe that pushing an “easy button” will make healthcare more affordable. (7/21)
San Francisco Chronicle: My Aging Mom Fell. If I Weren’t A Doctor, Our Health Care System Wouldn’t Have Helped Her Up The Season of Parental Falling is here. I didn’t realize how quickly it would arrive. But the price Mom and Dad pay to get to live another day — their deal with the devil that is chemotherapy — is numb hands and feet. No matter how many rugs and mats, flip flops and open-heeled sandals I disappear out of their home, or the type and variety of trekking poles, canes, tripod canes with seats, straight walkers, wheeled walkers or other assistive devices they have, my parents keep falling. (Dipti S. Barot, 7/17)
CalMatters: New Bill Pushes Insurers To Stop Playing Doctor When doctors identified a tumor growing in my dad’s lungs last August, we knew that any chance we had of beating his cancer would be rooted in the team of specialists handling his care and taking swift action. Curing my father’s cancer, however, was completely at odds with the goals of his health insurer. (Vivian Gonzales, 7/19)
The Mercury News and East Bay Times: Google Must Make Good On Abortion Privacy Pledge To Women Google must make good on its abortion privacy pledge to women. A senior Google executive, Jen Fitzpatrick, said in a blog post July 1 that Google would delete its users’ location history whenever they visit an abortion clinic, domestic violence shelter, fertility center and other medical facilities. (7/16)
East Bay Times: Need Help For Mental Health Crisis? Simply Call 988 For those experiencing a mental health crisis or feeling suicidal, a new, simpler way to obtain help is now available. Just call 988. (7/20)
Los Angeles Times: Sleep Deprivation Is An Important Part Of Our Youth Mental Health Crisis California achieved a first in the nation this month: implementing a statewide law setting limits on the earliest school start times for adolescents. As of July 1, the law requires start times of 8:30 a.m. or later at public high schools and 8 a.m. or later for middle schools, based on policy recommendations called for in 2014 by the American Academy of Pediatrics and subsequently endorsed by other major medical and public health organizations. (Lisa L. Lewis, 7/22)
Los Angeles Times: An L.A. Program Helps People Get Mental Health Care Instead Of Jail Time. Why Not Expand it? As a mental health court judge, I work every day with people who are homeless and have serious mental illness. My cases involve people from all over Los Angeles County. The people you see living on the streets in your community are the people in my courtroom. (James Bianco, 7/18)
Sacramento Bee: California Prisons Must End Cruelty Of Solitary Confinement Although California has made progress on humane and effective rehabilitation of incarcerated people, solitary confinement stands out as an abysmal failure. I recently visited California State Prison, Sacramento, also called New Folsom, to lay my own eyes on the conditions inside its solitary confinement units. (Chris Holden, 7/19)
San Francisco Chronicle: Does S.F. Have A ‘Homeless Industrial Complex’? No, Just A Stunning Lack Of Oversight Since the city of San Francisco created the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing in 2016, its spending has tripled to $668 million while the number of homeless people has increased by about 16%, despite a small recent drop. (Ian McCuaug, 7/21)
Health Care Survey The 2022 CHCF California Health Policy Survey
This recent statewide survey found that one in four Californians had trouble paying a medical bill in the last 12 months. The survey also captures Californians' health care priorities for the governor and legislature to address.
Listening to Black Californians Black Californians on Racism and Health Care
CHCF commissioned interviews with 100 Black Californians to understand their views on health and well-being, their perceptions of discrimination and bias in the health care system, and their views on what a quality health care system looks like.
Health Care Costs How Eight States Address Health Care Cost Growth
This issue brief documents efforts in eight states that have established new independent commissions or increased the authority of an existing regulatory body to monitor and limit unnecessary growth in health spending.
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