Husband and wife, Maria (CL) and Faustino Salazar (R) prepare to receive their COVID-19 boosters while daughter Maria Guadalupe Salazar (L) is there to assist at a community testing and vaccination clinic in the Mission District of San Francisco.
UPDATE: Here are the latest updates on COVID in the Bay Area and California.
Health officials in Marin County relaxed the rules governing when students and staff can return to school after a coronavirus infection. A majority of Americans said they were unconcerned with the advent of new coronavirus subvariants, a poll showed. Speaking to a conference in California, Dr. Anthony Fauci urged Americans to keep their guards up when it came to the coronavirus, despite positive COVID-19 trends.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has changed its masking guidance for K-12 schools, updating a portion that previously said the agency “recommends masking at all times in healthcare settings, including school nurses’ offices, regardless of the current COVID-19 Community Level.” The change follows the agency’s new guidance published last week, saying it no longer recommends universal masking in health care settings, unless the facilities are in areas of high COVID-19 transmission. The new wording for schools says that “recommendations for masking in nurses’ offices may depend on factors such as COVID-19 Community Level, outbreak status, and patient access.” It adds that people who have known or suspected exposure to COVID-19 should also wear a well-fitting mask or respirator around others for 10 days from their last exposure, regardless of vaccination status or history of prior infection.
Early signs of a winter COVID-19 surge are appearing in Europe as the weather grows cooler. The European Union reported 1.5 million new cases last week, marking an 8% increase from the prior week, according to the World Health Organization’s weekly update. Hospitalizations are also on the rise across the 27-nation bloc, with Italy reporting a 32% jump in admissions and a 21% increase in intensive care admissions. Britain recorded a 45% increase in hospitalizations from the week earlier. “Several countries in Europe are reporting an increase in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization. “This is to be expected as the weather cools and people spend more time together inside. Most countries no longer have measures in place to limit the spread of the virus.” He added that the WHO and its partners are tracking more than 300 virus subvariants. “But surveillance, testing and sequencing remain weak globally, which makes tracking this virus like chasing shadows. So we continue to call on all countries to increase surveillance, testing and sequencing, and to ensure the most at-risk groups are vaccinated.”
After a precipitous drop over the past two months, California’s COVID-19 trends have hit a plateau. The state reported an average of 3,336 cases a day as of Thursday, only a 5% decrease from the previous week’s numbers, according to health department data. California is tracking about 8.3 daily cases per 100,000 residents, compared to 9 per 100,000 the week before. The statewide test-positive rate has also steadied after a sharp decline, inching down just one-tenth of a percentage point to 4.7%. “There’s still a significant amount of virus circulating and therefore our risk of exposure still remains elevated,” said Dr. Sara Cody, health officer for Santa Clara County. Read more about the leveling off in the numbers and what lies ahead.
For the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that it will stop reporting case and death data on a daily basis, instead shifting to a weekly format for its updates. “To allow for additional reporting flexibility, reduce the reporting burden on states and jurisdictions, and maximize surveillance resources, CDC is moving to a weekly reporting cadence,” the agency wrote in a post. Beginning Oct. 20, state and local health departments will only be required report new COVID-19 surveillance data to the agency on Wednesdays.
The number of deaths due to COVID-19 increased for all ages from April to July, but rose at a faster rate for older adults and stayed high through August, according to a report published Oct. 6 by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Virus-related fatalities among people 65 and older topped 11,000 in both July and August. While the numbers dipped in September, they were still higher for those ages 65 and older than in April or May while falling below their April levels for younger Americans. As of the week ending Oct. 1, the U.S. has lost nearly 1.1 million lives to COVID-19, of which about 790,000 are people ages 65 and older. That age group accounts for 16% of the total US population but 75% of all COVID deaths to date. “The rise in deaths is primarily a function of increasing cases due to the more transmissible omicron variant,” the authors of the report wrote. “Other factors include relatively low booster uptake, compared to primary vaccination, and waning vaccine immunity, underscoring the importance of staying up to date on vaccination.”
World Cup players will not have to be vaccinated, but organizers have requested that players get tested for the coronavirus every two days while in Qatar, sources familiar with recent guidance distributed to teams told Yahoo Sports. The rules are considerably looser than those set for the Tokyo or Beijing Olympics last year. Players will not be required to quarantine but are encouraged to wear masks while in crowded areas. Those who are infected with COVID-19 will be required to isolate for five days, and may return to matches on day 6 if they are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic. And all participants will be required to test negative within 48 hours of their flight to Qatar, according to the Qatar Ministry of Public Health’s travel policy. Individual teams will be allowed to implement their own restrictions to prevent outbreaks, the document said. The World Cup in Qatar starts on Nov. 20.
Dr. Anthony Fauci is up to date on his COVID-19 vaccination after getting a shot of the new bivalent booster during an appearance on CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” In a taped sketch, the host walked the nation’s leading infectious disease expert to a nearby drug store after he mentioned he was now eligible for the shot. They tried on sunglasses and surveyed the candy aisle before working their way over to the pharmacy counter. “Are you nervous to give this man a shot?” the host asked the pharmacist administering Fauci’s booster. “He’s actually only the third most famous I’ve vaccinated,” the pharmacist replied. Colbert rewarded Fauci, 81, with a rainbow-colored lollipop, declaring him: “Fully inoculated and boosted!” Earlier in the interview, Colbert said the pandemic didn’t “feel over,” referencing President Biden’s comment last month. Fauci said, “It’ll feel over in a real sense when it gets to such a low level in society that it doesn’t disrupt the social order.”
Results from a small federal study funded by the National Institutes of Health show that Paxlovid does not cause rebound infections. The study aimed to define the clinical course and the immunologic and virologic characteristics of COVID-19 rebound in patients who have taken antiviral manufactured by Pfizer. The study included six participants who took Paxlovid within four days of initial symptom onset and then experienced recurrent symptoms; two participants who experienced recurrent symptoms who did not take Paxlovid; and a control group of six people who had COVID-19 but did not experience symptom rebound. All participants were previously vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19, and none developed severe disease requiring hospitalization during acute infection or rebound. “Investigators found no evidence of genetic mutations that would suggest participants who experienced COVID-19 rebound were infected with a strain of SARS-CoV-2 that was resistant to Paxlovid,” the researchers said. “They also found no evidence of delayed development of antibodies in participants experiencing rebound after taking Paxlovid.”
Results from city-by-city surveys conducted earlier this year found the number of people without homes is up overall compared with 2020 in areas reporting results so far, according to a report published Oct. 6 by the Associated Press. Some of the biggest increases are in West Coast cities such as Oakland and Sacramento, where homelessness jumped 20% and 68%, respectively, from 2020 to 2022. The data comes from the Point in Time counts the federal government requires communities to conduct to reflect how many people are without homes on a given winter night. The counts usually rely on volunteer census takers and are always imprecise. But fueled by a long-running housing shortage, rising rent prices, and the economic hangover from the pandemic, the overall number of homeless in a federal government report to be released in coming months is expected to be higher than the 580,000 unhoused before the pandemic, the National Alliance to End Homelessness said.
The bivalent booster vaccine produced by Moderna targeting BA.4 and BA.5 “elicited neutralizing antibody responses against omicron that were superior” to those with the original vaccine against COVID-19, “without evident safety concerns,” according to data from an ongoing study published on Oct. 5 in the New England Journal of Medicine. For the phase 2-3 study funded by the pharmaceutical company, researchers compared the bivalent vaccine with the previously authorized mRNA booster. “The primary objectives were to assess the safety, reactogenicity, and immunogenicity of (the updated formula) at 28 days after the booster dose,” the researchers wrote. No hospitalizations for COVID-19 were reported among the participants in the trials. “These results are consistent with the evaluation of our bivalent beta-containing vaccine, which induced enhanced and durable antibody responses,” they added. “Together, these findings indicate that bivalent vaccines may be a new tool in the response to emerging variants.”
According to the latest survey data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Census Bureau, 14.2% of American adults say they experienced long COVID, with symptoms that lasted three months or longer after an initial coronavirus infection. The ongoing survey showed that by age, the highest proportion of respondents who said they had long COVID were between 40 and 49 years old (17.6%) and that individuals who identified as female (17.3%) were disproportionately affected compared to men (10.9%). Of all adults who said they had long COVID, more than 81% — about four out of five — said they suffered limitations performing day-to-day activities, with more than a quarter saying those limitations were “significant.”
Approximately 86.3% of children in the U.S. have antibodies from surviving a prior COVID-19 infection as of Aug. 20, according to updated seroprevalence estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That marks a substantial increase from the previous report, which showed 79.7% infections among the pediatric population through June. The agency estimates that 61,696,000 children nationwide have been infected by the coronavirus at least once. The data does not include reinfections or measure antibodies produced by vaccination.
The updated bivalent boosters, which provide protection against both the original virus strain as well as the omicron variant and its subvariants like BA.4 and BA.5, could save up to 90,000 lives this fall and winter, according to a new paper from The Commonwealth Fund and Yale School of Public Health. But that’s only if the 80% of Americans eligible for the new shots get them. Robust booster uptake could also prevent more than 936,000 hospitalizations by the end of the year. So far, less than 4% of those eligible for the updated boosters have received them. Only 36% of adults older than 50 have even gotten second boosters. “If vaccination continued at its current pace through the end of March 2023, a potential winter surge in COVID-19 infections could result in a peak of around 16,000 hospitalizations and 1,200 deaths per day by March 2023,” the report said.
Students and staff members in Marin County who test positive for the coronavirus can return to school after five days of isolation without submitting a negative test, health officials announced during an online forum Monday. The idea of shortening the recommended isolation time from 10 days to five days was proposed last month and approved by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health. Individuals infected with COVID-19 will be required to wear a high-quality mask for five days after exiting the abbreviated isolation period. “Isolation can end on day 6 if fever-free and symptoms are resolving,” Dr. Lisa Santora, the county’s deputy public health officer, said during the forum hosted by the Marin County Office of Education. “You don’t need to test again.” Students unable to mask will not be allowed to attend classes in person. “It depends on trust,” Santora added. “School leadership needs to talk to families so that staff and other students don’t have to be worried.” The new guidance is in effect as of Tuesday. The county is averaging 10 new cases per 100,000 residents per day.
About 69% of Americans say they are not concerned about new coronavirus subvariants that many health experts believe could fuel a winter COVID-19 surge, based on a Pew Research Center survey published on Oct. 5. That marks a substantial change from February 2021, when 48% of respondents were unconcerned and 51% considered emerging variants of the virus as a threat. Out of the nearly 11,000 adults polled from Sept. 13 to 18, less than one-third thought a new variant could set back progress against the virus in America. Personal concern about getting a serious case of the coronavirus has also dipped, with 30% of adults saying they are at least somewhat concerned they will get COVID-19 and require hospitalization, down 10 points from the start of the year. “A majority of the public say they are not too or not at all concerned about this,” the report said.
With the arrival of the fall and winter seasons, experts are keeping a close eye on emerging coronavirus variants and their potential to cause a new COVID-19 surge. The BA.5 omicron subvariant is still the dominant strain in the U.S. after appearing in late spring and quickly crowding out its rivals, accounting for nearly 90% of cases in late August. However, its share has since fallen to 81%, while the omicron offshoot BA.4.6 is slowly growing, responsible for 13% of cases for the week ending Oct. 1. Read more here about the latest coronavirus variants.
COVID-19 trends are moving “in the right direction” but it’s too early to dismiss the ongoing threat of the coronavirus, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday during a forum hosted by the University of Southern California’s Center for Health Journalism. “I think it would be a bit cavalier to all of a sudden say we’re completely through with it, because remember, we were going in the right direction in the summer of 2021, and along came delta,” said the White House’s top pandemic advisor. “Then in the winter ... along came omicron. Since then, we’ve had multiple sub-lineages of omicron.”
Fauci added that while virus-related deaths have fallen “much lower” than highs of 3,000 to 4,000 deaths per day recorded during the worst surges, they have leveled off at an unacceptable rate. “I have been very public about saying that I’m not comfortable with having 300 to 400 deaths per day,” he said. Fauci advised that to defang a potential winter surge, people should stay up to date on their vaccinations, including getting the updated bivalent booster shots and continuing to follow pandemic best practices. “Although we can feel good that we’re going in the right direction, we can’t let our guard down,” he said.
California will soon become the first state with a law aimed at punishing doctors who give patients false information about COVID-19 — and, as expected, the law was challenged in court Tuesday by two physicians who question the effectiveness of vaccines for the virus, advocate unproven treatments and oppose mask mandates. “The goal of AB2098 is to chill speech — in particular the speech of doctors who make a different assessment of the available evidence than the state of California,” attorneys from two conservative nonprofit organizations said in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles on behalf of doctors seeking to declare the law unconstitutional. Read more about AB2098, the people who object to it and their unsurprising legal move.
Aidin Vaziri is a staff writer at The San Francisco Chronicle.