Coronavirus

COVID-19 Surge Receding in Alameda County, Vaccinations Continue

“Newly reported cases have stabilized in recent days,” Alameda County Health Officer Dr. Nicholas Moss said.

Published

4 years ago

January 28, 2021

Kiki

The surge in COVID-19 cases in Alameda County is receding, a health official told county lawmakers Tuesday afternoon.

The announcement was made in a weekly update to the Board of Supervisors at their regularly scheduled meeting in Oakland.

The daily number of reported cases in the county dropped dramatically since peaking January 7 at 1,313. On Monday, only 79 cases were reported, according to the county’s data dashboard.

“Newly reported cases have stabilized in recent days,” Alameda County Health Officer Dr. Nicholas Moss said.

His words come just a day after California Gov. Gavin Newsom lifted the state-imposed stay-at-home order, sending Alameda County and the Bay Area, back to the purple tier in the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy.

The purple tier is the most restrictive tier for economic activity, but it allows more activities than the stay-at-home order the region had been under.

Moss said Tuesday that he’s in agreement that Alameda County should be in the purple tier. He was also optimistic.

“We have the potential to move to the red tier in a matter of weeks,” he said.

Under the purple tier, outdoor dining is permitted and outdoor zoos are allowed to open, as well as hair and nail salons. But many businesses that are not classified as essential must remain closed under the blueprint guidelines.

More than 900 Alameda County residents have died and more than 71,000 people in the county have been infected with the virus, the county’s dashboard shows.

The numbers include the city of Berkeley, which has its own public health department.

Inoculations of people in the county are moving ahead, but perhaps not as fast as many residents would like.

The county is getting about 10,000 first doses of the coronavirus vaccine each week while 145,000 people make up the population of health care workers and those in skilled care facilities who are currently eligible to be vaccinated.

“We have a very large health care workforce here,” Colleen Chawla, director of the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency told supervisors.

She said the number of people in skilled care facilities is also large.

Two vaccination sites are open in the county. St. Rose Hospital and the Alameda County Library in Castro Valley are each vaccinating 1,000 to 2,000 people a day. Inoculations are also being done by health care providers such as Kaiser Permanente.

Health care officials are looking to close the library location and transition to five points of distribution in five neighborhoods in the county. The neighborhoods are East and West Oakland, Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, the unincorporated Ashland and Cherryland area, and South Hayward.

County officials did not say when the library would stop distributing the vaccine or when the five new sites would open.

Chawla said the county may open two mass distribution sites at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum and at the Alameda County Fairgrounds, but when that will happen wasn’t disclosed.

The two sites could inoculate many more people per day, provided there is vaccine to distribute. To help smooth out the distribution of vaccine, the state is moving to a centralized system, Chawla said she learned from the governor’s office Tuesday. More details will likely be available in the coming days.

The county has received almost 103,000 doses of the vaccine, of which about 64,000 doses were given to the county’s health care partners, such as hospitals and medical clinics, while about 39,000 stayed with the county.

About 21,000 doses had been administered by the county as of Saturday, county records show.

Kiki

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Bay Area

Authorities Warn: There’s a COVID Surge in California

According to data estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the coronavirus in California’s wastewater has spiked for eight consecutive weeks. Hospitalizations and emergency room visits have also increased since the rise of the new subvariants. Over the last month, Los Angeles County experienced an average of 389 hospital patients per day that tested positive for the coronavirus. The FLiRT subvariants such as KP.3.1.1. Made up over 2% of coronavirus samples nationwide, an increase of more than 7% last month.

Published

4 months ago

August 17, 2024

Oakland Post

Photo provided by California Black Media.

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

California is experiencing a COVID-19 surge this summer, experts warn, as numbers of infections increased for the third month this year.

State public health authorities attribute the summer COVID surge to more infectious subvariants that have emerged as the coronavirus evolves.

Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious disease at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, stated that subvariants of COVID-19 called FLiRT increased in recent months, particularly one named KP.3.1.1 that has become the most common strain in the country.

Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases expert at UC San Francisco, said that the subvariant KP.3.1.1 seems most adept at transmission.

“The subvariant is the one that people think will continue to take over, not only in the United States, but … around the world,” Chin-Hong said.

The majority of the people who tested positive for COVID-19 complained of a sore throat and a heavy cough. Risk factors that can increase the illness include age, underlying health issues, and vaccine dosage.

Health experts stated that the demand for the COVID-19 vaccine has increased in Northern California. However, people are having a hard time getting the vaccine due to the increasing number of cases.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

California Black Media

Gov. Newsom and Gov. DeSantis Go Head-to-Head in Nationally Televised Debate

Conservative Fox News personality Sean Hannity moderated the duel, during which the TV pundit, more than once, injected his opinion, and appeared to be providing subtle assists to DeSantis. As the debate progressed, it was clear that opinions about each topic discussed was representative of the philosophical and political chasm that divides liberal and conservative America, and a preview of campaign mudslinging that is bound to intensify as the 2024 presidential campaign ensues.

Published

1 year ago

December 10, 2023

Oakland Post

The debate between Gov. Gavin Newsom and Gov. Ron DeSantis was moderated by Fox News personality Sean Hannity. California Black Media image.

By California Black Media

In an intense, 95-minute-plus televised faceoff between California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Nov. 30, the men traded jabs and putdowns, defended their respective gubernatorial records, disagreed sharply on how to solve the country’s most pressing problems, and expressed clashing views on the performance of the Biden-Harris administration.

Conservative Fox News personality Sean Hannity moderated the duel, during which the TV pundit, more than once, injected his opinion, and appeared to be providing subtle assists to DeSantis.

As the debate progressed, it was clear that opinions about each topic discussed was representative of the philosophical and political chasm that divides liberal and conservative America, and a preview of campaign mudslinging that is bound to intensify as the 2024 presidential campaign ensues.

“I’ll tell you why I’m here,” Newsom said. “I’m here to tell the truth about the Biden-Harris record and also compare and contrast Ron DeSantis’ record and the Republican Party’s record” with that of California.

DeSantis blasted Newsom’s management of the COVID-19 crisis and criticized Newsom for prevalent crime, homelessness and deteriorating social conditions in California cities.

“You have the freedom to defecate in public in California,” DeSantis said. “You have the freedom to pitch a tent on Sunset Boulevard. You have the freedom to create a homeless encampment under a freeway and even light it on fire. They’re not the freedoms our founding fathers envisioned.”

Newsom took a jab at DeSantis’ presidential candidacy, predicting that the Florida Governor would be endorsing GOP frontrunner Donald Trump soon.

“There’s one thing we have in common,” Newsom said. “Neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

BayCityNews

FDA Updates Approval of Pfizer Booster Vaccine for Children Under 5

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration updated its approval Tuesday of the Pfizer-BioNTech booster vaccine, making it available to some children under age 5. Before this update, children under 5 were not eligible for COVID-19 booster shots. Instead, they received three doses of the regular vaccine.

Published

2 years ago

March 22, 2023

Oakland Post

As of December 2022, children age 4 and younger who have not been vaccinated receive the omicron variant-specific booster vaccine as the third dose in their primary vaccine series, following two doses of the original Pfizer vaccine.

By Eli Walsh
Bay City News

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration updated its approval Tuesday of the Pfizer-BioNTech booster vaccine, making it available to some children under age 5.

Before this update, children under 5 were not eligible for COVID-19 booster shots. Instead, they received three doses of the regular vaccine.

However, children in that age range who completed their initial vaccination series before December 2022 only received three doses of the original Pfizer vaccine, and are less protected against more infectious variants of the virus as a result.

FDA officials updated the vaccine’s emergency use authorization Tuesday to allow those children who only received the original Pfizer COVID vaccine to receive one dose of the bivalent booster if it has been at least two months since they completed their initial series.

Other children under age 5 are not eligible for the booster, although everyone age 5 and up is eligible for a booster.

“Currently available data show that vaccination remains the best defense against severe disease, hospitalization and death caused by COVID-19 across all age groups, and we encourage all eligible individuals to make sure that their vaccinations are up to date with a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine,” said Dr. Peter Marks, the director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

Clinical data has found that both the original Pfizer vaccine and the booster vaccine that targets the omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 are safe for everyone aged 6 months and up and effective at preventing the worst outcomes of COVID infection, including serious illness and death.

COVID vaccines are available at primary care providers, retail pharmacies and some facilities operated by local health departments.

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