At a Bay Area ‘Test-to-Treat’ Site, Few Takers for Free Antivirals

In carrying out the federal covid-19 “test-to-treat” initiative, California is targeting the uninsured by outfitting 138 testing sites with screenings for free antiviral drugs. But as of mid-June, fewer than 800 people had been prescribed the medicines. And two-thirds of those undergoing screenings are insured. (Rachel Scheier, 6/25 )

Requests For CalFresh Help Will Be Processed Faster: After being sued for dereliction of duty, Los Angeles County has agreed to speed up processing of emergency requests for government food assistance to thousands of monthly applicants. The county agreed Tuesday to process applications within three days. Read more from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

In LA Visit, Surgeon General Details Next Steps In Youth Mental Health Crisis: Big technology and media companies, local groups, athletes, and educators are pledging to come together in response to the U.S. surgeon general’s public health advisory on the youth mental health crisis. During a visit to Los Angeles on Tuesday, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy unveiled a list of at least 30 entities with promising intentions. Read more from the Los Angeles Times.

Below, check out the roundup of California Healthline’s coverage. For today's national health news, read KHN's Morning Briefing.

Sacramento Bee: CA Legislature OK’s Newsom Bonuses For Health Care Workers  Roughly 600,000 frontline health care workers in California are virtually assured to receive a small bonus for their service in the COVID-19 pandemic since legislators released a budget deal Monday showing they’d set aside funds for the payments. Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed that taxpayers pay the bonuses as part of his 2022-23 budget, highlighting the idea as both an inflationary relief package and a worker retention measure. He must sign the budget package before the retention bonuses become official. (Anderson, 6/14)

Los Angeles Times: California Coronavirus Cases Remain Elevated As Wave Continues  The number of newly reported coronavirus cases remains elevated across California as health officials continue to wrestle with the pandemic’s latest wave. Statewide, health officials reported an average of about 15,900 new coronavirus infections a day over the last week — roughly in line with the rate recorded over the previous week, according to a Times analysis of state data released Monday. (Money and Lin II, 6/14)

Sacramento Bee: California COVID-19 Cases Rise With Subvariant Spread  COVID-19 case rates grew significantly across the state last week, continuing a steady rise in infections that began in late April. The California Department of Public Health on Tuesday reported the statewide case rate at 41.1 cases per 100,000 residents. The rate marks a 34.8% increase compared to one week earlier. (Davidson, 6/14)

Orange County Register: Coronavirus: Orange County Reported 3,613 New Cases, 8 More Deaths, June 14 The OC Health Care Agency reported 3,613 more cases of the coronavirus between Friday, June 10, and Tuesday, June 14, increasing the cumulative total since tracking began in the county to 586,120. There were 14,125 new cases reported in the last two-week period as of Tuesday. The county is averaging about 30 new cases a day per every 100,000 residents. (Goertzen, 6/14)

Modesto Bee: COVID-19 Risk Is Elevated To ‘Medium’ In Stanislaus County Stanislaus County is now in the medium-risk category for COVID-19 illness as omicron subvariants spread in communities. Tracking data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the county has a seven-day total of 220 cases per 100,000 population. In the latest update, local hospitals are using 5.2% of staffed inpatient beds for COVID-infected patients. (Carlson, 6/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: Why We’re Still Living With ‘Wily’ COVID A Year After California’s Reopening June 15, 2021, dawned cool and carefree across the Bay Area, where for the first time in well over a year, it finally looked like there might be a way out of the COVID-19 pandemic — and it might not be too far off. California officially “reopened” that day last year, dropping almost all public health restrictions that had been keeping people mostly at home and preventing the economy from humming back to life. Coronavirus cases were at their lowest levels since the pandemic’s earliest weeks. Hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID had plummeted. Nearly half of all Californians were considered “fully” vaccinated — a remarkable achievement just six months after the vaccines had been authorized. (Allday, 6/14)

CapRadio: What To Know About Long COVID, From Doctors Who’ve Treated It For a growing cohort of people across the country, being infected with COVID-19 has resulted in more than just a two-week absence from work. Dr. Bradley Sanville, a pulmonary and critical care physician at the UC Davis Post-COVID-19 clinic, says some people have been “extremely debilitated.” (Salanga, 6/14)

Covid Tests, Treatments, and Vaccines

KPBS: Some San Diego Police Claim A COVID Swab Test Violates Their Religion Some of the San Diego police officers, who obtained religious exemptions from taking a COVID-19 vaccine, also claim their religion forbids them from doing something else: putting a cotton swab in their nose to take a COVID-19 test. About 10% of police staff, who were exempted on religious grounds, insist their Christian beliefs also instruct them not to use the swabs because they contain ethylene oxide. The chemical is a known carcinogen, but is not actually present on the swabs — it’s used as a gas to sterilize them. (Trageser, 6/14)

NBC News: How Strong Is Your Covid Immunity? A Blood Test Could Offer Some Insight A newly developed blood test that measures a specific immune response in the body could help doctors gauge how much protection a person has against Covid-19, according to a new study. The test, which focuses on the part of the immune system that confers long-term protection by prompting the body to "remember" the virus, could help make sense of the complex tangle of Covid immunity that now exists from person to person. The test can, for instance, measure immunity regardless of whether someone has developed a level of protection from one or more natural infections or from vaccinations and booster shots. (Chow, 6/14)

Axios: Pfizer's COVID Pill Found Ineffective For Standard-Risk Patients Pfizer on Tuesday said a study showed its COVID-19 pill Paxlovid didn't significantly reduce the risk of hospitalization or death in people with a standard risk of developing severe infections. The results could mean the antiviral could be largely limited to high-risk patient populations, where it's been shown to be effective. Pfizer said it was halting enrollment in the study of standard-risk patients after Paxlovid showed a 51% risk reduction, which the company called "non-significant." (Bettelheim, 6/14)

CIDRAP: Data Show Low Level Of COVID Rebound With Paxlovid  A study of nearly 500 high-risk patients treated with Paxlovid for their COVID-19 infections found that only a few had rebound symptoms, Mayo Clinic researchers reported today in Clinical Infectious Diseases. ... The retrospective review included 483 high-risk patients who received the drug at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, through an outpatient COVID-19 treatment program. The researchers identified four patients who had rebound symptoms, which occurred at a median of 9 days after treatment. All were fully vaccinated. Symptoms were generally mild, and all four recovered without additional COVID-specific treatment. (Schnirring, 6/14)

USA Today: FDA Panel Recommends Moderna COVID Vaccine As Option For Kids 6 And Up Parents could soon have two vaccines to choose from when vaccinating their children against COVID-19. After hearing hours of testimony Tuesday, a federal advisory panel voted unanimously to recommend Moderna's vaccine be made available to children 6 and up. So far, only Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine has been allowed for children. Assuming the Food and Drug Administration commissioner signs off on the panel's recommendation, as expected, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will review Moderna's vaccine data later this week and the shots could become available as soon as next week. (Weintraub, 6/14)

ABC News: Study On Child Hepatitis Cases Points To Prior COVID Infection, But Experts Say Too Soon To Know  A new study points to prior COVID-19 infection as a possible culprit for the global wave of severe hepatitis cases among children -- though experts caution the true cause is still a medical mystery. Researchers in Israel added evidence for the theory in a small study published in the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, suggesting some children might develop liver inflammation in the weeks after recovering from a mild COVID-19 infection. (Salzman, 6/14)

Los Angeles Times: U.S. Abortion Rate Rises, Reversing Three Decades Of Declines Ahead of a historic Supreme Court decision on the fate of Roe vs. Wade, the nation recorded its first significant increase in the abortion rate in more than three decades, according to new statistics. The rate rose 7%, from 13.5 abortions per 1,000 women and girls of child-bearing age in 2017 to 14.4 in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights. (Haberkorn and Reyes, 6/14)

AP: US Abortions Rise: 1 In 5 Pregnancies Terminated In 2020  Medication abortions, the two-drug combination sometimes called the “abortion pill,” accounted for 54% of U.S. abortions in 2020, the first time they made up more than half of abortions, the report from the Guttmacher Institute said. (Johnson, 6/15)

AP: Abortion Amendment Moving Quickly In California Legislature  Fearing the U.S. Supreme Court will soon overturn Roe v. Wade, California Democrats on Tuesday moved quickly to ensure the state’s progressive voters have a chance this fall to make abortion a constitutional right in the nation’s most populous state. A proposed amendment to the California Constitution that would explicitly ban the state from denying or interfering with abortions or contraceptives cleared two legislative committees in a single day on Tuesday, an unusually fast pace for a Legislature that many times takes two years to move a bill through its arduous process. (Beam, 6/15)

Reveal: Facebook And Anti-Abortion Clinics Are Collecting Highly Sensitive Info On Would-Be Patients Facebook is collecting ultra-sensitive personal data about abortion seekers and enabling anti-abortion organizations to use that data as a tool to target and influence people online, in violation of its own policies and promises. In the wake of a leaked Supreme Court opinion signaling the likely end of nationwide abortion protections, privacy experts are sounding alarms about all the ways people’s data trails could be used against them if some states criminalize abortion. (Oldham and Mehrotra, 6/15)

Politico: The Supreme Court Could Foster A New Kind Of Civil War The Supreme Court’s expected overturning of Roe v. Wade has captured all the news attention, but the Court could well lay the groundwork for even larger changes in American governance before it adjourns for the term — and trigger a state-by-state battle for the new shape of laws and American civic life. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, activists on both sides are already girding for full-force political battles over state abortion access, possibly followed by similar struggles over contraception, and even same-sex marriage. (Bernstein, 6/14)

The New York Times: House Approves Supreme Court Security Bill, Sending It To Biden The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved legislation that would extend police protection to the immediate families of Supreme Court justices, clearing the bill for President Biden at a time of rising concern about threats to justices as a potentially momentous abortion ruling looms. The vote was 396 to 27, with all of the opposition coming from Democrats, who tried unsuccessfully to extend the protections to the families of court employees. (Hulse, 6/14)

AP: California To Pay $51M Over Killings At Veterans Home  California officials have agreed to pay $51 million to settle lawsuits against the state stemming from a shooting at a home for veterans in Northern California where a former patient fatally shot three female mental health workers and then himself. On March 9, 2018, Albert Wong, 36, took hostage three staffers with The Pathway Home, a nonprofit that operated a program at the Veterans Home of California in Yountville. The nonprofit treated veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars with post-traumatic stress disorder. (6/15)

The Washington Post: Mitch McConnell Signals Support For Bipartisan Gun Deal  A tentative bipartisan deal to toughen federal gun laws picked up momentum in the Senate on Tuesday after Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) lent public support to a framework that negotiators released this week. McConnell’s backing provided further evidence that the current round of gun-law negotiations, which kicked off after last month’s deadly shooting inside a Texas elementary school, might just have what previous attempts at bipartisan compromise did not — sufficient GOP support to overcome a filibuster. (DeBonis, 6/14)

Stateline: Few States Seem Ready To Raise Age To Buy Semi-Automatic Rifles Many people have noted a common thread between the recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas: In both cases, the attackers were 18 years old and bought AR-style, semi-automatic rifles legally. The perpetrators in two other mass shootings in the past four years also were younger than 21 when they purchased the semi-automatic rifles they used in their attacks. In February 2018, a 19-year-old former student killed 17 people and injured 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. And in April 2021, a 19-year-old shooter killed eight people and injured seven at a FedEx warehouse in Indianapolis. (Vasilogambros, 6/14)

Capitol Weekly: Tiny Budget Piece Could Have Huge Impact On $12B Stem Cell Agency  A crack opened last week for the first time in 17 years in the firewall between state politicians and the $12 billion California stem cell agency. It involves only $600,000 — at least for now — and is buried deep in the 1,069-page state budget bill that was introduced June 8. But its implications are far-reaching. They range from opening the agency to major changes — wanted and unwanted — to creating a basis for the agency’s currently dubious, long-term financial sustainability. (Jensen, 6/14)

Los Angeles Times: Councilman Urges Times Owner To Reopen St. Vincent Hospital  Los Angeles City Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell called on Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong on Tuesday to work with the city to reopen St. Vincent Medical Center to provide acute care for homeless people, complaining that the billionaire had failed to respond to their efforts. At a news conference flanked by leaders of local health and community organizations, O’Farrell also urged Soon-Shiong not to sell the facility “to real estate interests only so it can be torn down for some sort of massive development. That is not what this community needs,” he said. (Reyes, 6/14)

San Diego Union-Tribune: New Rady Program Will Screen Infants For Genetic Threats A new initiative from the Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine hopes to screen newborns for nearly 400 genetic conditions. Working with a range of partners, the institute, part of Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, hopes to use rapid genetic sequencing of blood samples collected shortly after birth to identify diseases with genetic underpinnings before they begin producing symptoms, potentially providing time to take action. (Sisson, 6/14)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego's ResMed Expands Its Cloud Software Footprint In Europe By Acquiring German Firm For $1 Billion San Diego’s ResMed, best-known for its sleep apnea devices and ventilators, has inked a deal to buy German health care software outfit MediFox Dan in an all-cash deal valued at $1 billion. (Freeman, 6/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F.’s New Supervisor Pushes For Police Crackdown In ‘Drug Enforcement Priority Zones’ San Francisco’s newest supervisor is pushing a plan for police officers to prioritize arresting drug dealers and confiscating illegal drugs from users in areas where people are seeking help with addiction. The plan is part of a broader “right to recovery” initiative that Supervisor Matt Dorsey is drafting as he tries to confront the fentanyl crisis unfolding in SoMa and other parts of his district where overdoses are high and city officials want to connect more people to treatment. (Morris, 6/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Supes OK $1.25 Million Lifeline To Financially Distressed Provider Of Mental Health, Addiction Care A leading San Francisco provider of treatment programs for substance abuse and mental health disorders that is in financial distress received a temporary lifeline from city supervisors to maintain services for more than 200 people and keep dozens of nonprofit workers employed. PRC and Baker Places, two nonprofits in the process of merging, begged the Board of Supervisors to bail them out of a combined $3.2 million shortfall so they could continue running 215 treatment beds to provide detoxification, psychiatric care and other urgently needed help to some of the city’s most vulnerable residents. (Morris, 6/14)

inewsource: Veterans Village Employee Fired After Inewsource Investigation A Veterans Village of San Diego employee was fired after sharing her concerns about the organization with inewsource. Danelle Harrington, who used to work at Veterans Village as the warehouse donations coordinator, spoke out about drug use and other issues at the nonprofit’s rehab center on Pacific Highway in an inewsource investigation published last week. (Castellano, 6/14)

Palm Springs Desert Sun: Shay's Warriors To Hold Retreat In Palm Springs For Cancer Survivors When Indio resident Shay Moraga was undergoing countless rounds of treatment for triple negative breast cancer, one of the challenges she faced was finding the right support group. As she sat among survivors, Moraga felt she "didn't necessarily have the same things in common" with them. (Sasic, 6/13)

ABC News: Heat Wave Continues In 27 States Across The Country  A "heat dome" is expected to bring triple-digit temperatures to portions of the Midwest, adding to the early onset temperatures already baking the Southwest. From California to Virginia, approximately 100 million Americans are under heat advisories, heat warnings or heat watches. St. Louis reported a record-high temperature of 100 degrees on Monday, and the heat index in parts of the Midwest neared 115 degrees. From Raleigh, North Carolina, to Chicago, actual temperatures are expected to reach near 100 degrees on Tuesday. (Guilfoil and Golembo, 6/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: Why Toxic Algae Blooms Are On The Rise Across California — And Expected To Get Worse Rising temperatures and stagnant water generally signal trouble for human life, but they make for a great environment for the bright, blue-green scum often found in lakes, rivers and reservoirs that flourishes and blooms in hot weather. These scum blooms, known as harmful algal blooms, are natural parts of the ecosystem, but can also release toxins that sicken or even kill people and animals. They’re becoming more common as temperatures rise and water systems are starved and disrupted, threatening not only public and wildlife health, but the state’s water supply, as well as beloved recreation areas like Lake Merritt in Oakland. (Jung, 6/14)

Fox News: Water-Borne Infections Can Lurk In Hot Tubs, Public Pools, Lakes And Oceans This Summer: Here's What To Know As many look forward to the summer months and going into the water, beware of the germs lurking below that can cause water-borne infections and how to prevent them. During 2015 to 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the majority of the reported outbreaks associated with recreational water were secondary to a parasite called Cryptosporidium discovered in public pools or the bacteria known as Legionella in hot tubs, according a 2021 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. (Sudhakar, 6/14)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Is Crackdown Working? Downtown Homeless Encampments Shrinking, But Few Opting To Go To Shelters   The number of sidewalk encampments in downtown San Diego’s East Village has noticeably decreased since the city launched a crackdown against them about two weeks ago, but few of the displaced people have opted for shelters. Some have been arrested, but many others likely have moved to other city streets or state property near freeways, out of the jurisdiction of the San Diego Police Department. (Warth, 6/14)

Sacramento Bee: Placer Gives Bonuses To Landlords Of Homeless Veterans Placer County officials believe just a few dozen veterans remain in the foothill community’s homeless population, and the local agency has a new program to help those former troops find places to live. The Placer County Housing Authority earlier this month began offering $1,000 bonuses to landlords who agree to rent to homeless veterans. The money is meant to give an extra incentive to California landlords to help them overcome any reservations they might have about renting to a homeless person. (Hodgman, 6/14)

Bloomberg: WHO Will Rename Monkeypox Virus to Minimize Stigma, Racism The World Health Organization will officially rename monkeypox, in light of concerns about stigma and racism surrounding the virus that has infected over 1,600 people in more than two dozen countries. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director general, announced Tuesday morning that the organization is “working with partners and experts from around the world on changing the name of monkeypox virus, its clades and the disease it causes.” He said the WHO will make announcements about the new names as soon as possible.  (Muller, 6/13)

Politico: Is Monkeypox A World Health Emergency? The WHO Will Decide Next Week The World Health Organization is convening its emergency committee next week to decide whether the monkeypox outbreak is a public health emergency of international concern — the world’s highest health alert. The meeting should help international coordination on the response now that monkeypox has spread to at least 39 countries, which have in total reported more than 1,600 confirmed cases and an additional 1,500 suspected cases to the WHO. (Paun and Payne, 6/14)

CIDRAP: WHO Discourages Mass Vaccination For Monkeypox Outbreak With more than 3,100 confirmed and suspected cases of monkeypox in 32 non-endemic and 7 endemic countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) today said it does not recommend mass vaccination campaigns at this time to limit the outbreaks, and instead emphasized contact tracing and isolation to limit the further spread of the poxvirus. In new interim guidance on vaccine use against monkeypox, the WHO said contacts of cases should be offered post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) with a vaccine within four days of first exposure to prevent onset of disease. (Soucheray, 6/14)

The Atlantic: Monkeypox Vaccines Are Too Gnarly For The Masses In the past three years, the world has weathered two very different global outbreaks, caused by two very different pathogens, under two sets of very different circumstances. Unlike with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, with monkeypox, we’re entering an epidemic with highly effective vaccines—formulated to guard against smallpox—already in hand. Also unlike with SARS-CoV-2, with monkeypox, the shots stockpiled in U.S. stores are based on some pretty grody tech. Nearly all of the 100 million available smallpox vaccines are ACAM2000, an inoculation that, per FDA documentation, gets punctured “rapidly” into the arm via 15 jabs of a bifurcated, escargot-fork-esque needle, in a fashion “vigorous enough” to draw blood. In the weeks following, a gnarly, pus-laden lump blossoms, then scabs and falls away. “It’s oozy; it’s nasty; it definitely doesn’t feel good,” says Kelsey Cone, a virologist at ARUP Laboratories, in Utah, who received the vaccine about 12 years ago. (Wu, 6/14)

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.

© California Healthline 1998-2022. All Rights Reserved.

California Healthline is a service of the California Health Care Foundation produced by Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.