Daily Edition: Nov. 30, 2021

Latest From California Healthline:

With Federal Covid Sick Leave Gone, Workers Feel Pressure to Show Up at Work

National paid sick leave provisions for covid expired, and an uncertain covid winter is around the corner. Los Angeles and Oakland are among the places trying to fill the gap, but many employees still face financial pressure to go to work while sick. (Rae Ellen Bichell, 11/30)

Public Health Experts Believe Omicron Could Arrive In Bay Area Within Weeks Or Even Days: The omicron coronavirus variant, which is raising global alarm bells due to its potential for increased transmissibility and vaccine evasion, is probably already in the U.S., and an announcement that it has arrived in the Bay Area could be just days or weeks away, some public health officials believe. The World Health Organization on Monday said early evidence indicates that the risk from omicron is "very high," and surges with "severe consequences" are possible. Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Poor Communities in LA County Getting Boosters At Much Lower Rate Than Wealthier Areas: The percentage of vaccinated Los Angeles County residents who have gotten covid-19 booster shots is significantly lower in poorer neighborhoods than other areas – a troubling trend officials say could leave already hard-hit communities exposed to a potential surge over the winter. In the county's underserved areas, including South Los Angeles, the Eastside, the eastern San Fernando Valley, El Monte and southeast L.A. County, only 6.9% of people eligible for a booster shot had received one as of November 11. That compares to 12.6% in more affluent parts of the county. 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.

More News From Across The State

CalMatters: California Braces For Omicron COVID Variant
Today, the United States is set to close its borders to travelers from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique and Namibia to limit spread of a COVID-19 variant called omicron, which the World Health Organization on Friday labeled a variant of concern. Also today, the city of Los Angeles plans to start enforcing one of the country's strictest vaccine mandates: Restaurants, coffee shops, museums, theaters and other indoor venues must verify that customers are vaccinated before allowing them to enter — or face fines of as much as $5,000. (Hoeven, 11/29)

Modesto Bee: COVID-19 Omicron Variant: What This Means For California
Currently, California does not have any cases of omicron COVID-19, according to the California Department of Public Health. But the agency is keeping a close eye on this situation, which is quickly evolving. (Truong, 11/29)

Los Angeles Times: Biden Faces Uncertain Threat With Omicron Variant As Evolving Pandemic Tests Nation's Patience
President Biden is racing to show the country that his administration is prepared for the Omicron variant as the World Health Organization warned there's a "very high" risk of new global outbreaks, a possibility that could prove demoralizing to Americans weary of a pandemic that began nearly two years ago. "This variant is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic," Biden said from the White House after emerging from a meeting with public health advisors Monday. (Megerian, 11/29)

Sacramento Bee: White House COVID Team To Brief Governors, Congress On Omicron
The Biden administration is planning a flurry of briefings with state and local officials this week to prepare them to detect and monitor the newly discovered omicron variant of the coronavirus, anticipating that it may show up inside the United States within a matter of days. Members of the White House COVID-19 response team will brief governors and members of Congress this week, and officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services are providing lab directors around the country with guidance on how to detect omicron using available PCR tests, a White House official said. (Wilner, 11/29)

AP: WHO Warns That New Virus Variant Poses 'Very High' Risk
The World Health Organization warned Monday that the global risk from the omicron variant is "very high" based on the early evidence, saying the mutated coronavirus could lead to surges with "severe consequences." The assessment from the U.N. health agency, contained in a technical paper issued to member states, amounted to WHO's strongest, most explicit warning yet about the new version that was first identified days ago by researchers in South Africa. (Keaten, Casert and Yamaguchi, 11/29)

Stat: Doctors Hope Omicron Causes Milder Covid, But It's Too Early To Say
Physicians around the world have suggested the Omicron variant may cause milder illness than other forms of the coronavirus. But actually understanding Omicron's severity is an open question, experts caution — one that requires more patient data and more time to answer. The South African physician Angelique Coetzee told the BBC this weekend, for example, that the cases she and colleagues were seeing weren't serious. "We haven't admitted anyone," she said. In Israel, one doctor told Haaretz that, "if it continues this way, this might be a relatively mild illness compared to the Delta variant." (Joseph, 11/30)

CapRadio: California Says It Is Closely Monitoring The Omicron COVID-19 Variant
State Public Health Officer and California Department of Public Health Director Dr. Tomás J. Aragón issued a statement yesterday on the new COVID-19 variant, omicron." California is closely monitoring the new omicron variant, which has not yet arrived in California or the U.S. Vaccines continue to be our best way through the pandemic by safely protecting us against severe illness from COVID-19 and its variants," he said. "We are doubling down on our vaccination booster efforts to ensure that all Californians have access to safe, effective and free vaccines that can prevent serious illness and death."CDPH says it's closely monitoring the new variant of concern, B.1.1.529, better known as omicron, as labeled by the World Health Organization. (11/29)

Reuters: U.S. Steps Up Search For Omicron Variant In Domestic COVID-19 Cases
The United States is enhancing its COVID-19 surveillance to distinguish domestic cases of the Omicron variant from the still-dominant Delta, the head of the association of state-run public health laboratories told Reuters on Monday. The new variant, first identified in southern Africa last week, has since been detected in 10 other countries. U.S. officials say it is only a matter of time before it turns up in the country. Omicron has prompted new alarm due to an unusual number of mutations that suggest it may reduce vaccine protection, though much remains unknown. Countries worldwide are scrambling to understand the prevalence of the new version of coronavirus within their borders. (Steenhuysen, 11/29)

CapRadio: Interview: UC Davis Health Expert On What To Expect From The Omicron COVID-19 Variant
As countries all over the world scrambled to try to contain its spread by restricting air travel, infectious disease experts urged people not to panic. At the same time, many cautioned that omicron is likely already in the U.S. Dr. Dean Blumberg, the chief of pediatric infectious diseases at UC Davis Health, spoke with Insight host Vicky Gonzalez. (11/29)

Orange County Register: Coronavirus: L.A. County Reported 794 New Cases And 10 New Deaths, Nov. 29
Los Angeles County public health officials reported 794 new cases of the coronavirus, bringing the total number of cases to 1,526,272, as of Monday, Nov. 29. The total number of cases represents 15% of Los Angeles County's population. Officials reported 10 more deaths linked to the coronavirus since, for a total of 27,138 deaths since tracking began. The total number of deaths represents 0.26% of Los Angeles County's population. (Goertzen, 11/29)

The Bakersfield Californian: Kern Public Health: 1,008 New Coronavirus Cases, 10 Deaths Reported Monday
Kern County Public Health reported 1,008 new coronavirus cases and 10 new deaths Monday. That brings the total number of cases reported in Kern County residents to 155,525, with 1,791 total deaths. According to the state, 135 patients were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Kern County as of Wednesday, 10 fewer than the previous report. The state data says 30 patients were hospitalized in intensive care units, one more than the previous report. (11/29)

CIDRAP: Study: 1 In 100 Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients Suffers Brain Complications
During a meeting tomorrow at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), scientists will present data from the largest multi-institutional international study to date on brain complications of COVID-19 and share that 1 in 100 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 will likely develop complications of the central nervous system like stroke, hemorrhage, and other potentially fatal complications. The findings come from a study of nearly 40,000 hospitalized COVID-19–positive patients seen at seven hospitals in the United States and four university hospitals in Western Europe, according to an RSNA news release today. The patients were admitted from September 2019 through June 2020. Their average age was 66 years old. (11/29)

Los Angeles Times: CDC Says All Adults Should Get COVID-19 Booster Vaccine
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday strengthened its recommendations on who should get boosters. In a statement, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said that all vaccinated adults should get a booster as long as they received their second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna shot at least six months ago or they received their Johnson & Johnson shot at least two months ago. "The recent emergence of the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) further emphasizes the importance of vaccination, boosters, and prevention efforts needed to protect against COVID-19," Walensky said. "Early data from South Africa suggest increased transmissibility of the Omicron variant." (Lin II and Money, 11/29)

City News Service: Worried About Omicron Variant? Get Vaccinated, LA County Urges
Again claiming the numbers are proof of COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness, Los Angeles County health officials on Monday, Nov. 29 reported a sharp decline in the number of virus infections among residents and staff of skilled nursing facilities, where inoculations and booster shots have been widely administered. According to the county Department of Public Health, there were 92 new COVID cases among residents and staff of skilled nursing facilities the week of Oct. 22, but that number fell to 34 for the week ending Nov. 14. County officials said the 63% decline occurred during a time when cases countywide fell just 6%. (11/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: Do COVID Vaccines Work Against Omicron? What We Know So Far
The discovery of the omicron variant of the coronavirus is sending scientists and vaccine manufacturers racing to determine how well existing shots hold up against this new strain and how long it might take to potentially tailor and distribute vaccines that target omicron specifically. It's too soon to tell whether an updated vaccine would be necessary, since there is so little data on omicron. Initial reports from researchers in South Africa suggest that because omicron has more mutations along the spike protein — the target of most of the vaccines — it may render the existing shots less effective. (Ho, 11/29)

The Wall Street Journal: Omicron Unlikely To Cause Severe Illness In Vaccinated People, BioNTech Founder Says
The Omicron variant of the coronavirus could lead to more infections among vaccinated people but they will most likely remain protected from a severe course of illness, according to the inventor of one of the first Covid-19 vaccines. While the new variant might evade the antibodies generated in reaction to the vaccine, the virus will likely remain vulnerable to immune cells that destroy IT once it enters the body, BioNTech SE co-founder Ugur Sahin said. "Our message is: Don't freak out, the plan remains the same: Speed up the administration of a third booster shot," Dr. Sahin said in an interview Tuesday. (Pancevski, 11/30)

NPR: New Antiviral Drugs Are Coming for COVID. Here's What You Need to Know
An FDA advisory committee is meeting Tuesday to consider whether to recommend a new antiviral pill for the COVID-19 treatment toolkit. Take-at-home pills could be a game changer for keeping COVID-19 in check, and helping people recover from early stages of the disease. (Huang, 11/30)

The New York Times: Antiviral Covid-19 Pills Are Coming. Will There Be Enough Tests?
One of the drugs, developed by the pharmaceutical company Merck, could receive emergency authorization as early as this week. Another, made by Pfizer, is likely to be close behind. Although the drugs are not a replacement for vaccination, they could drastically expand access to treatments for a disease that is still killing 1,000 Americans a day. But the pills, which interfere with viral replication, are designed to be taken as soon as possible after symptoms appear. Fully harnessing their benefits is likely to depend upon timely, accurate Covid testing — something that the United States has struggled to achieve since the beginning of the pandemic. At times, especially in the summer and fall of 2020, getting tested for the virus has required an hourslong wait in line, followed by a weeklong wait for results. (Anthes, 11/29)

The Wall Street Journal: FDA Moving To Authorize Pfizer-BioNTech Booster For 16-, 17-Year-Olds
The Food and Drug Administration could authorize Covid-19 boosters from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE for use in 16- and 17-year olds as soon as next week as concerns rise over a new, possibly more transmissible variant, according to a person familiar with the planning. The agency is planning to move rapidly to take action on a request by the companies to authorize boosters for 16- and-17 year olds, according to a person familiar with the matter. So far, only people 18 years and older are eligible for boosters. (Armour and Hopkins, 11/29)

Los Angeles Times: Sheriff Villanueva Won't Use County's Coronavirus Testing Provider Over Alleged Ties To China
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said Monday that his department will no longer use the county's coronavirus testing provider over concerns about the company's alleged ties to the Chinese government. In a letter to the Board of Supervisors, Villanueva said the FBI contacted him last week and held a briefing the day after Thanksgiving to relay "the serious risks associated with allowing Fulgent to conduct COVID-19 testing" of county employees. (Tchekmedyian and Winton, 11/29)

Los Angeles Times: Enforcement Begins Today For L.A.'s COVID Vaccine Rules
After a multi-week ramp-up, Los Angeles will now enforce its mandate that patrons prove they've been vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of entering a host of indoor businesses. The city's requirement — which applies to indoor restaurants, movie theaters, hair and nail salons, coffee shops, gyms, museums, bowling alleys and performance venues, among other spaces — has been in place for the last three weeks. (Money and Lin II, 11/29)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego City Council Moves Forward With Vaccine Mandate
The city of San Diego will impose its vaccine mandate on city employees, including police officers, despite strong opposition from the police union. The San Diego Police Officers Association was the only of the city's six labor unions to reach an impasse with the city over the mandate during several rounds of negotiations. About 37 percent of about 1,900 police officers on the force — 709 — were unvaccinated as of last week, according to the city. Overall about 20 percent of the city's workforce — about 2,000 employees — remained unvaccinated. (Hernandez, 11/29)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Majority Of Vaccine Exemption Requests Denied By Marine Corps As Mandate Deadline Passes
Thousands of active-duty Marines remain unvaccinated against COVID-19 as of Monday, one day after the service's Nov. 28 deadline, the Corps said in a statement. Most of them will find themselves booted from the military if the service follows-through with its current vaccine policy. The service did not specify how many Marines haven't received the vaccine but said 95 percent of its active-duty members have received at least one dose. The Corps lags the other military branches in vaccine compliance rate, according to data from the Pentagon. (Dyer, 11/29)

The Hill: Federal Workers Who Don't Meet Vaccine Mandate Won't Face Discipline Until January
Federal workers who do not comply with the Biden administration's coronavirus vaccine requirement will not face serious penalties such as suspension or removal until January. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on Monday directed federal agencies to engage in education and counseling of workers who have not met the vaccine requirement through the holiday season, with further enforcement actions put off until next year. (Chalfant, 11/29)

AP: California Now Limits Medical Parole To Those On Ventilators
A new California policy could send dozens of quadriplegic, paraplegic or otherwise permanently incapacitated inmates from nursing homes back to state prisons. Prison officials say a change in federal rules led them to limit medical parole to inmates so ill they are hooked to ventilators to breathe, meaning their movement is so limited they are not a public danger. The state previously included a much broader range of permanent incapacities allowing inmates to be cared for in nursing homes outside prison walls. (Thompson, 11/30)

Modern Healthcare: UC Davis, Amazon Partner On Digital Health Equity Innovation
UC Davis Health has opened a cloud innovation center in partnership with Amazon Web Services, the not-for-profit academic health system announced Monday. UC Davis Health, a Sacramento-based health system that's part of the University of California, Davis, is the latest to join Amazon's cloud innovation program open to not-for-profit organizations, educational institutions and government agencies. UC Davis Health's center will solicit project ideas from clinicians, patients and the community focused on digital health equity and accessibility. The health system will make the project's findings available to the public to enable others to build on its work. (Kim Cohen, 11/29)

Modern Healthcare: Medicaid Enrollees Report More Overnight Hospital Stays Than Uninsured, Privately Insured
Medicaid members were as likely as those with private coverage to have seen a general practitioner in 2019, despite being less likely to have a usual place for receiving medical services, according to a new report from the Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program Payment Access Commission. Ninety percent of individuals with private coverage said they had a usual source of care, compared with 86.5% of Medicaid beneficiaries, according to MACPAC's analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey data from 2019. (Tepper, 11/29)

Modern Healthcare: Supreme Court Questions HHS Interpretation Of DSH Formula
Supreme Court justices on Monday were skeptical that the Health and Human Services Department fairly interpreted Medicare law when it changed the formula for disproportionate share hospital calculations. During oral arguments, the justices asked pointed questions about the specific language HHS interpreted to create its DSH formula. They wondered whether the department should receive a wide latitude for interpreting congressional language dictating the policy. "So it strikes me as a situation where I think we ought to be particularly precise in interpreting the language Congress used without any gloss added by the agency," Chief Justice John Roberts said. (Goldman, 11/29)

Bay Area News Group: Cal's COVID Crisis: Audio Recording Shows Frustration With Berkeley
As the COVID crisis threatened to derail Cal's season in early November, confusion soared within the football program. Why had a handful of cases prompted mass testing of players and staff? Why had a program with strict safety protocols been called out publicly by the City of Berkeley's health officials, supposedly causing the players to be shamed on campus? And most of all, why had a program with a 99% vaccination rate become the only team in major college football to have a game rescheduled because of the virus? (Wiler, 11/29)

CapRadio: What To Know About Sacramento City Schools' COVID-19 Vaccine Requirement
The Sacramento City Unified School District joined a handful of California school districts — including Los Angeles and San Diego, the state's two largest — in announcing a vaccine mandate last month. The deadline for the district's students over 12 and staff to submit proof of at least their first dose of vaccination is coming up, on Nov. 30. That followed Gov. Gavin Newsom's pending mandate that all K-12 students be vaccinated once full FDA approval is given to their age group. Currently, kids in grades 7-12 will need to be vaccinated by July 1, 2022. A mandate for kids in grades K-6 is dependent on when the FDA gives full approval to the vaccine for kids 5-11. (Salanga, 11/29)

Fox News: San Diego Student Vaccine Mandate Temporarily Blocked By Ninth Circuit
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an emergency injunction pending appeal against the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) on Monday after a student-athlete sued the district for religious discrimination because of its COVID-19 vaccine mandate. In September, the school board of the SDUSD voted in favor of requiring students aged 16 and up to be fully vaccinated against COVID by Dec. 20, which would require them to get their first dose by Monday. Anyone who failed to comply would be forced to attend school remotely. (Brown, 11/30)

Bay Area News Group: Elizabeth Holmes Testifies: Theranos President Balwani Forced Sex On Her
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes testified tearfully Monday that former company president Sunny Balwani, her romantic partner for more than a decade, belittled her, controlled her diet, sought to keep her from her family and forced sex on her when she displeased him. In the most emotional testimony yet at the former CEO's trial on charges that her blood-testing start-up was based on fraud, Holmes described a relationship that began with Balwani giving her advice and ended with her questioning why she was staying with him. "He wasn't who I thought he was," she testified. (Baron, 11/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: As Abortion Rights Hang In The Balance, East Bay Doctor Keeps Making Trips To Oklahoma Clinic
Rebecca Taub, too, is an activist — one on the opposite front line of America's reignited abortion wars. For the next two days, the 36-year-old will perform two dozen abortions a day at Trust Women. She travels here at least once a month because the clinic can't find enough local doctors to perform abortions in a state where the procedure is culturally shunned — and demand is surging. (Garofoli and Lurie, 11/29)

Roll Call: Abortion Case Tests Supreme Court's Rightward Shift After Trump
The Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday in a case that asks the justices to overturn the long-standing decisions that established the right to abortion in the United States, a moment that Republican politicians, conservative legal groups and anti-abortion activists have worked for decades to deliver. The 1973 landmark decision in Roe v. Wade that first legalized abortion also helped spark that movement, which has become a steady theme in partisan politics and the Senate's most recent history of contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearings. (Ruger and Raman, 11/29)

Stat: Scientists See 'Rock Star' Potential In Deploying Viruses Against Cancer
Stacy Erholtz had run out of options. At the age of 49, she had already been fighting multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, for almost a decade. In that time, she tried — and exhausted — every treatment available to her: traditional chemotherapy, novel drugs, and stem cell transplants. By the time she entered a study that would test an experimental measles virus, genetically engineered to target cancer, Erholtz was studded with tumors on her clavicle, sternum, vertebrae, and skull. For an hour, she watched a stunning amount of an otherwise-dangerous virus — enough to vaccinate 10 million people against the measles — drain into her beleaguered body. "I literally felt like my head was going to explode," Erholtz told STAT, "within seconds." (Renault, 11/30)

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