Weekly CA-COVID Update 2/23/22

California

The Newsom administration is set to announce its school mask mandate plan next week…

President Biden is looking to California to help secure a permanent pipeline of critical materials essential to the tech industry that can boost the nation’s green energy production and its competitiveness…

Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled out a strategy Thursday, 2/17, for the “next phase” of managing COVID-19 in California that focuses more intently on early detection of variants, stockpiling high-quality masks and contracting with a manufacturer of at-home rapid tests…

State Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) on Friday, 2/18, unveiled new legislation that would allow Californians to sue makers and sellers of assault weapons, .50 BMG rifles, ghost guns or ghost gun kits…

California lawmakers are proposing a web overhaul to protect California kids when they’re online, the most sweeping privacy measure since voters approved the California Privacy Rights Act in 2020… 

California lawmakers, working with the nonprofit group Stop AAPI Hate, introduced two bills Thursday, 2/17, that aim to combat harassment and violence against women and other vulnerable populations in public spaces, including streets and transit platforms…

California State University chancellor Joseph Castro resigned Thursday, 2/17, amid mounting criticism of his handling of a subordinate accused of sexual harassment and bullying at Fresno State when Castro was president there…

The Biden administration is moving to restore California’s legal power to lead the nation in stifling auto emissions and accelerating the transition to electric vehicles…

Medi-Cal, the state’s safety net health program, isn’t free for everyone…

A new Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll shows Gov. Newsom’s failing grades on crime and homelessness… 

The recall was a victory for parents who were angered that the district spent time deciding whether to rename a third of its schools last year instead of focusing on reopening them…

Gov. Newsom has asked the California Supreme Court to block a lower court’s order capping enrollment at the University of California, Berkeley, while the ruling is under appeal…

Coronavirus

Almost 350,000 loans made to small businesses in 2020 haven’t been forgiven and most of them are for less than $25,000…

A study in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report found that once the Omicron variant became dominant, hospitalizations of children and adolescents reached levels that were four times higher than those of Delta's peak…

A simulation study published in JAMA found that with student vaccination coverage of 70 percent or less and moderate assumptions about mitigation effectiveness (e.g., masking), mitigation could only be reduced when local case incidence was 14 or fewer cases per 100,000 residents per day to keep the mean additional cases associated with reducing mitigation to five or fewer cases per month… 

Fully vaccinated children aged five to 11 were found 73 percent less likely to get infected with COVID-19 when compared with unvaccinated children of the same age, according to a study released last week by Multnomah County, Oregon, health officials…

The CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report featured a study showing that protection against Omicron hospitalizations and emergency department visits drops significantly by four months after a third booster dose but is overall still high…

A recent study examined hospitalization trends across 20 children's hospitals in 17 states from July 2021 through January 2022…

FDA authorizes new Eli Lilly and Co. antibody drug that stands up against Omicron…

Immune responses were about two- to threefold higher in adolescents than in adults against all variants studied…