Weekly CA-COVID Update 5/3/22

California

On Friday, 4/29, Gov. Newsom announced that, beginning May 1, the state’s low-income health insurance would extend full coverage to all qualifying people who are 50 or older, regardless of immigration status…

The latest poll from the Public Policy Institute of California dropped last week with insights into how Californians are feeling about the state of education… 

Commissioned by the reform-oriented nonprofit, Murmuration, likely California voters who were also parents were much less satisfied with the performance of traditional neighborhood public schools during the pandemic than in every other state polled, including Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Texas, New Jersey, Tennessee, and the District of Columbia…

The mental health of children under five has typically been overlooked when it comes to state funding…

Lawmakers in California are debating whether to open sites where people can inject or snort illegal drugs under the watchful gaze of a health care worker… 

California’s population declined again in 2021 for the second consecutive year, state officials said yesterday, 5/2, the result of a slowdown in births and immigration coupled with an increase in deaths and people leaving the state…

Last week, the Metropolitan Water District said that the unprecedented decision to reduce outdoor watering to one day a week for about six million Southern Californians could be followed by even stricter actions in September if conditions don’t improve, including a total ban in some areas…

The University of California will waive all tuition and fees for Californians who are members of federally recognized Native American, American Indian and Alaska Native tribes…

California’s attorney general has announced a first-of-its kind investigation into the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries for their alleged role in causing and exacerbating a global crisis in plastic waste pollution… 

Coronavirus

After months of declining numbers, California has recorded a nearly 30 percent increase in COVID-19 cases over the last week along with smaller rises in hospitalizations, causing some health officials to suspect that the state is headed into a new pandemic wave… 

COVID-19 has had billions of chances to reconfigure itself as it has spread across the planet, and it continues to evolve, generating new variants and sub variants at a clip that has kept scientists on their toes…

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted the first full approval for treating COVID-19 in children ages 28 days and older to Gilead Sciences's drug Remdesivir… 

Pfizer and BioNTech submitted data to the FDA last week showing that the low-dose booster shot is safe for children ages five through 11 and could help protect them against Omicron…

Three new observational studies from Scotland, Denmark and the United States detail reduced hospitalizations and emergency department visits for Omicron COVID-19 infections relative to those caused by the Delta variant, as well as strong but waning third-dose vaccine effectiveness over time against Omicron…

More than half of people in the United States had antibodies for COVID-19 by the end of February, according to a new study from the CDC… 

According to data from the National Vital Statistics System released last week by the CDC, only heart disease and cancer killed more Americans than COVID-19 in 2021, with provisional death tolls from each cause totaling 693,000, 605,000 and 415,000, respectively… 

Districts that operated in person last school year were far more likely to rebound in enrollment this year than those that continued to operate virtually…