Masks are required on BART trains, after 10 days of making them optional. A pre-print review of studies in health care and community settings tied masking to a lower risk of getting infected with the coronavirus.
President Biden emerged again from isolation, and is out and about, after two days of negative tests following his rebound infection. The worst of the summer COVID-19 surge finally may be over, but at the same time the amount of virus in the community remains far higher than in April before the surge. One pre-pandemic thing back is employment — the economy has recovered all 22 million jobs lost when COVID roared in during March and April 2020.
San Francisco supervisors on Monday ratified the local public health state of emergency due to monkeypox contagion, allowing the official status to continue beyond the initial one week that ended Monday. Public health officials are empowered to declare an emergency for a week, which they did in San Francisco on Aug. 1, with supervisors’ action needed beyond that. The action came as the coronavirus pandemic continues, with COVID infection levels remaining high in the Bay Area, even as case counts appear to have peaked and begun dropping in the most recent surge. The supervisors on Monday left the monkeypox emergency declaration openended, to be terminated in future consulation with the city’s health officer. The state of California, the Biden administration and the World Health Organization all have declared a monkeypox health emergency.
Rapid antigen tests for COVID-19 may not be as sensitive as PCR tests in detecting the coronavirus, but they remain an effective way to diagnose infection, Bay Area experts say. They are quicker and easier than PCR tests, but also less sensitive and therefore more prone to inaccurate results, experts say. Read more about home coronavirus tests, including their use with BA.5 infection and how to use them effectively.
Climate change, specifically precipitation and temperature changes, has had mixed effects on COVID-19 transmission, according to a research paper that found 58% of all known human infectious diseases — among them Lyme, West Nile, typhoid, HIV and influenza — have been worsened by the rise of greenhouse gas-driven global warming. About 16% of such diseases “were at times diminished,” according to the analysis by researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, published Monday in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change. The researchers analyzed more than 70,000 scientific studies to look at climate impacts on 375 human pathogenic diseases.
Heavy rainfall can increase social isolation, “helping to explain lower COVID-19 cases after heavy rainfall; however, increased cases of COVID-19 were associated with increases in precipitation in Indonesia, perhaps reflecting different behavioural responses to extreme rain,” the paper states. “Higher temperatures have been associated with increased COVID-19 cases in some instances, and although a mechanism was not outlined, it is possible that extreme heat forces people indoors, which can increase the risk of virus transmission, especially when combined with poor or reduced ventilation.”
Vaccination and masking mandates cut out more than 99.99% of in-class transmission of the coronavirus, a study of 140,000 in-person class meetings among 33,000 students at Boston University found. According to the study published in JAMA, only nine in-class transmission cases were identified among the 850 confirmed COVID-19 student cases in the fall 2021 semester. Universities returning to normal functioning need “an effective model for overall disease transmission safety,” researchers wrote. “Our data support the hypothesis that a combination of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and risk mitigation measures including indoor masking, regular surveillance testing, and enhanced air filtration can be highly effective at limiting disease spread within a large university academic environment to the extent that classroom transmission risk is negligible.”
Norwegian Cruise Lines on Monday announced that it would scale back COVID health protocols for its Norwegian, Oceania and Regent brands. Effective Sept. 3, vaccinated guests aged 12 and over will no longer have any pre-cruise COVID-19 related protocols and unvaccinated people may embark if they have a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours ahead of departure, subject to local regulations. No vaccination or testing will be required for travelers age 11 and under. The revisions “bring us closer in line with the rest of society, which has learned to adapt and live with COVID-19, and makes it simpler and easier for our loyal guests to cruise,” said Frank Del Rio, president and CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd.
The founder of Twitter is calling for the “end” of China’s ruling Communist Party in response to its strict zero-COVID policy. Jack Dorsey tweeted “End the CCP” over the weekend in response to a CNN report from Selina Wang about Beijing’s “relentless COVID testing and health app that dictates where I go,” adding that “this surveillance will stay long after COVID is gone.” China has stuck steadfastly to its zero-COVID policy, despite economic and social costs, asserting this approach has kept hospitalization and death rates lower than in nations that loosened restrictions as vaccination rates and treatments gained prominence.
The lessons of wastewater monitoring as a tool to help evaluate community presence of COVID-19 are being used in Marin County for surveillance on monkeypox and other illness, a release from public health officials said. Stanford University's WastewaterSCAN initiative is helping Marin and other Bay Area counties monitor the sewage water for COVID-19, monkeypox, and seasonal viruses like the flu. People infected with monkeypox are likely to shed the virus in their urine and feces, as well as from lesions and oral secretions. This makes monkeypox a good candidate for monitoring in wastewater and detecting its presence in the community, county officials said.
Hong Kong, one of the world's few holdouts for strict COVID restriction on travelers, will reduce the mandatory hotel quarantine for overseas arrivals to three days from a week, the city’s leader said Monday. The southern Chinese city and mainland China are among few world holdouts to require a quarantine to guard against travelers spreading COVID-19. The policy taking effect Friday will be Hong Kong’s shortest quarantine for arrivals since the pandemic began. Hong Kong leader John Lee said arriving travelers must quarantine three days in a designated hotel, then undergo four days of medical surveillance during which their movements will be restricted via the use of a health code system.
Ultra-wealthy people who left San Francisco during the pandemic’s first, frightening wave largely decamped to ritzy ski towns, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service. The county that saw the wealthiest movers from San Francisco on average was Teton County, Wyoming, home to Jackson Hole and its famed ski resorts.
President Biden was out of isolation and back traveling Monday, after testing negative for the coronavirus Sunday for the second day in a row. His physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, in an update released Sunday by the White House, said Biden “will safely return to public engagement and presidential travel.” In his first travel since his bout with COVID, Biden on Monday went to Kentucky to tour the dramatic flood devastation there. A day earlier upon emerging from isolation, he said, “I’m feeling good,” before boarding Marine One outside the White House. Biden originally tested positive on July 21, and took the anti-viral medication Paxlovid to decrease the likelihood of serious COVID illness. After isolating for several days, he tested negative on July 26 and July 27, resumed public activity, and then caught a rare rebound case on July 30 and began another isolation period.
Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at UCSF, had a look-on-the-bright-side” riposte for Geraldo Rivera, who on Sunday tweeted about getting COVID despite vaccination. Rivera wrote: “2 vaccinations, 2 boosters, 2nd COVID, 0 symptoms, sucks.” The broadcast reporter and commentator in the past has praised vaccines and criticized people who refuse vaccination against COVID. But if his tweet in any way left an impression that vaccines didn’t do their job, Gandhi was having none of it. She tweeted: “@GeraldoRivera, vaccine success! Vaccines are amazingly good at preventing severe disease & death. N. Pelosi had no symptoms; Pres. Biden has 2 days mild symptoms; we never tested those without symptoms after vax for a respiratory pathogen before; US- let’s not undermine vax!”
A systemic review of studies seeking to learn how well face masks did or did not impact coronavirus transmission has linked masks worn in health care and community settings to a lower risk of getting infected. The pre-print research, which has not been peer reviewed, from researchers at the School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell used data from 13 studies to analyze how masks, of any type, affected transmission. In all, 243 subjects were infected with COVID-19, of whom 97 had been wearing masks and 146 had not. The researchers wrote that the probability of getting COVID-19 for mask wearers was 7%, compared to 52% for those who did not wear face coverings, and the study concluded that mask wearers were less likely to contract COVID-19.
Some 80,000 tourists are stranded in the southern Chinese beach resort of Sanya, after authorities declared it a COVID-19 hot spot and imposed a lockdown. The restrictions began Saturday morning in the city on tropical Hainan Island which had 229 confirmed cases on Friday and another 129 on Saturday, the Associated Press reports. China sticks steadfastly to a “zero-COVID” approach increasingly at odds with the rest of the world. Railway authorities banned all ticket sales in Sanya. Flights were also canceled. Tourists wanting to depart Sanya have to test negative for the coronavirus on five PCR tests over seven days, authorities said. The lockdown comes during a peak tourism season in Sanya, which is famous for its resorts and beaches.
It looks like the worst of the summer COVID-19 surge may have passed, but still the amount of virus in the community remains far higher than in April before the surge. As well, hospitalizations — a lagging indicator of infection rates — are still high. Health officials caution against complacency and the possibility of new immune-evasive versions of the virus that could prolong the pandemic into the fall. They recommend that people maintain on their guard against infection or reinfection through vaccination, boosters and voluntary indoor masking. Read more about the state of COVID in the Bay Area and California.
New economic numbers from the Labor Department show the economy has now recovered all 22 million jobs lost in March and April 2020 when COVID-19 slammed the nation. U.S. employers added an astonishing 528,000 jobs last month despite flashing warning signs of an economic downturn. Unemployment dropped another notch, from 3.6% to 3.5%, matching the more than 50-year low reached just before the pandemic took hold. The news eased fears of a recession and handed President Biden some good news heading into the midterm elections. Brian Coulton, chief economist at Fitch Ratings. wrote, “The U.S. economy is creating new jobs at an annual rate of 6 million — that’s three times faster than what we normally see historically in a good year.”
Aidin Vaziri is a staff writer at The San Francisco Chronicle.
Rita Beamish is The San Francisco Chronicle topic editor.