[ad_1]
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Wednesday that a variant of COVID-19 first identified in South Africa had been discovered in the Bay Area, with one case in Alameda County and another in Santa Clara.
The Santa Clara County case involved an adult who had traveled overseas, returned in mid-January and then quarantined, said Sara Cody, Santa Clara County public health official.
The person began to develop symptoms “several days” after returning home and was tested. Health officials learned on Wednesday morning that the person had the variant based on the results of genomic sequencing.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Wednesday that a variant of COVID-19 first identified in South Africa had been discovered in the Bay Area, with one case in Alameda County and another in Santa Clara. Report by Marianne Favro.
“The encouraging news from our side is that this person, upon their return, was immediately quarantined,” Cody said. “As a result, we don’t know of any opportunity for spread within our community.”
The case in Alameda County was a resident who was diagnosed with COVID-19 in January and subsequently found the variant. It was not immediately clear if the person had recently traveled abroad.
“Our investigation is still ongoing, but we can say that this person is no longer contagious to others,” said Dr Nicholas Moss, Alameda County health officer.
It was first spotted in South Africa, but has now been discovered in the Bay Area. Scott Budman explains why it might be too difficult for current vaccines to handle and why a biotech company is moving to follow it.
At this point, the two cases aren’t meant to be linked, Cody said.
In total, the state has less than 1,500 identified cases of different variants, Newsom said.
Scientists and health officials fear that the variants will be more contagious, less responsive to treatments, and more likely to re-infect people who already had the virus. The South African variant was first identified in the United States late last month in South Carolina.
A new strain of COVID-19 has been detected in the Bay Area, one in Santa Clara County and the other in Alameda County. So how concerned should we be? Raj Mathai reports.
“The issue of mutations is a priority,” Newsom said during a visit to Fresno, the latest in a series of stops across the state to highlight vaccination efforts.
Generally speaking, the state is making progress in controlling the virus. Less than 5% of those tested now give positive results, and daily confirmed cases of infection have fallen to around 8,400 from more than 50,000 a month ago, he said.
Newsom has boasted that more than 5 million doses of the vaccine have been administered, but the state continues to face questions and criticism over the rollout of the much-desired injections. The state plans to switch next week from a county-led vaccination effort to a centralized approach managed by California’s Blue Shield. The state has yet to release details or the cost of the contract with the main health insurer, although Newsom has said it will do so by the end of this week.
In an afternoon legislative hearing, two county health officials said the state’s current vaccine database underestimated the number of vaccines being administered, a development they fear could result in lower doses in counties as it might appear that they are not using up their doses quickly.
“The system is not broken, it seems to be because the administered doses are not showing,” said Dr Aimee Sisson, public health official for Yolo County. The county has received 14,000 doses and administered 10,400 to date, she said. But the state system says the county received 14,500 hits and only gave 7,500.
Los Angeles County Scientific Director Dr Paul Simon said his county received 1.2 million doses and administered 80% within four days of receiving them. But he’s not convinced the state’s data system reflects those numbers.
Incomplete data makes it difficult to track the number of doses for black and Latino residents who appear to be underserved, the two health workers said. Dr. Erica Pan, the state epidemiologist, presented a breakdown of racial and ethnic vaccine data to another legislative group in the state on Monday. But the state has not made this information publicly available on its website.
State officials say the Blue Shield partnership will address some of the data collection issues. The new centralized system will be designed to provide “more clarity, more transparency and more accountability” around vaccine distribution, Newsom said.
The Biden administration is now giving the state a three-week snapshot of how many vaccine doses to expect, and the state is trying to give counties a similar forecast, he said.
“It’s dynamic and as you well know we have had crises and departures over the last few months,” Newsom said.
Still, counties say they lack information on exactly how the new system works. Santa Clara County wants to seek an exemption from using the state’s new portal for residents to sign up for vaccines, called MyTurn, but the state will require all counties to use it. Orange County health officials said they did not want to ask people already signed up for appointments with the county system to re-register with the state.
The state plans to integrate county vaccination sites into the new system, said Amy Tong, the state’s information officer.
Dr Tomás Aragón, director of the California Department of Public Health, repeatedly acknowledged during the legislative hearing that the state’s vaccine approach needs to be improved.
“What we are doing now is not working,” said MK Jose Medina, a Democrat from Riverside. He said the deployment so far has been “nothing short of chaotic”.
“We totally agree with what you are saying,” Aragón replied.
In Fresno, however, Newsom has been praised by local and national officials, as it did at similar events across the state this week. Democratic officials praised him for handling the virus in a clear attempt to refute criticism as a Newsom recall campaign gains momentum. In contrast, a protester using a megaphone shouted “call Gavin back” during the press conference.
“I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, I want you to be healthy and safe,” Newsom replied when asked to respond to the recall effort.
[ad_2]
Source link