On Thursday, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed a brief in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California defending SB 793 by Senator Jerry Hill which banned the sale of flavored tobacco products statewide. Recall, SB 793 was nearly immediately signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom in late August. Following its…
Read More »On Monday, President-Elect Joe Biden announced the formation of a Biden-Harris Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board, consisting of leading public health experts who will advise President-Elect Biden, Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, and the nascent administration’s staff. The advisory board is comprised of: Co-Chair Dr. David Kessler, Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University…
Read More »This week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced partnerships with large chain pharmacies and networks to increase access to future COVID-19 vaccines. Through the federal partnership with pharmacy chains, approximately 60 percent of pharmacies throughout the 50 states, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Independent pharmacies and…
Read More »This week, Pfizer and BioNTech announced their vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 in participants without evidence of prior COVID-19 infection in the first interim efficacy analysis. The study enrolled 43,538 participants and evaluated 94 confirmed COVID-19 cases in trial participants. No serious safety concerns were observed…
Read More »On Monday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for monoclonal antibody Bamlanivimab for the treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19 in adult and pediatric populations. Bamlanivimab must be administered by intravenous (IV) infusion in non-hospitalized patients. The antibody is being distributed by FDA to state and territorial health…
Read More »On Thursday, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) published a report providing a high-level summary of state and federal funds expended to date in responding to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The LAO’s report explores state and federal authorities for COVID-19 spending, state, federal, and other funding sources for COVID-19 spending, and the amounts of COVID-19…
Read More »The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) this week issued the Playbook to Stand Up Community-Based Testing Sites, offering a step-by-step guide to organizations (e.g., schools, agricultural associations, places of worship) on how to partner with the state’s new Valencia Regional Laboratory, powered by PerkinElmer, to ramp-up capacity of COVID-19 testing. The playbook details five…
Read More »This week, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the California Department of Technology (CDT) announced an expansion of the Exposure Notification Express app to additional University of California (UC) campuses. Recall, CDPH and CDT announced in September the new partnership with Google and Apple to confidentially notify individuals who opt in if they…
Read More »This week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published high-level executive summaries of each state’s interim COVID-19 Vaccination Playbooks, which provide an overview of critical aspects of each jurisdiction’s approach to distributing COVID-19 vaccines. The summaries are available here.
Read More »The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) recently developed a new communications toolkit to share information on reducing the risk of spreading COVID-19 while ridesharing in a private vehicle. The toolkit includes a handout, social media content, and information for local leaders to share with their communities. The full rideshare toolkit is available here.
Read More »