The U.S. Justice Department appealed a Florida judge’s ruling striking down the federal mask mandate for airplanes and other forms of transportation. But local jurisdictions wasted no time following the judge’s order: California’s public health department said it would no longer require masks on public transit, and agencies such as Muni, Caltrain and BART weighed in with their own updates. Meanwhile, a war of words broke out among UCSF scientists over masking, while advisors to the CDC said they soon need to pick a target version of the coronavirus — probably the omicron variant — on which to base more finely-tuned vaccines to be administered next fall.
Airlines welcome back passengers banned over masks: Several thousand passengers who wound up on airlines’ no-fly lists for refusing to wear masks during the pandemic will be welcomed back. American, United and Delta have indicated that they will lift their bans now that masks are optional on flights, the Associated Press reports. “We have talked to them individually,” United CEO Scott Kirby told NBC on Thursday. “Many of them assure us that now that the mask mandate is off, everything is going to be fine, and I trust that the vast majority of them will.” Delta Air Lines spokesman Morgan Durrant said the airline will restore flying privileges after a case-by-case review. American Airlines Chief Government Affairs Officer Nate Gatten also told reporters that “in most cases,” people who were banned over masks will be allowed back. Airlines have reported more than 7,000 incidents of disruptive passengers to the Federal Aviation Administration since the start of 2021.
U.S. Surgeon General makes case for masking on planes: Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. Surgeon General, on Thursday said that people should continue to wear masks on airplanes even though a federal judge struck down the mandate for public transportation. “Having been on a plane myself yesterday—and recognizing cases are on the rise in many states—here is why I will continue to wear a mask when I travel,” Murthy said in a Twitter thread. He said even those at low risk for infection can carry the coronavirus and that masks could help break the chain of transmission. “Precautions are important for travelers because travel brings together many people in a closed setting for a long time which increases the chance of viral spread. Also, many people don’t have the option NOT to travel. They may need to for work or to see a sick relative.”
Woman catches COVID-19 twice in 20 days, a new record: The case of a health care worker who tested positive for the omicron variant of the coronavirus 20 days after being infected by the delta variant will be a primary topic of conversation at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, which takes place in Portugal this weekend. Spanish researchers found the woman was infected by two different strains of the virus, having tested positive on Dec. 20 and Jan. 10, despite being vaccinated and boosted. The 20-day reinfection period is the shortest on record.
California set to keep workplace pandemic rules through 2022: California workplace regulators are poised to extend mandatory pay for workers affected by the coronavirus through the end of 2022, more than two months after state lawmakers restored similar benefits through September, the Associated Press reports. The decision expected Thursday again pits management against labor as the seven-member Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board renews revised workplace safety rules that would otherwise expire in early May.
U.S. extends COVID vaccine requirements for non-citizens at land borders: The Biden administration on Thursday said it was extending a requirement that non-U.S. citizens crossing land or ferry terminals at the U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada borders must be vaccinated against COVID-19, Reuters reports.
Safety precautions still wise as COVID rules ease, experts say: Although the few remaining pandemic restrictions and mandates are being dialed back — most recently, the federal mask mandate for public travel — medical experts say that avoiding infection carries benefits right now, and that it’s still possible to engage with life while taking health precautions. “Delaying infections is actually an undervalued or underappreciated point,” said Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease expert at Stanford. Read the full story.
Continued global decline in coronavirus cases reported: The number of new COVID-19 cases around the globe fell by almost one-quarter the week of April 11 to 17, continuing a decline since the end of March, the World Health Organization reported. More than 5 million cases and over 18,000 deaths were reported across the six WHO regions compared to the previous week, the WHO said in its weekly report released late Wednesday. New cases fell in every region, though only 2% in the Americas, the Geneva-based health agency said. However, “These trends should be interpreted with caution as several countries are progressively changing their COVID-19 testing strategies, resulting in lower overall numbers of tests performed and consequently lower numbers of cases detected,” the report said. As of April 17, over 500 million confirmed cases and over 6 million deaths have been reported globally, according to the report.
COVID hospitalizations fall in California despite a rise in infections: The number of Californians hospitalized with COVID-19 has dipped below an average of 1,000 this week — the first time that’s happened since the pandemic’s summer lull last June. Patients hospitalized with coronavirus infections numbered 964 as of Tuesday, according to state data. Hospitalizations are continuing to fall despite a recent statewide rise in cases. The case growth follows months of declines since the peak of the omicron surge in January. California is now averaging about 2,800 confirmed cases per day, up from about 2,300 at the beginning of the month. Read the full story.
BART board to consider putting mask mandate back in place: Passengers no longer have to wear face coverings to ride BART, but the regional rail agency’s Board of Directors will consider temporarily reinstating a mask mandate at its April 28 meeting. The agency announced shortly before 5 p.m. Wednesday that masks are optional to wear on BART trains and stations, effective immediately, after the state’s Department of Public dropped its mask requirement on public transit earlier in the day. That decision came after a judge in Florida overturned the federal masking policies for public transportation and airplanes. Rebecca Saltzman, president of BART’s Board of Directors, said she and two other directors from San Francisco, Janice Li and Bevan Dufty, will introduce a temporary mask mandate at next week’s board meeting. Read the full story.
Biden administration to appeal order voiding travel mask mandate: The Justice Department on Wednesday filed an appeal seeking to overturn a judge’s order that voided the federal mask mandate on planes and trains and in travel hubs, according to the Associated Press. The notice came minutes after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked the Justice Department to appeal the decision handed down by a federal judge in Florida earlier this week. A notice of appeal was filed in federal court in Tampa.
California aligns with CDC, will not require masking on public transit: California’s Department of Public Health on Wednesday said it has aligned with federal rules and will no longer require masks on public transportation and at transportation hubs, effective immediately. But the agency added, “CDPH strongly recommends that individuals in these settings continue to wear a mask.” On Monday, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida struck down the national mask mandate on airplanes and mass transit, which was due to expire May 3. The Transportation Security Administration stopped enforcing the mask requirement, but the CDC said Wednesday that it continues to recommend that people wear masks in all indoor public transportation settings and was assessing the need for a mask requirement in those settings. The decision created a confusing patchwork of rules for passengers across the U.S. as they navigate airports and regional transit systems. Read the full story.
Health experts must pick variant by early summer to make modified vaccine for the fall: For COVID vaccine shots to be widely available in the fall that target a specific variant, U.S. health regulators have to select a strain to focus on by early summer, a top U.S. Food and Drug Administration vaccine official said Wednesday. “To even think about having a modified vaccine prepared to begin a fall vaccination campaign, we would need to be making a strain change decision, at the latest, by the beginning of the summer,” the FDA’s Dr. Doran Fink said Wednesday during a meeting of U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory group. “That’s the kind of best case scenario for the vaccines most amenable to making changes, the mRNA vaccines.” Vaccine advisors for the FDA and CDC have been trying to map out how and when to update the current vaccines so that they better target variants that will be circulating in the future. The process is more complicated than updating the annual flu vaccine because COVID is less predictable in terms of seasonal surges. The current COVID vaccines are based on the Wuhan or ancestral strain of the coronavirus, and are less effective against the omicron variant.
Wachter says opinion piece comparing masks against vaccines ‘makes no sense’: Dr. Bob Wachter, UCSF’s Chair of Medicine and a prominent voice on pandemic related issues, is questioning a claim by a group of UCSF doctors who in an opinion piece this week argued, “Vaccines work, masks do not.” Wachter disagrees with the premise of the editorial by his colleagues — Dr. Jeanne Noble, Dr. Norman Hearst and Dr. Monica Gandhi, joined by Daniel Halperin of University of North Carolina — which appeared in The Chronicle. “Framing the choice as vaccines vs. masks sets up a false duality: vaccines are critically important. Adding good-quality masks adds protection in risky setting,” Wachter said in a Twitter post on Wednesday. “Posing this as an ‘or’ vs an ‘and’ makes no more sense than saying you can choose seatbelts or airbags, but not both.” In a conversation on The Chronicle’s Fifth & Mission podcast, Wachter explained why he still supports wearing masks in certain public settings.
Boosted people who later got COVID can wait three months before getting second booster: People who are fully vaccinated and boosted, and who later got an omicron infection, can wait three months after the infection before getting a second booster, Dr. Elisha Hall of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said during a Wednesday meeting of the CDC’s vaccine advisory group. This applies to people who are eligible for a second booster — those 50 and older, and those 12 and older who are immunocompromised. It is not the CDC’s official recommendation for recently infected people, but rather a consideration when thinking about who may want to wait to get a second booster. Three months is in line with previous estimates on how long a COVID infection provides some immunity against future infection.
