The following is from the Contra Costa Health Department:
This holiday season, another surge in COVID infections, along with high levels of influenza (flu) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), are straining healthcare systems and impacting families.
The good news is that there are easy actions everyone can take to stay healthy this season. Twelve Bay Area health officers recommend the following steps:
Get Vaccinated Against Flu and COVID.
• The updated Omicron COVID booster, also known as the bivalent booster, targets the Omicron variant, as well as the original 2020 virus. The Omicron boosters are available for everyone six months and older. These improved vaccines are the best protection against severe symptoms of COVID and hospitalization.
• Earlier in the pandemic, COVID vaccination rates in the Bay Area were high, shielding some communities from the worst outcomes. This vaccine protection has decreased over time, but an Omicron COVID booster can rebuild it. In most parts of the Bay Area, less than half of eligible people have received the updated Omicron COVID booster.
• More people in the Bay Area are getting the flu this year than earlier in the pandemic. Flu is not the same as the common cold and can lead to sudden, severe illness in the very young, seniors, and those with underlying medical conditions.
• Now is the time to get your flu shot. Your doctor can give you the flu shot and the Omicron COVID booster in the same visit. COVID shots are free and other recommended immunizations are widely available at low or no cost.
• There is no vaccine for RSV but simple measures like regular hand washing and covering coughs can help.
Stay Home if You Are Sick.
• No matter which virus you have, if you are feeling sick the best way to keep from spreading it to others is to stay home until you have recovered. If you think it might be COVID, get tested.
• While there is no vaccine for RSV, you can decrease risk of RSV and other respiratory viruses by washing hands, covering coughs, and, most importantly, staying home when you are sick.
• People who need urgent or emergency medical care, including testing or treatment for influenza or COVID, should seek it.
Wear a Mask in Indoor Public Places.
• Masks can prevent transmission of COVID, flu, RSV, and other respiratory viruses all at once.
• Wearing a high-quality mask, such as a KN94, KN95 or N95, can prevent you from getting sick and missing out on life, work, school, and holiday parties. Masking is strongly recommended indoors in public settings to prevent the spread of viruses and reduce the risk of illness.
• Masks also lower the likelihood that you pass on an infection if you are already sick, even if your symptoms are mild. This helps protect people around you, especially those at higher risk of serious illness.
• Improve ventilation indoors by turning on HVAC systems, filtering the air with a portable HEPA filter, pointing fans out open windows, or opening doors and windows when possible. These can all help viruses from spreading indoors.
Get Tested Before an Indoor Gathering or if You Feel Sick.
• Reduce the chances of infecting someone else with COVID by finding out if you have the virus before gathering with others. Remember, COVID symptoms may be mild or absent. Make sure to stock up on home test kits.
Get Treatment, if Needed.
• Free treatments are available if you test positive for COVID. Free medication prevents hospitalization and is available to most adults and some teens with even mild symptoms.
• Talk to your doctor about treatment options or visit https://covid19.ca.gov/treatment/ or find a test to treat location near you: aspr.hhs.gov/TestToTreat. Treatments work best when started right after symptoms begin, and within 5 days of symptoms starting.
Health Officers from the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Monterey, Napa, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, San Mateo, Solano, Sonoma, and the city of Berkeley encourage the public to take these easy steps to protect themselves and others from missing holiday moments and to ease the burden on local health systems. Across the Bay Area, respiratory viruses impact the most vulnerable, including young children, the immunocompromised, people living in crowded housing or congregate living facilities, and seniors, especially at skilled nursing facilities.
I hate masks.
me too. A deep hate.
I feel the mask mandate a comin’, it’s coming round the bend.
you can wear it all you want.
I think you might’ve missed the point of my comment.
If businesses do this I’ll spend even less money. The tax payer funded, public servants at the health department really think they are running things. Don’t tell me what to do with my health after what you did. This is literal fascism.
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They just told businesses to do this by “recommending it” businesses need to comply with the “health department” or face tactics. If you don’t think “mask required” signs aren’t being printed right now by every business in the area, you ain’t paying attention. The board of supervisors will always support the health department or be sued for going against.
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My question is this, When did we give the health department mafia power?
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biden pushing masks, government pushing free COVID HOAX tests. The whole narrative is being brought back to cover up democrat crimes with twitter and the 2020 election.
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Everyone can see it now
When you give liberals power now, you create a dictatorship.
Never Again.
Since “they” already did their little shutdown ditty, perhaps we’ll finally get to see how fast we reach ‘Herd Immunity’.
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What is disappointing, ventilation standards for facilities housing our elderly have still not been upgraded. Simply installing UVC lamps in HVAC systems would kill off germs, viruses etc.
https://tinyurl.com/y3cfrjyb
It doesn’t look likely that we’ll ever reach herd immunity to Covid. Herd immunity to some viruses like measles and mumps can happen, because the virus doesn’t mutate. I’m immune to measles, because I had it as a child decades ago. With Covid, a new variant has become dominant every six months or so. A significant percentage of people with immunity to the last variant get infected again with the new variant, and this keeps the disease active in our world. Maybe Covid will eventually run out of novel infective mutations, but I wouldn’t count on it.
You mean like we have never reached herd immunity to the common cold? How many centuries have we been working on that? The common cold has variants too. They can also kill if a person is weak enough. The chicken littles are at it again! 🤣🤣🤣
Non observer
What kind of nonsense is this? What you say has no scientific evidence. You’re literally repeating things you heard. The only variant is insanity.
And NO AMNESTY for the perps of this Scam.
There’s a $10 million dollar settlement for the WRONGFUL termination of “unvaccinated” workers.
More to come.
Literally what??? There is no herd immunity. That was widely debunked as a flat-out LIE. This is a flu. There will always be colds and flu.
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Fake vaccines!
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The Covid “vaccine” does not meet the medical definition of “vaccine”.
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But liberals will do what they have done before and that is … change the definition to be consistent with their rhetoric.
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More scare tactics. So trite!
I think the jury has been in for some time on how well masks and vaccines work let alone PCR tests. I guess they’re a little slow or there is some “central committee” demanding things of them. Don’t let this country go the way of Australia. I can’t believe how the citizens there allowed tyrants to take over.
who’d a thunk that there would be respiratory viruses circulating around during cold and flu season? So glad we have yet another government agency to guide us how to live (although, I guess with the invaders in the south, maybe they should be taught some of these basic habits).
So, i have never heard of RSV before. I’m not a doctor or anything, but I’ve been around for a few decades, and this is the first year I have ever heard about it. It’s also the first year I have heard ads for a vaccine against it, over and over and over and over…
The last few years have made me just assume the authorities are lying about everything, and working hand in hand with big pharma to make sure they all get paid. Am I being too suspicious in guessing the RSV media coverage is tightly linked to the fact that there is now a profitable vaccine available for it?
Wage Slave RSV has been around for a very long time. It typically adversely affects young children who can become seriously I’ll with it. There is no vaccine for RSV.
Wage Slave, Where are you hearing ads for an RSV vaccine?
Safeway. Maybe it is a treatment, not a vaccine, but there is a hokey commercial on the intercom at regular intervals.
The ad is also aimed at seniors, not children.
Make sure you’re triple boosted and double masked when you’re driving alone in your car. Don’t forget to use Comet and a scrub brush in the shower everytime you come home from being in public…. we’ll beat this thing!