California monkeypox, COVID responses share hurdle

Red tape, crimson tape, crimson tape.

That was the chorus that popped up repeatedly on Tuesday, when California lawmakers convened for 2 separate hearings on the 2 viruses for which Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a public well being state of emergency: COVID-19 and monkeypox.

The key takeaway from the 2 hearings — which, paradoxically, passed off at the very same time in the very same constructing — was that though California’s monkeypox response has been aided and accelerated by classes realized from the COVID pandemic, some irritating issues proceed to repeat themselves, CalIssues’ Kristen Hwang experiences.

“We have shot ourselves in the foot,” state Sen. Scott Wiener, who leads the Senate Select Committee on Monkeypox, mentioned firstly of the listening to, referring to “severe public health failures” on the federal degree to acquire doses of the vaccines used for monkeypox and to arrange strong testing and remedy packages.

Officials ran by means of the methods during which crimson tape has hampered California’s monkeypox response, together with:

• Difficulty in prescribing a drug known as TPOXX as an antiviral remedy for extreme circumstances of monkeypox. Because the drug — federally authorised to deal with smallpox — hasn’t been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to deal with monkeypox, it requires hours of paperwork for every affected person, together with an ethics evaluation. (Anecdotally, monkeypox sufferers report TPOXX alleviates signs, which might embrace extreme ache.) This “lengthy process has inhibited many medical centers and clinics from being able to offer the drug to many people,” mentioned Dr. Vivek Jain, an affiliate professor of medication at San Francisco General Hospital. To state Sen. John Laird, a Monterey Democrat, that signaled “another troubling parallel to the HIV crisis, where potentially life-saving drugs were being held up by the FDA because of bureaucratic red tape.”
• Difficulty in ramping up testing. “We know right now the only test that the FDA has approved is swabbing the lesions from monkeypox,” Wiener mentioned. “So if someone doesn’t have lesions, or the test is done incorrectly, their tests may be falsely negative. There are new tests coming out, and we need a sense of urgency from the FDA in evaluating and approving those tests.” Dr. Erica Pan, California’s state epidemiologist, mentioned the state is exploring with “academic partners” different strategies of testing for monkeypox, together with “antibody testing and testing for people who don’t have symptoms.”
• Difficulty in reallocating public well being funds earmarked for COVID to monkeypox, a transfer that requires each state and federal approval. Some California lawmakers have already requested the feds to permit the state to authorize a few of the $1.5 billion in COVID-19 response funds for monkeypox.

“What we learned from COVID is that speed is everything. When we look at the response of monkeypox later on, we’ll see speed is the main thing we take issue with,” Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious illness specialist at UC San Francisco and a member of the state’s scientific advisory committee for monkeypox, instructed Kristen.

An analogous level was raised throughout the listening to on the state’s COVID response, led by state Sen. Josh Newman of Fullerton, CalIssues well being reporter Ana B. Ibarra notes.

• Dr. Aimee Sisson, Yolo County’s well being officer: “During a public health emergency the government needs to get out of its own way so we can act fast. … Our pandemic response went well when we suspended the usual rules and imported masks from overseas despite the high costs and without (federal) approval, and when we expanded the types of health care providers who could administer vaccines. Our response went poorly when we created a duplicative mechanism to allocate vaccines to providers and when we refused to allow labs to develop their own COVID tests.”

California’s monkeypox response may additionally take a web page out of its coronavirus playbook in relation to isolation and paid sick go away insurance policies — which may sign a repeat of previous legislative battles between enterprise and labor teams. 

• Wiener: “We need to make sure we are protecting people who have monkeypox and making sure that they do not lose their homes because of an inability to work. …You might have to isolate for three or four weeks if you get monkeypox, and for people who can’t work from home, they need to have paid sick leave.”

The coronavirus backside line: As of Monday, California had 10,071,958 confirmed circumstances (+0.5% from earlier day) and 93,193 deaths (+0.1% from earlier day), in line with state data now up to date simply twice per week on Tuesdays and Fridays. CalIssues can be monitoring coronavirus hospitalizations by county.

California has administered 78,998,017 vaccine doses, and 71.8% of eligible Californians are fully vaccinated.

Other Stories You Should Know

1
Newsom unveils last-minute local weather targets

Newsom is pushing state lawmakers to pursue a sequence of beefed-up measures to fight local weather change, which he outlined in a memo sent to legislative leaders previously week, CalIssues’ Rachel Becker and Julie Cart report. But behind the bold targets — unveiled quickly after the governor urged state regulators so as to add tooth to California’s local weather technique — lurk giant logistical hurdles, together with:

• Timing. Lawmakers have little time left to perform what Newsom spokesperson Alex Stack described as an “ambitious climate agenda for this session”: The session ends in three weeks.
• Frustration. Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, a Torrance Democrat, has sponsored payments associated to 3 of Newsom’s 5 main proposals — however the governor didn’t seem to assist the payments, and none made it previous the state Senate. “We need him to not only to nudge the Legislature, which has been working on these issues for years, we need his leadership, we need his willingness to push back against big oil and its allies,” Muratsuchi mentioned. “The Legislature cannot do it on its own.”
• Confusion. Newsom needs lawmakers to ascertain a buffer of a minimum of 3,200 ft between new oil and fuel manufacturing wells and houses, faculties and parks — however a state company is already within the midst of a rulemaking course of to do the identical factor.
• Feasibility. Newsom needs to considerably speed up California’s tempo of greenhouse fuel cuts — though the state isn’t on monitor to fulfill its present purpose. “I don’t think we lack for ambitious targets. What’s missing is a key strategy, a firm strategy to implement our existing targets,” mentioned Danny Cullenward, coverage director at CarbonPlan. (Meanwhile, California’s electrical grid, which is already producing under superb capability, is on monitor to fall 1,800 to 2,000 megawatts in need of demand by 2025, Mark Rothleder, chief working officer on the California Independent System Operator, said during a Tuesday legislative hearing.)

Other environmental news you must know:

• In the newest signal of California’s dire drought, the state denied a request from some Southern California water businesses for added water to irrigate dry vegetation in areas of excessive wildfire threat, noting that “providing supplemental water … increases the likelihood that the State will have to make even more difficult tradeoffs over water supplies in 2023,” the Los Angeles Times reports. Meanwhile, Angelenos in July slashed their water use 11% in comparison with the identical time in 2020, greater than another July on document.
• On the opposite finish of the spectrum, flash flood watches have been posted Tuesday for some Southern California deserts and mountains, according to the Associated Press.
• The McKinney Fire raging by means of the Klamath National Forest in Siskiyou County had burned greater than 60,000 acres and was 55% contained as of Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, the lightning-sparked Six Rivers Complex had blazed by means of practically 9,000 acres in Humboldt and Trinity counties and was 0% contained.

2
State investigating SF housing insurance policies

In the newest indication that California is severe about cracking down on native governments that it concludes aren’t constructing sufficient housing, the state Department of Housing and Community Development announced Tuesday that it’s launching a first-of-its-kind “housing policy and practice review” of San Francisco. The housing division mentioned that in line with San Francisco’s self-reported knowledge, it has the longest timeline within the state for advancing housing initiatives to building — and California’s housing accountability unit has obtained extra complaints about San Francisco than another native jurisdiction.

• Gustavo Velasquez, the the division’s director, said in a statement: “We are deeply concerned about processes and political decision-making in San Francisco that delay and impede the creation of housing and want to understand why this is the case.”
• San Francisco Planning Director Rich Hillis told the San Francisco Chronicle: “They are elevating this issue and wanting to shine more of a light on it, and we get it. We recognize that our process is not geared toward getting housing built quickly and with certainty.”
• Hillis added that the state’s evaluation may assist guarantee San Francisco’s closing housing factor — a doc cities are required to supply each eight years outlining their plans for constructing the variety of houses the state initiatives they’ll want — complies with state legislation. California’s housing division on Monday sent back San Francisco’s first draft for revisions, a destiny that additionally befell the overwhelming majority of Southern California cities earlier this yr.

As if illustrating San Francisco’s challenges in constructing housing, the town is now going through a lawsuit over one of many two reasonably priced housing measures slated for its November poll. The group behind one measure — which is aligned with Mayor London Breed — sued the town late Monday night time over a competing measure put ahead by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, alleging that it didn’t undergo a required environmental evaluation earlier than being positioned on the poll, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

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