SF News BA.5 Omicron Sub-Variant So Infectious It’s Dispensing With the Notion of Immunity for the Vaccinated and Recently Infected We’ve always thought that fully vaccinated and recently infected had a “hybrid immunity” that shielded people from reinfections, but the BA.5 Omicron sub-variant is so infectious that its throwing that adage out the window.
SF News Bay Area Scientists Sound the Alarm That Omicron Subvariants Are Reinfecting People Like Mad SF wastewater data indicate COVID-19 infections may have doubled in the last two weeks, as new variant “sublineages” are finding ever-new ways to evade the antibodies.
SF News Omicron Has Killed 12% More Bay Area Residents Per Week Than Delta Here in the highly vaccinated Bay Area, the infectiousness of the variant still managed to take a bigger toll than the more severe Delta variant did last summer and fall.
SF News Health Officials Say Don't Worry, But There's a New Omicron Subvariant In the Bay Area A new and special variant of COVID, which is being called BA.2 Omicron for now, or "stealth" Omicron, has been detected in the Bay Area and across California, but word among experts is that it's not likely to behave much differently than regular Omicron.
SF News Friday Morning Constitutional: 49ers Watch Parties Could Spread Omicron There are COVID concerns as bars gear up for big football crowds tomorrow, a Tenderloin addict followed by a Chronicle columnist has died, and CA might let kids as young as 12 get vaccines with parental consent.
SF News Omicron Might Be 'Like the Flu' For the Vaccinated Bay Area, But It Is Killing 3 Times As Many as the Flu Elsewhere The Omicron variant has been variously touted by pundits and experts alike as a possible key out of the pandemic and into an endemic stage of COVID, and talk of being able to "live with COVID like the flu" is everywhere right now.
SF News We May Be Masking Up Indoors Again Next Winter, and the Next As signs point to the Omicron peak already having passed in San Francisco — with case counts falling, as predicted, after a post-holiday surge — we look to the endemic phase of COVID with some trepidation about future variants.
SF News SF Testing Sites Reopen; Buf If You Can't Find a Test, 'Assume It's COVID,' Says Local Expert Omicron is everywhere, and a local infectious disease expert is advising all of us to assume we have COVID if we have had a known exposure, or been anywhere in public really — and especially if we have any of an array of symptoms.
SF News Another COVID Outbreak Hits San Quentin, Despite High Vaccination Rate Among Inmates A somewhat low vaccination rate among prison guards has produced a predictable result, as San Quentin State Prison, and all California state prisons, are in full lockdown.
SF News Real-World Study By UCSF Finds BinaxNOW Rapid Test Picks Up 95% of Highly Infectious Omicron Cases A fresh study by UCSF researchers based on data from a walk-up test site in San Francisco found that Abbott's popular BinaxNOW rapid antigen test picked up nearly all of the most highly infectious cases of the Omicron variant, indicating it is a highly useful test for preventing spread of the virus.
SF News UCSF's Dr. Bob Wachter Details His Son's Recent COVID Infection, His Own Worry While UCSF Department of Medicine Chair Dr. Bob Wachter has mostly been a sunny and optimistic voice through the pandemic, he sounds a bit shaken by a case of Omicron that hit close to home: his 28-year-old son.
SF News Omicron Surge Should Peak Shortly In Bay Area, Says UCSF Prof — and We Need to Rethink All This Panicked Testing An emergency medicine specialist at UCSF is one of many experts saying that after this surge abates, we've got to start living with this virus as like a weirder common cold.
SF News Top UCSF Doc Says That We Could Be in ‘A Pretty Good Situation in February’ Where COVID Is ‘Like the Flu’ An optimistic but data-rich tweetstorm from UCSF Department of Medicine chair Dr. Bob Wachter lays out the case that we could be on the verge of finally subduing the COVID-19 menace, albeit after a very rough January.
SF News Christmas Eve Constitutional: Bay Area Hospitals Prep For Omicron Surge I-680 was shut down last night due to a freeway shooting, a teacher's union in the East Bay threatens to strike, and Bay Area hospitals say they are prepared for a looming Omicron surge — even though hospitalizations are likely to be fewer than last year.
SF News Omicron Almost Certainly to Blame As San Francisco Cases Surge; Two Studies Suggest Variant Is Less Severe As opposed to last year's holiday season, there is a mix of good and bad news with this Omicron surge, even though the virus seems to be spreading at a very fast clip.
SF News Omicron Community Spread Apparent In 3 Mission Cases; Restaurants In SF and Oakland Temporarily Close Out of Caution A likely deluge of new COVID cases is on the horizon for the Bay Area, due to the Omicron variant and despite widespread vaccination.
SF News Monday Morning Headlines: SFO Showing No Signs of Omicron Slowdown A woman was fatally shot Sunday at an East Oakland homeless encampment, Omicron is not deterring holiday travelers through SFO, and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker both have COVID.
SF News San Francisco Might Have at Least 30 Unconfirmed Omicron Cases The Omicron variant now makes up at least 3% of all new documented COVID-19 cases in the United States. Since the city reported its first case of the variant on December 1, another 30 unconfirmed Omicron infections might have already been recorded in San Francisco.
SF News Friday Morning Constitutional: Santa Clara County Finds First Omicron Case Santa Clara County has recorded its first case of the Omicron variant, an Oakland teen allegedly stabbed his father to death, and Millennium Tower has tilted another quarter inch.
SF News Day Around the Bay: 11 Omicron Cases In Alameda County Were Kaiser Staffers Who All Attended Wisconsin Wedding 11 Kaiser staffers in Oakland who all attended the same out-of-state wedding got Omicron, Glide was doing its grocery bag distribution today, and Rita Moreno will be at the Castro Theatre on Sunday for a 'West Side Story' screening.
SF News Monday Morning Headlines: Early Reports Suggest Omicron Causes Less Severe Illness The owners of Hilda and Jesse in North Beach have apologized for turning away SFPD officers, a Black couple is suing a Marin appraisal firm, and Omicron might cause less severe illness (on average) than Delta.
Business & Tech Omicron Scare Likely to Push Back Bay Area Back-to-Office Timeline for Many Despite there being no immediate threat of an Omicron outbreak in the Bay Area and an overall lack of data on the new variant, the general uncertainty around it is very likely to cause big Bay Area tech companies and smaller offices alike to rethink their January return-to-the-office plans.
SF News Second and Third US Omicron Cases Found; Theory Forms That Mutations Occurred In Single Immunocompromised Person A second and a third American patient have been confirmed to be infected with the Omicron variant: an adult male in Minnesota who recently traveled to New York for an anime convention, and an adult female in Colorado who recently returned from southern Africa.
SF News Breed, Colfax Say No New Restrictions Because of Omicron Variant, While Heckler Tries to Steal the Show Mayor Breed and Dr. Grant Colfax urged San Franciscans to “get your booster,” but announced no new restrictions in response to the Omicron variant arriving here, as a heckler tried to shout them down.
SF News Eight African Countries Under 'Do Not Travel' Advisories Over Omicron Concerns With the holidays in full swing, which inevitably means a more active SFO, the State Department on Saturday put eight African countries on a "Do Not Travel" list for US citizen as concern grows over the Omicron variant.
