• Police in the East Bay city of Brentwood shot and killed a man whom they pulled over under suspicion of driving under the influence on Christmas Eve. Police say the man resisted arrest and reached for a high-powered rifle before they shot him. [KTVU]

• Local health officials warn that infections from a new variant of the flu are steadily rising in Bay Area children. The variant, known as “H3N2 Flu A subclade K,” jumped from 4.9% on December 6 to 9% a week later. [Mountain View Voice]
• The university of Santa Cruz’s historic Lick Observatory is temporarily closed after winds of up to 114 miles per hour damaged part of the Great Refractor dome. [NBC Bay Area]

National:

• Ashlee Buzzard, the mother of 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard, whose body was found December 6 in rural Utah two months after she was reported missing in Southern California, was arraigned Friday on first-degree murder with special allegation. [NBC News]
• Around 1,800 US flights have been canceled and over 22,000 delayed due to severe weather, with more than half taking place at New York’s John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports, and New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport. [Reuters]
• One lucky winner scored the entire $1.817 billion Powerball jackpot on Christmas Eve at a gas station outside Little Rock, Arkansas, but they haven't come forward to claim it yet. [Associated Press]

Video of the Day:

• Following his big Thanksgiving feast, Bay Area TV Man delighted a new batch of unsuspecting BART passengers on Christmas Day when he transformed a train into the "Polar Express," placing a festive tree by the car’s doors and hanging up lights and garland throughout the train. He then handed out gifts to passengers on the train and at Civic Center, Daly City, and Lake Merritt stations.

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Image: Francisco Park, 2022; Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Yet another new COVID variant called JN.1 is fueling yet another surge in COVID transmission according to wastewater data, while flu and RSV cases are also showing a sharp rise in the wake of holiday gatherings.

We’ve become used to post-holiday, early January surges in COVID-19 infection rates over the last three years, as people mobbed airports and gathered in groups in winter months where there is rarely as much ventilation. And thus far, the end-of-2023 COVID infection rates are not as high as they were for 2020, 2021, or 2022. But the new JN.1 COVID variant could change that in a hurry, and the CDC estimates that more than 40% of new COVID cases are JN.1 variant cases, which is up sharply from just about 20% two weeks ago. So yes, that’s a surge.

KGO has taken a look at the data and found several Bay Area cities, including San Francisco, are seeing higher levels of infection in wastewater not just for COVID, but perhaps even more so for the flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

But how much higher? The Chronicle charted COVID wastewater levels in 12 Bay Area regions, and the general trend is that the infection rates are the highest we’ve seen since the tail-end of the last holiday surge, that is, February 2023 levels.

"What we've seen over the past few years is a typical pattern of a 'one-two-three-punch' with Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah and then New Year, followed by increased cases in the community and spillover in the hospital," UCSF Infectious Diseases Specialist Dr. Peter Chin-Hong told KGO.

As seen above, COVID hospitalizations are not that bad right now compared to the previous two holiday seasons. But NBC News has the national data on COVID hospitalizations, and right now we are again seeing the highest national hospitalization rates since February 2023.

The issue is not confined to the Bay Area, but the Chronicle reported last week that nationwide COVID hospitalizations had increased by about 16,000 over the last month. More troublingly, influenza hospitalizations had increased by more than 55,000 over that same month, and we may see more of both surging in January.

"There are substantial increases in respiratory syncytial virus cases and hospitalizations in adults and substantial increases in influenza, in hospitalization, cases and tests in adults and children," UCSF epidemiologist George Rutherford explained to KGO.

So this would be an excellent time to get the updated COVID, RSV, and flu vaccines, all of which are available in SF and around the Bay Area. COVID and flu shots are generally free even for the uninsured, RSV vaccines generally require insurance or a paid fee.

Related: New COVID Variant Spikes Cases in the Bay Area (Again) [SFist]

Image: John Cameron via Unsplash

Top photo: These late fall sunsets, man... Photo by Jay Barmann/SFist

A handful of people in the country have contracted coronavirus and the flu simultaneously, one here in the Bay Area, and the double-whammy co-infection threat is real.  

President Trump’s cooked-up claim that COVID-19 is “like a flu” has not just gone away, even after he himself contracted the virus. Once a patient hits the hospital, COVID-19 is five times deadlier, according to a recent study in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. But doctors are finding you can get the two deadly infections at the same time, and that’s hitting close to home here in the Bay Area, as KPIX reports that Solano County has reported the Bay Area's first patient with both COVID-19 and the flu.

We know the patient is under 65, so that’s troubling since it can occur in the not-elderly population, though we don’t know anything else about the patient’s profile. Solano County public health officer Dr. Bela T. Matyas said in a statement that “important to note that flu is not COVID-19, which is caused by a different virus, and that the flu is not the same as the common cold, which is also caused by different viruses.” Solano County is inching back toward the highest risk purple tier, Matyas announced Tuesday.

Doctors have been telling us that this was coming, as the Cureus Journal of Medical Science published a study on three such cases in August. Iowa currently has two coronavirus-flu co-infections, and Tennessee has one.

These may seem like very small numbers, but that’s how these things start.Recall that the Bay Area had seemingly negligible case numbers back in early March when a couple dozen cases on a cruise ship seemed like all we had to worry about.

This news comes on the day we learned that there are now nine million coronavirus cases in the U.S., thanks to the latest surge. Solano County is urging people to get flu shots, advice that really applies to the whole Bay Area.

Related: Bay Area Sees Slight Uptick In COVID Case Counts, Hospitalizations as Three More Counties Enter 'Orange' Tier [SFist]

Image: @mufidpwt via Unsplash

I hope you got your flu shot, because the San Francisco Bay Area is dealing with a "widespread" influenza outbreak before flu season has likely even peaked. As local public health officials are telling the East Bay Times, flu cases have been increasing, and the virus specimen samples that have been taken locally have "match[ed] very closely to the current vaccine strains," meaning that the currently available flu shot should be highly effective, and you should still get one if you haven't.

According to the Associated Press, there have been three flu-related deaths locally, with one each in Monterey, Solano and Napa counties, and flu season typically does not peak until February.

The CDC is on a campaign to get people to still go get flu shots, too.

The East Bay Times actually refers to five flu-related deaths in the greater Bay Area, all in adults younger than 65, suggesting a particularly severe strain of the virus. The worst flu cases tend to occur in older adults, pregnant women, and children under five.

Meanwhile, to our north, in the Seattle region, "at least" 18 flu-related deaths have already been recorded, according to Fox affliate Q13.

Contra Costa County Health Officer Dr. William Walker and San Francisco Health Officer Dr. Tomas Aragon issued a joint statement Friday urging people to get flu shots, saying, "Influenza vaccination is a safe and effective way to protect you and your family from the flu," and urging those who come down with flu symptoms to stay home until they've been symptom-free for 24 hours.

As Santa Clara County health officer Dr. Sara Cody tells the East Bay Times, "For many people, the flu can mean feeling miserable for a few days. But for others, including very young children, the elderly, and those with chronic health problems or weakened immune systems, the flu can lead to severe illness and even death.”

But, to be sure, some sniffles and sneezes and feeling crappy does not necessarily mean you have the flu — the flu tends to knock a person out of commission for a few days the way typical cold viruses do not.

And remember: Sneeze into your elbow!

It's the time of year when you can't go to the grocery store, drug store, or even Target without someone nagging you to get your annual flu shot. But this year, doctors are warning that this year's flu shot might not protect you against the bugs we're presently seeing across the country.

Here's a grossly simplified explanation of how the flu shot sausage gets made: every February, a "panel of experts" looks at data on which common flu strains are presently circulating, and uses that data to predict what three to four flu strains will be hot and cool and in and now when flu season rolls around that fall.

Some years, the prediction is more accurate than others. Last year, the vaccine was 50 to 55 percent effective, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, which is considered a good outcome.

But this year we might not be so lucky. According to an alert issued by the CDC on Wednesday, 52% of the 85 influenza virus samples they've collected and analyzed this winter have been different than the virus strains that were included in this year’s vaccine, suggesting to them that the strain has mutated since the February pow-wow.

The problem strain is the influenza A (H3N2) one. That's the flu that was expected to be the biggest one this year, and, sure enough, it's the most commonly reported flu so far this year. According to CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden, though, they're now seeing a new, mutated version of H3N2: "not something that’s been around before,” he told the Associated Press.

When faced with a mutant virus, the vaccine might decrease the severity of the illness (if contracted), but is unlikely to offer complete protection, the CDC says. Therefore, “though we cannot predict what will happen the rest of this flu season, it’s possible we may have a season that’s more severe than most,” CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said in a statement.

All that aside, the CDC is still urging you to get the flu shot, as some protection is better than none. On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, and the CDC says that a very high percentage of those who die weren't vaccinated.

But with a weaker shot than in years past, the CDC is telling doctors not to mess around with the infected. Children younger than 2, adults 65 and older, and people with asthma, heart disease, weakened immune systems or certain other chronic conditions are at higher risk, and should head to the doctor immediately if they start showing flu symptoms, even if they got the shot.

So, even though we just told you how your flu shot might not work, based on the CDC's assessment we're still going to leave you with the San Francisco Department of Public Health's list of where to get immunized. You can also read the CDC's alert about this year's mutant strain here, and read all their flu info here.

Do you remember swine flu? Swine flu remembers you. And now that we're in the depths of the bowels of the pits of flu season (bizarre weather be damned), the dreaded H1N1 virus is making a comeback. In total, nine Bay Area counties and Santa Cruz County have reported 16 flu-related deaths, with four swine flu deaths reported in the Bay Area on Monday alone. What's more, the state requires reporting of influenza deaths only in people younger than 65, meaning that more elderly people may have also died of the flu.

As opposed to other strains of influenza that typically affect the very young and the very old, H1N1 targets adults in between, and fatalities this year have included a 23-year-old in Sonoma County, an otherwise healthy 48-year-old woman in Marin County, and a 41-year-old woman in Santa Clara County. Officials reports that H1N1 may be the predominant strain this flu season, so go ahead and get that flu shot as soon as possible.

And if you'd like to relive the swine flu panic of 2009 for a little extra motivation, here's a little reminder, courtesy of Gwyneth Paltrow and friends:

Previously: Have You Gotten Your Flu Shot?, Everything swine flu on SFist

A 98-year-old woman died from the flu and pneumonia earlier this month, making her the first flu-related fatality of the season. Obviously, it's not unusual to see someone that age succumb to the flu, but this sick season is supposed to be a brutal one. There have already been four flu-based deaths under the age of 65 in California in 2013.

Officials say that the worst is yet to come. You might want to think about getting a flu shot. Although reports of flu vaccine shortages popped up this week, pharmacies are restocking. "There is no shortage of vaccine in California and it is not too late to get vaccinated," said Dr. Ron Chapman, the state health officer, in a statement released Friday.

KTVU reports that the San Francisco Department of Public Health "estimated that about 9,000 doses of a pediatric H1N1 vaccine recalled by the federal government were distributed within the city." But, we're told, you have nothing to fear. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recalled around 800,000 H1N1 vaccines because their "potency levels decreased after they were shipped to providers."

Gosh. Everybody seems to be getting a flu shot, getting the flu, or freaking out about something flu-related. So, who are we not to throw fat on fire? We came across Google's new flu features, and we couldn't be more delighted/scared. See, Google will help you get a flu shot and help you find out more where the flu is attacking.

First, here is a map of available flu shots in the Bay Area. It lets you know where you can get seasonal flu shots, H1N1 flu shots, or both. (San Francisco is temporarily out of stock, by the way.)

Also, Google has a helpful new feature, Google Trends Flu. Finding that certain search terms ("flu," "swine flu," "H1N1," vaccination," etc.) indicate strong flu activity, Google Flu Trends "uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity."

Following on the heels of yesterday's East Bay flu fatality, making it the third reported H1N1-related casualty in the Bay Area, the World Health Organization upgraded the swine flu to pandemic status today. "The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic," WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, MD, warned at a news conference, going on to say, "Countries should prepare to see cases, or the further spread of cases, in the near future. Countries where outbreaks appear to have peaked should prepare for a second wave of infection."

But don't fret; the virus isn't any stronger or more rampant than it was a few weeks ago. Until virgin sacrifices are called for, just be sure to keep those hands washed and coughing / sneezing mouths covered.

California confirmed 796 cases of the swine flu as of June 4. Oh, and The New York Times, by the way, has a decent article on pandemics.