- Excessive Drinking During the Pandemic Increased Death Rates From Alcoholic Liver Disease — Especially in Humboldt Lost Coast Outpost
- As heavy drinking rose during the COVID-19 pandemic, deaths and hospitalizations for liver disease also jumped, according to WSU research The Spokesman Review
- COVID Lockdowns Drove Americans To Drink … At Home … In The Morning, Studies Find The Daily Wire
- Excessive drinking, related deaths surged in pandemic Detroit News
- The rise of alcohol consumption during the pandemic Wink News
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: Humboldt
‘We’re Seeing This Now More Than Ever’: Fentanyl Overdoses Skyrocket in Humboldt | Lost Coast Outpost
Fentanyl seized by the Humboldt County Drug Task Force.
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Drug overdoses fueled by increased use of fentanyl killed more than 100,000 Americans in 2021.
Local drug overdose deaths have increased by 40 percent in the last two years, from 32 in 2020 to 53 in 2021, according to data from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office. Fentanyl overdose deaths alone have increased by 377 percent, jumping from nine in 2020 to 34 in 2021.
It is unclear how many overdose deaths have occurred in 2022 as toxicology reports take up to three months to get back, according to the sheriff’s office.
“We can safely say that we’re seeing this now more than ever,” Sheriff William Honsal told the Outpost. “Our drug task force has seen this spike over the last three years and we are seeing unprecedented numbers of fentanyl in our community. …The opioid crisis is just that, a crisis, and it is directly tied to fentanyl.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported an estimated 100,306 drug overdose deaths in the United States – 10,065 of which occurred in California – during a 12-month period ending in April 2021, an increase of 28.5 percent from the 78,056 deaths during the same period the year before, according to the most recent data available from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
Overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids like fentanyl rose by 55.6 percent during the same time period and appear to be the primary driver of increasing overdose deaths across the nation.
The Humboldt County Drug Task Force seized nearly 14 pounds of fentanyl in 2021 in comparison to only three grams the year before. The Drug Task Force seized 10.6 pounds of opioid prescription pills in 2021, up from approximately 9.6 pounds in 2020. However, heroin seizures dropped dramatically from 48.55 pounds in 2020 to 12.39 pounds in 2021.
“We’ve seen a jump from heroin abuse to fentanyl abuse,” Honsal said, noting that the drug has been found in heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine. “People aren’t using heroin anymore, like black tar heroin, they’re just using fentanyl. As we know, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid and it is 100 times more potent than morphine. Even just a small amount is fatal and we are extremely concerned because it is so cheap and readily available. It’s just a very, very scary time right now in regards to the drug epidemic.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declared a public health emergency in 2017 in response to widespread opioid abuse and unveiled a five-point strategy to combat the opioid crisis – including improved access to prevention and recovery support services, increased availability of overdose-reversing drugs like naloxone, commonly referred to by the brand name Narcan, and advanced research on addiction – but data suggests overdose deaths have only increased.
“Overall addiction also went up during the pandemic,” Honsal said. “The stress of dealing with a pandemic and what was just going on in society, I think – whether it’s alcohol or drugs – that people became more addicted during that time. But what we see now with a highly volatile substance like fentanyl, which was very hard to get three or four years ago and only came in the form of medical-grade patches, it’s now readily available.”
Increasing awareness is key, Honsal said.
“Number one, do not take any pill that’s not prescribed to you. I know it sounds like a ‘say no to drugs’ type of situation, but you really cannot trust anything that you do not buy at a pharmacy,” he said. “The pill could look exactly like something you would find at the pharmacy, but unless you know for sure, you have absolutely no idea what could be in there. It could literally take one pill to kill you.”
The Humboldt County Drug Task Force has increased its focus on fentanyl sales and has taken “an aggressive stance in going after dealers,” Honsal added.
“We’re also working with the District Attorney’s Office to get anyone who is convicted of trafficking or selling fentanyl to be provided with what’s called a Watson advisement,” he said. “A Watson advisement is particularly given to people who have received chronic DUI convictions and it basically says if you carry on with this behavior that you could kill someone. …Now we can safely say that they’ve been advised that they can be charged with second-degree murder. It is the same thing with fentanyl. If a dealer ends up killing someone then we can charge them with second-degree murder.”
Jasmine Guerra, executive director of the Humboldt Area Center for Harm Reduction (HACHR), argued that increased criminalization of opioids and the people who use them “has historically backfired.”
“More criminalization means more deaths, more restricted options for people being criminalized, more disrupted families and more risky patterns on drug trends,” Guerra wrote in an email to the Outpost. “The issue has been played out by the War on Drugs since the early 1970s. The real issue is that people are facing homelessness, food insecurity, and barriers to health care at unprecedented rates in the nation and locally. …This isn’t even touching the surface of the rates of Adverse Childhood Experiences in Humboldt, which we know to be linked to chaotic patterns of substance use.”
Guerra preferred to refer to the opioid crisis as the “overdose crisis” because it shifts the focus “on people’s lives that have been lost unnecessarily and moves away from blaming people who use drugs for the increased rates of overdose.” Following that line of thinking, she said the answer to ending the overdose crisis begins with changing the language around it.
“Stigma reduction helps to prevent overdose because it breaks down a barrier that someone otherwise would have faced when considering seeking help,” she said. “Next, overdose prevention sites, like the pilot project that recently opened on the East Coast, is another measure that will significantly reduce overdoses, if it is led by community-based organizations. Lastly, and most importantly, our country needs to decriminalize and provide a safe supply of substances.”
Raena West, Substance Use Disorder (SUD) administrator and senior program manager for SUD outpatient and treatment programs for the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Behavioral Health division, said increased access to medication-assisted treatment is “the best way to combat the opioid crisis.”
“The county opted into the Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System which makes it possible for people on Medi-Cal to access residential treatment facilities and medication-assisted treatment with Aegis Treatment Center,” she said. “We have also increased our outpatient substance use disorder services to include individual services, case management and field services.”
West noted that fentanyl overdose deaths were likely exacerbated by the pandemic as more individuals were using alone, thus increasing their chance of overdosing.
While perspectives may differ on how to end the opioid crisis, the individuals interviewed for this story agreed that access to Narcan is critical.
“We’ve had a ton of overdoses that have been saved through the use of Narcan,” Honsal said. “The data is anecdotal because there are different organizations that hand out Narcan… but it happens every day that someone is given a dose of naloxone to save them from an overdose.”
Both HACHR and Humboldt County DHHS provide free Narcan and training. More information can be found here.
New Humboldt Masking Order to Go Into Effect Saturday, Following Strong Case Surge and ‘Unprecedented’ Levels of COVID Hospitalization | Lost Coast Outpost
Dr. Ian Hoffman in this afternoon’s Zoom-based press conference.
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In a press conference this afternoon, Dr. Ian Hoffman — Humboldt County’s public health officer — said that he will soon sign an order reinstituting a universal masking order in the county.
“We are announcing today a return to universal masking for Humboldt County,” Hoffman said. “I will be putting in a health order in the coming days that will go into effect at 12:01 am on Saturday, August 7th. This will be in effect for all people vaccinated and unvaccinated, and all public settings — indoor, and including outdoor, crowded, public settings and public events.”
At least 20 California counties have returned to mandatory masking after the latest surge in COVID cases and increased hospitalization rates, both driven by the rise of the virus’ Delta variant.
Hoffman said the county will announce this afternoon that 82 new cases have been confirmed today — the highest-single day rise in COVID cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Meanwhile, COVID-related hospital occupancy recently surged to 23, which is higher than the last peak in January. An otherwise healthy man in his 30s was killed by the disease earlier this week.
Dr. Roberta Luskin-Hawk — CEO of the local Providence Health Care group, which runs St. Joe’s and Redwood Memorial — said that the young man who died was otherwise healthy, and that his passing has hit the nursing staff at the hospital hard.
“According to the ICU nurses, who were quite distraught — he had no usual underlying diseases, no immunodeficiency, nothing else — and despite their best efforts, [he] died,” Luskin-Hawk said.
Both doctors continued to urge vaccination as the quickest and surest route out of the current crisis. Though vaccinated people may sometimes — more rarely — contract the virus and spread it to others, vaccination is very strongly protective against severe disease and death.
“Vaccination is the key to ending this pandemic,” Hoffman said. “We need to get vaccination rates up in order to get out of this.”
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UPDATE: Full video of the press conference below:
MASKS BACK UP: Humboldt Public Health Joins 25 Other Counties to Recommend Masking Indoors, Regardless of Vaccination Status | Lost Coast Outpost
Humboldt County joins 25 other California counties in recommending that everyone, regardless of vaccination status, wear a mask indoors in public places.
As the highly transmissible Delta variant of COVID-19 is increasingly circulating locally, masking indoors is an extra precautionary measure for those who are fully vaccinated and ensures easy verification that all unvaccinated people are masked in those settings. The State of California requires unvaccinated individuals to wear a mask indoors.
Locally, the Delta variant made up 25% of sequenced samples in June, and health officials anticipate that number will increase. The Delta variant represents more than 50% of sequenced COVID-positive test samples statewide, according to the most recent genomic sequencing data from the California Department of Public Health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted that the Delta variant is now responsible for 83% of new infections across the country.
Federal health officials have recently reported that more than 97% of people hospitalized nationwide for COVID-19 and more than 99% of those who died were unvaccinated.
People are recommended to wear masks indoors in settings like grocery or retail stores, theaters and family entertainment centers, even if they are fully vaccinated, as an added layer of protection for unvaccinated residents, including those with compromised immune systems and children under 12 who can’t yet get vaccinated.
Humboldt County Public Health Director Sofia Pereira said, “We still have many unvaccinated people in our community who are vulnerable to serious illness from this virus. Masking is a reasonable precaution we can all take in light of our recent case rate increase and the rise of the Delta variant.”
Humboldt County Health Officer Dr. Ian Hoffman said, “We’ve all sacrificed to get to a point where vaccine is widely available, and our gains in containing this pandemic have been hard won, so we don’t make this recommendation lightly.”
Dr. Hoffman added that Public Health will continue to closely monitor rates of vaccination as well as local virus transmission, hospitalizations and deaths and revisit this recommendation in the coming weeks.
Businesses are encouraged to adopt universal masking practices for customers entering indoor areas to provide better protection to employees and customers. Workplaces must also comply with Cal/OSHA requirements in regards to masking, including providing masks to unvaccinated employees. Fully vaccinated employees can also choose to wear a mask in the workplace.
Those who are fully vaccinated are well protected from infections and serious illness from known COVID-19 variants, including Delta. Health officials say vaccinating as many people as possible, as soon as possible, is the best defense against severe infection. Vaccines are safe, effective, free and widely available to everyone ages 12 and older.
A person is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after their second dose in a two-dose series, such as the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or two weeks after a single-dose vaccine, like the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Individuals with only one dose of Pfizer or Moderna are not fully protected. Completion of the vaccine series is necessary to provide full protection.
Visit myturn.ca.gov or vaccines.gov to find a vaccination site or call the COVID-19 Community Information Line at 707-441-5000.
Statewide data can be monitored at covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view. View local data on the Humboldt County Data Dashboard at humboldtgov.org/dashboard.
For the most recent COVID-19 information, visit cdc.gov or cdph.ca.gov. Local information is available at humboldtgov.org or by contacting covidinfo@co.humboldt.ca.us or calling 707-441-5000.
More Vaccine Questions, More Vaccine Answers With Humboldt County Vaccine Task Force Member Lindsey Mendez | Lost Coast Outpost
You have more vaccine questions, and Lindsey Mendez — member of the county’s Vaccine Task Force — has more vaccine answers. Addressed: State equity efforts and how they’re being implemented here, Pfizer/Moderna versus J&J, the coming contract with Blue Shield to serve as statewide vaccine administrator and more.
Video above, rough transcript below.
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Thank you for joining us for the March 11th media availability with Family Nurse
Practitioner and member of the Humboldt County Vaccine Task Force, Lindsey Mendez.
Lindsey would like to begin with a brief message about the Janssen or Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Hi Humboldt County. This is Lindsey Mendez again, the Family Nurse Practitioner in
Communicable Disease at Public Health. Today I’m going to come and talk about
vaccine and I wanted to give a little bit of an intro again about the efforts that
the public health department is doing right now with the Janssen vaccine. I would like
the community to understand that at this time the Janssen vaccine being a single shot dose
is going to be very helpful when we’re looking at rural populations who are having trouble
coming into clinics and also with persons experiencing homelessness in shelters.
We are currently partnering with our other health care providers in the area to get these vaccines
out into arms this week and next week. So we’re very excited.
From North Coast News: The health officer said earlier this week that some zip codes
that fall in the lowest percentage of the CA healthy places index are in Humboldt
and will be prioritized by the state in terms of vaccine allocation. Where are
these zip codes located? How is this impacting our weekly vaccine allocation from the state?
Yes. At this time the state is using allocation tools to look at how we can have better equity in
areas of certain zip codes. In this equity mapping, they are recommending that we use 20% of
our doses in certain regions of Humboldt County. With that said, the regions are very broad. Around
the county it is in areas where we are already vaccinating mostly. We are trying to get more into
the Southern Humboldt and eastern regions, but overall the zip codes do include Eureka, Arcata
and then parts of SoHum like Petrolia and Blocksburg and then in the northern regions
like Klamath. So we will be working on that, just as we’ve been doing with our clinics.
From North Coast News: A new Israeli study shows that it appears Pfizer is more effective
than first thought. Might this be the case for the Moderna and Johnson and Johnson?
How was J&J able to get the level of efficacy in one shot?
The way that the Janssen vaccine is created with a DNA vaccine which is an adenovirus vector vaccine
and the way that the spike proteins are introduced into the body,
makes it a one-shot vaccine in that it builds over time and at this time it is
not necessary to have a booster dose. And I will say this again: the Johnson Johnson
builds slowly over weeks when you have it, which is a little different than the mRNA vaccine,
but it still is a hundred percent reducing the severe death and hospitalization from COVID-19.
With the Pfizer vaccine and the Israeli research that’s been occurring, because they have been
studying transmission, really what we’re talking about with the Pfizer is that they are reporting
how they are comparing the cases between the fully vaccinated and those who hadn’t been vaccinated
at all and looking at how effective it was for preventing the transmission of COVID-19. This
study was showing 90% at that time. So with that, you must understand that the research is still
occurring with Moderna and Janssen and we will be getting more information as we move forward.
From North Coast News: Alaska has now become the first state to open vaccine eligibility
to 16 years old. Do you think the criteria for getting the shot will change soon in California?
How big of a benefit is it to expand eligibility to a younger age?
I understand that Alaska at this time has expanded their population and the state of California is
looking at April 1st as a date that we will be expanding the population and who can be vaccinated
in what tier. With that said I should remind the public that the Pfizer vaccine can be given to 16
year-olds, but no other vaccine such as Moderna or Janssen is approved for this at this time.
With that said we will also remind the public that even if it does open up for
a greater range of ages and occupations, we will be looking at risk factors
and age as people are waiting to be vaccinated in California.
From North Coast Journal: Has the county received any more clarity from Blue Shield
or the state regarding how vaccine allocation and distribution are likely to change
once Blue Shield takes over as the third party administrator next month?
The public health department is currently doing meetings with Blue Shield and we are talking to
our allocations managers and account managers who will be helping us with the allocation
process in Humboldt County specifically for the providers in this area who will be giving vaccine.
That allocation process will be going through Blue Shield to each provider who is able to
give vaccine in Humboldt County – I should specifically say the COVID-19 vaccine in
Humboldt County – and we will also be contracting in the public health department with Blue Shield
so that we can be distributing vaccine through them. With that said, we do not know exactly how
they are going to be breaking down their allocation process with the local health
jurisdictions and also with providers and we will be knowing more in the next couple weeks.
From North Coast Journal: How does the state putting a focus on vaccinating
residents in the lowest quartile of Healthy Places Index zip codes
change Humboldt County’s vaccination strategy? How is the county working to identify
and prioritize residents in these zip codes who qualify for the vaccine?
This is a great question and happily we have been working on these equity plans since the
beginning of the vaccination task force when COVID-19 vaccine was arriving in Humboldt County.
So, for the past few months we have been opening clinics in areas to ensure equity. We’ve been
giving vaccine to clinics in Willow Creek and Garberville and in Redway. We’ve been doing
mass vaxes in Arcata and in Eureka to ensure that we can reach populations that we wouldn’t usually
get. We are anxious to expand our clinics in the southern and eastern regions and even in the
northern regions to get populations who may have transportation issues. So we’re excited to see as
we partner with Blue Shield how this will move forward with their performance equity measures.
From the North Coast Journal: Public Health reported this week that a quarter of those
currently eligible have now been fully vaccinated locally. At the same time, the county announced a
new class of eligible people — those 65 and older — with food and agricultural workers and people
with co-morbidities expected to be eligible in the coming weeks. Are there logistic and equity
concerns with making so many people eligible for vaccinations when supply remains so limited?
If so, what are they and how is the county working to navigate those challenges?
This is a very important topic that we discuss daily on our vaccination committees.
As we open up the populations who are able to get vaccinated, as wonderful as that is
because our goal is to have herd immunity and end the pandemic, we are also very aware
that there are specific people in our population who are the most vulnerable the most fragile and
we must pay attention to that as the public health department and be good stewards of our vaccine.
We are actively working on getting vaccinations to people who may not be able to leave the
house very well or people who are experiencing homelessness and we’re also looking at how we
can best vaccinate people who work in things like agricultural or factory settings. So
this is something that we are going to continue to have active conversations about.
From North Coast Journal: If the county were to magically receive enough vaccine
doses tomorrow to vaccinate every adult Humboldt County resident,
what’s Public Health’s best estimate as to how long it would take to get all those shots in arms?
Currently, what’s the county’s top vaccinations-per-day capacity?
Right now it is very difficult to give an exact number of what the top amount of vaccination per
day would be because of the amount of providers who are helping us vaccinate in various locations
ranging from pharmacies to hospitals. What we have seen is that when we do mass vaxes – mass
vaccination clinics – around the county whether it be a public health department or other providers,
we have noticed that our max capacity is a little over a thousand at this time for a mass vax
clinic. With that said, other people usually daily are vaccinating in other areas at a smaller scale.
From KMUD: Can you speak to the different efficacy rates of all 3 approved vaccines?
Yes. At this time the CDC is telling us that the Pfizer vaccine is at 95% effective,
the Moderna is at 94% effective and the Janssen is at 67%.
From KMUD: What is currently being done to ensure our Latinx community is receiving vaccinations?
The Humboldt County Public Health Department finds the Latinx community to
be of the highest priority at this time. As I said last week we are actively recruiting
people to work at our clinic who can speak Spanish and be interpreters
and they can be vaccinators or admin or other staff that is necessary to run a vaccination
clinic. I would like to reassure the community that public health is having many meetings at
this time with community stakeholders to help us vaccinate everybody equally in Humboldt County.
From KMUD: Who are the preferred recipients of the single-shot Johnson and Johnson vaccine?
Because of the recommendations by the CDC for how we might use a single-dose vaccine the best,
at this time we have decided to utilize the vaccine with persons who may have
transportation issues, they may not be able to see a doctor readily,
or persons who work in certain facilities like agricultural centers and factories.
From Red Headed Blackbelt: Can you give us an update on how the vaccinations are being
distributed in reference to the local survey that many people have returned,
is the survey proving useful in helping to coordinate vaccine appointments?
Yes absolutely. From the information that I have been receiving from the Joint Information Center,
the interest forms and surveys that have been filled out have been helping them fill clinics
and getting people on wait lists. It’s also helped close the divide between those who
may not have devices and need some assistance with scheduling. The Joint Information Center
would like to remind you that you can go on their website at any time to look for the interest form
in both English and Spanish at humboldtgov.org and again if you are having trouble you can call them.
From Red Headed Blackbelt: Has the public health
department been receiving feedback from community members related to
the recently announced planned closure of Redwood Memorial labor and delivery unit?
Thank you Kym, but no, that is not a vaccine question and I’m unable to answer that today.