Category: Coronavirus


Sep
2025

Left Coast 2025-26 Immunization Recommendations

categories: Coronavirus, COVID-19
Skeleton holding a sign that says "New Covid Vaccine Available. Get it Today!"
Photo credit: gallaugher

As we head into the fall/winter virus season (colds, Covid, flu, RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), don’t let the headlines confuse you.

Covid-19 vaccines are still recommended for everyone over 6 months of age and remain covered at no cost to you across most private insurance plans (including Kaiser), Medicaid (know as Medi-Cal in California), CHIP, and Medicare. According to Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE), they continue to be safer than the virus, provide additional protection to all, prevent hospitalization and death, and reduce transmission, though not permanently. They also reduce your risk of Long Covid.

California strongly recommends that pregnant people get vaccinated against Covid, flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and pertussis (also known as whooping cough.) Prenatal vaccines may help prevent complications that include premature delivery, low birth weight, and stillbirth. When pregnant patients get vaccinated, they pass down antibodies to the fetus and again when breastfeeding newborns.

Most people get vaccines at retail pharmacies where pharmacists can counsel and vaccinate folks via shared decision making. However, be warned that you may have to advocate strongly for your immunization preferences. At my local Walgreen’s the pharmacist told me (incorrectly) that I was too young and would be billed $200 to pay for the Covid-19 vaccine. He did not care that I work with pregnant people and newborns. So I walked into a CVS/Target and easily got the flu and Covid jabs at no cost. No questions asked. Plus, I got a $10 coupon off of any $20 purchase so I bought myself 9 pairs of socks!

Here is YLE’s guide to fall vaccines, and YLE now offers a California specific newsletter here. The color chart below outlines the West Coast Health Alliance’s immunization recommendations for the 2025-2026 respiratory virus season.

You can book appointments at retail pharmacies via their websites or at city clinics here via a zip code search.

Get to bed early, eat well, stay healthy and keep those preventable viruses away from yourself and our communities.


Jul
2023

Riding the Covid-19 Summer Wave

categories: Coronavirus, COVID-19, infants

Three and a half years into the outbreak, SARS-CoV-2, is still circulating, and we are undergoing a summer Covid-19 wave.

Indicators like virus levels in wastewater, emergency room visits, test positivity and hospital admissions are ticking up.

Covid wave summer 2023

Thanks to vaccines, Paxlovid and Metformin, the severity of the disease has lessened and deaths are declining. However, immunity from vaccines and infections wanes over time, so we are still at risk for becoming infected and suffering from long Covid and other serious conditions including blood clots and heart problems.

We must not forget that tens of thousands of people die from Covid and the flu every year. So it’s important to adopt multi-pronged measures to prevent viruses from taking hold, including:

Here are great resources to consult regarding all things Covid and other viruses.

KPFA Radio’s Corona Calls on Mondays at 7:30am PT features Dr. John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, who takes questions via call-in during the live broadcast. It’s also a podcast.

Violet Blue’s Huge, FREE covid safety resource list. Violet also has a weekly update on Covid-19 research and news on Thursdays via Substack that always ends with news about her two beloved feline friends.

Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina‘s current Substack newsletter has good info on antigen (at-home) tests and false positives and what to do if you test positive.

To learn even more, be sure to read the comments from their devoted Substack readers.

Here are the National Institutes of Health guidelines for treatment of Covid-19 in pregnancy and after delivery.

Stay healthy!

 


Apr
2020

Birth Coaching in the Age of Coronavirus

categories: Breastfeeding, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Doulas, Lamaze International, Telehealth, Video Chat
Keep Families Together

COVID-19 has changed the world around us; from shelter-in-place and physical distancing measures to one-support person policies in labor and delivery. One thing that has not changed is that I am still here for you and your family.

As we navigate through this uncertain time together, I now offer you and your partner virtual childbirth education and doula services via telehealth video chat platforms like Zoom and Skype.

I am diligently keeping current on public health recommendations and research to understand how to best protect your health, your family’s health, my health and the community’s health and look forward to when we have strategies to reduce or end these shelter-in-place and distance mandates altogether. In the meantime, let’s stay home, wash our hands, avoid touching the face and practice respiratory hygiene, including wearing masks and gloves.

Be safe: Masking on Bernal Hill

Virtual Doula Care includes:

  • 6 hours of prenatal coaching for you and your partner, offered in 3 or 4 sessions via video chat
  • Unlimited phone and/or email consultations to address any of your concerns or questions in pregnancy and birth
  • Help to develop your customized written birth and newborn care plan
  • Postpartum Audit Worksheet to identify community resources for yourself and your baby during the Fourth Trimester
  • Lending library of books and video resources, including delivery to your door
  • On-call service 24 hours a day beginning at your 37th week and up to 2 weeks past your due date or the birth of your baby, whichever comes first
  • Doula toolkit filled with inflatable solar lights, essential oils, massage tools and oil, honey sticks, fan, handouts and snacks
  • Virtual support during labor and birth whether at home and/or hospital or birth center
  • Back-up doula if necessary
  • Facilitating parent/baby skin-to-skin contact and support with breastfeeding initiation
  • Postpartum appointment upon your return home to check on you and baby and offer postnatal resources

Interested in working together? Connect with me here.  Meanwhile, I invite you to experience this Ecotherapeutic Meditation, courtesy of the New York Times. It features scenes and sounds from nature to help your body release the stress of constantly bracing for a disaster.