Good morning, and welcome to the Important California e-newsletter. It’s Thursday, Aug. 25. I’m Corinne Purtill, a science and drugs reporter at The Occasions.
It’s been just below 100 days for the reason that U.S. logged its first case of monkeypox in Boston on Could 19. Since then, practically 16,000 circumstances of the virus have been confirmed nationwide. Greater than 3,000 confirmed or suspected circumstances of monkeypox have been reported in California alone.
Monkeypox is just not like COVID-19: It’s a well-recognized virus for which vaccines are already accessible and requires a lot nearer contact to unfold. Even so, a beleaguered U.S. public well being system has struggled to include the outbreak‚ a problem that solely grows with each new constructive case.
The overwhelming majority of circumstances reported in California and elsewhere have been amongst males who’ve intercourse with different males. However “there’s no motive, no organic motive, why they’re the one danger group,” infectious-disease epidemiologist Maureen Miller informed me final week. “They usually’re not.”
I spoke with Miller, who can be a medical anthropologist at Columbia College, for a narrative that explores a significant concern scientists have about monkeypox: that it’s going to cross over from people to different animals species, which might make it a lot more durable to include.
Earlier than this outbreak, most human circumstances of the illness got here from shut contact with contaminated animals whereas farming, searching or enjoying. Not like smallpox, which solely contaminated people, this explicit orthopoxvirus is much less discriminating in its alternative of mammal host. Squirrels, prairie canines, groundhogs and almost definitely many species of rats and mice can all be contaminated.
Plenty of the methods pets present affection for house owners — licking their faces, nuzzling their pores and skin, leaping up into their bedding — are potential pathways for viral transmission. An contaminated pet might then cross the virus to different animals via bites, scratches, feces or urine. Rodents might additionally catch it extra instantly from people by burrowing into rubbish and coming into shut contact with contaminated bedsheets, clothes or bandages. And as soon as a virus is established in an animal inhabitants, there’s an opportunity it may be handed again to people, doubtlessly in an altered — and extra vicious — type.
“These are actually large issues,” stated Jane Sykes, a professor of small animal inner drugs on the UC Davis Faculty of Veterinary Medication.
“The inhabitants of canines and cats within the U.S. is greater than the mixed human populations of Australia and the U.Ok., however the function that they play within the unfold of infectious illnesses in households has actually been ignored,” Sykes stated. “It’s actually vital that we’ve got pets. However I additionally assume that they have to be thought of after we’re approaching management of infectious illnesses.”
Earlier this month, the Lancet medical journal revealed a scientific account of the primary identified case of human-to-dog monkeypox transmission. An Italian greyhound in Paris apparently caught it from his contaminated house owners by sleeping of their mattress.
I spoke with the veterinarian to know what pet house owners and others tasked with caring for animals ought to find out about monkeypox. Our dialog has been calmly edited.
What are your issues in regards to the reported case of human-to-dog transmission?
I really feel that we must be cautious leaping to conclusions based mostly on that one case report. It’s actually vital that folks know that the susceptibility of canines to this illness has not been confirmed. We do not know from the paper simply how a lot [monkeypox] DNA was detected, so there stays the chance that this canine might have been contaminated with monkeypox virus DNA however didn’t even have an energetic an infection. We don’t have any studies of antibodies to a pox virus within the canine’s serum. It’s doable that down the street they’ll try this testing and it’ll get reported, however proper now, we don’t have that data.
How do viruses unfold from people to animals?
Even when they’re folks infections, typically canines and cats can play a task within the unfold of these pathogens in a family. If the virus survives within the surroundings for lengthy intervals of time and there’s heavy contamination with furnishings, towels, bedding and so forth, contact between an animal and people objects may also have the potential for transmission. And we all know that the virus will also be unfold in respiratory secretions comparable to nasal discharge. So if an proprietor was kissing and licking and rubbing on the face of their pet — which we all know folks do — that would additionally result in transmission.
It’s additionally actually vital that folks proceed to know the significance of the human-animal bond and never do something drastic, like relinquish an animal as a result of they’re fearful about monkeypox, or bathe animals with doubtlessly dangerous chemical compounds.
If folks suspect they’ve monkeypox, what ought to they do to forestall the virus from spreading to pets or different animals?
Folks with identified or suspected exposures or infections ought to undoubtedly not have interaction in very shut contact comparable to co-sleeping with a pet. If there are immunocompromised folks within the family, the animals must be faraway from the family and cared for by others who usually are not immune compromised. In any other case, the animal must be stored remoted from different animals and folks within the dwelling for 21 days after the primary identified publicity and monitored for sickness.
What indicators of sickness ought to folks search for of their pet?
We nonetheless don’t know the indicators that pets might develop, however based mostly on analysis research it’s more likely to be decreased urge for food, inactivity or sleeping extra because of fatigue or muscle aches. They may additionally develop pores and skin lesions, which could seem as a spotty rash on areas the place there’s not hair overlaying the pores and skin or just some raised purple bumps. Contaminated prairie canines in the 2003 U.S. outbreak had rashes and lymph node enlargement.
Would you anticipate canines and cats to recuperate from monkeypox simply as people do?
Sure, completely. Experimental research executed in laboratory animals present that restoration might happen.
And now, right here’s what’s taking place throughout California:
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Bye bye, inner combustion. California air regulators are set to vote as we speak on sweeping new guidelines that may prohibit the sale of all new gasoline-powered automobiles, SUVs, minivans and pickups within the state by 2035. If different states comply with as anticipated, the landmark determination might reshape the American auto trade. Los Angeles Occasions
Biden administration to cancel (some) pupil debt. President Biden moved Wednesday to cancel $10,000 in pupil debt for people incomes lower than $125,000 yearly, and prolonged a pause on mortgage repayments for all debtors via the top of the 12 months. About $28.5 billion of the nation’s $1.6 trillion in federal mortgage debt belongs to three.8 million Californians. A UC Merced economist estimates that 92% of these debtors will likely be eligible for the mortgage forgiveness. Los Angeles Occasions
L.A. STORIES
A jury sides with Vanessa Bryant in crash scene photograph trial. A jury ordered Los Angeles County to pay Vanessa Bryant, widow of Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, and widower Chris Chester $31 million in damages after sheriff’s deputies and firefighters shared graphic images of their spouses’ and kids’s deaths in a 2020 helicopter crash. Attorneys argued that the illicit images violated their purchasers’ proper to privateness and inflicted emotional misery. The decision occurred to fall on Mamba Day, which Los Angeles declared in Kobe Bryant’s honor in 2016 (he wore jersey Nos. 8 and 24.) The town unveiled a 125-foot mural by L.A.-based illustrator Nikkolas Smith of the late Lakers star. Los Angeles Occasions
What’s with the turtles? Sit by any park pond in Los Angeles lengthy sufficient, and also you’re certain to see a turtle or two poke its head above the water. How did a reptile native to the Mississippi Valley unfold so broadly throughout California? And if the world’s lone native turtle species is nearing endangered standing, the place did all these testudines come from? The Occasions uncovers a reptilian thriller. Los Angeles Occasions
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POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
Abortion rights could quickly be a part of California’s Structure. A measure to amend the state Structure so as to add protections for abortion rights seems on monitor for victory this fall. A brand new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Research ballot finds that 71% of California voters assist the proposed modification, and majorities again different insurance policies geared toward defending abortion rights. Los Angeles Occasions
Sephora can pay for concealing knowledge gross sales. Make-up retailer Sephora should pay California $1.2 million and alter its privateness insurance policies after the corporate allegedly offered clients’ private data with out their permission, beneath the phrases of a settlement introduced Wednesday. Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta stated Sephora didn’t right its insurance policies when notified that it was violating state privateness legal guidelines. Sacramento Bee
CRIME, COURTS AND POLICING
San Francisco enterprise house owners suggest civil disobedience. Annoyed enterprise house owners within the Castro District have threatened to cease paying metropolis taxes and costs if town doesn’t assist the world’s unhoused folks. “You possibly can’t have a vibrant, profitable enterprise hall when you will have folks handed out excessive on medication, littering your sidewalk,” the Castro Retailers Assn.’s co-president informed the San Francisco Chronicle. “These folks must get assist.” San Francisco Chronicle
Orange County to pay inmate who misplaced being pregnant in custody. The county can pay $480,000 to a former inmate who suffered a miscarriage after sheriff’s deputies stopped at Starbucks whereas driving her to a hospital. Sandra Quinones, whose lawyer says she is homeless and mentally sick, was six months pregnant in 2016 when her water broke in her jail cell. Jailers didn’t reply to her requires assist for 2 hours, the go well with alleges, and despatched her to the hospital not in an ambulance however in a patrol automotive whose deputies stopped for espresso. Orange County Register
HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT
State well being officers eye children’ low COVID-19 vaccine charges. Solely 37% of California kids ages 5 to 11 have accomplished their main COVID-19 vaccination collection, in contrast with 67% of adolescents 12 to 17 and 78% of adults 18 to 49. Los Angeles Occasions
Extra marshland on the horizon. San Diego adopted an aggressive local weather motion plan this month that pledges to create 700 extra acres of marshland throughout town. Often known as wetlands, marshlands serve the twin objective of eradicating greenhouse gases from the air and preventing sea-level rise by performing as a coastal sponge. San Diego Union-Tribune
“We’re seen as disposable.” Many Angelenos who make a dwelling from intercourse work — an umbrella time period that features stripping, performing and different types of promoting sexual providers — keep in mind the historical past of the HIV epidemic and are cautious of the same dynamic enjoying out with monkeypox. “On the streets, they’re not pondering that it’s only for somebody who has intercourse with one other man,” one outreach employee informed reporter Emily Alpert Reyes. After seeing how HIV reached different teams, “with monkeypox, they’re like, ‘We’re not falling for that.’” Los Angeles Occasions
CALIFORNIA CULTURE
A plea for a greater license plate. South Dakota has Mount Rushmore, Arizona has a cactus and California has … the URL for the Division of Motor Automobiles. Editorial author Laurel Rosenhall makes the case for the standard license plate that displays a bit extra of the Golden State’s pizzazz. Los Angeles Occasions
A brand new white rhino is born. Livia, a southern white rhino who lives on the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, gave delivery Aug. 6 to a child male. Each the calf and the first-time mother are doing properly, reported the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, which posted a video of the calf enjoying on the Nikita Kahn Rhino Rescue Heart. An estimated 18,000 southern white rhinos stay in native habitats worldwide. San Diego Union-Tribune
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CALIFORNIA ALMANAC
Los Angeles: Sunny, 86. San Diego: Partly cloudy, 78. San Francisco: Partly cloudy, 68. San Jose: Partly cloudy, 84. Fresno: Sunny, 104. Sacramento: Partly cloudy, 94.
AND FINALLY
At the moment’s California reminiscence is from Kimberly Denend Guthrie:
Each go to to my grandparents included a visit to see my Yugoslavian great-grandmother on Polk Road in San Francisco. All the things in regards to the go to was international and thrilling, from the tunnel between the “entrance outlets” to the surface staircase main to every flat. My great-grandmother lived within the center one. Inside, sourdough bread, ham and cookies have been all the time ready. After lunch we’d stroll downhill to Ghirardelli Sq.. I’d marvel at how chilly and foggy the summer time might be. Strolling up the hill with my great-grandmother’s vice-like grip on an arm was powerful, but she all the time shared how she by no means felt winded in any respect.
If in case you have a reminiscence or story in regards to the Golden State, share it with us. (Please preserve your story to 100 phrases.)
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