. As a warehouse manager at a Food 4 Less in Los Angeles, Norma Leiva greets delivery drivers hauling in soda and chips and oversees staff stocking shelves and helping customers. At night, she returns to the home she shares with her elderly mother-in-law, praying the coronavirus isn t traveling inside her. A medical miracle at the end of last year seemed to answer her prayers: Leiva, 51, thought she was near the front of the line to receive a vaccine, right after medical workers and people in nursing homes. Now that California has expanded eligibility to millions of older residents in a bid to accelerate the administration of the vaccines she is mystified about when it will be her turn.
Between the time Ada County Commissioners announced that they were nominating Raul Labrador to the Central District Health Board and when they confirmed the nomination, commissioners received over 3,200 emails.
KTVB requested all emails sent to the commissioners between Jan. 13, when they announced Labrador s nomination, and Jan. 18 when the commissioners interviewed Dr. Sky Blue, a local doctor and epidemiologist. The Central District Health Board voted 2-1 to nominate Labrador to the vacant seat for Ada County. On Friday, over 500 emails were released to KTVB.
County commissioners nominate someone for their county seats on the health board and commissioners from the rest of the district vote to appoint them. Commissioners voted 9-3 to approve Labrador s nomination.
Since the start of the pandemic, systemic health inequalities have caused marginalized communities to experience higher risk of contracting COVID-19 and worse outcomes.
25 ways to stay warm this winter that won’t break the bank
A year into the pandemic, winter is the last of the four seasons we’re newly experiencing during this crisis. Each season has had its curveballs, but one winter challenge may be staying warm if you can’t afford or are cutting back on indoor heating.
Since we still need to prevent spreading the coronavirus, pre-pandemic ways to escape wintry chills may not be available: such as visiting a library, warming center or a friend’s house.
Staying warm is necessary “for a variety of health reasons” in addition to comfort, said Dr. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association. For people with arthritis, stiffness “in your back and neck and sore joints do occur more in colder weather. … People who have metabolic conditions can be sensitive to the weather, like diabetes, for example, and heart disease. The more cold you are, the more stress you put on your heart.”
The Social Order
From the time of the Roman Empire until well after the discovery of the tuberculosis bacterium in 1882, many of the best medical minds believed that miasmas invisible vapors emitted from the earth caused killer infections such as typhus, diphtheria, and malaria. Though the bacteriological revolution of the late nineteenth century routed that theory, a new miasma theory has lately sprung up in schools of public health, holding that racism and sexism, though as unmeasurable as the ancient miasmas, cause AIDS, cancer, drug addiction, and heart disease. Indeed, according to public health professors, living in America is acutely hazardous to women and minorities, so shot through is the United States with sickness-producing even fatal injustice and bigotry.