The Brief

Have you been wondering, “When will the new 2024 COVID vaccine be available?”

The short answer is: It’s here. But even though the “fall vaccine” has been approved much earlier this year than the 2023 COVID vaccine was, just like last year it may take a while for these shots to become widely available to the public.

When will you the new COVID vaccines become available

On Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) signed off on these updated COVID vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer (also known as Comirnaty), which should start to roll out across the United States in the coming weeks — as the 2024 summer wave of infections continues around the country.

Earlier this year, the CDC recommended that the updated shots be available to everyone age 6 months and older through pharmacies like CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid and Safeway, as well as health care providers, county public health departments and community clinics.

These COVID vaccines usually become available at pharmacies first, because pharmacies take their cue from the federal government and not the state — but with vaccines needing to be shipped, it might still be a while before vaccinations are available. For example, CVS is currently offering appointments for the new COVID vaccine starting no earlier than late August, and Walgreens is similarly offering appointments that begin September 6.

Remember: Unlike previous rounds of the vaccine, the FDA and the CDC stopped calling these updated shots “boosters” in 2023 — so you won’t see that language online around appointments. Instead, they refer to these annual fall vaccines as a “new” or “updated” vaccines that have been reformulated to better target a more recent strain of the coronavirus: This time, the omicron variant known as KP.2 that was common earlier this year.

Why do the new COVID vaccine rollouts seem different than they used to?

If you’re wondering why the new COVID vaccine seems to take so long to become widely available now, why you can no longer walk into any vaccination location to get an updated shot and why health insurance matters now, it’s because of the major change that came into effect last year: The federal government has stopped footing the bill for COVID vaccines.

These shots have now transitioned into the traditional health care market, like many other kinds of vaccines. So for most people with health insurance, insurers will now cover the cost of getting the new COVID vaccine direct, much like your plan might cover your flu shot. This is why you’ll hear many county public health officials urging people to first seek out the new vaccine via their health care provider (and also why those county-run vaccination sites that were so common at the height of the pandemic now don’t exist, at least on the same scale.)

But COVID vaccines now being purchased and distributed through the health care market now also means it’s far less simple for people without health insurance to find a free shot. Jump to “How do I find a COVID vaccine if I’m uninsured?”

Is the Novavax COVID vaccine available as well as Moderna and Pfizer’s new vaccines?

Not yet, although an updated version of the Novavax vaccine looks to be on the way a little later.

Unlike Pfizer and Moderna’s new COVID shots, the Novavax vaccine is a non-mRNA, protein-based vaccine. One reason some people choose the Novavax vaccine is based on aftereffects from getting the shot — as Science has reported, Novavax “appeared less likely than mRNA shots to cause side effects like headache and fatigue” in clinical trials.

How effective is this new COVID vaccine against the current strains?

Much like the flu shot, COVID vaccines have now become annual shots offered in the fall — and their “recipe” gets updated each year in the hope of maximum efficacy against current strains.

This new 2024–2025 COVID vaccine is an updated shot that supersedes and replaces the 2023–2024 shot, which you should now consider outdated. The recipe for this new vaccine will address a newer target: The KP.2 subvariant of omicron.

COVID strains are a moving target, and as you can see from the CDC’s COVID Variant Tracker, KP.2 is no longer the dominant subvariant in the U.S. — that’s currently KP.3.1.1. But this family of omicron subvariants is closely enough related that the vaccines promise cross-protection. A Pfizer spokesman said the company submitted data to the FDA showing its updated vaccine “generates a substantially improved response” against multiple virus subtypes compared to last fall’s vaccine.

“The vaccine is not intended to be perfect. It’s not going to absolutely prevent COVID-19,” said Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research in a statement announcing the approval decision. ““But if we can prevent people from getting serious cases that end them up in emergency rooms, hospitals or worse — dead — that’s what we’re trying to do with these vaccines.”

The new vaccines should cut the risk of getting COVID by 60% to 70% and reduce the risk of getting seriously ill by 80% to 90%, Marks says.

Who can get the new COVID vaccine?

As of August 22, anyone age 6 months and up who got their last COVID vaccine shot at least two months ago — whether that was their primary vaccination series or their last booster shot — can get an updated COVID vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna, as soon as vaccination appointments become available. As in 2023, appointments may not become immediately widespread, depending on your location. Jump straight to where you can find a new COVID vaccine near you.

“Vaccination continues to be the cornerstone of COVID-19 prevention,” said the FDA’s Marks. “Given waning immunity of the population from previous exposure to the virus and from prior vaccination, we strongly encourage those who are eligible to consider receiving an updated COVID-19 vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants.”

There is no specific guidance for certain age groups, but, as with other vaccines, children under 12 will be offered a pediatric (smaller) dose of this vaccine.

This 'fall' vaccine is available pretty early this year. Who should get it straight away?

The FDA’s Marks said that for his part, “when this gets into pharmacies I will probably be on line as soon as it gets rolled out.”

“Right now we’re in a wave, so you’d like to get protection against what’s going on right now,” he said. “So I would probably get vaccinated in as timely a manner as possible. Because right now the match is reasonably close. You’re probably going to get the most benefit you’re going to get from this vaccine against what’s currently circulating.”

Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF, said that older folks (age 65 and over) or people who are immunocompromised who have neither had a COVID vaccine in the last year nor had a COVID infection should seek out their new vaccine as soon as they can. These were the “folks I saw in the hospital very ill with COVID in the past few months,” said Chin-Hong.

Additionally, for Chin-Hong, the best vaccine is the one you actually get, so “at the end of the day, convenience trumps everything,” he said. “If you are motivated to get the updated COVID shot when it comes out sooner rather than later, just do it.”

“Getting it in your arm when you are motivated trumps being strategic about the whole thing,” said Chin-Hong.

Who should consider waiting a little while to get the new vaccine?

Delaying getting the updated vaccine may be right for …

Those who want the best possible immunity for a winter wave — and over the holidays

Marks said also said that even though he personally will be getting his vaccine straightaway, others might consider waiting until September or October if they’re particularly focused on having maximal protection through the anticipated winter COVID wave, as well as over the holidays. “Getting vaccinated sometime in the September to early October time frame seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do to help bring you protection through the December/January time frame,” Marks said.

For Chin-Hong, the “sweet spot” for getting the new COVID vaccine, if you’re not in that higher-risk group above, “is still some time in October so that antibodies peak in the winter when things are expected to be worse than the summer.”

“This is going to apply to most people,” he said. And while “the vaccine’s superpower is protection against serious disease, hospitalization and death,” the updated shot “does have the bonus of increasing the force field against getting infected as well,” said Chin-Hong. “Because there are so many events after October (Thanksgiving, holiday get togethers, Christmas, New Years), you may also want your antibodies to peak then for that bonus of lowering infection risk.”

People who've had a COVID vaccine — or a COVID infection — recently

Another reason you’d want to wait to seek the new vaccine: if you got your last COVID shot less than two months ago, or you’ve had a COVID infection less than three months ago. (PDF) (If your case was asymptomatic, use the date of your positive test instead of the onset of your symptoms.)

“If you have received a vaccine over the summer or got infected over the summer, there is no need to rush out and get the new vaccine as you will be well protected,” said Chin-Hong. “Wait until October and get both flu and COVID shots at the same time.”

People who are uninsured and need a free vaccine

The CDC’s Bridge Access Program, which was launched in September 2023 to provide free COVID vaccinations to uninsured people, was forecast to last until December — but is instead ending this month. And while a CDC spokesperson said that the agency will be making “$62 million of unused vaccine contract money” available to states to help vaccinate people without health insurance, right now it’s still unclear how that will work practically.

Waiting for your fall COVID shot, said Chin-Hong, will “give it more time for that system to be put into place so you won’t be charged if you don’t have insurance.”

Should I get my 2024 flu shot at the same time as my new COVID vaccine?

It’s totally fine, and safe, to get your flu shot at the same time as your new COVID vaccine, and when appointments roll out more widely you’ll often find that COVID vaccine appointments will prompt you to “add on” a flu shot at the same session — especially at pharmacies. Although, if you’re trying to schedule your kid’s vaccinations, the CDC advised in 2023 that you first talk to your pediatrician about the best schedule for the COVID and flu vaccines (and now the RSV — respiratory syncytial virus — preventive treatment too).

That said, the recommendations medical professionals make about when to get a flu shot are based on the fact that, like with your COVID vaccine, it takes about two weeks after you get vaccinated for antibodies to develop and provide protection against the virus.

The CDC says that September and October “are generally good times” to get your flu shot. In 2023, UCSF’s Chin-Hong told KQED that his “optimal sweet point” for getting this shot is “sometime before Halloween” — but notes that this is based on traditional predictions of flu season starting in November and peaking around January or February. If flu cases start to rise earlier, you should seek out your flu shot sooner, he said. And ultimately, in the spirit of any vaccine being better than no vaccine, “do what is most convenient,” he advised.

Where can I find a new COVID vaccine this fall, when they become available?

Don’t assume you’ll be proactively contacted about getting the new COVID vaccine.

Remember that a certain location may only be offering a certain brand of the new vaccine, whether that’s Moderna or Pfizer (or soon, Novavax). So be sure that the location you’re walking into or making an appointment for offers the type of updated vaccine you need or want.

Also make sure the appointment you schedule for your new vaccine is at least two months after your last COVID vaccine shot, or three months after your last COVID infection. (When you’re making an appointment for a new vaccine, you’ll likely be asked for the date of your last COVID vaccine dose or booster dose for this reason, to ensure you’re not getting your shot too soon.)

If you don’t have health insurance, jump to what we know about COVID vaccination for uninsured folks.

1. Find a new COVID vaccine through a local pharmacy, when available

For future reference, pharmacies are usually the first place new vaccine shots become available when announced because pharmacies take their cue from the federal government, not the state.

For example, CVS’s COVID vaccination homepage says that the pharmacy chain is now “waiting on the arrival of the new 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccines,” and that “you can schedule an appointment online now for a date in the near future.” Walgreens is also offering appointments for the new vaccine starting September 6.

Remember that pharmacies can’t vaccinate kids under 3, except for CVS MinuteClinics, who are permitted to vaccinate kids as young as 18 months old.

If you have health insurance, you should be able to give your insurer’s details at a pharmacy vaccination appointment to have the cost of your shot billed to them. One big exception to this: If you get your health care through a health system like Kaiser Permanente, you almost certainly won’t be able to get your new COVID vaccine for free (i.e., covered by your insurance) at a pharmacy like CVS or Walgreens, the way you can’t get your flu shot covered by Kaiser at a pharmacy either.

Ultimately, if you are a member of a health system like Kaiser and are unsure about what your health insurance covers, reach out to your provider to check if you will need to obtain your new COVID vaccine through them, in order to have it covered.

2. Find a new COVID vaccine through your health care provider, when available

If you have health insurance, check with your health care provider to see whether they can offer you an updated COVID vaccine. The San Francisco Department of Public Health stresses that “Health care providers are the first place to go for COVID-19 and flu health care.” That said, you could still be looking at a wait for supplies to reach your health care provider, even after the new shots were first authorized.

If you don’t have health insurance but get medical care through a city- or county-run provider, you should check with that location to see whether they can offer you the new COVID vaccine.

In addition to trying to talk with your health care provider directly, check the website of your provider to see whether it’s offering the ability to make appointments, and sign up for their vaccine notifications if that’s an option.

3. Find a new COVID vaccine through vaccines.gov, when available

Visit the federal government’s vaccines.gov website to see when appointments for the new updated COVID vaccine in or near your zip code become available.

A message on the site states that the CDC is updating this tool, “including replacing the vaccine locator with a pharmacy lookup tool to help people find a pharmacy near them, and this “lookup tool will be added once 2024–2025 flu and COVID-19 vaccines become widely available.”

4. Find a new Moderna or Pfizer COVID vaccine through My Turn, when available

Throughout the pandemic, My Turn has been the state’s site for all Californians to schedule vaccination appointments or find walk-in locations, regardless of health insurance status.

Because the new COVID vaccines are now being distributed through the traditional health care market, My Turn’s services have now been geared primarily toward uninsured people.

If you visit the My Turn page, select “Make an Appointment.” My Turn will ask for your information, and the ZIP code or location you’d like to use to search for vaccine appointments. You can give your home location, or input other locations to see which sites might be available farther away.

If you can’t travel to a clinic for your new COVID vaccine because of health or transportation issues, you can note this when registering on My Turn, and a representative from the CDPH is supposed to call you to arrange an in-home visit or transportation.

My Turn will ask you to provide a cellphone number and an email address. The state says this is so you can use two-factor authentication to confirm your identity and make your appointment, and to prevent bots from automatically scooping up available appointments online.

If you don’t have an email address or a cellphone number, or you have questions, you can call the California COVID-19 hotline at (833) 422-4255 (Monday–Friday 8 a.m.–8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 8 a.m.–5 p.m. PT) and sign up over the phone. Both English-speaking and Spanish-speaking operators are available. Callers needing information in other languages will be connected to a translation service that offers assistance in over 250 languages.

5. Find a new COVID vaccine through your county, when available

Visit your county’s public health website to learn if your county will soon be offering the new updated COVID vaccine to its residents, particularly those who are uninsured or under-insured.

Where can I find a new COVID vaccine near me if I’m uninsured?

The CDC’s Bridge Access Program, which was launched in September 2023 to provide free COVID vaccinations to uninsured people, was forecast to last until December — but is instead ending this month.

A CDC spokesperson told KQED that the agency will now be supplying states with “$62 million of unused vaccine contract money,” to support state and local health departments this respiratory virus season “and help improve access for uninsured and underinsured Americans to COVID vaccines.” Right now, details of how this will practically work for folks without insurance in California is unclear, so we’ll keep updating this section as we find out new information relating to how people without health insurance can find a free or low-cost vaccine.

Uninsured children ages 18 and under can still get free COVID vaccines — and other free immunizations — as part of the Vaccines for Children Program.

Why can't I get my new COVID vaccine at a pharmacy if I have Kaiser health insurance?

Something to watch for this fall: If you get your health care through a health system like Kaiser Permanente, you’ll be asked to pay out-of-pocket if you try to get your new COVID vaccine at a pharmacy like CVS or Walgreens.

Why? Usually, if you have health insurance, you should be able to give your insurer’s details at a pharmacy vaccination appointment to have the cost of your shot billed to them. Health systems like Kaiser are the exception to this, and so you almost certainly won’t be able to get your new COVID vaccine at a pharmacy like CVS or Walgreens, the way you can’t get your flu shot covered by Kaiser at a pharmacy either.

Instead, last year Kaiser recommended its members receive their updated COVID shot at a Kaiser facility. The health system’s website says that “when provided by Kaiser Permanente, COVID-19 vaccines are covered at no cost,” but that “most California members” apart from Medi-Cal members will need to pay for the shot if obtained elsewhere. (KP.com also states that you “may be able to get up to half of the cost reimbursed” from Kaiser if you do.)

This meant that in 2023, people with health insurance through Kaiser faced a longer wait for their new COVID vaccine than folks with other types of insurance, unless they were prepared to pay these large costs up-front. CVS, for example, charges $190.99 for the new COVID vaccine “if CVS is not in network with your insurance plan.”

We’ll keep updating this guide with information as we get it. Find a Kaiser location near you that may be offering the new COVID vaccine when it’s available.

Boom.

Ronda Deplazes had just gotten out of the shower and placed curlers in her long blond hair when she heard something slam against her front door.

Boom.

Outside, her son — a man who could fix anything, who loved his family, who never remembered these incidents but always apologized later — was yelling and swearing as he pulled large gray river rocks from the planter beds and hurled them at the front of his parents’ suburban Concord home.

Boom.

Deplazes heard a woman scream.

Later she learned her 38-year-old son had ripped a branch from a crepe myrtle in the front yard, leapt over a retaining wall and fallen onto the sidewalk. CalMatters is not naming Deplazes’ son, who lives with psychosis and addiction and could not be interviewed for this story.

Police arrived within minutes that August evening. They found Deplazes, hair still in rollers, in bed cuddling her shaking 17-year-old Labrador, Farley.

This was not the first time officers had visited the family’s home.

“What happened with CARE Court?” one officer asked.

Deplazes offered her assessment of a program she’d once seen as an answer to her prayers.

“They did nothing,” she said.

More than three years have passed since Gov. Gavin Newsom introduced the concept of CARE Court. Standing at a lectern in front of a San Jose treatment center in March 2022, he described a new court system that would steer hard-to-treat individuals down a pathway of housing and services. He called it “a completely new paradigm, a new approach, a different pathway.”

“I’ve got four kids,” he said that day. “I can’t imagine how hard this is …It breaks your heart. I mean, your life just torn asunder because you’re desperately trying to reach someone you love and you watch them suffer and you watch a system that consistently lets you down and lets them down.”

Family members of people with serious mental illnesses told CalMatters they breathed a sigh of relief that day. So many struggled for years to find help for loved ones who seemed to slip ever deeper into psychosis.

While disability rights advocates decried the program as a threat to the civil liberties of people with mental illness, and counties protested that they didn’t have the necessary resources or time, family members described feeling a twinge of something that had long eluded them: Hope.

Finally, they thought, someone heard them.

Finally, their loved ones would get help.

With the vocal support of many of these families, Newsom shepherded CARE Court through the Legislature. That October, he signed it into law. A year later, the program rolled out in an initial cohort, reaching the entire state by December 2024.

Now, many of the same family members who embraced CARE Court say it has fallen short of their expectations. In dozens of conversations with CalMatters, they described loved ones who continue to cycle between jail and homelessness. Some said their loved ones were dropped because they failed to participate in voluntary treatment plans. Others said counties had lost track of them entirely.

Some of the disappointment is a matter of scale. Newsom had initially projected that as many as 12,000 people could be eligible for the new program.

Two years of data from the state’s judicial council shows that, as of October, courts had received 3,092 petitions for CARE Court. Almost half were dismissed. Thus far, these petitions have translated into just 706 CARE plans and agreements.

Ronda Deplazes at her home in Concord, on Oct. 27, 2025.

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Florence Middleton

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Catchlight/CalMatters

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A photo of her son, now 38, riding a motorcycle in their backyard as a child, long before his mental health diagnosis. “His love of life,” she said, referring to dirt bikes and how her son has been a risk taker since childhood.

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Florence Middleton

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Catchlight/CalMatters

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County and state officials say it’s too soon to pass judgment on the program. They point to the uncounted individuals who received help without ever enrolling in the program, and to those who have made incremental progress, perhaps working with a substance use counselor for the first time. They also say buy-in from vulnerable people takes a long time to achieve, but that the voluntary nature of the program is essential for lasting recovery.

Some officials acknowledge a significant disconnect between what many families expected, and what the law actually prescribes.

In Contra Costa County, where Deplazes lives, Judge Melissa O’Connell said she meets with participants who tell her they now have stable housing or are preparing for their first job interview. Such accounts buoy her.

“That’s how I view CARE,” she said. “It is helping people that would not be helped if CARE did not exist. It’s not helping everyone. I get that.”

But many families who have spent years or decades begging for help have lost patience.

In Ronda Deplazes’ case, she’s going to war.

“That’s my mission,” she said. “We have to stop CARE Court.”

Years of desperation

Anosognosia.

It’s a word people struggle to pronounce, even as they describe how profoundly it has upended their loved ones’ lives. It means an inability or refusal to recognize a defect or disorder that is clinically evident.

Ronda Deplazes knows it as a Catch-22.

Her son is sick but doesn’t believe he’s sick. Who would voluntarily accept treatment for an illness they don’t think they have?

The conundrum dates to 1967, when California passed the Lanterman-Petris-Short law. Prior to the law, it had been far too easy for family members to force loved ones into mental health treatment. Civil rights violations were rampant. Conditions in state hospitals were dismal.

The landmark law established strict criteria for involuntary treatment. It imposed specific timeframes for confinement and limited who could be subjected to holds: only people deemed a danger to themselves or others, or gravely disabled.

These civil rights protections are still widely considered imperative. But desperate family members say the law has at times made it difficult for them to get their loved ones life-saving treatment.

Many families pinned their newfound hope on Newsom’s initial comments, in which he said individuals who weren’t willing or able to follow through on their CARE plans might be moved “into a different category of care and support, more traditional along the lines of what we have today, through the (Lanterman-Petris-Short) conservatorship system.”

Several family members CalMatters interviewed interpreted that to mean CARE Court could compel their seriously mentally ill loved ones to get help.

“We get so pumped up with hope,” Deplazes said.

“I think the frustration and disappointment is more than a person can bear. That's the truth of it. That is the bottom line,” she said.

In an interview with CalMatters, California Health and Human Services Undersecretary Corrin Buchanan said CARE Court was never intended to be another form of conservatorship. She emphasized what she considers unique facets of the program – families can directly petition the courts for help, county behavioral health departments face increased accountability and they are getting state support to develop the “three-legged stool” of treatment, medication and housing.

She said she’s heard from many families whose loved ones have benefited from the program, which can provide tools to meet the needs of “the right person, who’s the right fit for the model.”

Growing up, Deplazes’ son loved baseball, tinkering and spending time outside.

In retrospect, the first signs that something was wrong were the risky behaviors — leaping from the second story window onto the trampoline, doing donuts with his truck. By the time he was 19, he had received three DUIs. At one point, neighbors filed for a restraining order against him.

A pillow rests on an armchair at Ronda Deplazes’ home in Concord, on Oct. 27, 2025.

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Florence Middleton

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CatchLight/CalMatters

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Deplazes, a preschool teacher who regularly volunteers through her church, and her husband, Roger, who runs a family solar electricity business, met in middle school and have been together since their teens. They tried everything they could think of to help their son. They paid to send him to a high-end rehabilitation center. Staff told them their son was hearing voices. Eventually, he was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a condition marked by symptoms of psychosis as well as mood disorders.

Deplazes was familiar with the implications of that diagnosis: Her mother, sister and brother had all suffered with similar illnesses. She and her husband found their son a psychiatrist. He thrived for a while, with professional help, a girlfriend and a part-time job.

Then, during the pandemic, Deplazes said her son went off his medication because he didn’t like the way it made him feel.

Things spiraled.

He lived with his parents until violence fueled by fentanyl use made the arrangement untenable.

In 2022, court records show, Deplazes filed for a temporary restraining order.

Her son started sleeping in strip malls near their home.

Inspired by Newsom

After hearing Newsom describe his plans for CARE Court, Deplazes felt inspired to participate in transforming the mental health system. She signed up for a class to help other families navigate mental illness.

In that class, she learned about Contra Costa County’s assisted outpatient treatment program — a court-ordered mental health treatment program that predated CARE Court. Upon her referral, he was accepted, she said; she hoped county mental health workers could convince him to participate in treatment.

One summer day in 2024, Deplazes pulled her car into the parking lot of an abandoned Dollar Tree where her son sometimes slept. She initially didn’t recognize the unconscious body surrounded by trash, grease caked into the neck, face and arms.

When she finally managed to shake her son awake, he was weak and trembling. She moved him to the shade and ran to get water, Gatorade and food.

She called the county behavioral health team.

“You have to help me,” she said.

County workers brought him food and water, she said, but her son wasn’t willing to accept additional help.

“‘Don’t worry,’” she remembers them saying. “‘In December you can apply for CARE Court.’”

Deplazes spent three days filling out paperwork ahead of CARE Court’s rollout in Contra Costa County. It was so complicated, she said, and required so much information that she eventually had to seek help: first from a volunteer from the local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, then from staff at the local law library. But she got the petition submitted, and in late January, her son was approved.

High expectations, then disappointment

The first CARE Court hearing for Deplazes’ son was on the morning of Feb. 7 of this year. She and her husband arrived at the Martinez courthouse at the appointed time. Their son did not.

In the coming months, Deplazes continued to find him crumpled up in strip malls a few blocks from her home. She had to stop frequenting those shopping centers. It was too hard to see him like that.

Sometimes, in the cold and rain, he would appear on her doorstep barefoot and freezing. He might lie there for days, barely moving. She’d contact the CARE Court team to alert them to his location. On some occasions, she said, they came out and did their best to help him. But most times, he was gone before they arrived.

She cut back on work, spending hours each day on the phone.

He kept getting arrested. Police would drive him to the county jail in Richmond. Often, Deplazes said, they discharged him in the middle of the night and he would walk until he could borrow a phone to call home. Her husband, worried for their son’s safety, would drive 25 miles to pick him up. CARE Court workers often weren’t even aware he was behind bars, Deplazes said.

Deplazes and her husband stopped going anywhere, fearing a crisis would emerge in their absence.

“You can’t have a life when you have a kid like this,” Deplazes said.

By March, she was already convinced that CARE Court wasn’t going to save her son.

She started reaching out to everyone she could. The county behavioral health department. The public defender. The district attorney.

“Dear Secretary Welch,” she wrote in a March email to the deputy secretary of behavioral health at the California Health and Human Services Agency, “This is a desperate plea to save our son’s life as now we are being told that CARE Court is also 100% voluntary…my son is deteriorating rapidly and being arrested on a regular basis for extreme and escalating behaviors….Secretary Welch please let me know if this CARE Court petition is futile and I should go another route. We love our son. He is smart, sweet and worth saving. We will never give up on his recovery. Please send guidance before it is too late for our family.”

She followed up with a second email, but never heard back.

“I’m giving up,” she told a reporter one morning soon after. “Honestly, I’m giving up.”

Instead, she began begging the county to let her son out of CARE Court, reasoning that he would get more treatment through the criminal courts if he was not constrained by his participation in the program.

Welch, in an interview with CalMatters, offered a message to parents like Deplazes:

“We’re listening,” she said. “We’re trying to better understand how we can be helpful. There’s lots of tools in the toolbox and CARE wasn’t necessarily a panacea.”

'It was my baby'

Not long into her CARE Court experience, Deplazes was introduced to a former police officer named Sam Figueroa. The two instantly bonded over their shared desperation.

During his 25-year career, Figueroa said he had specially trained to help people in mental distress. By his own estimation, he had placed thousands of people on involuntary holds.

In 2023, he said someone called to tell him they heard screaming from his son’s Los Angeles area apartment. Figueroa immediately flew south, arriving to find his son emaciated and lying in the bathtub in a urine-soaked sleeping bag. Feces and rotting food coated the apartment.

“I thought I was in a nightmare,” he said. “And it was my baby.”

His son had recently graduated magna cum laude from UC Santa Cruz. Now, doctors told Figueroa that the sooner he intervened, the more likely he was to save his son’s life.

Despite his years of experience, Figueroa couldn’t convince anyone to place his son on an involuntary hold. Not after the young man tried to break into someone’s home. Not after he jumped from a moving vehicle.

Like Deplazes, Figueroa had started out optimistic about CARE Court. Like her, he soon grew angry. The clock was ticking.

“Doctor says ‘He doesn’t know he’s sick, he needs treatment now.’ CARE Court says ‘He doesn't know he's sick, he has to volunteer,’” he said. “I don’t understand that language. And I barely got high school, but that sounds very stupid.”

Gigi Crowder, CEO of Contra Costa’s chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness — an organization that represents family members — said she had initially felt hopeful about the new program. She remembers telling parents that CARE Court represented a new opportunity.

“We have failed this community of individuals,” she said recently. “We just have. We continue to do it when we offer false hope.”

Ronda Deplazes at her home in Concord on Oct. 27, 2025.

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Florence Middleton

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Catchlight/CalMatters

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By last summer, Deplazes had had enough.

One June morning, she came before Judge O’Connell, who oversees the county’s assisted outpatient program, conservatorship proceedings and CARE Court.

Deplazes’ health had deteriorated from the constant stress. Her son seemed to be getting worse.

Irate, she begged the judge to remove her son from CARE Court before he ended up dead.

“I said ‘let him out. I need to find him help and he’s not getting it here,’” she said.

In retrospect, Deplazes wishes she had been more tactful.

But, at that moment, she just didn’t care.

The hardest days

O’Connell is not oblivious to the pain of families like the Deplazes.

She and others in her courtroom are acutely aware that many have submitted petitions only after decades of heartache.

The hardest days are the ones when she has to tell family members that CARE Court is not going to help their loved ones.

“As a parent, when you feel like our systems have failed your loved one time and again, that can be devastating,” she said. “That’s never lost on us in CARE. But I know that doesn’t help make someone feel better about it.”

Prior to being sworn in on Jan. 8, 2024, O’Connell spent years working for the Northern California Innocence Project. A psychology major in college, she was excited to take on her new role.

About six or seven months into the county’s CARE Court rollout, she became concerned about the apparent disconnect between what the law described and what community members expected. She edited the county’s CARE Court webpage to better emphasize the program’s voluntary nature.

“I would never want to give someone false hope,” she said. “The only way you can try to avoid that is by being good at communicating and managing expectations.”

As of October, Contra Costa County had received 69 petitions for CARE Court, 28 of which had been filed by family members. Twenty-four of these petitions had since been dismissed, 11 led to CARE agreements with four more agreements pending. Seven individuals had exited the program to enter the Lanterman-Petris-Short conservatorship system, the county said.

Marie Scannell, Contra Costa County’s mental health program chief, and Elyse Perata, the mental health program manager, describe the challenges they’ve faced in rolling out CARE Court. Their staff members spend countless hours searching for hard-to-locate individuals, they said. They then make multiple visits over several months to gradually gain these individuals’ trust.

Then there are the families.

Perata, a therapist, said she empathizes with families frustrated that their loved ones can’t be compelled to participate. But she also emphasized the importance of a client’s buy-in in order to achieve “longstanding success.”

She and Scannell described the dedication of their staff, and the warmth of O’Connell’s courtroom – where participants are greeted with snacks and support.

For some people in the community, they said, the program has worked well.

One 31-year-old man, who asked that his name not be used for privacy reasons, told CalMatters he had participated in the county’s CARE Court program for several months. Prior to that, his father had referred him to a mental health treatment facility after he went off his medication, fell into psychosis and poured water into his gas tank, ruining his car.

He appreciates the help he’s received connecting with job training, as well as the program’s more intangible aspects – moral support, reassurance, a positive outlook.

“I didn’t expect it to be this life-changing,” he said.

After CARE Court

In July, Deplazes’ son was released from CARE Court. Deplazes said the judge told her it was because the CARE Court team couldn’t locate him.

In August, on the evening he was found throwing river rocks at the front door, police arrested him for repeatedly violating his parents’ restraining order, Deplazes said.

In September, she said, a criminal court judge ordered her son placed in 180 days of inpatient treatment, along with domestic violence classes and antipsychotic medications.

“My son, we finally got him criminalized,” Deplazes informed her friend, Figueroa, as the two sat together on the leather couches in her living room.

“God bless,” he said.

Figueroa remained worried about his son. He had brought him back north and put him up in a nearby hotel for nine months, he said, until the young man was kicked out for frightening the staff.

Homeless, his son had wandered into a neighboring county. His county responded by closing his son’s CARE Court case, he said.

Now, Figueroa was trying to track his son’s Instagram posts to make sure he was still alive.

In the meantime, the days of the involuntary hold the judge had ordered for Deplazes’ son were slipping away. She was still desperately trying to find a long-term placement her son would be willing to accept. She knew he longed for his freedom.

“And there's no talking to him,” she said. “Because remember again, in his mind, he's not sick.”

The two talked briefly about a new law that will take effect this January. It promises to expand the grave disability standard as laid out by the Lanterman-Petris-Short law. Many families hope it will open a new pathway to conservatorship.

“But again, it's a law,” Deplazes said.

Implementation, she said, was another question entirely.

This project story was produced jointly by CalMatters & CatchLight as part of our mental health initiative.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

During President Donald Trump's first term, the economy was a relative strength of his. During the 2024 presidential campaign, his promises to lower prices in a country grappling with post-COVID inflation propelled him back into office.

But toward the end of his first year in office this term, just 36% of Americans approve of his handling of the economy, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll. It's his worst mark in the six years that Marist has been asking the question.

The only time in that span that Americans had a similarly negative view of a president's handling of the economy in the poll was in February 2022, when Joe Biden was president. Now Democrats are slightly more trusted to handle the economy than Republicans — 37% to 33%. That's not a wide margin, but it's a sharp turnaround from the 16-point advantage Republicans had on the question in 2022.

There are a number of other stark findings in this wide-ranging survey that focused on the economic pressures Americans are facing. The poll found that many Americans are having difficulty making ends meet, they worry about the economic outlook for themselves and the country, and most believe the country is already in a recession — with notable divides by race, age and gender on many questions.

The White House recognizes the challenge the current economy poses and is trying to make it a focus of events going forward. But the president has his work cut out for him to convince Americans his administration will make it better. He has struggled to do so, often returning to culture war arguments, particularly immigration, instead.

Trump's political standing is at the nadir of his presidency

Trump's handling of the economy has him under water with several key groups, including some that are important to his coalition. For example, 49% of people who live in rural areas disapprove of the job he's doing on the economy, while just 43% approve; 48% of white women without college degrees disapprove vs. 41% who approve. In the suburbs, which are often critical in swing districts, more disapprove by a 60%-33% margin.

In addition to Trump's low approval for his handling of the economy, his overall job approval rating stands at a meager 38%. That's the lowest of his second term and the lowest number he's seen in Marist's surveys since April 2018.

That year, his approval rating did not go much higher. It sat at 41% in the last Marist poll before the 2018 midterm elections. Republicans lost 40 seats in the House that year.

The intensity of disapproval of the president is particularly high — 50% of registered voters said they strongly disapprove.

Just 30% of independents and 8% of Democrats approve of the job Trump's doing. But, as has been the case for the entirety of Trump's time on the political stage, he retains robust support from Republicans. In this survey, 84% of Republicans approve of the job he's doing. That's down 5 points from last month, but within the margin of error.

Prices leap out as the top economic concern

By far, the biggest financial factor straining Americans is prices.

Asked for their top economic concern, 45% of respondents said prices. Nothing else came close — housing was second at 18%, followed by tariffs at 15% and job security at 10%.

Tariffs are certainly closely tied to higher prices in this administration. Two-thirds in this survey said they're very concerned or somewhat concerned about tariffs' impact on their personal finances.

That's down from 81% in June, but still a significant majority. The decline is driven by Republicans. In June, 70% of Republicans said they were concerned about tariffs' potential impact. Now, it's just 38%, while overwhelming majorities of independents and Democrats continue to say they're concerned about them.

Most say the country is already in a recession

When a country is in a recession is not always clear, but it is marked by a significant downturn in economic activity. The technical definition is two consecutive quarters of negative growth as measured by the country's gross domestic product, or GDP.

That's not where the country is right now, though there are signs of a slowing labor market. Just 64,000 jobs were added in November, as of the delayed jobs report released Tuesday, for example, and the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.6%.

For many, especially those who are Black, Latino and under 45 years old, times feel particularly tough. Latinos, for example, were 22 points more likely than those who are white to say the country is in a recession.

Respondents under 45 were 17 points more likely than those over 45 years old to say the country was in a recession. Women were also 15 points more likely to say so than men.

Prices in many sectors remain high and, overall, people say affordability is a major issue. In fact, 70% in this survey said the area where they live is not very affordable or not affordable at all for the average family. That's up from 45% when Marist asked the same question in June, a whopping increase and a sign of how much people are feeling the economic pinch.

Republicans and independents were sharply more negative now than they were in June on affordability of the area they live in. In June, by a 64%-36% margin, Republicans said the cost of living was affordable or very affordable. But in this survey, they were split, 51%-49%.

Independents in June were more positive, with 54% saying the area they live in was affordable. But that has cratered, down 30 points.

A strong majority also say the economy simply isn't working for them

Roughly 6 in 10 said the economy is not working well for them personally, and more said their financial situation has gotten worse in the past year than better (35% vs. 21%).

There was a sharp partisan divide; it's become common over the past decade or so for the strength of the economy to be viewed through a political lens, like so many other things.

In this survey, most Democrats and independents said the economy isn't working well for them personally, while two-thirds of Republicans said it is.

Here, again, there were also significant divides by race, age, income, education and gender. For example, three-quarters of those who are Black and two-thirds of Latinos said the economy isn't working for them, compared to 56% of white people who said so.

Notably, there was also a sharp divide between men and women without college degrees — 69% of white women without degrees said the economy wasn't working for them, compared to 51% of white non-degreed men. This split was evident on several questions among this group, which is core to Trump's coalition.

Many are barely getting by, and they're worried about health care costs

Seven in 10 people surveyed said their expenses either match or exceed their income every month, and it's far worse for non-whites and younger people. While 68% of people who are white fall into this category, a far higher percentage of those who are Black (77%) and Latino (78%) said so.

It was a similar story for those who are younger, lower income or don't hold a college degree.

A quarter of people said their expenses consistently exceed their income, which translates to roughly 64 million adults who are accruing debt month to month. That was highest among people who make less than $50,000 a year, white women without college degrees, Millennials, those who are Black, Latino and those who have children under 18 years old.

This socioeconomic divide shows up throughout the survey, including on the question of whether people are satisfied with their savings. Fifty-four percent of those who are white are at least somewhat satisfied with the amount of money they currently have saved, versus just 41% of those who are Black and 40% of Latinos.

Similar gaps are clear by age and education, with a particularly wide chasm between those who have college degrees (60% satisfied with their savings) and those who do not have college degrees (41%).

The cost of health care is a major concern. In fact, a majority (54%) said they're concerned that their household will be unable to pay for needed health care services in the next year. Again, this was highest for those who are Black (69%), Latino (65%), make less than $50,000 a year (67%), are under 45 (61%), especially those 18-29 (63%) and women (61%).

People are pessimistic about the future and the state of the country

As the new year approaches, almost 6 in 10 said they are more pessimistic about what's ahead for the world in 2026.

Among those most pessimistic were Democrats, white women with college degrees, independents and Latinos. Those most optimistic included Republicans, white evangelical Christians, people who live in rural areas and whites without degrees (particularly white men) — all generally solid pro-Trump groups.

A significant share of respondents said the country is headed in the wrong direction — 63% — though there were similar demographic splits.

The survey was conducted from Dec. 8-11, reaching 1,440 adults through live interviewers, text and online. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 3.2 percentage points. The survey includes 1,261 registered voters. Where voters are mentioned, there is a +/- 3.4 percentage point margin of error.
Copyright 2025 NPR

A coalition of teachers and students is suing to block the implementation of a new California law that aims to address antisemitism concerns in K-12 public schools, amid ongoing debate over how classrooms can approach the latest conflict in the Middle East.

A judge is expected to hear arguments on Wednesday at the Northern District of California’s San José division. The lawsuit, filed by Jenin Younes, national legal director of the American-Arab Anti-discrimination Committee, claims that AB 715, which is set to take effect Jan. 1, 2026, is unconstitutionally vague.

“The real purpose of the bill is to chill the speech of teachers and students so that they’re afraid to talk about anything that could be deemed critical of Israel,” Younes said.

AB 715 adds to existing anti-discrimination state law through the creation of a governor-appointed Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator under a new California Office of Civil Rights. Proponents of AB 715 have said the coordinator will track antisemitic incidents at schools, help respond to cases and make policy recommendations to the state Legislature. 

The coordinator will also be tasked with training schools to identify antisemitism. The state law directs districts to rely on the Biden administration’s National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. This federal guide, in turn, refers to the working definition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Children play outside at the Jewish Family Services shelter for migrants in San Diego, Sept. 19, 2024. (Zoë Meyers for KQED)The Alliance’s definition includes 11 bullet-pointed descriptors of anti-Jewish bias. More than half of the list cites Israel, such as “claiming the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” “applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” and “accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel.”

Earlier iterations of AB 715 echoed — and expanded — on the IHRA’s definition. According to those versions — later stricken — an antisemitic learning environment could mean classrooms where instruction or materials assert “dual loyalty directed at Jewish individuals or communities,” “inaccurate historical narratives such as labeling Israel a settler colonial state” or discriminating against a “nationality,” including “a social organization where a collective identity has emerged from a combination of shared features.”

“The earlier iterations were pretty crazy,“ said Younes, who has argued that the final version of AB 715 has the same effect “surreptitiously.”

“It’s been an incredibly frustrating process,” said David Bocarsly, executive director of the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California and one of the main backers of the law.

Bocarsly said the committee started off its efforts as California mandated new ethnic studies courses to ensure they didn’t include antisemitic content. After pushback from educators, he said proponents decided to set their sights instead on protecting Jewish students more generally — in what eventually became AB 715. (A companion law, SB 48, creates four similar coordinator positions for religion, race, gender and LGBTQ+ discrimination prevention.)

“So, even this one bill that we asked to be focused just on the Jewish community because there was a particular acute need for our community, where there were opportunities to expand and support other vulnerable communities, we ultimately leapt at those opportunities,” Bocarsly said.

Teachers still weren’t on board with revisions to AB 715. In a statement, David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, the union that represents teachers in the state, said the law “raises serious free speech concerns” and “at a time when too many are seeking to attack academic freedom and weaponize public education, AB 715 would unfortunately arm ill-intentioned people with the ability to do so.”

The new law allows the public to anonymously file complaints not just about teacher materials they believe are discriminatory, but also instruction.

“Anytime that I meet with more than two teachers who are ethnic studies teachers in a group, this is one of the things that comes up. It’s like, ‘Hey, no one knows all the things that’re happening to us, and no one is really helping us,’” said Jason Muñiz, who supports around 500 Bay Area teachers in ethnic studies each year as part of his work with the University of California at Berkeley’s History-Social Science Project.

Muñiz said dozens of teachers have described becoming the subject of legal inquiries, including public records, related to lessons that touch on Judaism, Islam or the Middle East.

Bocarsly acknowledged the pressure that academic institutions face, noting that JPAC has spoken out against the Trump administration’s attempts to use antisemitism legislation as an excuse to cut school funding or diversity programs.

“We have gone through three different iterations of bills, have taken so many of [the educators’] recommendations, and they continue to move the goalposts and oppose everything that we do,” said Bocarsly, who considers the alleged lack of willingness to focus on Jewish student safety itself discrimination. “I think that there’s some implicit bias happening here.”

In the state’s official response to the motion for an injunction, California Attorney General Rob Bonta has argued that AB 715 does not create a new, undefined type of civil rights violation. He has said that fears of unfounded discrimination claims could happen under existing law and are not enough reason to block AB 715.

The L.A. County Department of Public Health says cases of norovirus — or the stomach flu — are on the rise.

Officials say over a three-week period ending Dec. 11, wastewater detection of norovirus increased by more than 250% countywide and 154% within the city of L.A.

The virus is very contagious, and is spread through direct contact with someone who has it, by eating contaminated food or by touching a contaminated surface, then touching your mouth.

Symptoms include diarrhea, nausea and vomiting and usually show up 12-48 hours after exposure. Children under 5 and older adults are more likely to experience more severe effects from the virus.

How to protect yourself

Public health officials say people should:

• Wash their hands frequently, especially before eating or preparing food or going to the bathroom
• Wash fruits and vegetables and thoroughly cook shellfish
• Clean infected surfaces with a bleach-based cleaner (alcohol won’t kill norovirus)