Congress has cut federal funding for public media — a $3.4 million loss for LAist. We count on readers like you to protect our nonprofit newsroom. Become a monthly member and sustain local journalism.
How To Stay Healthy This Holiday Season
A COVID-19 vaccine is prepared for use earlier this year at a vaccination event at Union Station in L.A.
(
Frederic J. Brown
/
AFP via Getty Images
)
Americans will soon be celebrating the holiday season in a semi-normal way for the first time in two years. But it comes at a time when respiratory viruses are surging across the country — including here in Southern California.
What's Going On?
A trio of viruses (COVID-19, flu and RSV) has made for a difficult respiratory virus season already. Flu cases are high and climbing. RSV is sending babies and young children to intensive care, and Los Angeles County now has 100 COVID cases a week for every 100,000 residents, putting us in the "high" transmission category, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
How These Viruses Spread
All three viruses predominantly spread the same way — by coming into contact with respiratory droplets from the nose and throat of infected people that are expelled when they cough or sneeze. The typical advice still applies. Wear an N95 mask in public, especially in airports if you’re traveling.
Support for LAist comes from
Why You Need to Get Vaccinated
Staying up to date on COVID vaccines will help you stay healthy and limit how sick you get if you are infected. People 5 years of age and older can receive a COVID bivalent booster which protects against BA.4 and BA.5, omicron subvariants that are responsible for the majority of current infection. For younger children only the primary series is available. There isn’t a vaccine for RSV, but washing hands and holding any gatherings outside as much as possible will help. For flu, the CDC recommends everyone 6 months and older receive a vaccine.
I Tested Positive For COVID. Now What?
First of all, don’t go to a party — you don’t want to infect anyone. Try to isolate yourself away from anyone you live with. Contact your health provider. You may be able to do a telehealth visit and skip the waiting room. Ask your health provider if treatments make sense, ideally in the first day or so. They both shorten the course and make it less severe. The antiviral paxlovid requires a prescription, and some adults may not be able to take it because it conflicts with common heart medications. Paxlovid pills are available nationwide as part of the federal government's 'test to treat' program.
Check For Extra Sick Time
Any full-time California employee of a company that has 26 or more workers has access to as much as two weeks paid time off for COVID-related sick leave, until the end of December. The law allows two 40-hour buckets of time, one for the employee and another if an employee’s family member tests positive. The two weeks do not need to be consecutive, and exhaustion of one is not required before using another. This temporary law ends Dec. 31.
Support for LAist comes from
As Editor-in-Chief of our newsroom, I’m extremely proud of the work our top-notch journalists are doing here at LAist. We’re doing more hard-hitting watchdog journalism than ever before — powerful reporting on the economy, elections, climate and the homelessness crisis that is making a difference in your lives. At the same time, it’s never been more difficult to maintain a paywall-free, independent news source that informs, inspires, and engages everyone.
Simply put, we cannot do this essential work without your help. Federal funding for public media has been clawed back by Congress and that means LAist has lost $3.4 million in federal funding over the next two years. So we’re asking for your help. LAist has been there for you and we’re asking you to be here for us.
We rely on donations from readers like you to stay independent, which keeps our nonprofit newsroom strong and accountable to you.
No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, press freedom is at the core of keeping our nation free and fair. And as the landscape of free press changes, LAist will remain a voice you know and trust, but the amount of reader support we receive will help determine how strong of a newsroom we are going forward to cover the important news from our community.
Please take action today to support your trusted source for local news with a donation that makes sense for your budget.
Thank you for your generous support and believing in independent news.
Chip in now to fund your local journalism
(
LAist
)
Trending on LAist
-
With less to prove than LA, the city is becoming a center of impressive culinary creativity. -
Nearly 470 sections of guardrailing were stolen in the last fiscal year in L.A. and Ventura counties.
-
Monarch butterflies are on a path to extinction, but there is a way to support them — and maybe see them in your own yard — by planting milkweed.
-
With California voters facing a decision on redistricting this November, Surf City is poised to join the brewing battle over Congressional voting districts.
-
The drug dealer, the last of five defendants to plead guilty to federal charges linked to the 'Friends' actor’s death, will face a maximum sentence of 65 years in prison.
-
The weather’s been a little different lately, with humidity, isolated rain and wind gusts throughout much of Southern California. What’s causing the late-summer bout of gray?
Best of LAist