File # MV230930005

Details:

On Monday, April 3, 2023, about 12:27 AM, deputies assigned to the Moreno Valley Sheriff’s Station responded to the area of Manzanita Avenue and Shagbark Road, regarding multiple reports of shots heard. Deputies arrived within minutes and detained a suspect who matched the description of the shooter. Deputies located a discarded firearm and shell casings in the area. While deputies were investigating the original call, a reporting party, who lived one block away, reported to dispatch her son (Angel Delarosa 29 year old resident of Moreno Valley) shot at his girlfriend’s vehicle as she drove away after an argument.

The victim ( A 35-year-old Hispanic female and resident of Las Vegas, who is five months pregnant) was later located in the area, was not injured, and declined medical attention. Delarosa was found to be on active parole through the California Department of Corrections for Assault with a Deadly Weapon. Delarosa was later booked at the Robert Presley Detention Center for Assault with a Deadly Weapon (Firearm), Discharge of a Firearm at an occupied vehicle, Parole Violation, and other firearm related charges.

Anyone with information on this case is encouraged to call Deputy Holm at the Moreno Valley Sheriff’s Station by calling (951) 486–6700.

For media inquiries regarding this incident please contact the Media Information Bureau.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Parolee Assaults Pregnant Girlfriend with Firearm appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

THE CORONAVIRUS FILES

Looking back, and forward, after three pandemic years

The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic in March 2020, and several news outlets noted the anniversary last week. 

Laurel Wamsley at NPR recalled how Dr. Anthony Fauci told an unmasked Congress that things would get worse. The bull stock market plummeted into bear territory. Then-President Donald Trump banned travel from Europe, and actor Tom Hanks and basketball player Rudy Gobert tested positive, leading the former to isolate in Australia and the NBA to cancel a game, then the entire season.

If some — or much — of that sounds unfamiliar, you’re not alone. 

“Over time, many details will probably fade because of the quirks and limitations of how much our brains can remember,” writes Richard Sima at The Washington Post. “It was difficult for our brains to encode the overload of information we had to sift through — masks, social distancing, superspreaders, more cases, more deaths, new waves and new variants such as omicron and delta, and who even remembers all the subvariants?”

Yet such collective forgetting means society risks not preparing for future pandemics. 

“Many aspects of how to best respond to a novel virus remain unsettled or fiercely debated,” writes The New York Times, introducing a series of opinion essays arguing the merits of closing schools, banning international travel, and mandating masks or vaccines.

In a recent YouGov poll, conducted in January 2023, about two-thirds of Americans said they remain concerned about the threat of future pandemics, and most would like the U.S. government to invest more in pandemic preparedness.

Part of that preparedness should involve a bipartisan “post-mortem” analysis of the U.S. pandemic response, to identify where mistakes were made and learn from them, argue veterinarian Leslie Bienen and infectious disease expert Margery Smelkinson in Time. 

The pandemic also did long-term damage to the health care system that requires urgent action, writes Dr. Atul Gawande, a global health administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development, in The New York Times. 

Scientists have learned a lot in the past three years, writes Stephanie Pappas at Scientific American. New mRNA-based vaccines, face masks, ventilation, viral genomic surveillance and wastewater tracking all proved useful weapons against COVID-19.

Yet plenty of questions remain. “There are so many things that I — you know, my team would love to know about COVID, particularly how a person might develop long COVID and how we can prevent that,” Yale immunologist Akiko Iwasaki told Sacha Pfeiffer at NPR’s Morning Edition. 

It’s not even clear how to define long COVID, what causes it, and how many people have it, notes Dylan Scott at Vox. 

Then there’s the $64,000 question: Is the pandemic over? The U.S. winter wave was much smaller than in the preceding two years, notes Mary Kekatos at ABC News. 

“A combination of more immunity, better treatments, less severe infections and more people following mitigation measures likely played a role,” Kekatos writes.

Yet COVID is still killing more than 300 people per day in the U.S.

And a new variant or outbreak could easily worsen the situation, Kekatos warns.

There’s no one organization that calls the end of a pandemic, writes Jennifer Alsever at Fast Company. Scientific, social, and political factors are all at play.

Americans are nearly evenly split on whether COVID has passed the pandemic stage, according to a March Gallup poll. 

“It’s over when people decide it’s over and return to normal patterns of living,” said John M. Barry, author of a book about the 1918 influenza pandemic. “Which we seem to have done.”

New analysis points to animal origin for COVID

Coronavirus genetic material was closely associated with that from raccoon dogs being sold at the Wuhan wet market in 2019, scientists asserted last week, providing the “strongest evidence yet” that the virus emerged from the illegal wildlife trade, Katherine J. Wu was the first to report at The Atlantic. 

The evidence comes from swabs taken in the market in January 2020, after the outbreak began and the animals were removed. 

The sequencing data from these samples, briefly posted to an international database and noticed by scientists before they were taken down again, do not confirm that raccoon dogs were infected, nor prove they passed the virus to people. 

But researchers said the finding “was consistent with a scenario in which the virus had spilled into humans from a wild animal,” writes Benjamin Mueller at The New York Times. 

Wu explains, “Think of it as finding the DNA of an investigation’s main suspect at the scene of the crime.” 

Last week, the House of Representatives voted unanimously to declassify intelligence about the origins of the coronavirus, including information related to activities and any illnesses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The legislation was already approved by the Senate, but President Joe Biden has not yet decided if he’ll sign it, reports Lisa Mascaro at AP News.

Black children and babies bore brunt of COVID

A new study highlights racial inequities among children during the pandemic, when Black children were hospitalized and died at more than twice the rate of white children.

“Children with COVID-19 in communities of color were sicker, hospitalized and died at higher rates than white children,” said Sandra Harris-Hooker of the Morehouse School of Medicine, one of the historically Black organizations that participated in the study commissioned by the Black Coalition Against COVID.

Misinformation and mistrust about COVID safety protocols and vaccines played key roles in the disparities, reports Donovan J. Thomas at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The report also pointed to the effects of social factors such as poverty and housing insecurity that rose for Black and Latino families during the pandemic.

Children of color have also been subject to higher rates of and long-term symptoms, more likely to lose a primary caregiver, and suffered deep learning gaps.

Another new study reports that sudden unexpected infant deaths rose among non-Hispanic Black babies during the first pandemic year, to nearly triple the rate among non-Hispanic white babies in 2020.

The deaths, reported by a CDC team in the journal Pediatrics, included sudden infant death syndrome as well as accidental suffocation and other unknown causes. 

The authors characterized the findings as preliminary, and said they weren’t sure what factors were behind the changes. 

But a commentary in the journal by other physicians pointed to a variety of possible causes, including poverty, lack of access to health care and less education about safe sleep practices and breastfeeding. 

They also noted that during the pandemic, resources such as doctors’ offices and programs that support families cut back on in-person care, which may have limited support to Black families.

“If you don’t have a safe place for your baby to sleep, how are you going to have them sleep safely?” commentary author Dr. Rebecca Carlin, a pediatrician with Columbia University, pointed out to Erika Edwards at NBC News.

Pandemic likely contributed to spike in maternal death rates

Experts blame COVID-19 infections and physician burnout for a 40% rise in maternal mortality in the U.S. in 2021, reports Mike Stobbs at AP News.

More than 1,200 women died during pregnancy or shortly after childbirth in 2021, according to new CDC data. 

Pregnant people infected with COVID have a seven times higher risk of death than uninfected pregnant people, reports Akilah Johnson at The Washington Post. 

“It didn’t help that vaccination rates among pregnant women were disappointingly low in 2021 — particularly among Black women,” Stobbs adds. 

Maternal mortality among Black women was more than double that of white women in 2021.

The CDC did not issue a complete recommendation for pregnant women to get vaccinated until August of that year.

Maternal mortality rates fell in 2022, and while the data aren’t fully in, they are likely to come closer to pre-COVID levels.

FDA supports Paxlovid for adults, booster for young children

An FDA committee voted 16-1 in support of full, non-emergency approval of the antiviral medication Paxlovid on Thursday.

The agency and its advisors agreed the drug’s benefits for adults with mild to moderate COVID, and who are at high risk for severe disease, outweigh the medication’s risks.

The FDA is expected to complete its analysis in May, reports Janelle Chavez at CNN Health.

More than 8 million people in the U.S. have received the drug since its emergency authorization in December 2021.

“Besides oxygen, Paxlovid has probably been the single most important tool in this epidemic,” said Dr. Richard Murphy, a member of the FDA committee.

The FDA, in a report leading up to the committee vote, concluded that Paxlovid does not specifically promote COVID rebound, in which a person tests positive, negative, then positive again. 

People who took placebo medication in clinical trials also experienced rebound, according to the agency. It characterized rebound as part of the natural course of some infections.

The FDA also granted emergency authorization to a fourth dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine for children younger than 5, reports Kristina Fiore at MedPage Today. 

Children who received the Pfizer primary series — three shots of the original-formula, monovalent vaccine for ages from 6 months to four years — are now eligible for a booster with the newer, bivalent formula.

The new authorization reflects data on the immune responses of 60 children who received three monovalent shots before a bivalent booster.

Meanwhile, STAT’s Helen Branswell wonders about boosters for adults who haven’t had a COVID shot since fall. 

Some nations, including Canada and the U.K., already have plans to offer spring boosters to people at high risk of severe illness. This would aim to counter waning immunity.

Some experts say people who are older or immunocompromised deserve another booster.

“But in the United States, there’s been radio silence from the Food and Drug Administration,” writes Branswell.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Coronavirus Files: Three years in, data show pandemic hurt Black children, pregnant women appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Drug overdose deaths among pregnant and postpartum women more than doubled between 2017 and 2020, according to a new study conducted at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The analysis also revealed that the number of pregnancy-associated overdose deaths reached a record high in 2020, likely exacerbated by social, economic, and healthcare disruptions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings are published in JAMA.

“We’ve seen significant increases in fatal and nonfatal overdose in the general population during the pandemic,” said Emilie Bruzelius, MPH, a doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School and first author. “It now appears that pregnant and postpartum women are being affected as well.”

Pregnancy-associated overdose deaths between 2017 and 2020 were identified from national death certificate data which includes information on whether the death occurred among a person who was currently or recently pregnant. The researchers calculated annual overdose mortality rates and examined the specific drug types involved in each overdose. For comparison, the researchers also calculated overdose mortality rates among reproductive age women overall (who were not pregnant).



Of the 7,642 pregnancy-associated deaths occurring among pregnant and postpartum women, 1,249 were due to drug overdose. Over the four-year period, overdose mortality increased more than 80 percent to a high of 11.85 per 100,000 in 2020, compared to a 38 percent increase among reproductive age women overall. For both groups, increases in overdose mortality in 2020 were more were more pronounced than increases in any other prior year.

Pregnancy-associated overdose deaths involving benzodiazepines, heroin and prescription opioids were mostly stable from 2017 and 2020, versus large increases in deaths involving fentanyl, methamphetamines and cocaine. Increases in fentanyl-involved deaths were especially marked in 2020, nearly doubling.



“Pregnant and postpartum people are known to face barriers to accessing drug treatment and harm reduction services, that when compounded by pandemic-associated stressors, healthcare shutdowns, and an increasingly volatile unregulated drug supply, may have increased fatal overdose risk,” said Bruzelius.

“Enhanced strategies supporting substance use prevention, treatment, and harm reduction efforts among pregnant and postpartum people are critical and much needed. We expect new and improved approaches will help address the concerning trends we are seeing,” noted Silvia Martins, MD, PhD, professor of epidemiology and senior author. 

The study was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (grant R01DA045872). 

 Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Record High Drug Overdose Deaths Reported Among Pregnant and Postpartum Women appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California has among the lowest death rates nationally among pregnant women and new mothers, but the numbers for Black mothers tell a different story.

They were six times more likely to die within a year of pregnancy than white women from 2014 to 2016 and had a higher rate of death than Black women nationally from 2014 to 2017, the most recent time frame for which data is available.

A bill before Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom aims to change that. Nicknamed the “Momnibus” bill, it would collect more details about pregnancy-related deaths, diversify the experts looking at that data and require them to recommend ways to reduce racial gaps. It also would expand access to doulas and midwives, whose presence can drive better care.

“If you really want to address the issue, it is going to take a serious investment and resources, whether that means providing every Black mother a doula or really investigating what’s happening when Black mothers die,” said Jen Flory, policy advocate for the Western Center on Law and Poverty, which supports the bill.

Newsom backed past efforts to improve care for Black pregnant women by requiring implicit bias training for health care workers involved in perinatal care, and he’s made support for women and mothers a priority for his administration. But his Department of Finance opposes the bill because the $6.7 million price tag for expanded data collection wasn’t included in the state budget. Newsom hasn’t said whether he’ll sign it.

Among wealthy nations, the United States ranks poorly in maternal death rates, and California’s effort is part of a national push to improve outcomes. During his campaign, President Joe Biden lauded California’s efforts to reduce deaths, and in April he proclaimed Black Maternal Health Week.

There are two ways to track deaths: The maternal mortality rate, used globally, counts deaths during pregnancy and within 42 days of giving birth. The pregnancy-related mortality rate, used in California and some other states, tracks deaths within a year of giving birth. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looks at both, though data lags and isn’t available to compare across states for the latter measure.

Earlier this month, the California Department of Public Health released a report tracking California’s outcomes from 2008 to 2016. Maternal deaths within a year of pregnancy hit a low in 2012, with fewer than 10 per 100,000 live births. It ticked up to about 14 deaths in 2016, slightly behind the national rate of almost 17 deaths. Using the maternal mortality rate, California ranked only behind Illinois for lowest death rates in 2019.

But the rate for Black women was far higher. From 2014 to 2016 in California, about 56 Black women died per 100,000 live births, compared to 13 Asians, 11 Latinas and fewer than 10 whites. Nationally, Black women died at a rate of nearly 42 per 100,000 live births from 2014 to 2017. California’s Black women died at six times the rate of white women, up from three times the rate in 2008.

“The reality is there is a disparity between Black and white women and it’s not getting better,” said Kimberly D. Gregory, director of maternal fetal medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and former member of the California’s pregnancy surveillance committee.

The committee plans to release data on pregnancy-related deaths through 2020 by next year. It relies on grant funding.

The bill by Democratic Sen. Nancy Skinner aims to write the committee into state law and strengthen its data collection and duties. It would require the committee to have 13 members, including doctors, midwives, doulas and community advocates and would include a tribal representative. Most of its current members are doctors.

The committee would investigate every maternal death and allow for voluntary interviews of family members to better understand what happened. The committee would have to publish its findings and recommendations every three years. It would also look into pregnancy-related deaths among LGBTQ people.

“We can make better decisions about prevention, intervention, systems changes, not only at the hospital level but at the community level,” said Mashariki Kudumu, director of maternal and infant health initiatives for the March of Dimes, Greater Los Angeles, which is a cosponsor of the bill. “What comes with diverse and different perspectives are better changes to systems that improve care.”

Kudumu is also trained as a doula. Newsom in his state budget made doulas a covered benefit under Medi-Cal, the state’s health insurance program for low-income people, following states including New York and Illinois. Doulas are trained to assist and advocate for women in pregnancy and during and after birth. Research shows their presence reduces pregnancy complications and low birthweight babies.

The benefit takes effect next year, and the bill before Newsom would establish a group to study its use. The proposal also expands training for midwives.

Kudumu said she’s helped women stick to their birthing plans in the face of pressure from doctors and provided them with breastfeeding and lactation support.

She knows the value from personal experience. When Kudumu delivered her son prematurely she felt disrespected by the doctor because she’s a Black woman who was on Medi-Cal at the time while she was in graduate school.

Kudumu had to fight to ensure her son got breastmilk instead of formula while he was in the newborn intensive care unit. She remembers the doctor’s attitude changing when another doula at the hospital came up to greet her.

“We want to make sure that this resource — that evidence shows improves health outcomes — is more accessible to people,” she said.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Lower death rates for Black moms is goal of California bill appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Kids just out of foster care will have options with a $1,000 per month income. Some expectant mothers can eat healthy food as well as pay the rent and bills.

Scott Santens has fought for Universal Basic Income for many years. I know because I’ve followed him. He must be delighted California – the most enlightened state – has granted a state-paid guaranteed income for foster youth and pregnant women in particular.

SEED program

Mayor Michael Tubbs launched his privately-funded guaranteed income program on March 9, 2020. The timely experiment began when many Black and Brown people wouldn’t have survived sheltering in place without $500 per month.

The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED) funded the program. Sukhi Samra, the executive director, spoke about how the pandemic exposed fragile American households. Primarily Black and Brown families who lived from paycheck to paycheck.

What the program did for people, as Michael Tubbs so eloquently said, was unlock time and possibilities.

Other cash payments E

ven back in July 2020, Senator Mitt Romney called for every American to get cash payments. Senators Biden and Harris proposed anyone who earned less than $120,000 should receive $2,000 per month throughout the pandemic.

Coincidentally, the Whitehouse has also rolled out its $15 billion expanded Child Tax Credit for 60 million children this month. The guaranteed income payment is expected to last through December.

The first state-funded guaranteed income

When Gov. Gavin Newsom signs the bill, California will have the first crack at the $35 million pot. Other cities and counties can apply for existing or new pilots that prioritize youths fresh out of foster care and mums-to-be. These payments mean teenagers leaving foster care might stand a chance of studying for a better than minimum wage job.

The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) offers college support programs. The Educational Services and Support Division makes sure all foster youths have access to further education. One in particular; Next Up offers everything a youth leaving foster care would need to get their college education.

As for pregnant people, yes people – anyone with a uterus and ovaries can get pregnant. According to Cal Matters, San Francisco is offering 150 Black and Pacific Islander pregnant women $1,000 per month.

Some good has come of the pandemic

It shined a spotlight on the hardest-hit areas of populations. Folks who were in trouble before COVID-19 hit them, then had to self-isolate from their minimum wage essential worker jobs without pay.

Libby Schaaf, Oakland’s mayor, announced a privately funded $6.75m program. The latest in California as of March 2021. The mayor believes the unconditional payment of $500 will bring about the most promising means of change for systems, racial equality, and economic mobility.

Hope

California is a beam of hope for all Americans who could use a leg up out of their never-ending cycle of food insecurity and paying the rent and other essential bills.

With more pilot schemes starting, the people made and kept poor because of their gender, their race, their situation, or a combination of all three, may soon see their time unlocked and life-changing possibilities. Perhaps, hope for a better life.

Could Scott Santens and Libby Schaaf’s dream of a new world of financial freedom finally come true? This is original content from NewsBreak’s Creator Program. Join today to publish and share your own content.

Karen Madej | Contributed

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post California gets the first state-funded, no restrictions, $1000 guaranteed income for foster youth and pregnant people appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

One of the largest reports on COVID-19 vaccination in pregnancy bolsters evidence that it is safe although the authors say more comprehensive research is needed.

The preliminary results are based on reports from over 35,000 U.S. women who received either the Moderna or Pfizer shots while pregnant. Their rates of miscarriage, premature births and other complications were comparable to those observed in published reports on pregnant women before the pandemic.

The new evidence from researchers at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

None of the women involved received Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine, which became available after the study, and is now in limbo as U.S. authorities examine reports of blood clots in a handful of women.

Separately, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine on Tuesday endorsed vaccination in pregnancy, based on evidence it has been evaluating for over a year.

‘’Everyone, including pregnant women and those seeking to become pregnant, should get a COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccines are safe and effective,’’ the society said in a statement.

A society representative said the group has not evaluated the latest evidence on Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine.

An American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists representative said the CDC report is promising but that longer-term follow-up is needed. That group has said previously that COVID-19 vaccination should be available to pregnant women and to those who are breastfeeding, and many pregnant U.S. women have chosen to be vaccinated.

Although pregnant women were excluded from studies that led to emergency authorization for the vaccines, evidence showed no harms in women who were unknowingly pregnant when they enrolled.

Dr. Laura Riley, ob-gyn chair at New York’s Weill Cornell Medicine, said the new results are reassuring.

‘’It is great to have data to share with our patients who continue to weigh the risks and benefits of vaccination,” she said. “They know the potential complications of COVID infection in pregnancy and now there is some safety data in human pregnancies.’’

Pregnant women who become infected with the coronavirus face elevated risks for complications including intensive-care hospitalization, premature births and death.

The study authors, led by the CDC’s Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, said continued monitoring and more evidence is needed including on women who get COVID-19 vaccinations in the early stages of pregnancy.

Their study included information on 35,691 pregnant U.S. women who participated in a voluntary smartphone-based vaccination surveillance system and who received Moderna or Pfizer vaccines between mid-December 2020 and late February.

It also included reports on pregnancy complications from almost 4,000 women enrolled in a U.S. vaccine safety registry. Of these, 86% or 712 resulted in a live birth, mostly among women vaccinated in the third trimester.

Most women in the surveillance group reported injection site pain but more serious reactions were less common. Pregnant women seemed more prone to injection site pain with both vaccines but less likely to experience other reactions than non-pregnant women.

In the vaccine registry, about 13% of pregnant women reported miscarriages, less than 1% stillbirths, 9% premature births and 2% birth defects. Those rates are all within the same range observed in reports in pregnant women before the pandemic.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post New data reassuring for COVID-19 vaccination in pregnancy appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.