How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
News
- Details
- Written by: Lake County News reports
This grant opportunity came through the Mental Health Services Oversight & Accountability Commission, which also oversees Mental Health Services Act funding for California counties.
Behavioral Health Services has long provided services to young people experiencing the early onset of psychosis, as well as other behavioral or emotional challenges.
Officials saisd this grant will facilitate a significant expansion of services in line with an evidence-based fidelity model.
Significant growth is expected in the following areas:
– Clinical training on cutting-edge, evidence-based practices for this population;
– Training on community screening and identification of youth experiencing the early onset of psychosis;
– Supported employment;
– Co-occurring substance use disorder services;
– Psychoeducational groups for families, caregivers and parents; and
– Psychoeducational and wellness groups for youth.
Symptoms of psychosis can appear in childhood and adolescence, and may or may not lead to a life-long mental illness.
The goal of early intervention services is to effectively treat and hopefully prevent these symptoms from becoming a chronic illness.
It is estimated that 5 to 8 percent of the general population may experience symptoms of psychosis in a given year, and there may be an even higher incidence in children and adolescents.
Signs and symptoms of psychosis may include:
– Hearing, seeing, tasting or believing things that others don’t;
– Persistent, unusual thoughts or beliefs that can’t be set aside regardless of what others believe;
– Strong and inappropriate emotions or no emotions at all;
– Withdrawing from family or friends;
– A sudden decline in self-care;
– Trouble thinking clearly or concentrating.
Behavioral Health Services will begin implementation of this grant later this year, and project implementation will take place over four years.
The agency said this is an exciting opportunity to expand and improve our services to young people in Lake County.
“Lake County Behavioral Health Services strives to provide the highest quality behavioral healthcare to some of our most vulnerable community members,” the county said in a written statement.
For more information, contact Lake County Behavioral Health Services at 707-274-9101 or 707-994-7090.
- Details
- Written by: Ryan Malosh, University of Michigan
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has new guidance clarifying what exactly “close contact” means when it comes to transmission of SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The previous guidance suggested that a close contact occurred when a person was within six feet of an infectious individual for 15 consecutive minutes. Now, the CDC is acknowledging that even brief contact can lead to transmission. Specifically, the new guidance suggests that those spending a total of 15 minutes of contact with an infectious person over the course of a 24-hour period should be considered in close contact.
Despite the change, most public health professionals have been clear for months that there is nothing magic about six feet. In the same way, there is nothing magic about 15 minutes. These should be used as rough estimates to indicate the types of contact that are relatively higher risk.
This new guidance, then, is an important recognition of the ease with which this virus can spread. It is not a dramatic reversal of CDC guidance, like those related to masks and the back-and-forth on testing of asymptomatic individuals.
This change reflects new evidence that has emerged. This change is an example of how science works. As an epidemiologist who studies respiratory virus transmission, I actually don’t think this change will greatly impact how we live our lives during the pandemic, but it does represent continued evidence of how easily this virus spreads.
Why the change?
The new advice comes on the heels of an outbreak investigation published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The investigation found that a prison employee in Vermont was infected, most likely during a series of brief contacts with infected but asymptomatic inmates.
The inmates were waiting on test results in a quarantine unit. The employee reported no close contacts outside of work and they hadn’t traveled outside the state. At the time Vermont was experiencing low levels of community spread. The outbreak investigation used video evidence from surveillance cameras in the prison to document the short interactions. Each interaction lasted about a minute, and in total the employee was in close contact with the infected inmates for about 17 minutes over the course of an eight-hour shift. For at least some of those interactions, the infected inmates weren’t wearing masks.
Documenting infectious contact is hard for respiratory viruses. After all, we can’t see the virus moving through the air. The video footage in this case represents pretty robust evidence. And so the CDC is recognizing the possibility that shorter interactions carry some risk.
This change is also an acknowledgment that the previous definition makes at least one explicit assumption that may not be true. The major assumption of the old rule is that there is a threshold effect of exposure. That is, once you’ve been exposed to a certain amount of virus (15 minutes’ worth), your risk of disease increases. The flip side of this assumption is that at levels below that threshold your risk remains low. That is why we’ve seen some schools mistakenly moving students around at 14-minute intervals.
The new guidance suggests that there is more of a dose-response relationship between viral exposure and risk of disease. Which is to say, the more virus you are exposed to, the higher your risk, even if the exposure doesn’t happen all at once.
What does it mean?
While I don’t think this update will result in big changes, one thing it does do is expand the pool of people for contact tracing. In the ideal scenario, this change could mean that we catch more cases early after exposure. Those people can then begin to quarantine before they become infectious and spread it on to others.
[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]
Take, for example, the upcoming holidays. Having family over for Thanksgiving typically means sharing a meal, and likely spending several hours in close contact with others. That is still a risk, especially since those without symptoms can spread the disease.
The people who attend that gathering would all have been considered close contacts before, and they still are. But now, brief interactions that add up over time – for example, with a server at a restaurant – will be considered close contact.
This change by CDC suggests that we need to be more careful about brief interactions – for example, in the office or at school. We shouldn’t think to ourselves “This will only be a minute, I don’t need my mask.” The importance of wearing masks at all times to protect others has never been more clear. We may not know that we’re infected, and even a brief, unmasked encounter could spread the virus.
Ryan Malosh, Assistant Research Scientist, University of Michigan
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
- Details
- Written by: Lake County News reports
The city invites applications for three upcoming vacancies on the Measure Z Advisory Committee, or MZAC.
These appointments would be effective as of Jan. 1, 2021.
Membership to this committee is open to residents of the city of Lakeport residing within the city Limits.
If you are interested in serving on the MZAC, applications are available on the city website under the Community News Topic, “Now Recruiting: Commission/Committee Openings,” or under the “Government” tab (Committees & Commissions).
The MZAC consists of five members appointed by the Lakeport City Council who serve four-year terms.
These are voluntary positions. This committee meets quarterly.
The role of MZAC is to review all revenues and expenditures of the Measure Z transactions and use tax, and make recommendations to the city council regarding those expenditures.
Applications will be accepted until Nov. 24 at 5 p.m.
For additional information, please contact Deputy City Clerk Hilary Britton at 707-263-5615, Extension 102, or by email at
- Details
- Written by: NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Two days after touching down on asteroid Bennu, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission team received on Thursday, Oct. 22, images that confirm the spacecraft has collected more than enough material to meet one of its main mission requirements – acquiring at least 2 ounces (60 grams) of the asteroid’s surface material.
The spacecraft captured images of the sample collector head as it moved through several different positions.
In reviewing these images, the OSIRIS-REx team noticed both that the head appeared to be full of asteroid particles, and that some of these particles appeared to be escaping slowly from the sample collector, called the Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) head.
They suspect bits of material are passing through small gaps where a mylar flap – the collector’s “lid” – is slightly wedged open by larger rocks.
“Bennu continues to surprise us with great science and also throwing a few curveballs,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for science at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “And although we may have to move more quickly to stow the sample, it’s not a bad problem to have. We are so excited to see what appears to be an abundant sample that will inspire science for decades beyond this historic moment.”
The team believes it has collected a sufficient sample and is on a path to stow the sample as quickly as possible. They came to this conclusion after comparing images of the empty collector head with Oct. 22 images of the TAGSAM head after the sample collection event.
The images also show that any movement to the spacecraft and the TAGSAM instrument may lead to further sample loss. To preserve the remaining material, the mission team decided to forego the Sample Mass Measurement activity originally scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 24, and canceled a braking burn scheduled for Friday to minimize any acceleration to the spacecraft.
From here, the OSIRIS-Rex team will focus on stowing the sample in the Sample Return Capsule, or SRC, where any loose material will be kept safe during the spacecraft’s journey back to Earth.
“We are working to keep up with our own success here, and my job is to safely return as large a sample of Bennu as possible,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. “The loss of mass is of concern to me, so I’m strongly encouraging the team to stow this precious sample as quickly as possible.”
The TAGSAM head performed the sampling event in optimal conditions. Newly available analyses show that the collector head was flush with Bennu’s surface when it made contact and when the nitrogen gas bottle was fired to stir surface material. It also penetrated several centimeters into the asteroid’s surface material. All data so far suggest that the collector head is holding much more than 2 ounces of regolith.
OSIRIS-REx remains in good health, and the mission team is finalizing a timeline for sample storage. An update will be provided once a decision is made on the sample storage timing and procedures.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the spacecraft and is providing flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace of Tempe, Arizona, are responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.
OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.