The time for colds and coughs is here again. But while Influenza and RSV activity is “moderate and increasing” in California.COVID activity is unusually low for the vacation season.

The latest weekly update from the California Department of Public Health shows the flu test positivity rate increased nearly 4 percentage points to 13.2% in per week (as of Dec. 14, essentially the most recent data available). The COVID positivity rate is 2.3%, a rise of 0.2 percentage points from the previous week.

The The Department of Health's weekly updates are published most Fridaysbut respiratory virus reports for the last two weeks of the yr should not reported until January.

“COVID is increasing, but flu is currently leading the way,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus on the UC Berkeley School of Public Health.

Since COVID emerged at the top of the 2019-2020 respiratory virus season, it has been by far the deadliest respiratory virus for which the state collects and publishes weekly data, even though it has killed fewer people in each of the previous few years in comparison with early within the yr Pandemic.

Since July 1, there have been 1,873 COVID deaths across California — with the summer surge not easing until late August — and 89 flu deaths.

After spiking in late summer, COVID deaths hit latest lows again, and as we enter the brand new yr, testing, hospitalizations and deaths are only starting to indicate signs of a rise.

“If you look at the wastewater data, the number of COVID-19 infections is clearly increasing across the United States and particularly in California,” Swartzberg said.

In Santa Clara County, wastewater measurements show the identical pattern. County public health officials are monitoring local wastewater and testing it for virus levels in 4 local sewage sheds. Accordingly aggregated wastewater surveillance data monitored by the state health departmentCOVID levels across the Bay Area region have just moved from low to moderate and are rising.

Influenza concentrations began to rise in November and continued to rise through December. RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) has been on the rise for the reason that end of November. Swartzberg said RSV could have peaked, but COVID continues to be expected to spike later within the season.

After a chronic surge that lasted from June to August, concentrations of COVID within the county's 4 sewers have been low since mid-October, with concentrations throughout the county at high levels more often than not.

Now December COVID levels seem like at their lowest levels lately. “It looks better than last year and last year was the best winter we had,” Swartzberg said.

Even though the variety of COVID vaccinations is lower than in the primary few years of their availability, there continues to be some immunity within the population against this summer's surge. But the number of people that have received the newest vaccination is, in Swartzberg’s opinion, “disappointingly low”. Influenza vaccination rates are higher, but nowhere near early COVID vaccination rates.

A brand new RSV vaccine beneficial for the very young, those over 75 and another high-risk people could help result in an overall improvement in virus rates this yr in comparison with last, Swartzberg said. Since this respiratory virus season began on July 1, California has reported 21 deaths as a result of the virus, including 4 children, in comparison with 33 at the identical time last yr. “RSV appears to be on track for a better year,” he said.

And while much has modified, including the prevalence of COVID at this yr's holiday dinners in comparison with past years, Swartzberg's general advice hasn't modified: “Please get vaccinated. It's not too late.”

Originally published: December 31, 2024 at 1:45 pm PST

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip – Winter is approaching the Gaza Strip and lots of the nearly two million Palestinians displaced by the devastating 14-month war with Israel are struggling to shelter from wind, cold and rain.

There is a scarcity of blankets and warm clothing, there’s little wood for fires and the tents and patched tarpaulins through which the families live have grow to be increasingly worn out after months of intensive use, helpers and residents report.

Shadia Aiyada, who was displaced from the southern city of Rafah to the coastal Muwasi region, has only a blanket and a hot water bottle to maintain her eight children from shivering of their fragile tent.

“We get scared every time we hear from the weather forecast that there will be rainy and windy days because our tents will be lifted by the wind. We fear that strong winds may one day destroy our tents while we are indoors,” she said.

Since temperatures can drop into the 40s (mid to high single digits Celsius) at night, Aiyada fears her children will get sick without warm clothing.

When they fled their home, her children only had their summer clothes, she said. They were forced to borrow from relatives and friends to maintain warm.

The United Nations warns that individuals living in precarious shelters may not survive the winter. At least 945,000 people need winter equipment that has grow to be prohibitively expensive in Gaza, the United Nations said in an update on Tuesday. The United Nations also fears that infectious diseases, which surged last winter, will rise again amid rising malnutrition.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, generally known as UNRWA, has been planning for Gaza's winter all yr long, however the aid it has been in a position to bring to the world is “far from enough for the people,” said Louise Wateridge, an agency spokesperson.

UNRWA distributed 6,000 tents in northern Gaza over the past 4 weeks, but was unable to maneuver them to other parts of Gaza, including areas where there was fighting. About 22,000 tents have been stuck in Jordan for the reason that summer and 600,000 blankets and 33 truckloads of mattresses are in Egypt since the agency has no Israeli approval or a protected method to get them to Gaza and since it has needed to prioritize urgently needed food aid, said Wateridge.

Many of the mattresses and blankets have since been looted or destroyed by weather and rodents, she said.

The International Rescue Committee is having difficulty importing winter clothing for youngsters due to “a lot of approvals that need to be obtained from relevant authorities,” said Dionne Wong, the organization's deputy program director for the occupied Palestinian territories.

“The ability of Palestinians to prepare for winter is fundamentally very limited,” Wong said.

The Israeli government agency accountable for coordinating aid deliveries to Gaza said in an announcement that Israel has been working with international organizations for months to arrange Gaza for winter, including facilitating the delivery of heaters, warm clothing, tents and Blankets in the world.

According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, greater than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed within the Gaza war. The ministry's count doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants, but says greater than half of the fatalities were women and youngsters. The Israeli military says it has killed greater than 17,000 militants without providing evidence.

The war was sparked by Hamas' attack on southern Israel in October 2023, through which the militant group killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages in Gaza.

Negotiators say Israel and Hamas are slowly moving toward a ceasefire agreement that will include a rise in aid deliveries to the world.

Currently, winter clothing on the market in Gaza markets is way too expensive for most individuals to afford, residents and aid employees said.

Reda Abu Zarada, 50, who was displaced from the northern Gaza Strip along with her family, said the adults sleep with the youngsters of their arms to maintain them warm of their tent.

On Thursday evening, she battled knee pain exacerbated by the cold weather to roast zucchini over a hearth constituted of scraps of paper and cardboard outside her tent. She hoped the small meal would warm the youngsters before bed.

Omar Shabet, who was displaced from Gaza City and lives together with his three children, feared that lighting a hearth outside his tent would make his family a goal for Israeli warplanes.

“We go into our tents after sunset and don’t go out because it is very cold and it gets even colder at midnight,” he said. “My 7-year-old daughter almost cries at night because she is so cold.”

Feeling stuffy and prepared to succeed in for NyQuil, Benadryl, or Sudafed PE?

Not so fast.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed phasing out the usage of oral phenylephrine, a standard ingredient in lots of cold and allergy medications — and a few pharmacies are already moving to tug the favored products from shelves.

Florida researchers have been studying the effectiveness of oral phenylephrine for 20 years. Back in 2005, researchers on the University of Florida College of Pharmacy suspected that this ingredient didn’t relieve nasal congestion, despite the fact that it is often used for this purpose. The researchers evaluated several studies on oral phenylephrine and combined them in a meta-analysis. They concluded that drugs containing this ingredient don’t work higher than placebo pills in patients with colds and allergic congestion.

“For 20 years we've been telling anyone who will listen that oral phenylephrine doesn't work,” he said Randy HattonProfessor on the University of Florida College of Pharmacy. “We taught pharmacy students that it doesn’t work. We hear from pharmacists who know it doesn't work. And we actually did something about it.”

Hatton and UF Professor, Dr. Leslie Hendelesbrought their findings to the FDA greater than once. Finally, the federal authority convened a committee in September 2023 and issued a proposed regulation.

“They looked at all the evidence we examined and made an in-depth assessment of what we had been investigating for years,” Hatton said.

The FDA is allowing the general public to comment for the subsequent six months before deciding whether to remove oral phenylephrine medications from the shelves. But some retail pharmacies aren't waiting. CVS stopped selling products containing phenylephrine last 12 months. Other major pharmacies, including Walgreens and Rite Aid, still carry products containing the drug but say they’re monitoring the FDA's actions.

So what options are there for Floridians who are suffering from congestion and don't have the medications of their alternative?

Hatton said phenylephrine nasal sprays are an option.

“In spray form, phenylephrine causes constriction of the nose and opens the nasal passages,” he said. “But only use the sprays for three to five days. People who continue to take them get rebound congestion.”

Doctors and pharmacists also recommend other options:

• Intranasal steroids reminiscent of Flonase and Nasonex or over-the-counter oxymetazoline nasal sprays reminiscent of Afrin and Zicam
• Saline irrigation devices, reminiscent of a neti pot, to assist flush out the sinuses (but only use distilled water, not tap water)
• Saline nasal sprays reminiscent of Sinex or Simply Saline, which also use a saltwater solution to flush the sinuses
• Products containing pseudoephedrine, the ingredient in Sudafed, will be found behind the pharmacy counter
• Oral antihistamines reminiscent of Zyrtec, Allegra, and Claritin, which clear nasal congestion related to allergies

“If you have any questions, ask the pharmacists. They are trained in over-the-counter medicines. Just ask: Does this work in traffic jams?” Hatton advises.

Those on the lookout for drug-free options can try:

• Spicy foods that may cause a burning sensation because of a chemical called capsaicin and cause a runny nose that drains mucus from the sinuses
• Steam from a hot shower or a warm compress on the nose
• humidifier

Originally published: November 18, 2024 at 12:35 PM PST

Bay Area residents should prepare for cold mornings this week, with temperatures around 40 degrees inland and around 43 degrees in downtown San Francisco.

Tuesday morning shall be brisk, but a slight warming trend is anticipated through midweek, in response to Dial Hoang, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Bay Area.

Daytime highs shall be within the upper 50s to mid 60s, with San Francisco at 59 degrees, San Jose at 64 and Oakland barely cooler. By Wednesday, temperatures could climb into the low 70s in some areas throughout the week.

However, atmospheric river conditions may very well be on the horizon. “We will see the first true atmospheric river impact the North Bay around midweek and spread across the Bay Area and Central Coast by the end of the week,” Hoang said.

An atmospheric river is a concentrated flow of moisture within the atmosphere that causes heavy rainfall when it reaches land. These conditions often pose risks of flooding and other weather-related hazards.

Rain boots, layers and an umbrella are advisable as residents should prepare for wet commutes. If atmospheric river conditions fully develop, localized flooding may additionally occur.

Originally published: November 17, 2024 at 12:20 PM PST

The last decade and a half has seen global upheavals. Financial crisis 2008 and its consequences, the COVID-19 pandemic and major regional conflicts in Sudan, the Middle EastUkraine and elsewhere have left a residual uncertainty. Added to this can be a tense, growing rivalry between the United States and its perceived adversaries, especially China.

In response to those harrowing times, commentators have often resorted to the straightforward post-1945 analogy to clarify geopolitics. World is, we’re told repeated, Entry right into a “new Cold War”.”

But as Historians on the USA’s place on this planetthese indications of a conflict wherein the West in a decades-long ideological struggle with the Soviet Union and its allies – and the impact of the Cold War world wide – is a flawed lens through which to view today’s events. To a critical eye, the world looks less just like the structured competition of the Cold War and more like the painful collapse of the world order The took place within the Thirties.

The “decade of low dishonesty”

In 1939, the poet WH Auden wrote based on the last 10 years because the “decade of low dishonesty” – a time that produced uncertainty and conflict.

From the angle of a century looking back, the period of Wall Street Crash of 1929 to Beginning of the Second World War will be distorted by loaded terms resembling “isolationism” or “appeasement.” The decade is seen as a morality play in regards to the Rise of personalities resembling Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and straightforward stories about appeased aggression.

But that era was far more complicated. In the Thirties, powerful forces reshaped economics, society, and political views. Understanding these dynamics can bring clarity to the confusing events of recent years.

Major and minor depressions

The Great Depression shaped the Thirties worldwide. It was not, as is usually recalled, simply the stock market crash of 1929. It was merely the prelude to a large-scale collapse of the world economy that lasted for a painfully very long time.

Persistent economic problems impacted economies and individuals from Minneapolis to Mumbai, India, and led to profound cultural, social and ultimately political changes. At the identical time, the duration of the Great Depression and its resistance to straightforward solutions – resembling simply letting market forces “eradicate” the rot of a large crisis – discredited the laissez-faire approach to the economy and the liberal capitalist states that supported it.

The “minor depression” that followed the financial crisis of 2008 had an identical effect – it plunged the international and national economies into chaos, made billions of individuals insecure and Discrediting liberal globalization which has prevailed because the Nineteen Nineties.

In the nice and small depressions, the lives of individuals everywhere in the world were turned the other way up and so they had to comprehend that established ideas, elites and institutions now not turned to more radical and extreme voices.

Not only did Wall Street crash; for a lot of, the crisis also undermined the ideology that drives the United States and far of the world: liberalism. In the Thirties, this skepticism led to Questions about whether democracy and capitalismwhich were already fraught with contradictions in the shape of discrimination, racism and empire, were suited to the demands of the trendy world. In the last decade we have now seen in an identical way Voters turn to authoritarian populists in countries everywhere in the world.

The American essayist Edmund Wilson complained in 1931: “We have … not only lost our way in the economic labyrinth, but also our conviction of the value of what we do.” Authors in major journals taken under consideration “Why Liberalism is Bankrupt.”

Today, politicians from the left and the proper can share the view expressed by conservative political scientist Patrick Deneen in his book “Why liberalism failed.”

Evil winds

liberalism – an ideology based broadly on individual liberties and the rule of law, in addition to a belief in private property and the free market – was touted by its supporters as a strategy to bring democratization and economic prosperity to the world. But in recent times, liberal “globalization” has hit a skid.

The Great Depression had an identical effect. The optimism of the Nineteen Twenties – a time that some have described as “First wave” of democratization – collapsed when countries from Japan to Poland established populist, authoritarian governments.

The current rise of personalities resembling The Hungarian Viktor Orban, Vladimir Putin in RussiaAnd China's Xi Jinping Historians remind us of the enduring appeal of authoritarianism in times of uncertainty.

Both eras have in common an increasing fragmentation of the worldwide economy, wherein countries, including the USA, tried to stop the economic crisis by Increase in tariffs to guard the domestic industry.

Economic nationalism, although hotly debated and contested, became a dominant force worldwide within the Thirties. This is reflected in recent appeals by protectionist policy in lots of countries, including the USA

A world stuffed with complaints

While the Great Depression within the United States sparked a “New Deal” wherein the state assumed a brand new role within the economy and society, people elsewhere, suffering the implosion of a liberal world economy, witnessed the rise of regimes that gave enormous power to the central government.

The current attractiveness of the Chinese model of authoritarian economic growth and the image of the strong man The one embodied by Orban, Putin and others – not only in parts of the “Global South” but in addition in parts of the West – is paying homage to the Thirties.

The depression exacerbated a lot of so-called “totalitarian” ideologies: Fascism in Italy, Communism in Russia, militarism in Japan and, above all, National Socialism in Germany.

Importantly, these systems gained a certain legitimacy within the eyes of many individuals world wide, especially as compared to weakening liberal governments that seemed unable to offer answers to the crises.

Some of those totalitarian regimes had already expressed dissatisfaction with the world that was created after World War I. And after the Failure of a world order Based on liberal principles to make sure stability, they set about reshaping the world in line with their very own ideas.

Observers today could also be shocked by the return of large-scale wars and the associated threat to global stability. But there are clear parallels to the Depression years.

In the early Thirties, countries like Japan tried to reform the world system by force – hence the name of those countries:Revisionist.“ The separation of parts of China, especially Manchuria in 1931was fulfilled – not dissimilar Russia's occupation of Crimea in 2014 – with little greater than non-recognition by the Western democracies.

Over the course of the last decade, open military aggression spread. China became the lodestar, as its anti-imperial war of self-preservation against Japan was reluctantly supported by other powers. Today's Ukrainians could understand this parallel.

Ethiopia, Spain, Czechoslovakia and at last Poland became the goal of “revisionist” states that attempted to reshape the international order in their very own image through military aggression or the specter of military aggression.

Ironically, many who lived through these years of crisis were experiencing their very own “cold war” against the regimes and methods of states like Nazi Germany within the late Thirties. They used those very words to explain the breakdown of normal diplomacy right into a scrum of constant, sometimes violent, competition. French observers described a period of “no peace, no war” or a “Demi Guerre”.

The leaders of that point understood that it was less a matter of constant competition than of a melting pot wherein norms and relationships were being reforged. Their words reflect the sentiments of those that today Creating a brand new multipolar world and the rise of regional powers searching for to expand their very own local influence.

Taking the reins

It is sobering to check our present with a situation up to now that led to a world war.

Historical parallels are never perfect, but they invite us to rethink our present. Our future needn’t be a repeat of the “hot war” that ended the Thirties, nor of the Cold War that followed.

The growing power and capability of nations like Brazil, India, and other regional powers reminds us that historical actors evolve and alter. But if we recognize that our own era, just like the Thirties, is a sophisticated multipolar period beset by severe crises, we will see that tectonic forces are once more reshaping many fundamental relationships. Understanding this offers us a possibility to contain forces that led to disaster in one other era.

You notice a chilly coming on, or possibly it's already here: the telltale cough, sore throat, and stuffy head. You stop by the pharmacy where there’s a shelf stuffed with over-the-counter products containing the mineral zinc, which is alleged to shorten the duration of your symptoms.

The promise of relief is tempting. But is it one which these products will help with?

A brand new evaluation of published studies on zinc and cold viruses concludes that there just isn’t enough evidence to point out whether over-the-counter zinc treatments have any effect on stopping colds.

For those that take lozenges or inhale nasal sprays after a chilly, available research suggests the products can shorten the duration of symptoms by as much as two days, said Daryl Nault, an assistant professor on the Maryland University of Integrative Health, lead creator of the paper , released Wednesday by the nonprofit Cochrane.

However, these studies are so inconsistent in dosage, sort of zinc, patient population and definition of cold symptoms that “confidence in the evidence is mostly low to very low,” the review says. “It is likely that additional studies will be required before firm conclusions can be drawn.”

In other words, almost 30 years after zinc lozenges first got here onto the market, we still can't say obviously whether these items live as much as their promise.

“We’re not saying that [zinc] has no effect on the common cold, Nault said. “We’re not saying that’s not the case. We say we need more consistent evidence that is reproducible. This is a cornerstone of good science.”

The age of zinc cold products began in 1996, when researchers on the Cleveland Clinic Foundation convinced 100 clinic staff to volunteer as test subjects inside 24 hours of a chilly onset.

Half received placebos and the opposite half received lozenges containing 13.3 milligrams of zinc from zinc gluconate every two waking hours for so long as symptoms endured. Those who received zinc felt higher after a mean of 4.4 days, while the placebo group felt sick for a mean of seven.6 days.

Most people get enough zinc, an important nutrient, through their regular weight loss program. The mineral is present in abundance in beef and poultry and is contained in lots of grains and fruits. (Oysters contain more zinc per serving than every other known food, with a single serving containing nearly 300% of the advisable every day intake.)

Scientists aren't entirely sure how the mineral relieves cold symptoms. But the concept of ​​an over-the-counter solution to shorten the suffering of a chilly has proven extremely popular.

Total U.S. sales of zinc products like Zicam and Cold-Eeze were $340 million in 2023, said Hannah Esper, editor-in-chief of Nutrition Business Journal. Demand for zinc and other dietary supplements exploded in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, with sales of zinc increasing 168.3% in 2020.

U.K.-based Cochrane uses rigorous research methods to guage existing scientific evidence and produce reports to assist people make decisions about their health, in line with its website.

For this review, the Cochrane team examined 34 studies in 13 countries that examined zinc products and the treatment or prevention of colds.

It's difficult to attract firm conclusions from the available research because studies are likely to measure various things, said creator Susan Wieland, an assistant professor on the University of Maryland School of Medicine and director of the Cochrane Complementary Medicine Field.

“The designs of each study are different. So different dosages, different dosage forms, different patient groups, different exclusion and inclusion criteria, different results [and] Definitions of cold,” said Dr. Jason Yee, an antimicrobial management pharmacist at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, who was not involved within the review. “It’s really difficult to draw the same conclusions based on different studies.”

Doctors said they weren’t surprised by the outcomes.

“I agree with the study. … It is consistent with my clinical experience within the hospital,” said Dr. Samia Faiz, an internal medicine specialist at UC Riverside Health. “In general, healthy people may be able to take zinc supplements if it makes them feel better or provides some comfort. You should not take these supplements if you experience any discomfort or stomach discomfort.”

While over-the-counter zinc products are generally harmless for cold patients, lozenges should be used, according to Dr. According to Dr. Pritish Tosh, an infectious disease doctor and researcher at the Mayo Clinic, “don't go on the expense of the things that basically matter. That means getting loads of rest, drinking loads of fluids and taking good care of yourself.”

So why do we continue to spend our money on these things when we have no real idea that they work?

When a cold strikes, “it's natural for consumers to achieve for anything that will help relieve those symptoms.” But average consumers aren't really informed in regards to the literature and studies that show there is proscribed evidence and effectiveness for these products,” said Yee.

Buying the lozenges or sniffing the nasal spray could make us feel like we now have more agency in a situation where we're on the mercy of time and our immune systems, Nault said.

“A sense of control makes a lot of people feel better and feel like they’re doing something,” Nault said. “Even if they aren’t.”

A 55-year-old grandmother swam for 17 hours across the Gulf of the Farallones this weekend, braving jellyfish, darkness, fog, freezing water and the shark-infested “Red Triangle” to develop into the primary person in history to finish the treacherous outbound route .

For Amy Appelhans Gubser of Pacifica, Friday was like several other day. As usual, she worked 10 hours in fetal cardiology at UC San Francisco.

Then at 3:25 a.m. Saturday, with out a wetsuit, she jumped from a ship into the dark water beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and commenced swimming. It only stopped when it reached a bobbing buoy on Southeast Farallon Island, 29.7 miles away, at dusk.

Members of her support team, monitoring her safety from a fishing boat, erupted in cheers.

“When I touched it, I was so grateful. Not only did I have the opportunity to complete this swim, but it was so flawless,” she said Monday after riding her bike to the dentist, her voice still hoarse from being immersed in salt water.

But in the world of extreme marathon swimming, the miles between the Farallon Islands and San Francisco are considered the toughest in the world – with cold, rough water, whipping winds, swirling currents and hungry carnivores.

To date, only five people have completed this swim. They went the other way – from the Farallones to San Francisco, which is also a big challenge since you have to adjust the tides to get through the Golden Gate. But the water gets warmer and less dangerous over time.

The planning took five years, with Gubser traversing Lake Tahoe, Monterey Bay, the Catalina Channel, the Strait of Gibraltar and the notoriously difficult channel between Ireland and Scotland, among other places.

To guide her journey, she followed the fishing boat Pacific Rival, piloted by Captain Chad Dahlber, lost above the fog and clouded by a red tide below the water's surface. A team of seven other people on board the ship, all trained in sea rescue and cardiopulmonary resuscitation, also assisted them.

The food was thrown into the water on ropes. Tourniquets and other first aid equipment were on deck in case of a shark attack. The U.S. Coast Guard wanted to know the color of her swimsuit — black and white to mimic a wild orca — in case a rescue was needed.

There have been accolades from across the global community for “open water” swimming, a sport inspired first by Captain Matthew Webb's swim across the English Channel in 1875 and more recently by films such as “Nyad,” which follows the extraordinary journey of Diane Nyad documented, popularized from Havana to Key West.

“Congratulations, Amy, on this amazing world-class feat of cold water endurance and athleticism,” wrote the Marathon Swimmers Federation.

“Support swimmers” accompanied them for the primary few miles; She was later joined by kayaker John Chapman, who sang upbeat '80s tunes.

But her happiest hours were spent alone.

“When I swim, it's essentially the most restful time for my mind,” she said, “because I can just decelerate. I lose track of time.”

“I find it very peaceful. It's one of the few moments where my brain actually calms down,” said Gubser, who trained as a pediatric intensive care nurse and now coordinates high-risk fetal care. “For me, swimming is more effortless, easier than walking. It feels like I can go on forever.”

Sometimes she counts – gets to 77 after which repeats. She writes poems. She imagines solutions to the world's biggest problems. She plays songs in her head and infrequently fixates on the identical verse over and once more.

And she has fun with the curiosities of the ocean.

“We were swarmed by bats!” she said. “It was so funny. One landed on a crew member. They came out of nowhere. What were they doing there?”

Gubser was taught to swim as a toddler by her mother, a lifeguard. She grew up on the beaches of Southern California and attended the University of Michigan on a swimming scholarship. Her husband, Greg Gubser, is an assistant harbor master on the Port of San Mateo County.

She trains by swimming many miles every week within the cool San Francisco Bay with other members of the South End Rowing Club on the Aquatic Park, along with training in a Burlingame pool to perfect her technique. She weighs over 200 kilos, a deliberate try and stave off hypothermia.

Saturday was chosen since it offered a powerful ebb current. With the pull of a brand new moon, the tides fluctuated from 6 feet to minus 9 feet, sending hundreds of thousands of gallons of water rushing through the Golden Gate and hurling it into the Pacific.

And the wind was unusually calm, never exceeding seven knots. The water was glassy, ​​without the white fountains of water to contend with.

“We were waiting for the perfect weather,” she said. On board the boat, she ate rice cakes topped with peanut butter and honey to realize energy. She was only wearing her suit, a hat and goggles.

But before Gubser even got wet, he faced a challenge: a passing container ship. This delayed their launch, which was precisely timed to the optimal tides, currents and the time needed to get to safety before the sharks' evening feeding times.

Once within the water, one other container ship passed by, lower than 200 feet away.

“I could hear the engines underwater,” she said. “It was honking and all I could see were these lights in the fog, so I knew it was close. For the first 12 miles you play “Frogger” with container ships because that’s the shipping route.”

But then Mother Nature offered some help. Aboard a raging low tide, Gubser covered a few third of her route in only 4 hours.

“Mr. Toad's Wild Ride,” she joked. She glowed in the dead of night and wore a small blue light on her head and a green light on her butt.

Miles further out, the tide was receding – and she or he needed to fortify herself. She accomplished the remaining distance in 13 hours, swimming freestyle all the time. Every half hour, the crew would top her container with three ounces of chicken bone broth, accompanied by a carbohydrate drink for energy. When she was sleepy, they gave her a caffeinated porridge.

The jellyfish got here in swarms and stung an estimated 20 times.

The water was cloudy, which was on account of a red algae bloom. Enveloped in fog, “it was almost like a sensory deprivation chamber. The sky was gray and the water was brown. I couldn’t see past my fingertips.”

As she approached the Farallon Escarpment — which drops steeply to a depth of over 6,000 feet — the water temperature dropped to 43 degrees.

Concerned, her crew watched as her skin turned pale. They gave her hot chocolate and warm water to pour over her neck and hands. But in line with the principles, she wasn't allowed to the touch the boat.

“I knew I would feel terrible if I didn’t finish at that point,” she said. “I have children and grandchildren and I wanted them to be proud of me.”

“I dug deep,” she said. “I wanted to show that you can do anything if you put your mind to something.”