San Diego Union-Tribune: Questions And Anxiety Mount Over San Diego's Slow Roll-Out Of COVID-19 Vaccine 
With the prick of a needle, an elderly Chula Vista man was vaccinated against COVID-19 on Dec. 21, drawing cheers and applause from a room filled with health care workers. Carlos Alegre had just become one of the first San Diegans to receive a vaccine that fights the novel coronavirus, raising people’s hope that the county, and the country, will emerge from the pandemic, perhaps by mid-to-late summer. That hope still exists. But the vaccine rollout has not gotten off to a fast start. (Wosen and Robbins, 1/9)

Modesto Bee: Rocky Start For COVID-19 Vaccinations In Stanislaus County
Efforts to vaccinate priority groups against COVID-19 are proceeding in Stanislaus County, though some recipients report trouble getting their shots when promised. In-home caregivers are among the recipients of the current phase of vaccine distribution; some private providers plan to start giving out the vaccines to older patients this week. The county’s vaccination clinic for in-home support care workers was closed for more than six hours Thursday. IHSS workers who were turned away said they were not given a plausible explanation. (Carlson, 1/9)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. To Turn Dodger Stadium Into A COVID-19 Vaccine Site
Los Angeles plans to turn its massive coronavirus testing site at Dodger Stadium into a vaccination distribution center this week, with officials hoping to vaccinate up to 12,000 people a day when the site is fully operational, city and county officials announced Sunday night. Dodger Stadium is the largest testing site in the country, processing thousands of residents a day. The site has administered more than 1 million tests since May. Testing operations at Dodger Stadium will end Monday, according to a release from Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office. City and county officials also plan to end testing at the Veterans Affairs Lot 15 site near Jackie Robinson Stadium to shift personnel, equipment and other resources to vaccine distribution. (Dillon, 1/10)

LA Daily News: Coronavirus: Dodger Stadium To Convert From Testing To Vaccination Distribution 
Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Sunday that testing operations at Dodger Stadium will conclude Monday, and in conjunction with the county, vaccine distribution will begin by the end of the week. A statement from the mayor’s office said local leaders decided to shift testing away from testing at Dodger Stadium and the Veterans Affairs Lot 15 at Jackie Robinson Stadium in Brentwood so that public health officials could immediately focus personnel, equipment and other resources on vaccination distribution. (1/10)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego County Opens 'Vaccination Super Station' Near Petco Park 
A 280,000-square-foot COVID-19 vaccination site that aims to inoculate 5,000 health care workers each day will open downtown San Diego Monday, county and health officials announced Sunday. In a collaboration with the University of California, San Diego, and the San Diego Padres, county and city officials established what they call the “vaccination super station” at 13th Avenue and K Street in less than five days. (Schroeder, 1/10)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Memory Care Admins Await News Of When Vulnerable Residents, Staff Can Receive Vaccine 
The coronavirus pandemic is unlike any infection-control situation that Alpine View Lodge owner and Administrator Linda Cioffi has experienced in the 42 years since she and her parents opened the East County memory care facility. Due to an outbreak last month that sickened 30 out of 34 residents and 17 out of 28 staff, during which eight residents died from the virus, Cioffi has worked 41 days straight as of Friday without an end to her streak in sight. (Mapp, 1/11)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Sonoma County Residents Wonder How, When They’ll Be Vaccinated
People across Sonoma County, and especially seniors and those who care for them, are trying to sort out the details of their promised inoculations. When can you get vaccinated? And how will you know when it’s your turn? Two simple questions with rather convoluted answers. (Barber, 1/10)

Sacramento Bee: California Latinos Express Hesitancy To Take COVID Vaccine
Despite Latinos accounting for 55% of the state’s COVID-19 cases and 47.5% of virus-related deaths, many continue to express hesitancy toward getting the vaccine compared to white Californians. Nearly 43% of Latino adults surveyed by the Public Policy Institute of California in October said they would probably or definitely not [be] likely to get the vaccine, with the majority citing the vaccine was developed “too fast without fully establishing it is safe and effective.” That hesitancy is higher than the 35% of white Californians who reported they would not take the vaccine. (Bojórquez, 1/11)

San Francisco Chronicle: Record Deaths In California As Coronavirus Surges; Bay Area Stay-At-Home Order Remains
The coronavirus surge across the state showed no signs of abating as deaths spiked and hospitals continued to fill to the breaking point, prompting health officials Saturday to maintain the Bay Area’s stay-home order indefinitely. California health authorities reported a record one-day total of 685 coronavirus deaths Friday, as many hospitals, particularly in Southern California, are under unprecedented strain. That was far beyond the previous record, set Wednesday, of 560 deaths recorded statewide. (Tucker, 1/9)

Bay Area News Group: Santa Clara County Records Record COVID Deaths, San Francisco Records Most Cases, Deaths In One Day
San Francisco public health officials on Saturday recorded the most new cases and deaths ever since the start of the coronavirus pandemic as California continued to struggle with limited hospital beds and rising infections. Santa Clara County also broke records on Saturday, when officials recorded 40 people died of the virus, the most ever since the start of the pandemic. On Saturday, county officials reported 1,704 new cases for a total of 82,170 cases. In all, 883 people have died in the county from coronavirus. Across the state, county officials said they recorded 38,180 new cases of the coronavirus and 463 new deaths. That brings the total number of cases in California to 2,660,744 and puts the death toll just a few hundred deaths shy of 30,000. (Toledo, 1/10)

The Bakersfield Californian: COVID Hits Kern County Fire Department Hard As Infections, Injuries Mount 
The coronavirus pandemic has tested the limits of the Kern County Fire Department, as scores of employees have come down with the virus. Already understaffed and strained from a “year round” fire season, the cash-strapped department is struggling to maintain operations through the latest COVID-19 surge. (Morgen, 1/8)

San Bernadino Sun: California Argues Mentally Ill Patients Must Stay Put At State Hospital Despite COVID Outbreak
Officials with the California Department of State Hospitals insist the patients are a potential danger to the public and cannot be shuffled off to other facilities or released until they undergo a series of hearings and/or trials that would determine their eligibility for such a move. “Defendants are not aware of any court in the country — and plaintiffs cite none — ordering the release and transfer of a class of committed and violent patients diagnosed with serious mental illness from the hospital to which a state court judge committed them for mandatory treatment,” according to a motion filed Monday, Jan. 4, in U.S. District Court in Riverside on behalf of Patton and the Department of State Hospitals, which operates Patton and four other state hospitals in Norwalk, Atascadero, Napa and Coalinga. (Nelson, 1/11)

LA Daily News: Lancaster Protesters Urge Early Release Of Inmates Amid Pandemic 
Displaying protest signs and holding body bags, family members and advocates staged a car caravan on Saturday, Jan. 9 at Lancaster State Prison to call for the release of inmates amid the pandemic. Families United to End LWOP has staged multiple protests over the past six months. Organizers called for the expedited release of incarcerated people vulnerable to COVID-19, beginning with those age 50 or older and those with underlying medical issues, regardless of conviction type. (1/10)

Los Angeles Times: Hospitals Admit COVID-19 Patients Faster Than They Can Discharge
The work of discharge planners has never been more critical than in this moment, as they try to free up beds in dangerously full hospitals confronting a deluge of COVID-19 patients. For some patients and their families it can feel like an eviction. But for the people on the other side of the battle against an unrelenting pandemic, it’s about saving lives and keeping the precarious Jenga tower of a healthcare system from crashing down. (Mejia, 1/10)

Bay Area News Group: Marin County Seeks Guidance On Order To Accept Coronavirus Patients From Around The Bay Area
Marin County’s public health officer said he is trying to get more details on a state order that counties with adequate intensive care unit capacity accept coronavirus patients from overwhelmed regions. “We’re seeking clarification on where the authority lies to require us to accommodate patients from outside the region and what ICU capacity would be used to determine our ability,” Dr. Matt Willis said Friday. (Halstead, 1/11)

Sacramento Bee: Amid COVID-19 Crisis, CA Hospitals Seek Regulatory Relief
Overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients pouring into medical facilities, hospital leaders urged California Gov. Gavin Newsom to temporarily suspend some regulatory requirements so that doctors and nurses “can focus on patient care and not on paperwork.” “It is challenging when we are in the circumstance that we are in, especially in Southern California, in the San Joaquin Valley, where we have zero ICU capacity left,” said Carmela Coyle, president and chief executive officer of the California Hospital Association, in a teleconference Friday with news reporters. “We are creating surge capacity within those hospitals taking care of those who are most acutely ill, and yet we are still having to deal with day-to-day regulations that we might deal with under normal circumstances” (Anderson, 1/9)

The Bakersfield Californian: Operation White Lights Aims To Honor Local Health Care Workers 
Dignity Health, which operates Bakersfield Memorial, Mercy Downtown and Mercy Southwest hospitals, on Friday launched Operation White Lights, which encourages the community to show its support for health workers as "a way to lift up our healers and let them know the community cares about them," Robin Mangarin-Scott, vice president of marketing and communications for Dignity Health Central California, said in a news release. [People are urged to] support health care workers by displaying white lights and ribbons on their homes, businesses, cars or on their lapel, and to share messages of gratitude on social media. (Shepard, 1/8)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Mutual Aid System Dispatches Firefighters To Petaluma Hospital As Staff Shortage Hampers Coronavirus Response
California firefighters sent across the state to battle wildfires are now being deployed through the same mutual aid system to work at hospitals struggling to keep enough staff on duty during the coronavirus pandemic. Petaluma Valley Hospital was among the first four hospitals in the state — the only facility in Northern California — that received firefighters trained as emergency medical technicians or paramedics this month to help bolster staffing levels as COVID-19 cases skyrocket across the country. (Johnson, 1/10)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Struggling To Find Caregivers, Petaluma Senior Care Firm Seeks Temporary Workers
Like many seniors, Mary Stahl needs help to navigate the day to day, especially after she fractured her spine in a fall a few years ago. That’s where caregiver Denise Lempriere comes in, five days a week, for five hours a day. “It means a lot, to be able to stay in your own home. To be able to sleep in your own bed means everything,” said the nearly 89-year-old Petaluma resident. “The best thing is the company — they’re like family. Denise has been just wonderful.” (Palmer, 1/10)

San Francisco Chronicle: Over 40 Stanford Students Test Positive In A Week As University Cancels Plan For Undergraduates To Return To Campus
Stanford University canceled a plan to bring freshmen and sophomore students back to campus for winter quarter, as the worsening coronavirus pandemic continues to hit Santa Clara County particularly hard. In a message to the campus community dated Saturday, Stanford leaders cited a recent tenfold increase in coronavirus cases per 100,000 county residents as a major reason for the change in plans. In addition, as of Friday, 43 Stanford students had tested positive for COVID-19 since Jan. 2, according to the university. (Morris, 1/10)

Orange County Register: Push To Open Public Schools In February Thrills Some Parents, Terrifies Some Teachers, As COVID Surges
“COVID-19 in the community is, in effect, at the front door, and the front door’s locked right now because it’s at dangerous levels,” said Austin Beutner, superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District, recently. “If it’s too dangerous to come in the front door at this time, we can’t have students, and we don’t want our staff, on campuses.” Beutner and superintendents from six other large school districts registered their objections in a letter to the governor last week. Five of them — Los Angeles, Long Beach, Fresno, San Diego and Sacramento — currently have higher COVID case rates than what Newsom proposes as the upper limit permissible for schools to reopen. (Sforza, Woolfolk, Tat and Albano, 1/10)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Growing Consensus That Schools Do Not Contribute To COVID-19 Spread Is Complicated By Worsening Surge
Local and national experts are coming to a consensus that schools do not contribute to community COVID-19 spread — as long as the levels of the virus in the community are not high. Schools do appear to contribute to spreading the virus where it already is spreading at high rates in a community, one of two new studies shows. (Taketa, 1/10)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Medical And Business Lane Relocated At The San Ysidro Border Crossing 
The special medical — and now business -- “Fast Lane” at the San Ysidro border crossing was relocated last week to the far-left side of the port of entry. The new access is through the Paseo de los Héroes street in Tijuana. This program operated by Mexican authorities, was created to boost medical tourism and allow U.S. patients of registered Mexican doctors to avoid long border wait times by returning home though a special lane. (Mendoza, 1/10)

The Bakersfield Californian: From Near Death To Nirvana On Two Wheels, Cancer Survivor Rides For Life 
He’s 70, a survivor of throat cancer who lost his ability to secrete saliva after undergoing radiation treatment. Damage to his throat means he must take all liquids and nutrients through a feeding tube directly to his stomach. He was intubated in the hospital for 53 days in 2012. And yet, he survives. But that’s not really the story. (Mayer, 1/9)

Bay Area News Group: COVID Cancels, Delays Bay Area Homeless Counts 
Continuing a decades-old tradition, hundreds of Bay Area volunteers were expected to wake in the wee hours of the morning this month to meticulously count every person they spotted sleeping on park benches or in doorways, tents and cars. But the biennial point-in-time count, a crucial census that influences everything from federal funding to the management of local homelessness programs, won’t happen on schedule this year — if at all. (Kendall, 1/11)