CNN: CDC Vaccine Advisers Will Meet Friday To Discuss The J&J Vaccine. Here's What Could Happen Next 
Vaccine advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention meet Friday to make recommendations for use of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine after it was put on hold to investigate a potential link to serious blood clots. The CDC and US Food and Drug Administration recommended a pause on use of the J&J coronavirus vaccine last week following six reported US cases of a rare and severe type of blood clot. (Mascarenhas and Cohen, 4/20)

San Francisco Chronicle: A New Wrinkle: Napa County Sees Few Takers For Thousands Of Vaccination Appointments
The ballroom at Meritage Resort and Spa, Napa County’s largest mass vaccination clinic, went from seeing a flood of residents clamoring for coronavirus vaccinations to just a trickle in the days following California’s expansion of vaccine eligibility to everyone 16 and older. On Friday, the first day the clinic opened to the public following the statewide expansion, virtually all of the 1,400 appointments got snapped up. But by Tuesday, just two-thirds of available appointments that day — about 2,300 of 3,400 — were booked. The schedule for the rest of the week suggests a steep drop-off in interest. (Ho, 4/20)

Voice of OC: Health Experts Heighten Calls To Narrow Orange County’s Persisting Latino Vaccination Gap
More resources should be directed at closing the persisting coronavirus vaccination gaps in Orange County’s Latino community as the expected June 15 statewide reopening edges closer, warns an increasing number of the region’s top public health experts. “We’ve done a solid job in Orange County and in the state prioritizing communities of color, who are at the highest risk of COVID and deaths related to COVID. Those efforts — they’re real, they’re happening, but we need to put more effort into it,” said Bernadette Boden-Albala, founding dean of UC Irvine’s Public Health program. (Custodio, 4/20)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego's Tier Status Remains Solidly Orange Despite Red Case-Rate Scores 
Despite a second over-the-limit coronavirus case rate score Tuesday, San Diego County is in no immediate danger of falling out of the orange tier, the California Department of Public Health confirmed in an email. The orange tier limit is 5.9 or fewer cases per 100,000 residents, and the region’s rates over the past two weeks have been 6.0 last week and 6.1 this week. Under the old tier system, two consecutive weeks would have been enough to fall to the red tier, reducing currently-allowable business and organization indoor and outdoor activity levels. (Sisson, 4/20)

Modesto Bee: Test Numbers Keep Stanislaus County In Coronavirus Red Tier
Stanislaus County continues to meet the criteria for the red tier of California’s coronavirus reopening plan. The California Department of Public Health determined in a weekly review the county’s test positivity qualifies the county for the second most restrictive regulations on businesses and public activities. With Tuesday’s update, 17 counties in California are in the red tier, 38 counties are in the less restrictive orange and three are in the yellow tier, representing minimal transmission of COVID-19 illness. No counties are in the most restrictive purple tier. (Carlson, 4/20)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Without Data, COVID-19's Impact On Some San Diego Minorities Is Overlooked, Advocates Say 
There were signs early in the pandemic that led Maria Araneta, a professor of family medicine at UC San Diego, to believe COVID-19 was overwhelming San Diego’s Filipino community. She wasn’t looking at statistics — something an epidemiologist usually relies on for surveilling health issues — because those weren’t available about Filipinos. Instead Araneta, a Filipina, paid attention to anecdotal stories of Filipino families buying dozens of obituaries and an uptick in requests for COVID contact tracers who speak Tagalog. (Lopez-Villafana, 4/20)

Los Angeles Daily News: Coronavirus: Infection-Control Measures Are Continuing To Pay Off In LA County 
Los Angeles County’s average daily rate of new COVID-19 cases fell again on Tuesday, April 20, but still remained too high to allow a move to the least-restrictive yellow tier of the state’s economic reopening blueprint. To advance to the yellow tier of the Blueprint for a Safer Economy, the county would need a seven-day average new case rate of less than 2 per 100,000 residents. The weekly update released by the state Tuesday showed the county with a rate of 2.7 per 100,000 residents. That was down from 3.2 last week. (4/20)

San Diego Union-Tribune: COVID-19 Antibody Treatment Center Opens In Chula Vista 
A Chula Vista facility is now offering an additional option for early treatment for COVID-19 patients with mild-to-moderate symptoms. A new Monoclonal Antibody Treatment Center (MARC) opened Monday at San Ysidro Health, located in the former Chula Vista Fire Station No.5. Treatment is provided at no cost and is available to anyone who is medically eligible regardless of immigration status or health insurance. (Mendoza, 4/20)

Bay Area News Group: COVID Outbreak Forces Berkeley High To Pause All Athletics
A trio of COVID-19 cases stemming from tryouts for the boys basketball team has prompted Berkeley High to pause all athletics tryouts, district officials said. Within a week of the first tryouts, three people involved had tested positive for the virus, district officials said in a statement on Monday. Tryouts in all sports will be put on hold until at least Wednesday evening in order to “conduct a thorough review of athletic practices for adherence to COVID-19 safety protocols,” with the city of Berkeley’s public health department, officials said. (Webeck, 4/20)

The Bakersfield Californian: Kern County Selected For Study To Estimate Prevalence Of COVID Antibodies In State 
Kern County has been selected to participate in a state study designed to estimate how many Californians have antibodies against COVID-19. According to a news release from the Kern County Public Health Services Department, the study will ask randomly selected households to complete an anonymous survey and a free at-home antibody test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. (4/20)

Los Angeles Daily News: Mental Health Services To Greet LA County Students Returning To Campuses 
As students come back to school campuses throughout Los Angeles County, they will be greeted by an assortment of mental health services and other new resources following a taxing year for everyone, based on a motion unanimously passed by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, April 20. The motion instructs the county’s director of mental health, in collaboration with the superintendent of schools and the L.A. County Office of Education, to address the mental health needs of students as they transition back to in-person learning. (Rosenfeld, 4/20)

Bloomberg: U.S. Poverty Rate Rose To Pandemic High Ahead Of New Stimulus 
The U.S. poverty rate rose to 11.7% in March, the highest level yet during the pandemic following an increase in the latter part of last year as many government benefits expired, a study showed. The March 2021 estimates indicate that without additional aid many in the U.S. continued to suffer from the economic impacts from Covid-19, according to research released Tuesday by economists Jeehoon Han, from Zhejiang University, Bruce Meyer, from the University of Chicago, and James Sullivan of the University of Notre Dame. The projections didn’t capture benefits provided by the American Rescue Plan signed last month. (Tanzi, 4/20)

EdSource: USDA Extends Free Meals Through Next School Year
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will continue reimbursing schools and childcare centers for free meals to all students regardless of their income through the 2021-22 school year, USDA officials announced Tuesday. Meal service waivers such as the “Seamless Summer Option,” which made it possible for California districts to distribute millions of grab-and-go meals to students since campuses closed due to Covid-19, will be extended through June 2022, according to a USDA news release. Advocates say the extension comes at a pivotal time for food-insecure families. (Tadayon, 4/20)

The Washington Post: USDA Extends Pandemic Universal Free Lunch Waivers Through School Year 2021-2022 
The United States Department of Agriculture announced Tuesday it would extend universal free lunch through the 2021-2022 school year, in an effort to reach more of the estimated 12 million youths experiencing food insecurity. In March, the USDA said these waivers, which made school meals more flexible to administer, would be extended only to Sept. 30, leaving schools and families uncertain about what next school year might look like. (Reiley, 4/20)

Berkeleyside: How This Neighborhood Free Food Pantry Connects A Berkeley Community
Veronica Van Gogh hosted a Little Free Library for a year. She loved managing the book-sharing cupboard in front of her house, being a librarian and a curator, and meeting her neighbors. “The experience led me to think about creating a kiosk or some public space where people could share other resources, particularly food, like fruit from home fruit trees,” Van Gogh said. “Instead of having a messy free bin, we wanted to elevate the food off the ground and give it some respect. And do something positive and uplifting for our neighbors to draw us closer as a community.“ (Sepetys, 4/20)

San Francisco Chronicle: Low-Wage Workers In California Say COVID Protocols Are Lacking On The Job
Single mom Aracely Nava said she was constantly afraid of virus contagion while she continued to work at a San Francisco fast-food restaurant during the pandemic. “All the time people were coming in from the street without masks,” she said in Spanish through an interpreter. “They never put anyone by the door counting the number of people who came in to maintain a certain number. A manager was allowed to work for over a week (while) really sick with flu symptoms.” (Said, 4/21)

Los Angeles Times: Garcetti's L.A. Guaranteed Basic Income Plan: What To Know
Los Angeles is poised to become the latest city to try universal basic income. Mayor Eric Garcetti included a $24-million Basic Income Guaranteed program in his city budget to be released Tuesday. L.A. would become the biggest city to try the concept, possibly joining Stockton, Compton and others. (Smith, 4/20)

NBC News: Shipping Boxes, Delivering Shots, Manning The Sales Floor: Vaccine Jobs Boom Doesn't Match All Skill Sets
The vaccine jobs boom is all about shipping boxes, delivering shots, opening doors and manning floors. Disrupted workers say that doesn’t match their skillset, and they’re hanging back or taking jobs with less pay. Truckers, nurses, sales associates and managers are some of the jobs in highest demand as America tries to reopen, according to an aggregate of all online job postings collected by jobs site ZipRecruiter. Truck driving is by far the most sought role, with over 1.3 million jobs open for different kinds of drivers, from semis to local delivery. (Popken, 4/19)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Sharp Grossmont's Emergency Department Earns Rare Senior-Friendly Accreditation 
During Vincent Quasarano’s March 30 visit to Sharp Grossmont Hospital’s emergency department in La Mesa, the experience may have been different than previous trips to the hospital. The 85-year-old patient was offered a voice amplifying device by registered nurse Michelle Christensen, then asked a series of questions to see if he could recall his name, the date and a series of words. She pointed to various objects in the room asking Quasarano what they were, accompanied him during a short walk down the hall, and inquired what his home life was like. (Mapp, 4/20)

Los Angeles Times: Class-Action Settlement Against Former UCLA Gynecologist A 'Travesty,' Lawyers Say 
Attorneys representing hundreds of patients of former UCLA gynecologist Dr. James M. Heaps on Tuesday urged other former patients to opt out of a $73-million class-action settlement before a May 6 deadline. The critics argue the settlement allows the university to keep secret too many of the sexual abuse allegations and does not hold the institution accountable. Those who back the settlement disagree, calling it fair and transparent. (Winton, 4/20)

CapRadio: Sacramento County To Keep Motels For Homeless Residents Open Through August 
The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday directed staff to keep open the county’s three Project Roomkey motels through at least August, providing a respite for the nearly 500 formerly homeless residents who live at the temporary shelters. The decision reverses plans by county officials to close the motels this spring due to cost concerns. Roomkey is a partially state-funded program that has sheltered thousands of homeless Californians during the COVID-19 pandemic.  (Nichols, 4/20)

Voice of San Diego: County Will Seek FEMA Funds For Homeless Hotel Housing After All
After months of urging from homeless advocates, San Diego County plans to seek full federal emergency fund reimbursement for a hotel program that has temporarily housed hundreds during the pandemic. Activists argued that the county was leaving money on the table to aid vulnerable San Diegans, a contention that the county has pushed back against. Now the county has decided to go after those federal funds. (Halverstadt, 4/19)

Bay Area News Group: Emeryville: Judge Blocks City's Plan To Close Homeless Encampment
A federal judge has blocked Emeryville from closing a homeless encampment near a Shellmound Street construction site, siding — for now — with residents and activists who argue displacing unhoused people during the COVID pandemic is illegal. The court order provides a temporary reprieve for a group of unhoused people camped near Shellmound Street and Ashby Avenue. After the city posted notices alerting residents they would be removed this week, camp occupants sued the city for the right to remain in place. (Kendall, 4/21)