CNBC: Moderna Applies For Full FDA Approval
Moderna on Tuesday asked the Food and Drug Administration for full U.S. approval of its Covid-19 vaccine — the second drugmaker in the U.S. to seek a biologics license that will allow it to market the shots directly to consumers. The mRNA vaccine is currently on the U.S. market under an emergency use authorization, which was granted by the FDA in December. It gives conditional approval based on two months of safety data. It’s not the same as a biologics license application, or a request for full approval, which requires at least six months of data. Over 100 million of the shots have already been administered, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Lovelace Jr., 6/1)

USA Today: U.S. Companies Can Mandate Vaccinations
U.S. companies can mandate that employees must be vaccinated against COVID-19, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced in a Friday statement. Federal EEO laws do not prevent employers from requiring that all employees physically entering a workplace be vaccinated as long as employers comply with the reasonable accommodation provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws, according to the statement. Employers may also offer incentives to employees to get vaccinated, "as long as the incentives are not coercive," the statement said. (Fernando, 5/29)

Politico: Federal Gov’t Says Employers Can Offer Vaccine Incentives
Employers can offer incentives to their employees to get the coronavirus vaccine without running afoul of federal anti-discrimination law, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said on Friday. In an update of its Covid-19 guidance, the agency said employers may offer incentives to employees who provide documentation of receiving the Covid-19 vaccine outside of work, because requesting proof of vaccination "is not a disability-related inquiry" or an "unlawful request" under federal anti-discrimination laws. (Rainey, 5/28)

The Bakersfield Californian: BC To Continue Holding Pop-Up Vaccine Clinics This Summer 
Bakersfield College’s Student Health and Wellness Center in collaboration with the college’s nursing students will continue to hold COVID-19 vaccination events throughout the summer. Currently over 15 dates are scheduled at various locations across Kern County, according to a BC news release. The clinics are open to the public and the school is encouraging all those who wish to be vaccinated to make an appointment, which can be scheduled online at https://myturn.ca.gov/. (5/28)

Los Angeles Daily News: LA County Teams With Homeboy Industries To Boost Vaccine Effort 
Continuing their efforts to reach to vaccine-hesitant communities, Los Angeles County health officials announced a partnership on Friday, May 28 with the gang-rehabilitation organization Homeboy Industries for a series of public-service announcements encouraging COVID-19 vaccinations. “Equity remains at the core of our vaccination efforts, which is why we are proud to partner with Homeboy Industries to ensure that justice-impacted residents understand the importance of getting immunized against COVID-19,” County Supervisor Hilda Solis said in a statement. “Because of prior negative interactions that some of our justice-involved residents might have experienced with the medical system or engaging with government, a campaign around COVID-19’s impact on our community and overcoming any hesitancy is critical.” (5/28)

Southern California News Group: Final Frontier: COVID-19 Vaccines Coming Soon For Young Children
Pfizer’s vaccine already is in use for children 12 and older, and Moderna announced last week that its vaccine is safe and appears effective for that age group as well. That leaves kids under 12 as the final frontier. Getting the dosage right for three tiers of small people — ages 5 to 11, 2 to 5, and 6 months to 2 years — is the first order of business. (Sforza, 5/30)

Politico: Foster And Migrant Kids Shut Out From Covid Vaccinations 
Nearly a half-million foster children in the U.S. and unaccompanied migrant teens at the southern border could be prevented from receiving coronavirus vaccines because of federal and state consent laws that require a parent or guardian’s approval. Regulators authorized emergency use of one Covid-19 shot in kids as young as 12 this month, accelerating the Biden administration’s broad immunization plans and school reopening plans. But that created unintended consequences for at-risk children: Because the vaccine, from Pfizer, has not received full regulatory approval, it has a murky status compared to the battery of routine vaccinations recommended by federal agencies. That means kids in many states can only receive it with a parent or guardian’s consent — a hurdle that’s impossible to meet for many children separated from their biological parents. (Owermohle, 5/30)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Misinformation Remains The Biggest Hurdle As Vaccination Effort Turns To Cash Incentives 
San Diego County will soon reach 2 million residents who have had at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine. But in a region with more than 3.3 million residents, that means there are still more than 1 million who have not yet come forward to get stuck. Some just haven’t gotten around to it yet, and the state’s new $115 million lottery — which rewards vaccination with cash rewards — will surely push some off the fence and into vaccination clinics. But it is clear that misinformation, not money, has often driven vaccination decisions. (Sisson, 5/31)

USA Today: WHO Renames COVID Variants With Greek Letter Names To Avoid Stigma
In a release. WHO said that while scientific names have advantages, they can be difficult to say and are prone to misreporting. "As a result, people often resort to calling variants by the places where they are detected, which is stigmatizing and discriminatory," WHO said. It's also often wrong. Where a disease or virus is first discovered isn't usually where it actually first emerged. (Weise, 5/31)

NPR: No Masks Needed At Summer Camp For Vaccinated Campers And Staff, CDC Says 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has revised earlier guidelines regarding mask use and vaccinations at summer camps. The updated guidelines, released Friday, now say that at camps where everyone has been fully vaccinated, campers can sing, play sports and weave baskets mask-free – except where required by local law. "In a camp setting where everybody is fully vaccinated, there's no need for masking, there's no need for distancing. There's no need for screening, testing," said Cmdr. Erin Sauber-Schatz, lead of the CDC's Community Interventions and Critical Populations Task Force, which wrote the guidance. (Huang and Neel, 5/28)

San Francisco Chronicle: Only 4 States Are Now In COVID 'High Risk' Level. Here's How They Compare To California
With the country increasingly opening up and air travel hitting its highest levels since the pandemic broke out, the U.S. showed continued signs of progress toward normalcy over Memorial Day weekend — bolstered by data from the coronavirus infection front. According to nonprofit data website COVID Act Now, nearly the entire country is in the second-lowest “medium risk” category, just one away from the lowest risk tier. (Hwang, 5/31)

KQED: Solano and Marin Prepare to Move Ahead with Reopening Next Week
Solano County could soon catch up to the rest of the Bay Area by moving out of the state’s more restrictive red tier. County officials say they could move into the orange tier as soon as next week, as vaccinations increase and the county's seven-day positivity rate continues to hold below 5%, a necessary threshold set by the state. (Stark, 5/29)

The Bakersfield Californian: Kern Public Health Reports 20 New Coronavirus Cases Monday 
Kern County Public Health Services reported 20 new confirmed coronavirus cases Monday, and no new deaths. That brings the county's count of cases since the pandemic began to 110,131. There have been 1,389 deaths. Public Health reports that 39,515 people have recovered from the illness, and 67,952 people are presumed to have recovered. (5/31)

Los Angeles Daily News: LA County Reports 5 Coronavirus Deaths, 175 New Cases On Memorial Day 
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has confirmed 175 new cases of COVID-19 and five new deaths. Those figures are strikingly similar to Sunday’s, when 174 new cases were confirmed, along with four deaths. To date, Public Health identified 1,243,882 positive cases of COVID-19 across all areas of L.A. County and a total of 24,339 deaths. There are 261 people with COVID-19 currently hospitalized, up three from the day before. (5/31)

Sacramento Bee: Mendocino Cafe Charging Customers Wearing Masks Extra $5 
A California cafe owner is charging customers who wear a face mask an extra fee. A poster on the window at Fiddlehead’s Cafe in Mendocino read, “$5 fee added to orders placed while wearing a face mask,” SFGate reported. Chris Castleman, owner of the cafe, told McClatchy News that he put the sign up “because the pro-mask people have been damaging our country for too long. It’s time to end the mandates and start focusing on reversing the collateral damage done by these government restrictions.” (Lin, 5/31)

Marin Independent Journal: Judge Probes San Quentin’s COVID-19 Debacle Tied To Transfer Of Inmates From Chino 
More than 300 inmates are trying to hold San Quentin State Prison to account for a coronavirus outbreak that infected 2,169 prisoners and killed 28 last year. An unusual evidentiary hearing in Marin County Superior Court this month has brought the prison’s top administrator and other figures to the witness stand. The hearing is in response to stacks of habeas corpus petitions — emergency filings alleging unlawful incarceration under the Eighth Amendment — filed by the inmates. (Halstead, 5/31)

Sacramento Bee: CA Hospital Giant Sutter Struggles With Pandemic, Layoffs 
Sutter Health has been the pre-eminent hospital chain in Northern California for decades — respected but also feared. Critics say it has strong-armed insurance companies and major employers into contract terms that inflated healthcare prices across the region. State officials blamed Sutter for making Sacramento the most expensive city in America for delivering a baby. Now, this formidable organization — with two dozen hospitals, 12,000 doctors and 3 million member patients — is facing a reckoning over the way it does business. (Kasler, 6/1)

Noticias Telemundo: Home Caretakers Are Among The Worst-Paid Workers In The U.S. 
Home caretakers and personal aides, who are overwhelmingly Latinas and Black women, are among the worst-paid workers in the U.S., even as the COVID-19 pandemic has shown the value of their care. Most home health aides have no benefits, like Medicaid, and earn $10 to $13 an hour on average, which they say barely covers the cost of traveling to and from their house calls. (Franco, 5/29)

Los Angeles Times: Teachers Not Trained For Students' COVID Mental Health Trauma
As the first responders of the school environment, K-12 educators such as Bibbs-Fox feel that they are ill-equipped and need more tools and training to navigate their students’ often crushing mental health challenges such as anxiety and depression brought on or exacerbated by the pandemic. The overwhelming stresses of the last 14 months have magnified a long-simmering crisis of mental health struggles among students. Hospitals across the U.S. reported an alarming increase in attempted and completed suicides among youth. The rate of children ages 11 through 17 who were screened in 2020 for anxiety and depression was 9% higher than in 2019, according to a Mental Health America report. (Newberry, 5/31)

The Bakersfield Californian: After Slow Start, Kern County Says Reimagined Court-Ordered Mental Health Treatment Program Shows Promise
For years, Sarah Dessy resisted treatment for the “serious brain disorders” that sometimes resulted in the voices inside her head telling her to kill herself. First diagnosed with major depression and obsessive compulsive disorder in second grade, her psychosis worsened in her last year at Cal State Northridge, when police evacuated her dorm as she waved a knife around. “I was hearing voices, and they were threatening me and scaring me so I was trying to defend myself,” she said in a phone interview. “I could have easily gotten shot by the cops. It could have been much worse.” (Morgen, 5/29)

Southern California News Group: How A Pandemic Is Spurring Many To Consider Career Change
After more than a year of managing work, ZOOM sessions and staying connected from home, one in four employees are considering a leap to a new career, Prudential Financial’s Pulse of the American Worker survey says. The shift comes as many workers enjoy a new work-life balance, with less time spent on long commutes and in-person meetings. To keep workers happy, 82% of company leaders surveyed by Gartner say they’ll allow employees to work remotely at least part of the time after the pandemic, while 47% say they will allow employees to work from home full-time. (Smith, 5/31)

San Francisco Chronicle: Here's Where Oakland's Homicides Have Spiked During The Pandemic
Like other U.S. cities, Oakland has seen a sharp uptick in homicides as the pandemic has unfolded. Through May 23, the city had recorded 51 homicides for the year, a 132% increase compared with the same period last year and a 70% increase compared with 2019. The Chronicle analyzed where homicides have been occurring in the city and how the numbers compared with prior years. First we looked at the locations of homicides within the city’s five patrol areas as designated by the Oakland Police Department. (Nielsen, 5/31)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego Taking On 'Period Poverty' By Providing Free Feminine Hygiene Products Across The County 
San Diego County is providing free menstrual products at public facilities across the region to address economic barriers that most often affect women and girls who are homeless or low-income. The county recently installed 57 dispensers of feminine products at 23 county-owned libraries and family resource and community centers. Each machine is filled with free organic tampons and pads. The pilot program, called “Free 4 Menstrual Equity,” is a partnership with Aunt Flow, a menstrual product dispenser company. (Lopez-Villafana, 5/28)

Bay Area News Group: After COVID-19 Loss, An Eviction Notice
A statewide eviction moratorium, now reaching 15-months long, still has enough legal exceptions to allow courtroom battles and displacement for pandemic-struck families like like [Yvette Mendoza’s]. Violating terms of a rental agreement — Mendoza’s name was not on the lease or voucher — can bring an eviction notice. “My heart shattered,” Mendoza said. “I was trying to be a good person.” Although rare, eviction cases still continue throughout the Bay Area, including more than 1,000 court filings, known as unlawful detainers, in Santa Clara County since state and local moratoriums were enacted a year ago. (Hansen, 5/31)

Los Angeles Times: Kauai Beat COVID-19. Next Challenge: Rebuilding The Economy 
Homeless people here on Hawaii’s northern island got an unusual invitation last year: Come set up camp at a spectacular beach, with showers, toilets and electricity, and meals delivered by the local food bank. The offer was part of an aggressive plan by Kauai’s leaders to contain the coronavirus. The public campgrounds were all but deserted because tourism had collapsed under the weight of the pandemic and strict quarantine rules. Letting a few hundred people stay in five designated parks reduced the chance that they would wander the island, catch the virus and become vectors. (Read, 6/1)