San Francisco Chronicle: California Clears Coronavirus Testing Backlog, Tops 480,000 Completed Tests 
California has cleared it’s backlog of pending COVID-19 tests for the first time since it began reporting the numbers in mid-March, state health officials said Thursday. In doing so, the state cleared a hurdle that has for weeks hampered health officials’ efforts to combat the coronavirus. (Bauman, 4/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: Gilead Drug Remdesivir Shows Uneven Results In Treating Coronavirus 
Remdesivir, an antiviral medicine made by Gilead Sciences of Foster City, is being closely watched as a possible treatment for COVID-19 patients. But leaked results from one clinical trial in China suggest it may not be effective. A summary temporarily posted on the website of the World Health Organization said the drug did not hasten the recovery of coronavirus patients in the study or keep them from dying, according to news reports. (Morris, 4/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: A Shelter-In-Place Side Effect: Bay Area People Are Afraid To Go To The Hospital 
Hany Metwally sat at home for four days with chest pains, too tired to move from his easy chair. He already had a stent in his chest for a heart condition and knew he should see a doctor, but his fear of exposure to the coronavirus was greater than his fear of an oncoming heart attack. On the fifth day, his son, Mohammed, 22, loaded Metwally into his Lincoln Town Car and delivered his father to the nearest hospital, Sutter’s Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland. A day later, Dr. Junaid Khan spent five hours performing an open heart surgery that required three bypasses around Metwally’s blocked arteries. (Whiting, 4/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: With No Coronavirus Surge, Hospitals Slowly Resume Nonemergency Surgery 
At least one Bay Area hospital is already performing and scheduling nonemergency surgeries — postponed during California’s shelter-in-place order — as the state takes the first tentative steps toward reopening. Even before Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday that hospitals could begin to schedule some elective surgeries for the first time in more than a month, UCSF has been getting such surgeries on the calendar for the past two weeks, including replacing kidneys and conducting certain heart surgeries and cancer procedures — all of which have been deemed nonemergency during the pandemic. (Moench, 4/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus Canceled Fertility Treatments, But Bay Area Residents Hope To Restart Them 
When shelter-in-place orders came down across the Bay Area, Lizzy Gruner was trying to get pregnant. Gruner lives in San Francisco with her husband and 2-year-old son, who was conceived through in vitro fertilization, or IVF. When Gruner went through the process the first time, she ended up with a number of extra embryos. “We’ve had a joke for years that the siblings were in the freezer,” she said. Last year, she and her husband decided it was time to pull one out. (Feldberg, 4/24)

CalMatters: Coronavirus Detectives: Here's How Counties Try To Track Everyone Exposed 
California needs thousands of contact tracers. But counties and cities are overwhelmed and understaffed. "Woefully inadequate,” said one public health director. (Becker, 4/23)

Sacramento Bee: Workers Say Fast COVID Test Risks Exposure To Coronavirus 
Lab personnel say worries are mounting over the safety of a rapid coronavirus test by Abbott Laboratories that President Donald Trump has repeatedly lauded ― particularly, the risk of infection to those handling it. Trump and federal health officials have promoted the ease with which the Abbott test can be given to patients, whether at a drive-thru site or a doctor’s office. Another selling point: The test could “save personal protective equipment (PPE),” according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Yet medical workers say that there’s a serious danger in the test’s design, one that would require much more protection — not less ― for those who administer it. (Pradhan, 4/23)

Los Angeles Times: It's Becoming Easier To Get A Coronavirus Test In California
Slowly, it’s getting easier to obtain a coronavirus test in California. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday announced an expansion of coronavirus testing capability throughout the state. He said that President Trump confirmed in a phone call Wednesday that the federal government would provide the state with critically needed specimen swabs, which have been in short supply. (Dolan, Gerber and Wigglesworth, 4/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus Drive-Through Test Center To Open For Dublin, Livermore, Pleasanton Residents 
Residents of three Alameda County cities will have access to drive-through coronavirus testing at a regional site beginning Monday morning. Dublin, Livermore and Pleasanton residents who show one or more symptoms of the virus or are in certain vulnerable populations will have access to a testing site at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton, the cities announced. (Kawahara, 4/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: Flu Or Coronavirus? With New Timeline, Some Wonder About Earlier Illnesses 
Kembrya Smith was stunned when she got the phone call. Her childhood sweetheart, Xavier Randle, was dead. The 52-year-old truck driver from Mississippi was on a delivery in Southern California with what he thought was the flu. He was coughing up blood and struggling to breathe when the ambulance arrived. (Tucker and Allday, 4/24)

San Francisco Chronicle: Two Dozen Coronavirus Cases At SF Supportive Housing Facility 
Two dozen people — 22 residents and two staff members — have been infected with the coronavirus at a supportive housing facility in San Francisco’s Mission District after the first case was discovered early last week, city officials said. Also on Tuesday, city officials said a second person had tested positive at Division Circle Navigation Center.Casa Quezada, a 51-resident supportive housing site for formerly homeless people with special needs, is the latest vulnerable community hit with a COVID-19 outbreak. (Bauman and Thadani, 4/23)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Deaths Push Nursing Homes To Ask Newsom For Help
For weeks, nursing homes have been the epicenter of coronavirus outbreaks and deaths in California, making them prime targets for civil lawsuits and even criminal prosecutions. But the nursing home industry has some leverage to fend off legal action: California needs these nursing homes to relieve pressure on hospitals statewide. (Dolan, Ryan and Chabria, 4/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus Claims 3 At East Oakland Nursing Home 
Three people have died from COVID-19 at Excell Health Care Center, a nursing home in East Oakland. “We can confirm that sadly, three residents have passed away from COVID-19 at the Center,” spokeswoman Annaliese Impink said Thursday. At the 99-bed facility on High Street, 36 residents and 17 staff members have tested positive for the coronavirus. (Ravani, 4/23)

Los Angeles Times: California Stay-At-Home Protest Organizer May Face Charges
With protesters taking to the streets urging the loosening of California’s stay-at-home orders, law enforcement agencies have made at least two arrests and may press charges in one case. In San Diego, a woman who police say organized a weekend protest could face a misdemeanor charge for allegedly encouraging others to violate stay-at-home orders meant to slow the spread of COVID-19. (Campa and Hernandez, 4/23)

CalMatters: Newsom Throws Financial Lifelines To Californians During Pandemic Stay-At-Home 
Californians struggling with the dramatic financial fallout of the coronavirus pandemic heard a little good news from their governor today: stimulus payments are safe from debt collectors, and payments on most private student loans can be postponed, without penalty, for the next 90 days. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to prevent debt collectors from garnishing federal stimulus payments. That means people who have received the payments – $1,200 for individuals, plus $500 per child – will not see them immediately disappear because of unpaid debts. (Wiener, 4/23)

CalMatters: CA To Feds: Can We Borrow More Than $11B For Jobless? 
More than 3.4 million Californians filed for unemployment since March 15, with the state distributing nearly $4 billion in benefits, including $1 billion since Sunday alone, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday. But California will soon have to take out federal loans to pay unemployment benefits, and experts project it will have to borrow more than the $10.7 billion it did during the Great Recession — money it just finished paying back in 2018. (Hoeven, 4/24)

CalMatters: Even Harder Than Shutting Down: How Does Newsom Reopen California? 
Restless Californians are letting Gov. Gavin Newsom know they’re over his statewide order to stay home to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. At noisy street demonstrations and in polite letters from government officials, they’re saying: Let us start getting back to normal. Other local leaders — still concerned about the potential for the virus to sicken or kill many more people — are urging the opposite, and Newsom said he’s heard from plenty of them, too: “The vast majority of calls are to caution us from taking the parachute off before we land.” (Rosenhall, 4/23)

Fresno Bee: Governor’s Workers Comp Proposal Draws Heat From Farmers 
A proposed executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom to substantially expand protections for coronavirus-infected employees who qualify for workers’ compensation insurance is raising concerns among leaders in the agriculture and business communities, who say it could cost billions of dollars. Although few have seen a copy of the draft proposal, the details leaked out several days ago and industry groups have rallied to kill it. (Rodriguez, 4/24)

Fresno Bee: Coronavirus: Fresno At Risk Due To Air Quality, Job Loss? 
Fresno-area environmental advocates say they fear efforts to lower pollution standards could harm Valley communities that already struggle with respiratory issues, and now, coronavirus-related financial trouble. In the wake of the pandemic’s economic destruction, business interests including Western Growers and the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association penned a letter to state authorities calling for easing environmental regulations they say make business more difficult. State leaders, including the governor, signaled that wouldn’t happen any time soon. (Rodriguez-Delgado, 4/24)

Fresno Bee: Fresno Extends Renter Eviction Protections During Pandemic 
The Fresno City Council voted 4-3 Thursday to secure $3 million to help families and small businesses stay afloat during the pandemic. They also voted unanimously to extend an eviction protection ordinance. Councilmember Esmeralda Soria proposed the $3 million relief fund. Of that money, $1.5 million will go to consumer grants to help families avoid homelessness, and $1.5 million to small businesses, adding to the city’s $750,000 small business COVID-19 relief fund. (Tobias, 4/23)

Sacramento Bee: Coronavirus: Sacramento Volunteers Aid New York Funeral Homes 
Ally Pawelczyk knew she had to help. Two weeks ago, the National Funeral Directors Association put out a call for volunteers — funeral home directors, apprentices, students — to send out to parts of the country hit worse by the widening coronavirus pandemic. Pawelczyk, studying in her first year at American River College’s Funeral Service Education program, signed up the same day. (Yoon-Hendricks, 4/24)

Los Angeles Times: Wuhan Was The World's Fentanyl Capital. Then Coronavirus Hit
For drug traffickers interested in getting in on the fentanyl business, all roads once led to Wuhan. The sprawling industrial city built along the Yangtze River in east-central China is known for its production of chemicals, including the ingredients needed to cook fentanyl and other powerful synthetic opioids. (Linthicum, 4/24)

San Francisco Chronicle: A Test For California’s Coronavirus Response
America remains so thoroughly in the dark about its world-beating share of the coronavirus pandemic that we can hardly guess when and where it started. Recent revelations about the virus’ arrival in the Bay Area underline the testing failures that hobbled California and the country’s response from the beginning and continue to haunt the effort to this day. (4/24)

Los Angeles Times: A COVID-19 Vaccine Could End Up Costing You A Small Fortune
Things have gone from bad to worse for Brian Helstien. For a decade, he’s been grappling with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer. Now he needs surgery for a leaky heart valve. But because his medical network, Kaiser Permanente, like all healthcare providers, is dealing with a tsunami of COVID-19 patients, the Laguna Woods resident has been informed his non-life-threatening ticker trouble is an “elective” procedure. “They said maybe they’ll be able to get to me in three to six months,” Helstien, 71, told me. “As if we were talking about a nose job instead of heart surgery.” (David Lazarus, 4/21)

CalMatters: COVID-19's Very Unequal Toll 
The COVID-19 pandemic is a horrible human tragedy whose global toll is continuing to rise, but it’s also an exercise in collecting and examining data for clues to how it is spreading. The numbers change minute-by-minute but suggest that in America your chances of being infected may depend on where you stand on the economic ladder, how closely you live and work in the company of others, and how diligently you and your neighbors take precautions. (Dan Walters, 4/23)

Los Angeles Times: Discrimination Soon May Be Based On Coronavirus Immunity
Antibody tests that aim to show whether a person has been exposed to the coronavirus and presumably has immunity are expected to flood the market very soon. Such tests, if accurate, could help us understand the spread of the virus and the extent of immunity in the society as well as determine who can safely go back to work. Much is still unknown about the level of antibodies needed to make a person immune and most blood tests have not been reviewed by the government for accuracy. (Jonathan Turley, 4/24)

Sacramento Bee: CA Must Ignore Small Protests, Follow Science On COVID-19 
Californians overwhelmingly support Gov. Gavin Newsom’s response to the COVID-19 crisis. Some 83 percent of the state’s residents approve of Newsom’s handling of the emergency, according to an analysis by polling site FiveThirtyEight. Key to Newsom’s response: a statewide stay-at-home order that is saving thousands of lives. (4/24)

CalMatters: California Needs To Reassess Stay-At-Home Orders To Prevent An Economic Tragedy 
Before the public health and economic disasters wreaked by the COVID-19 pandemic ruins more lives, California policymakers need to carefully assess the costs of a long-term lockdown and make common sense adjustments. About one-sixth of California workers have filed for unemployment insurance since Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide shelter-at-home order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. While every coronavirus-related death is a tragedy, there is also an economic tragedy brewing in California that will impact lives and health. (Marc Joffee, 4/20)

Los Angeles Times: Chloroquine May Prove Useful, But It's No Coronavirus 'Game Changer'
It’s been nearly four weeks since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave an emergency blessing to the use of two anti-malaria drugs for the treatment of COVID-19, setting the stage for the stockpiling and distribution of millions of doses. But so far, the drugs have fallen far short of President Trump’s repeated promotion of them as potential “game changers.” For the most part, studies and clinical experience haven’t shown the hoped-for results of lowered death rates or quicker clearing of the novel coronavirus with chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine. (4/24)

CalMatters: Protecting California Farmworkers Protects Our Food Supply 
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the White House is reportedly working behind the scenes to reduce wages for farmworkers. According to a recent National Public Radio report, the Trump administration claims that cutting wages for farmworkers will help agricultural businesses struggling during the current crisis. This is exactly the wrong approach. Now is the time to expand protections for vulnerable farmworkers, not dial them back. (Robert Rivas, 4/23)

Los Angeles Times: LAUSD Is Teaching A Lesson On How To Fight Hunger
Is it really the job of a school district to feed the hungry during a pandemic? Not just the low-income students who qualify for subsidized lunches, but also their families, other kids and, well, any other empty-bellied person who comes along?Sure it is. For all the many forms of relief coming from the state and federal governments, there is nothing more basic to a humane and caring society than feeding the hungry. (4/24)

Los Angeles Times: GOP Already Tired Of Coronavirus Spending
As any follower of our nonsensical fiscal policy-making would have guessed, federal spending in the coronavirus crisis wasn’t completely done before Republicans in Washington started calling for austerity. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) got the ball rolling Tuesday, following Senate passage of a $484-billion phase three stimulus bill, when he told reporters that he was skeptical that more money would solve the nation’s coronavirus “problem.” (Michael Hiltzik, 4/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: ICU Physician Thanks San Franciscans For Helping Curb Coronavirus
In my seven years as a practicing physician, I have never taken care of more and sicker patients than I have now. Caring for critically ill patients with COVID-19 is demanding and laborious. For many patients, even a ventilator does not provide enough support. Often, these patients can maintain adequate gas exchange only if they are positioned to lie on their fronts. (Dr. Richard Wang, 4/17)

CalMatters: Stand Together To Stop Hateful Acts Against Asian Americans During Pandemic 
For many Asian Americans, the COVID-19 pandemic has become very personal, due to feelings of anger and fear. They have experienced verbal and physical attacks, and harassment because the coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan, China, and has been characterized as a “Chinese virus.” (Ed Chau, 4/21)