San Francisco Chronicle: With Stay-At-Home Order, Newsom Dissuades Travel, Recommends Getting Outdoors
In an announcement of pending new regional stay-at-home restrictions on Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom implored Californians to forgo traveling for the foreseeable future. The new approach to stem the third major surge of the coronavirus carves the state’s 58 counties into five regional groups. If hospital ICU capacity in a given group hits 85%, the counties in that group will be subject to a set of strict lockdown measures for at least three weeks — which include barring residents from non-essential traveling outside of their respective home counties and closing certain outdoor venues like playgrounds, zoos and amusement parks. (Thomas, 12/3)

Fox News: LA County Sheriff: Deputies Won't Enforce Newsom's Stay-At-Home Order
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva will not instruct his deputies to enforce a new statewide stay-at-home order announced Thursday that could force businesses to temporarily shut down as coronavirus cases continue to soar. "I want to stay away from business [sic] that are trying to comply, they bent over backwards to modify their operations to conform to these orders and then they have the rug yanked out from under them, that's a disservice, I don't want to make them more miserable," he told Fox affiliate, KTTV-TV, according to a tweet. (Casiano, 12/3)

Fresno Bee: COVID-19: Fresno CA Leaders React To Gov. Newsom’s Order 
The possibility that Fresno County and the central San Joaquin Valley could get another stay-at-home order from Gov. Gavin Newsom was met Thursday with a mixture of skepticism and resolve. Newsom announced the new order will apply in regions where available intensive care unit capacity drops below 15%. Four out of five regions in the state, including the Valley, are on track to hit that threshold early this month. (Miller, 12/3)

San Francisco Chronicle: Alameda County May Impose Restrictions Before Available ICU Beds Drop To 15% Of Capacity
Alameda County officials said Thursday they may impose the state’s new strict coronavirus stay-at-home order even before the county’s available ICU beds dwindle down to the state’s threshold of 15% of capacity. The county had 33% of its total intensive-care unit beds available as of Thursday — and 71.3% availability of mechanical ventilators, according to county public health data last updated on Wednesday. (Hernández, 12/3)

Bay Area News Group: COVID-19 Outbreaks Infect More Than 230 People At Two San Jose Nursing Homes, 60 In Homeless Shelter
With COVID-19 cases in California surging to new levels, Bay Area nursing homes and homeless centers have been slammed hard with frighteningly large outbreaks. Two San Jose nursing facilities have a combined 232 COVID cases and Santa Clara County saw its first major outbreak at a homeless shelter, where 60 people have been infected since Nov. 23. The outbreaks at nursing homes haven’t been this staggering since the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic. (Sciacca and Angst, 12/3)

Los Angeles Times: Megachurch Pastor Dies Of COVID-19 After Church Reopens
An associate pastor for a megachurch in San Bernardino County died of COVID-19 about a month after the facility reopened indoor services. Bob Bryant of the Water of Life Community Church in Fontana tested positive for the coronavirus in November and soon developed an aggressive pneumonia in his lungs, according to a post on the church’s Facebook site. He then suffered a heart attack. He ultimately was placed on a ventilator and died Monday. He was 58. (Lin II, 12/3)

San Francisco Chronicle: Mesa Verde Detention Center Must Keep Testing Detainees For COVID, Over ICE’s Objections
Immigration officials at a detention facility in Bakersfield have ignored the dangers of COVID-19, have lied repeatedly about their actions, and have shown they cannot be trusted to protect the health of detainees and staff, a federal judge said Thursday. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of San Francisco ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its contractor, the GEO Group, to continue weekly coronavirus testing of detainees and staff members at the Mesa Verde Detention Facility that he had previously required and to take additional protective measures, including quarantines, limits on population and transfers, and immediate reports of any positive tests. (Egelko, 12/3)

LA Daily News: Lancaster Gives LA County Health Director A ‘No-Confidence’ Vote 
Lancaster’s City Council on Thursday, Dec. 3, backed a vote of no confidence in Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer, while greenlighting a study to determine if the city can create its own public health department and set its own path for coping with the coronavirus pandemic. The actions, both unanimously approved, came in response to stay-at-home orders the northern L.A. County city and a handful of other communities say are too restrictive, issued from a large agency they say is too distant from their residents. (Carter, 12/3)

Politico: California Politicians Skewered For Social Crimes In The Age Of Coronavirus 
California politicians are drawing scorn for the unthinkable: dining out, spending Thanksgiving with relatives and traveling out of state. Such malfeasance is considered the height of hypocrisy during a pandemic in which leaders have discouraged a long list of social activities. Few places have as many errant officials as California, a deep blue state with some of the strictest rules in the nation — and where politicians have wagged their fingers this fall in an effort to control surging infections. (Marinucci, 12/3)

Bay Area News Group: Which Californians Will Be First To Get The Virus Vaccine?
California will receive its first batch of the COVID-19 vaccine — 263,600 doses from the drug maker Pfizer — between Dec. 12 and Dec. 15, pending federal approval, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Thursday. This is far short of the doses need to vaccinate the 2.4 million of the most vulnerable Californians who either work in health care or are cared for in nursing homes. So the state has released a list of who — within those two high-risk groups — will be prioritized in the greatest mass vaccination campaign in the state in at least the last half century. (Krieger, 12/3)

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus Vaccines Arriving Soon In California. Here’s Who Will Get Them First
California is slated to begin receiving and administering coronavirus vaccines to its health care workers in the next few weeks, creating a need to prioritize recipients. At UCSF, the vaccines likely will go first to employees with the most direct contact with COVID-19 patients, including urgent care and emergency department doctors and nurses, respiratory therapists, radiology technicians, phlebotomists and emergency medical services transporters, said Desi Kotis, the chief pharmacy executive who is overseeing the vaccine process, during a virtual meeting. (Ho, 12/3)

Los Angeles Times: COVID-19 Vaccines May Not Work On Nursing Home Patients. Why Do They Get First Dibs?
Neither of the first two COVID-19 vaccines likely to win emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration — one from the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and the other from a start-up named Moderna — has been studied in the kinds of very elderly, very frail patients who populate long-term care facilities. (In clinical trials largely involving thousands of younger, healthier adults, they’ve been shown to be more than 90% effective.) Yet if states opt to follow ACIP’s advice, this group will get the scarce vaccine before teachers, before workers deemed essential to the economy, and before younger seniors and those with underlying conditions. (Healy, 12/4)

Sacramento Bee: Newsom Announces Sleep Train Arena Site To Open As Hospital
Faced with dramatically rising COVID-19 hospitalizations, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday the state will open the emergency field hospital at the Sleep Train Arena practice facility building in Sacramento’s Natomas area. Opening day will be Wednesday, Dec. 9, he said, with the first 20 beds available. (Bizjak and McGough, 12/3)

Los Angeles Times: Staffing Shortages Feared As COVID-19 Fills Hospital Beds
As California hospitals rapidly approach capacity because of the unprecedented spike in coronavirus cases, there are growing concerns about shortages of workers as the healthcare system strains to handle the growing demand. Officials have contingency plans of opening up additional facilities if hospitals become overwhelmed, something developed by the first COVID-19 surge this past spring. But conditions have changed in significant ways since then that could make staffing an issue. (Cosgrove and Karlamangla, 12/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Supes Again Condemn Zuckerberg’s Name On City General Hospital 
A committee of San Francisco supervisors on Thursday condemned the naming of San Francisco General Hospital for Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, citing a long list of grievances against the social media giant and claiming its practices endanger public health. The three-member Government Audit and Oversight Committee voted to condemn the hospital’s name and to develop a better policy for future naming of public facilities. The resolution, which carries no legal mandates, was mostly a statement of opinion by the board — and a chance to bash Facebook. The board is constrained in its contract with Zuckerberg in removing his name from the hospital. (Cabanatuan, 12/3)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Charges Rack Up Against Doctor In COVID-19 Treatment Case 
A San Diego doctor already accused of promoting a controversial COVID-19 treatment as a “magic bullet” is facing new charges, substantially broadening the scope of the federal prosecution against him. Dr. Jennings Ryan Staley, owner of Skinny Beach Med Spa in Carmel Valley, began offering hydroxychloroquine after some research early on in the pandemic identified the malaria drug as a potential COVID-19 treatment. President Donald Trump was among those who publicly announced he took the drug as a preventative step. But the drug was not authorized for COVID-19 treatment, and any use under a U.S. Food and Drug Administration emergency authorization would have to follow stringent guidelines. (Davis, 12/3)

LA Daily News: COVID-Related School Closures Could Shorten Life Spans, Study Says 
Elementary-aged children in the United States whose education was disrupted by school closures during the 2019-20 academic year due to the coronavirus pandemic could face shorter life spans, according to an article this month in JAMA Network Open, a journal published by the American Medical Association. Researchers from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and the University of Washington analyzed the relationship between school closures and reduced educational attainment over the lifetime of an individual and the link between this shortened educational attainment and life expectancy. (Tat, 12/3)

Los Angeles Times: CSU Leaders Urged To Take Aggressive Action To Limit Spread Of COVID-19 Amid Surge
Presidents of the 23 campuses of the California State University system are being urged to delay the resumption of any face-to-face instruction— even for classes that have only a limited in-person component — and reassess plans for the end of fall term and beginning of spring term amid the dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases in California. (Agrawal, 12/4)

Los Angeles Times: Fires Bring Smoke, Ash And Poor Air Quality Back To Parts Of Southern California 
Smoke from fires in Orange County and the Inland Empire is causing poor air quality in parts of Southern California on Thursday. The Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Now monitoring website showed air quality in Orange, Irvine, Tustin and other areas near the Bond fire hovering in the unhealthy range, and advised people to reduce time outdoors and avoid strenuous activities. (Smith, 12/3)

Orange County Register: Unhealthy Air Quality From Southern California Wildfires Leads To Smoke Advisory
Smoke from at least two wildfires in Southern California was creating unhealthy air quality for most parts of the region on Thursday, Dec. 2, with officials recommending people stay indoors. A smoke advisory was issued by the South Coast Air Quality Management District Thursday through at least Friday morning, Dec. 4, for parts of Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Ash could be seen dropping from darkened smoky skies in Orange County and Long Beach, which were the areas impacted the most by the unhealthy air. (Rasmussen, 12/3)

Modesto Bee: Stanislaus Deputy’s Fast Work, Caught On Bodycam, Shows Importance Of Child CPR Training
A deputy’s training in CPR may have saved the life of a weeks-old infant Sunday night. Within a minute of a dispatch of a baby struggling to breathe, Deputy Jacob Callahan with Patterson Police Services was on scene, according to a Facebook post by the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department.Bodycam footage shows Callahan being directed to a room where a woman is holding the baby, who is largely quiet but sounds like he’s coughing. Only after the deputy holds the baby chest-down in one hand while repeatedly smacking him firmly on the back as he heads toward the front door does the child begin to cry. (Farrow, 12/3)

LA Daily News: Picturing The Pandemic’s People: Photos Capture The ‘Still Life’ We Are All Living
Innis Casey captured still life like no artist before — the kind of “safer at home” living that we’ve all been experiencing since the coronavirus outbreak jolted our daily routines. The photographer and his travel journalist sister teamed up during spring’s early days of the coronavirus shutdown and ensuing summer months to create a book of portraits they named, “Quartraits: Portrait of a Community Quarantine” set to be released next month. (Love, 12/3)

Orange County Register: Huntington Beach Opens Huge Tent For The Homeless
From the street, it looks as though a blimp hangar has sprouted on Beach Boulevard. On the inside, too, the new homeless shelter in Huntington Beach brings to mind Tustin’s spectacular World War II-era hangars. Set to open Monday, Dec. 7, this new cavernous dome is, at its core, an extremely sturdy and well-insulated tent. However, to be clear, at 11,600 square feet the head-turning dome is not nearly large enough to garage a dirigible. (Christian Goulding and Walker, 12/3)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Mayor-Elect Plans To Keep Convention Center Shelter Open 
Mayor-elect Todd Gloria has vowed to find funding to keep a homeless shelter at the San Diego Convention Center open beyond Dec. 31, when current funding for the program expires. “With cases and hospitalizations on the rise and a new stay-at-home order possibly coming soon from the state, the right thing to do is to use this civic asset to provide shelter to our most vulnerable,” he said in an email. “That’s why I’m working to identify funding so this successful program can continue while the Convention Center is closed to conferences and trade shows.” (Warth, 12/3)

San Francisco Chronicle: Critics Blast Alameda County For Closing Most Of Its Hotels For The Homeless By February
Alameda County is closing most of its hotels for the homeless, a move critics said puts people at risk amid a growing surge in coronavirus cases. The county said it will keep three hotels running in 2021 — two as shelters and one for COVID-positive people. In March, county officials moved homeless people into hotels amid fears of a coronavirus outbreak. Nearly 1,500 people have stayed in county hotels since then and, currently, 1,122 people are staying in eight hotels throughout the county. The process to close some of the hotels has already begun and will continue through February. (Ravani, 12/3)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Newsom's New Coronavirus Rules Need Further Explanation For A Skeptical Public 
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement Thursday of stricter lockdown rules across much of the state because of the surge in coronavirus infections has a sound basis: the fear that hospital intensive care units (ICUs) are on track to be overwhelmed by cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. Newsom’s order may have made moot the legal fight in Los Angeles County over the county’s decision to ban outdoor dining for three weeks beginning Nov. 25. He said most state restaurants must go back to takeout service only. (12/3)

Los Angeles Times: California Politicians Can’t Explain Their COVID-19 Rules. There’s A Reason For That
Nine months into this coronavirus scourge, with cases again surging to terrifying levels, California is losing buy-in even from the pandemic-believing public — and it’s not hard to understand why. Gone is any semblance of clear communication of a clear plan with clear reasoning about how best to beat back COVID-19. In its place has emerged a haphazard, layered mess of rules and restrictions. And, for the most part, our elected leaders have no one to blame but themselves. (Erika D. Smith, 12/4)

Fresno Bee: Fresno County Residents Are In The Dark About COVID-19 Outbreaks. That Needs To Change
Five high schools. A city fire department. Various nursing homes. A cheese-making plant. What they have in common is an unwelcome sign of the times: They became places of COVID-19 outbreaks. The way the public learned about those locations, all in Merced County, was through a page on the county public health department’s website. (12/2)

LA Daily News: Will Flailing At The Coronavirus Do Much Good? 
It is well established that wearing face masks confers a high degree of protection from the coronavirus plague on both wearers and those around them. Plenty of documentation shows social distancing also helps, as do frequent hand washing, good ventilation and disinfecting surfaces that are frequently touched. Also effective are quarantines of new arrivals from other states and countries, as well as isolating those with positive COVID-19 test results. But as infections of the virus accelerated across California this fall, some other tactics ordered by authorities like Gov. Gavin Newsom, the state health department and most county health officers looked a lot like guesswork, seemingly flailing at the virus without much science to back the moves. (Thomas D. Elias, 12/3)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Fauci Is Right. The Default Position Should Be To Try As Best As Possible To Open Schools. 
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement Thursday of broad new restrictions because of the need to control the third surge of the coronavirus pandemic reflects the grim reality facing Californians. It followed by a day San Diego Unified School District’s announcement that it no longer planned to widely resume in-person instruction in January. But there is another grim reality of the pandemic: It is hammering the academic and emotional growth of students, especially those in poor families and communities of color. And it is a fact that some school districts in the county and across the nation have at least partially reopened. A report in The New York Times showed public health officials across Europe were largely satisfied that school reopenings had not endangered public health. (12/3)

San Diego Union-Tribune: The Training Police Officers Receive Is Inadequate For Responding To Mental Health Crises 
The U.S. has convulsed as protests continue to be fueled by the deaths of Black and Brown people, some with mental illness. Efforts to fundamentally change how police departments respond to someone experiencing a mental health emergency should be a top priority. In fact, many people are calling for a complete removal of the involvement of police officers in response to mental health crises. As a mental health clinician and advocate, I have witnessed the trauma experienced when police respond to mental health crises with force due to ignorance and lack of education on mental health issues. In the U.S., about 23 percent of the people killed by police since 2015 have previously experienced mental illness. (Mohamed Abdallah-Elnakib, 12/2)