Voice of OC: Disneyland Mass Vaccination Site To Close Temporarily Due To Supply Delays 
Orange County’s mass Coronavirus vaccination site at Disneyland will close temporarily, due to severe weather across the U.S., which officials say has delayed local deliveries of vaccine supplies. County officials as a result also expect delays to the opening of a new vaccination site at the Anaheim Convention Center, which had been scheduled for Feb. 24. (Pho, 2/18)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. Postpones COVID-19 Vaccines Amid Winter Weather Delays 
Thousands of COVID-19 vaccine appointments scheduled Friday at sites run by the city of Los Angeles will have to be postponed after shipments of doses were delayed by the severe winter weather that’s wreaking havoc across the country. About 12,500 people will have their appointments delayed, and those affected should be notified by text, email or phone, according to a city statement. (Money, Shalby and Lu, 2/18)

Sacramento Bee: Bad Weather Causes Vaccine Cutbacks. Clinics In Sacramento, NorCal Could Be Delayed
The nation’s winter storms have delayed vaccine shipments to Northern California, forcing some health care entities to cut back on shot-giving just as many were ramping up, officials said Thursday afternoon. Sacramento County health officials say they have been told their weekly shipment, normally due on Thursday, has been delayed, forcing them to send word out to community injection sites that they may have to cancel or delay appointments in the coming days. (McGough and Bizjak, 2/18)

Fresno Bee: COVID-19: Cold Weather Stalls Arrival Of Fresno-Area Vaccine 
More than 40% of the coronavirus vaccine doses that Fresno County expected to receive this week have been delayed by cold weather that has brought some parts of the eastern and southern U.S. to a standstill. Health officials don’t know when those precious doses will eventually arrive, the county’s vaccine coordinator said Thursday. But in the meantime, they’re scrambling to manage their existing supplies so clinics don’t have to cancel appointments for people who are already scheduled to get their COVID-19 shots. (Sheehan, 2/18)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Petco Park Vaccine Superstation Will Close Friday And Saturday Due To Supply Shortage 
The COVID-19 vaccine superstation near Petco Park will close Friday and Saturday due to bone-chilling winter storms that have swept much of the U.S. and frozen vaccine supply lines. The site could remain closed on Sunday and Monday, depending on when the next shipment of doses arrives. Anyone with an appointment during the closure will be rescheduled through UC San Diego’s MyChart system and should check for an email notification, according to spokespersons for the county and UCSD. (Wosen, 2/18)

Los Angeles Times: California Increases COVID Vaccines, 1st Doses Still Limited 
The stream of COVID-19 vaccine is swelling slightly in California but remains a trickle for those trying to get their first dose, according to officials. Forecasts discussed Wednesday showed California should receive 1.28 million vaccine doses next week and 1.31 million the week after. Both of those figures are up from the state’s last shipment, which was about 1.08 million. (Money, Shalby and Ormseth, 2/18)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Crowd Cheers As Lucky Sonoma County Seniors Receive COVID-19 Vaccine
Eager to be vaccinated against COVID-19, Deana Abramowitz drove days ago to the Luther Burbank Center in Santa Rosa to see if she might get lucky. Maybe 50 people were there when the Sutter crew finished up with everyone who’d had an appointment. There were doses left over, so the folks who waited were invited to step forward — in order, starting with those whose birthdays were the longest ago. (Smith, 2/18)

San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco, Berkeley Aim To Start Vaccinating Homeless People Soon
In recent weeks, San Francisco has opened vaccination sites in neighborhoods that have been hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Next, the city hopes to bring vaccines directly to homeless people. When it has enough vaccines, San Francisco will start a mobile program to vaccinate some of its 17,000 homeless people, according to Dr. Deborah Borne, who is overseeing San Francisco’s vaccine rollout to people experiencing homelessness. It could happen as early as next week. (Bobrowsky, 2/18)

Sacramento Bee: Pandemic Relief For Undocumented Families Under CA Stimulus 
Many undocumented families in California will be eligible to receive stimulus relief aid under a deal advocate leaders say is the first step toward creating a permanent wage replacement program for this population. Under a state stimulus package agreement reached by Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature, undocumented workers will be eligible for coronavirus relief aid. (Amaro, 2/18)

Bay Area News Group: Here Is The Day California’s Coronavirus Hospitalizations Started Dropping — And They Haven’t Stopped Since 
The number of Californians currently hospitalized and being treated for COVID-19 has dropped to less than half of what it was at the peak of the winter spike. And there was a clear point at which California dramatically turned the tide: Every day since Jan. 12, hospitals in the Golden State have reported fewer COVID-19 patients than the previous day. That’s five straight weeks of declines. The steep drop is illustrated in this chart of day-over-day changes in the total number of patients confirmed to have COVID-19 in California hospitals, according to data published daily by the California Department of Public Health. (Rowan, 2/18)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Today: Just How Bad Was The Latest COVID-19 Surge? 
Yesterday, we noted the good news that new coronavirus cases are down to pre-Thanksgiving levels across California. Gov. Gavin Newsom was optimistic that the economy could continue to reopen now that the worst of the surge is behind us. But as healthcare workers exhale slightly, officials are trying to assess just how bad things got during the holiday surge that had hospitals turning their gift shops into temporary intensive care units and patients stuck in ambulances waiting hours for an open bed. (Nguyen, 2/18)

Los Angeles Times: Did L.A.’s COVID-19 Hospital Surge Cause Unnecessary Deaths? ‘The Public Deserves An Answer.’
During the worst moments of the autumn-and-winter coronavirus surge in Southern California, doctors and nurses frantically trying to save patients at overcrowded hospitals made terrifying warnings about what they were seeing. “Everything is such a disaster now,” one doctor at an L.A. County hospital said in January. “Patients are dying due to a lack of staffing and lack of attention.” “It’s a nightmare for every hospital,” said an ER nurse, as hospitals overflowed with patients, ambulances waited hours for beds to open up and hospitals struggled to fix pipes needed to send oxygen for patients gasping for breath. (Lin II and Karlamangla, 2/18)

LA Daily News: Dockworker Coronavirus Cases Spark Concern As Goods Movement Slows In Ports Of Los Angeles, Long Beach 
Dockworkers at the nation’s largest commercial seaport complex continue battling the coronavirus, even as numbers wane across Los Angeles County — with about 41% of all positive tests at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach occurring in the first six weeks of the new year. There were 590 suspected coronavirus cases at the ports from Jan. 1 to Feb. 12, with 355 of those confirmed, according to data the International Longshore and Warehouse Union’s Coast Division. Since the pandemic began, 853 dockworkers have tested positive out of 1,400 suspected cases, according to that data, which the labor union released Thursday, Feb. 18. The numbers are about equally divided between the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. (Littlejohn, 2/18)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Alarming Decline In COVID-19 Testing In Sonoma County Could Hinder Reopening More Businesses
A dramatic decline in the number of Sonoma County residents getting tested for the coronavirus could impede recent progress in the months long battle to reduce spread of the deadly virus and delay reopening more businesses. (Espinoza, 2/18)

LA Daily News: Appointments Are No Longer Needed To Get Tested For COVID-19 At L.A. City-Run Sites
Starting next Monday, appointments will no longer be needed to get tested for COVID-19 at sites run by the city of Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Thursday, Feb. 18. People interested in getting tested can show up to one of the city’s testing sites during the normal business hours of 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., from Monday through Saturday, Garcetti said. Registration can be completed while people waiting in line, Garcetti said. People should bring their insurance information or identification, although insurance is not needed, he added. (Chou, 2/18)

Sacramento Bee: Why CA Has Failed To Track Nursing Home Worker COVID Deaths 
A year into the pandemic, California’s workplace safety watchdog still doesn’t know how many nursing home workers have contracted COVID-19 on the job and died, a Sacramento Bee review of state records shows. California’s health department regularly updates a list of COVID-19 infections and deaths at nursing homes. But only about half of those listed facilities have bothered to report the death to Cal/OSHA, the agency in charge of enforcing worker safety, according to the state records. (Pohl, Kasler and Sabalow, 2/18)

San Francisco Chronicle: Pandemic-Related Unemployment Caused 30,000 Additional Deaths In U.S., UCSF Study Says
The widespread unemployment wrought by the pandemic — it peaked in April at 14.7%, the highest since the Great Depression — left millions of Americans desperate to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. It also may have led to more than 30,231 excess deaths nationwide over the past year, on top of the nearly half a million people who died from the coronavirus, according to a UCSF study being published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health. (Said, 2/18)

San Francisco Chronicle: Failing Grades. Rising Depression. Bay Area Children Are Suffering From Shuttered Schools
Viola Buitoni tried to help her son as he grew increasingly detached, the high school junior’s anger flaring, tears flowing as she begged him to do his schoolwork. Before the pandemic, her son was thriving at San Francisco’s Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, where he was in the vocal music program and the robotics team. But after schools closed in March, “everything came tumbling down,” Buitoni said. He has stopped going to Zoom school. His glazed look scares his mother as she encourages him to do assignments or leave his room. “I can’t,” he responds. “It’s not, ‘I don’t want to do it,’” she said. “It’s ‘That’s too much effort. I can’t do it.’” (Tucker, 2/17)

Modesto Bee: ’Heart-Wrenching’: Rural Stanislaus District Shares Struggles Of Distance Learning
“Enormous” and “heart-wrenching” learning loss. Continuing struggles with distance learning because of Internet connectivity, language barriers and other issues. The social development and mental health issues that come from isolation. Approaching one year since schools closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Waterford educators and parents got a chance to share with their congressman this week these and other experiences, concerns and successes. (Farrow, 2/18)

Ventura County Star: Retired Nurse Chips In $550K For Center Aiding Families With Seriously Ill Children
A retired nurse has donated $550,000 for a respite center at a Ventura hospital for families of children fighting life-threatening diseases, the last dollars needed to complete the $1.5 million capital campaign. Christine Petti contributed the money late last year from her family's philanthropic trust to fund the Ronald McDonald Family Room at Ventura County Medical Center. The room will provide a space inside the hospital where families can gather, cook, nap, do laundry and shower, all within steps of the child's bedside, officials and contributors said. (Wilson, 2/18)

Southern California News Group: 2 California Doctors Admit Receiving More Than $1 Million In Illegal Cancer Drugs
Two San Fernando Valley physicians have agreed to plead guilty to federal charges alleging they obtained more than $1 million in illegal and potentially dangerous cancer drugs not approved for distribution in the United States. Dr. Stanley Rossman and Dr. Mark Goldstein, who operated Hematology Oncology Consultants in West Hills and Van Nuys, admitted last month that from 2008 to 2011 they obtained Altuzan, meant for foreign markets such as Turkey, according to a plea agreement. (Schwebke, 2/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: Oakland Plan To Replace Police With Mental Health Workers In Disarray
As protests against police brutality swept Oakland in June, the City Council took a bold step toward rethinking public safety: It set aside $1.85 million for a new program to dispatch counselors and paramedics to mental health crises, instead of armed law enforcement officers. Eight months later, the Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland program has yet to get off the runway. And on Feb. 17, two community-based organizations that were vying for the contract bowed out. (Swan, 2/19)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Mendocino County Hires Interim Public Health Director While Weighing Future Of The Post
Mendocino County officials have named an interim public health director, the county health and human services agency announced this week. Mary Alice Willeford, the fiscal manager for the agency’s public health department, will take over as interim director starting Sunday. (Varian, 2/18)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego County, Sheriff's Department Lose Appeal In Inmate 'Brain Bleed' Case 
Lawyers for the County of San Diego lost their appeal of a multimillion-dollar jury verdict against sheriff’s deputies and jail staff in the case of a man who suffered permanent brain damage from falling in a jail cell and not receiving immediate treatment. In 2019, a jury awarded David Collins and his family $12.6 million, but the trial judge cut that award nearly in half. Collins’ attorney said he offered to settle the case for $3 million but the county rejected that offer as too high. (McDonald, 2/18)

Fresno Bee: In The COVID Pandemic, Financial Help For Farmworkers Is The Moral Choice
Farmworkers risk their lives to bring food to our tables, and they need more money now. It is downright immoral to deny protections and a safety net to invaluable farmworkers, yet that is exactly what has happened. The recent COVID-19 Farmworker Study documented what many already know — our farmworkers and our food system are at incredible physical and economic risk caused by the pandemic with far too little support. (Amy Everitt, 2/17)

Los Angeles Times: COVID Bill Would Offer More Help On Health Premiums Too
On the campaign trail, Joe Biden pledged to use the Affordable Care Act as a foundation for extending health insurance to all Americans. And in his first major legislative proposal — a $1.9-trillion COVID-19 relief package — Biden is trying to take the first steps in that direction. The moves are significant, but also limited in ways that set up tough choices down the road. It’s nice to see Washington finally trying to make the ACA deliver affordable coverage to more people, rather than trying to kill it or undermine its protections for people with preexisting conditions. Biden’s proposal, as advanced by the House Ways & Means Committee last week, would provide larger premium subsidies for two years to the vast majority of people who buy coverage through the state Obamacare exchanges. (Jon Healey, 2/17)

Los Angeles Times: Why California College Students Need Vaccine Priority 
In Los Angeles, you can once again dine outdoors at a restaurant. Stores are open and freeways are buzzing. Construction sites are crowded on weekdays as are the beaches on sunny weekends. But our region’s dozens of university campuses remain closed with plans for remote education at least through summer — and continued uncertainty about the shape of fall. Nearly all university teaching throughout Southern California has been conducted remotely since March. This decision has promoted the safety of students, faculty, staff and the broader L.A. community, but it also comes at a cost. As we look ahead, the fall semester and higher education remain in jeopardy, despite the arrival of the COVID-19 vaccine. (Jennifer Mnookin and Eileen Strempel, 2/18)

Los Angeles Times: Vaccine Hesitancy In Black Healthcare Workers 
Across the nation, Black healthcare workers are receiving the COVID-19 vaccine at rates far lower than their white counterparts. We have seen this disparity in our own health system, Penn Medicine, where during the first two weeks of vaccine rollout, just 22% of eligible Black employees, compared with 62% of eligible white employees, got vaccinated or signed up to receive the shot. As Black physicians, we were alarmed but not surprised. While we have been vaccinated, we each made the decision with varying levels of uncertainty. (Florencia Greer Polite and Eugenia C. South, 2/19)

Sacramento Bee: COVID Shut California Schools. Teacher Unions Won’t Open Them 
It’s a big story that barely got the attention it deserves. The Natomas Unified School District is opening doors next week to families who want their pre-kindergarten to sixth grade kids back in classrooms. Natomas Superintendent Chris Evans and his labor partners with the Natomas Teachers Association worked last weekend to get a deal done. It was the kind of deal that often eludes bigger districts with fraught labor relations, such as the Sacramento City Unified School District and similarly dysfunctional districts in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. (Marcos Breton, 2/18)

San Francisco Chronicle: California's Schools Are A National Scandal
Throughout the controversy over the San Francisco Board of Education’s decision to spend time renaming scores of schools that remain empty, district officials insisted it was unfair to suggest the rebranding project interfered with reopening efforts. They argued that they could do more than one thing at once. This week, school board members declared that they were forced to postpone a vote on a deal with unions to resume in-person instruction. Why? Because someone sued them and they had to discuss the legal challenge. So much for multitasking. (2/19)

CalMatters: Some Sober Advice On Homelessness In California 
A year ago, before COVID-19 changed everything, Gov. Gavin Newsom dedicated almost all of his State of the State address to one issue: homelessness. “As Californians, we pride ourselves on our unwavering sense of compassion and justice for humankind,” Newsom told legislators, “but there’s nothing compassionate about allowing fellow Californians to live on the streets, huddled in cars or makeshift encampments. And there’s nothing just about sidewalks and street corners that aren’t safe and clean for everybody. “The problem has persisted for decades — caused by massive failures in our mental health system and disinvestment in our social safety net — exacerbated by widening income inequality and California’s housing shortage. The hard truth is we ignored the problem.” (Dan Walters, 2/18)

San Francisco Chronicle: People's Park Protests Aside, The People Need Housing
UC Berkeley plans to build desperately needed housing for students and formerly homeless residents on the hallowed ground of People’s Park, and some people are upset. Protesters have camped in the park a few blocks from campus and taken down fences put up in preparation for constructing dorms for 1,200 and supportive housing for 150. Longtime residents and activists are wrinkling their noses and worry that a 17-story development is “completely out of scale for the neighborhood.” Come on, people. (2/18)

Newsweek: Culture Warrior Xavier Becerra Is Unqualified To Lead HSS Department 
President Joe Biden regularly touts his Catholic faith despite advancing a policy agenda deeply unpopular with religious Americans. He has now nominated the co-chair of Catholics for Biden, California attorney general Xavier Becerra, to be his secretary of Health and Human Services. Catholics tempted to welcome this nomination may be surprised by Becerra's record. Becerra has been nominated to lead one of our most important government agencies, tasked with enhancing the health and wellbeing of all Americans. Yet he is a deeply partisan and ideologically driven nominee with no formal education, training or background in medicine or health. His most notable experience could best be described as waging left-wing culture wars while serving as attorney general of California. (Brian Burch, 2/19)