Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Overwhelms California Nursing Homes
The masks are long gone, replaced by face covers fashioned from pillowcases. Cleaning supplies are dwindling. And when Maria Cecilia Lim, a licensed vocational nurse at an Orange County nursing home, needs a sterile gown, she reaches for a raincoat bought off the rack by desperate co-workers. “This is just one raincoat that we have to keep reusing,” Lim said last week between shifts at the Healthcare Center of Orange County, a 100-bed nursing facility in Buena Park. “A lot of people are using it.” (Hamilton, Gerber and Chabria, 4/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: Unlikely That California Has ‘Herd Immunity’ To The Coronavirus
The theory goes like this: California has fewer COVID-19 cases than hard-hit places like New York because the coronavirus has spread throughout the state undetected since the fall and most Californians are now immune. Turns out it’s too early to prove the unlikely notion started by a Stanford University military historian who published an article about it in a national magazine that conservative talk show hosts and California media outlets quickly picked up. In fact, public health experts say there’s a far more probable explanation for California’s comparatively smaller case load of 20,491 compared with New York’s 170,512: The state’s early shelter-in-place orders have so far prevented many Californians from being exposed to the coronavirus. But without social isolation, they say, many Californians could still get sick. (Moench, 4/11)

Sacramento Bee: Companies Of All Sizes Answer Call For Protective Medical Gear 
The numbers are overwhelming, the need seemingly insurmountable, but businesses joining the rush to produce protective medical gear are in many cases donating space and volunteering the hours, sweat and brainpower to help California hospitals make a stand against the new coronavirus. Their not-so-secret weapons come in the form of 3D printers and computerized tooling that they have redirected to producing hard-to-find items such as the plastic shields protecting nurses and doctors and the tiny valves hospitals need to fit the ventilators crucial to keeping COVID-19 patients alive. (Anderson and Smith, 4/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area Labs Fighting Coronavirus, Sometimes Leaving Regular Work Aside 
Bay Area laboratories are marshaling their expertise to study promising ways of treating COVID-19 and improve testing for the illness as the world frantically fights the coronavirus pandemic. Local scientists are using procedures designed to investigate a potential cure for HIV on the coronavirus instead. Companies that have done work around rare eye conditions and genetic testing are now helping to test for the coronavirus. A major research funding institution is pouring millions of dollars into fast-tracked treatment projects, even as it tries to keep other projects on track. (Morris, 4/12)

Bay Area News Group: Health Care Workers See Hours Slashed Amid Coronavirus Spread
A growing number of doctors, nurses and other medical workers are experiencing an unexpected ripple effect from the deadly coronavirus outbreak gripping the globe: They’re calling it pandemic pay cuts. As hospitals scale back nonemergency operations and treatments to prepare for an onslaught of coronavirus patients, they’re also slashing hours, cutting pay and benefits for the workers who perform those jobs in a desperate bid to stem revenue losses. (Deruy, 4/10)

Fresno Bee: UCSF Fresno Medical School Offering Temporary Housing For Its Doctors
Some local doctors who are caring for patients with the coronavirus might be able to sleep with a bit more ease. The University of California-San Francisco’s medical branch in downtown Fresno is offering free temporary housing for its doctors who are attending to potential cases of COVID-19. It’s part of the medical branch’s efforts to alleviate some concerns that front-line health professionals might have about unknowingly catching the coronavirus and spreading it to those in their household. (Anteola, 4/11)

CalMatters: Like A Petri Dish For The Virus: Tens Of Thousands Of California Inmates Are At Risk 
While sheriffs across the state debate early release to avoid a jail epidemic, inmates say conditions are unsanitary. "It’s inhumane, and it’s a recipe for absolute disaster," said one federal defense attorney. (Duara, 4/13)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Is New Front In The War Between L.A. County's Sheriff And Supervisors
Two of Los Angeles County’s most powerful elected officials appeared together in front of a news camera last month to describe ramped-up efforts to battle the coronavirus outbreak. That evening, Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s phone buzzed with a text from Supervisor Kathryn Barger. “For what it’s worth: You were great today,” she wrote. “True leadership.” (Tchekmedyian, 4/13)

Los Angeles Times: 'Apollo 13 Moments': Amid Coronavirus Crisis, Doctors, Inventors Convert Devices Into Ventilators
Dr. Charles Powell describes it as an “Apollo 13 moment.” In just a few days, a team of doctors and respiratory therapists at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City scavenged tubes and electronics, crafted a key part on a 3-D printer, and successfully converted a $1,500 sleep therapy device into a full-blown ventilator, capable of substituting for the $50,000 machine on many, although not all, patients. Across the country, Isaac Larian, a Los Angeles entrepreneur and owner of one of the country’s largest toy manufacturing companies, pursued a similar goal. His designers and engineers worked with doctors at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center to create two types of masks resembling those used by scuba divers — one to protect healthcare workers and the other to assist patients with breathing problems. (Wilber, 4/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Orders Insurers To Give Refunds On 6 Kinds Of Policies, Including Auto, Due To Coronavirus
California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara on Monday ordered insurance companies to provide partial credits or refunds of premiums for March, April and — if shelter-in-place restrictions remain — for May in at least six lines of insurance “where the risk of loss has fallen substantially” because the coronavirus has people working and driving less. The order applies, at a minimum, to private passenger automobile, commercial automobile, workers’ compensation, commercial multi-peril, commercial liability and medical malpractice insurance in California. The credit, reductions or rebates should be made as soon as possible, but no later than August, he said. (Pender, 4/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus Isolation Hitting Deeper For San Franciscans Who Live Alone
It’s been a challenge for Jordan Frease not to “put the proverbial covers” over his head. The 48-year-old director of business operations has been living alone in Presidio Heights as he copes with two major life changes — the coronavirus outbreak, which has reduced his social net, and quadruple bypass surgery, which he underwent eight months ago. Not having a partner or children at this time has left him feeling rootless, unneeded. (Vainshtein, 4/11)

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus Especially Vicious For The Bay Area’s Working Class And Poor 
Back in September, the beginning of the school year had brought new hope for Esther Williams. As fall arrived, the sunshine burning off the fog and broiling the hillsides yellow, she returned to her post as a school crossing guard. Williams, 43, had held the job in Marin County for five years, and with the new semester came a promotion. (Johnson and Fagan, 4/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: Beloved Bayview Great-Grandmother: The Life And Death Of SF’s 4th Coronavirus Victim
Tessie Henry was something of a “funeral chaser” — or so her three children teased. The 83-year-old was head hostess at Cornerstone Missionary Baptist Church in San Francisco’s Bayview. She took her duties seriously, distributing obituaries and handing out Kleenex. Offering a hug. She found meaning in death. A funeral was a celebration, of sorts. (Johnson, 4/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: SF Homeless Tents, Once Seen As Problem, Now Seen As Path To Coronavirus Social Distancing 
From the Tenderloin to the Castro to the Richmond, the shelter-in-place order has caused an explosion of homeless tents popping up on sidewalks all across San Francisco — and it comes with the blessing of the city. With the city’s already crowded shelters unable to provide the required social distancing, city officials have decided tents are the next best thing. So for now the tents that the city worked so hard to remove in recent years are back and pretty much untouchable. (Matier, 4/12)

CalMatters: Farmers Forced To Let Crops Rot As Food Bank Demand Soars 
For many farmers, it’s more cost-effective to let crops rot in the fields. They can’t afford to harvest it if there is no market for it, and food banks can’t cover the full cost of labor. (Tobias and Rodriguez, 4/11)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Dairies Dump Milk, Crops May Be Left To Wither As Coronavirus Pandemic Disrupts Food System 
When Pati Hamm went to the grocery store recently, she found, like most shoppers in California, empty shelves and sparsely stocked refrigerators. What stuck for her and her family, though, was the store’s 2-gallon limit on milk purchases. Hamm’s husband, Jack, is a dairyman, and while many retailers have run low on food items like milk, he’s got plenty. (Alexander, 4/12)

Bay Area News Group: Unemployed During Coronavirus: How Bay Area Workers Are Coping
This month, Angelino Sandri found himself face to face with a crisis he’d never imagined would be his: He couldn’t pay his rent. “I’m someone that pays on time always, and never had problems,” said the newly unemployed wine salesman, who also runs a struggling gondola business. “I had no debt. Never did.” But when the $2,800 rent payment on his three-bedroom apartment in Alameda came due, Sandri could only scrape together $2,000. He worried forking over any more would mean he couldn’t put food on the table for his two kids. (Kendall, 4/13)

Fresno Bee: Central San Joaquin Valley Families Go Hungry Amid Coronavirus
Last week, Isabel Solorio turned away five families from the Lanare food bank serving farmworkers in rural Fresno County. There just wasn’t enough food to feed the 215 families who showed up. It was twice the number of families that needed food a week earlier, she said. But that same week, on a farm just 20 minutes away, at least two fields of fresh lettuce were disced back into the ground, left to rot as the restaurants that buy the produce struggle to stay afloat. (Tobias and Rodriguez, 4/11)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus And The Pandemics That Shaped Human History
Hernan Cortés fled the Aztec capital Tenochtitlán in 1520 under blistering military assault, losing the bulk of his troops on his escape to the coast. But the Spanish conquistador unknowingly left behind a weapon far more devastating than guns and swords: smallpox. When he returned to retake the city, it was reeling amid an epidemic that would level the Aztec population, destroy its power structures and lead to an empire’s brutal defeat — initiating a centuries-long annihilation of native societies from Tierra del Fuego to the Bering Strait. (Mozingo, 4/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: Police Shut Down SF Nightclub Operating During Coronavirus Crisis 
An underground nightclub in San Francisco’s Bayview district was shut down Saturday for allegedly operating in spite of shelter-in-place-orders during the coronavirus outbreak, The Chronicle has learned. San Francisco police raided the unlicensed club, city officials said, after an investigation by the city attorney’s office found that the venue was holding events in a warehouse that sometimes drew more than 100 people. (Cabanatuan, 4/13)

CalMatters: As Californians Stay At Home, Air Quality Improves – For Now 
The statewide stay at home order has an unexpected benefit: fewer traffic jams and less air pollution. That's good news for Californians with health problems. (Cart, 4/12)

Fresno Bee: Fresno County Now Has 200-Plus Coronavirus Cases 
Fresno County surpassed 200 coronavirus cases Saturday with the reporting of 10 new positive tests for COVID-19. The breakdown of the 201 total cases includes 36 that are travel-related, 60 that were the result of close contact, 70 that are community-spread/unknown and 35 still under investigation. Figures updated on the health department’s website also show 49 of the 201 cases involve patients being hospitalized at some point. (Galaviz, 4/11)

Fresno Bee: First Coronavirus-Related Death In Kings County 
Kings County reported on Saturday evening its first coronavirus-related death. The Kings County Department of Public Health (KCDPH) said the individual was over 65 years of age. How the patient was exposed to COVID-19 remains under investigation. (Anteola, 4/11)

Fresno Bee: One Fresno High School Creates Face Masks To Help Physicians 
As doctors and nurses scramble for medical supplies to fight the global coronavirus pandemic, help is coming from an unlikely place — Fresno-area high school students. Career Technical Education Charter High School has been utilizing its nine 3D printers to make face shields for healthcare workers on the front lines, said Jonathan Delano, director of CTEC. Face masks have been particularly challenging to find in the U.S. since the outbreak. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced this week the state is set to spend $1 billion to purchase 200 million masks each month to boost its supply. (Velez, 4/12)

Sacramento Bee: CA Public Health Office In Natomas Closes After COVID-19 Test 
A California Department of Public Health office in Natomas is closed after an employee tested positive for COVID-19, according to emails sent by managers. An employee at the department’s Center for Health Statistics and Informatics received positive test results on Wednesday, according to an email from the department to staff. The email, sent at 3:43 p.m. Wednesday, directed employees to “leave the building as soon as possible,” and instructed them to dial in to a 4 p.m. conference call for more information. (Venteicher, 4/11)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento Teen Needed A Kidney During Coronavirus Pandemic 
People are fighting for their lives in local hospitals who are not afflicted with COVID-19. But their surgeries and simple hopes to keep living are threatened by the virus just the same. At UC Davis Medical Center, for example, the hospital has a noted kidney transplant program that has temporarily stopped accepting organs from live donors because the risk of transmitting COVID-19 through transplant surgeries is too high. It’s an understandable precaution in these extraordinary times but the consequences are real. (Breton, 4/12)

Bay Area News Group: Coronavirus: Santa Clara County Reports 55 New Cases, 3 Deaths
Santa Clara County officials said there are now 54 people who have died of coronavirus after reporting three new deaths from the disease on Sunday. According to the latest data published in the county’s COVID-19 dashboard, officials also reported 55 new confirmed cases of coronavirus for a total of 1,621. As of Sunday, 473 new cases of the virus were reported over the past week in the county. (Toldeo, 4/12)