Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
Forced Sports Timeout Puts Squeeze on College Coffers, Scholarships and Towns
Sports events — with their sprays of sweat and spit, not to mention large crowds — are ideal settings for the coronavirus to spread. Although some college leagues have canceled their fall seasons, schools with big athletic programs are still hoping for a partial return to the gridiron and the hardwood. (Mark Kreidler, )
A Difficult Month Comes To An End: July was a coronavirus disaster in California. The state recorded 8,669 new cases per day on average in July, more than twice the figure for June, according to state data analyzed by The Chronicle. Daily death counts also rose dramatically, from 64 in June to 101 in July. California also marked another ignominious milestone in July: The state became the first in the United States to exceed 500,000 confirmed coronavirus cases on Friday. Read more from Lauren Hernandez of the San Francisco Chronicle.
In related news: California Infections Slowing Down, But Deaths Continue To Mount
Lack Of Data Hurting State’s Response To Coronavirus: Infectious disease and public health experts are growing increasingly concerned about how little they know about this pandemic. How sick are those who get infected? How likely are they to die? Where, exactly, are they being exposed to the virus? State and county public health departments are scrambling to collect, analyze and disseminate data. “This is what underinvestment in public health looks like,” said Steven Goodman, a Stanford epidemiologist. Read more from Vincent Moleski of the Sacramento Bee.
Below, check out the roundup of California Healthline’s coverage and the best of the rest of the news.
More News From Across The State
Fresno Bee:
Clovis City Employees Ordered Back To Offices Amid COVID-19
Clovis city officials are ordering back to work employees who have had work-from-home assignments during the coronavirus pandemic. According to an email sent by City Manager Luke Serpa and confirmed by city officials, city department heads have been instructed to tell employees to return to city offices effective Aug. 1. Several offices and lobbies have been open since June, as have been parks and trails. (Rodriguez-Delgado, 8/1)
Fresno Bee:
Fresno County Adds 365 Coronavirus Cases, Total At 15,448
Fresno County added 365 coronavirus cases Sunday, increasing the county’s total COVID-19 infections to nearly 15,500, according to figures posted by the California Department of Public Health. The latest accounting of positive results, which follows a multi-day increase of 644 reported early Saturday by the county and state, brings the total number of cases to 15,448. (Valenzuela, 8/2)
The Bakersfield Californian:
Public Health: 663 New Coronavirus Cases Reported Sunday
Kern County Public Health Services reported 663 new coronavirus cases Sunday morning, but no new deaths. That brings the total since the pandemic reached Kern to 20,555 confirmed cases, and the previously reported 144 deaths, the county's data show. (8/2)
EdSource:
California Child Care Providers Losing Money, Risking Health During Pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic is pushing many California child care providers to the brink of closure and forcing them to risk both their own health and their finances. With less income and more expenses, many providers are missing rent and mortgage payments and racking up credit card debt, even as they worry they will be infected with the coronavirus, according to a new survey from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley. The center surveyed 953 California child care programs, including both private centers and programs run out of providers’ homes and found challenges at both. (Stavely, 8/3)
Sacramento Bee:
Paid Family Leave Runs Out For Some State Worker Parents
The federal government extended a lifeline to working parents in April when it provided 12 weeks of expanded paid leave for those affected by the coronavirus. The leave has run out for parents who have used it continuously since then. Now that schools have canceled in-person classes in Sacramento, Los Angeles and other parts of the state, some California state workers face difficult choices about what to do next. (Venteicher, 8/3)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Empty Towers. Quiet Streets. Struggling Cafes. Will Downtown San Francisco Ever Boom Again?
For 20 years, Adam Smith, owner of San Francisco newsstand Fog City News, told employees and customers one thing before they left his store at Market and First streets. “You’re going on a highway that is Market Street. Be careful or you’ll be trampled by people,” he would say. No longer. The coronavirus pandemic has turned downtown San Francisco, once bursting with workers and tourists, into a ghost town. (Li and Narayan, 8/2)
San Francisco Chronicle:
They’ve Survived Earthquakes And Prohibition: Can SF’s Historic Bars Outlast COVID?
After a while, you barely remember what a Friday night in the Mission used to feel like. Two years after the coronavirus first sent civic life into a tailspin, some people are out — slowly, they emerged from their Zoom trivia nights and into the street, cautiously meeting up with one friend, two at most, and deciding on a bar for the evening. Still, you’re standing on the corner of 18th and Valencia as the sun goes down, and the thrum is missing. Yes, there are bacon-wrapped hot dog carts on the corners and hip-hop radio blaring from passing cars. But when it comes to options for a night on the town, the pandemic might as well have been a sinkhole. (Silvers, 8/1)
Los Angeles Times:
Dinner Tables In Parking Spots As Restaurants Try To Survive
On a balmy evening in Atwater Village, diners at candlelit tables shared plates of Cuban food and flights of beer, serenaded by an accordion player down the block. The scene was almost romantic, but for one catch: The tables were a few feet from rush-hour traffic zipping past on Glendale Boulevard. “A table in a parking space, I was a little surprised,” utility inspector Luis Castillo said as he and a co-worker ate blackened tilapia and arroz con pollo. “But it’s nice to sit down and eat.” (Nelson, 8/2)
San Francisco Chronicle:
San Mateo County Indoor Businesses Ordered To Close After Efforts To Negotiate Reprieve Fail
Some of the last indoor haircuts and tennis games for a while took place Saturday in San Mateo County as health officials tried to decide whether and when to reimpose the same pandemic restrictions that the rest of the Bay Area has been living with. Late Saturday afternoon, after a day of confusion for some businesses, the state Department of Public Health ordered businesses including churches, salons, gyms and tennis courts to shut indoor activities at 12:01 a.m. Sunday, because of San Mateo County’s continued presence on the state’s coronavirus watch list. (Rubenstein and Cabanatuan, 8/1)
The Bakersfield Californian:
Wonderful Co. Unveils $1 Million Pandemic Relief Fund
One of the Central Valley's largest agricultural companies has responded to the many needs that have arisen during the pandemic by again focusing its considerable largesse on the communities where its employees live and work. The Wonderful Co. was planning today to unveil a $1 million relief fund it hopes will prompt nonprofits to propose various initiatives to help local farmworkers, health-care providers and others who continue to labor through the COVID-19 crisis. (Cox, 8/3)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Fire Forces Evacuations In Colusa County
Firefighters are battling a rapidly growing wildfire in Colusa County, prompting mandatory evacuations Sunday evening. Crews responded to a vegetation fire near the 3000 block of Sites Lodoga Road in Colusa County around 4:30 p.m. The fire is spreading with dangerous speed, jumping from 200 acres at 5 p.m. to 1,000 acres by 7:30 p.m., according to California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit. (Bitker, 8/2)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Stanford, Cal Football Players Among Group Threatening Boycott Of ‘Reckless’ Season
Citing academic, economic, health and racial injustices, a group of Pac-12 football players threatened Sunday not to play this year, a season already in jeopardy because of the coronavirus pandemic. In an open letter on the Players’ Tribune website, a post in which every paragraph ended with the hashtag “WeAreUnited,” 13 players who claimed to speak for all players in the conference made a series of demands and said they would opt out of training camp and games if the mandates weren’t met. (Simmons, 8/2)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Giants Begin Longest Trip Amid Baseball’s Coronavirus Outbreak
Amid the looming threat that baseball could be shut down because of the sport’s coronavirus outbreak, the Giants are hitting the road for their longest trip of the season. It’s a three-city, 10-game expedition beginning Monday in Denver, and at its scheduled end Aug. 12, the Giants will have played 16 straight days. With coronavirus cases prompting the postponement of many games around the majors, it’s not an ideal time to leave home. (Shea, 8/2)
The Wall Street Journal:
Colleges Try To Reunite Students With The Stuff They Left Behind
For months, nearly 3,000 miles has separated Benjamin Beckman, a Yale University music major in California, from his French horn back in Connecticut. The instrument was left behind in the hasty shutdown of colleges across the U.S. this spring as coronavirus hit—along with piles of laundry, snacks and personal belongings gathering dust for months in shuttered dorms at campuses across the country. Mr. Beckman, who lives in Los Angeles, was on spring break when Yale decided to close its campus. Finally, a friend was able to fetch the horn—worth thousands of dollars and crucial to his studies—from his dorm and recently shipped it back to him. (Brody and Korn, 8/2)
The Bakersfield Californian:
COVID-19 Continues To Disproportionately Impact Local Latino Community
Whether it's socioeconomic status, underlying health issues or a tradition of multigenerational housing, COVID-19 continues to disproportionately impact the local Latino community. As of Friday, about 71 percent of all COVID-19 cases in Kern County in which the race or ethnicity is known are from the Latino community, according to data from the Kern County Public Health Services Department. However, Latinos only make up 54.6 percent of Kern County's population, according to U.S. census estimates as of July 2019.Latinos make up 6,228 of the county’s more than 19,000 positive cases; however, the race or ethnicity is unknown for 10,640 of the cases. (Wilson, 8/1)
San Francisco Chronicle:
'Twilight Zone' Of Dining: Robots Are Coming To A Restaurant Near You
With every compostable bowl that Sally the salad-making robot fills with chicken and romaine lettuce, the Bay Area food scene inches closer to the singularity: the widespread integration of dining with high-end technology. ... There’s a view of the future where Sally is the standard, a solution to ensure people can still eat out without worrying about human contact spreading a killer virus. (Phillips, 8/2)
San Francisco Chronicle:
How An ER Doctor Plans A Dinner Party During The Pandemic
Driving home from work at 7 in the morning, Dr. Maria Raven needs to take her mind off the night she has just spent treating COVID-19 patients as chief of emergency medicine at UCSF Parnassus. So she starts thinking about the dinner party she will host to break in the dining room of her newly purchased Willis Polk-designed 1915 home in the Claremont Hills of Berkeley. (Whiting, 8/2)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Here’s What People Are Asking A Sex Coach During The Pandemic
Dating can be complicated. On any normal day, depending on another person for open communication, physical intimacy and mutual effort is no easy feat. Dating in a pandemic, however, comes with its own set of challenges. This is the new minefield that Myisha Battle is navigating. (Panchal, 8/2)
Fresno Bee:
Central Valley Daughter Saves Father With Organ Transplant
David Oppedyk had a bad liver and little chance of getting a new one in time. The 52-year-old Tulare man suffered from liver cirrhosis and was near the bottom of a long waiting list for organ donations in November 2019. But then his luck changed. Taking a chance on finding a living donor, family members underwent testing to determine whether any of them was a compatible match. His daughter Alyssa, a 24-year-old nursing student, matched. She jumped at the opportunity to help her father. (Lewis, 8/3)
Los Angeles Times:
Families Of Those Killed By Police Want Autopsies Made Available
It is a roster of tragedy and violence, a list populated with those famous in life and those plucked from obscurity by the exceptional circumstances of their death. Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia, is an enduring member of the list. Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman are still there, as is Susan Berman, the writer whom Robert Durst is charged with killing at her Benedict Canyon bungalow. The Notorious B.I.G. was on the list for about 15 years after being killed in a drive-by shooting. ... These are people whose deaths have been under a so-called “security hold” by the Los Angeles County medical examiner-coroner’s office, a status that prevents public disclosure of their autopsies, often for months, years or, in some cases, indefinitely. (Hamilton and Tchekmedyian, 8/3)
Sacramento Bee:
34-State Salmonella Outbreak Causes Nationwide Onion Recall
Onions sold under various brands have been recalled in all 50 states and the District of Columbia after being linked to a salmonella outbreak that’s sickened 359 people in 34 states, according to the CDC. This includes red onions, yellow onions, white onions and sweet yellow onions. This includes onions sold at nation’s two largest grocery sellers, Walmart and Kroger. Walmart has put out a list of affected stores. Kroger sold the onions under their house brand. (Neal, 8/2)