The Wall Street Journal: Biden To Select Rochelle Walensky To Lead The CDC 
Like Dr. Redfield and many others leading the federal response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Walensky draws her expertise from an extensive background in HIV. She is a widely respected policy researcher known for her work showing the cost-effectiveness of HIV testing, care and prevention strategies, and an outspoken advocate for HIV patients. She has served on several federal advisory panels. (McKay, 12/6)

Boston Globe: Biden Picks MGH Infectious Diseases Chief Rochelle Walensky To Oversee CDC
Massachusetts General Hospital infectious diseases chief Rochelle Walensky has been picked by President-elect Joe Biden to be the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a person familiar with the decision. Walensky will replace Dr. Robert Redfield and be charged with rebuilding a troubled federal agency that has been widely regarded as ineffectual in the face of the coronavirus pandemic and President Trump’s efforts to downplay it. (Freyer and Hilliard, 12/6)

LA Daily News: LA County Posts Stunning 10,000-Plus Coronavirus Infections On Sunday 
Los Angeles County shattered its daily record of coronavirus cases on Sunday, Dec. 6, as another 10,528 infections were reported, the fifth time in the past six days that a new record has been set. The county also reported 23 additional deaths, bringing the county’s totals to 449,851 cases and 7,909 fatalities. The number of county residents hospitalized with the virus, already at an all-time high, rose from 2,769 on Saturday to 2,855. (12/6)

Los Angeles Times: California COVID-19 Hospitalizations, Average Daily Deaths Jump
With much of California beginning a stay-at-home order Sunday night, it’s becoming clear that the COVID-19 surge is likely to get worse before it gets better. Average daily coronavirus cases have jumped sixfold since early October; hospitalizations have quadrupled since late October; and average daily deaths have nearly tripled in just the last month. Hospitalizations and daily deaths are expected to rise. It can take two weeks after someone is diagnosed with the coronavirus to get sick enough to require hospitalization, and seven to 10 more days for them to be admitted into the intensive care unit. (Wigglesworth and Lin II, 12/6)

San Francisco Chronicle: Nearly One In 10 Coronavirus Tests In California Is Positive, The Highest Rate Yet
Almost one out of every 10 Californians who got tested last week for coronavirus received a positive result, according to an analysis of state data by The Chronicle. It’s a chilling benchmark that does not bode well for the state, as several regions brace for strict stay-at-home orders.California’s positivity rate jumped to 9.7% for the week ending Dec. 5, up from 6.2% the previous week. (Gafni, 12/6)

Bay Area News Group: Three Bay Area Counties Record Most Cases Ever, Beat Records Made In The Past Week
Three Bay Area counties have, in new coronavirus numbers, surpassed records set over the past week, as public health officials continue to deal with a surge in cases nationwide. In new numbers, Contra Costa, San Francisco and Santa Clara counties all recorded the most cases since the start of the pandemic, beating out new daily case records that were broken in the past four out of six days. That contributed to the entire Bay Area recording the most cases ever as well, with 2,691 new cases reported for a total of 164,291 cases across the nine-county area. According to data compiled by this news organization, so far in the Bay Area 2,027 people have died, including seven people who were reported dead from the virus Saturday. (Toledo, 12/6)

Fresno Bee: Fresno County Set To Go On Lockdown With ICU Beds Under 15% 
As the coronavirus lockdown loomed over Fresno County on Sunday morning, stores, salons, restaurants, and other businesses prepared for the regional stay-at-home order. The orders, issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19 that’s surged in recent weeks throughout the state, go into effect at midnight Monday and will last at least three weeks. (Anteola, 12/6)

Modesto Bee: Modesto-Area Residents Discuss Need, Impacts Of COVID Lockdown In Stanislaus County
With Stanislaus County and the wider San Joaquin Valley under a new minimum three-week stay-at-home order starting Sunday night, the holidays are going to look a lot different this year — as really everything has during the coronavirus pandemic. That means some businesses, like nail studios and hair salons, will need to shut down. Other shops will see their indoor capacity reduced. Restaurants will have to go back to takeout and delivery only. And residents will be asked to stay at home as much as possible again. The new order, announced Saturday, triggered when the region’s hospital adult intensive care unit bed capacity fell below 15% Friday night. It will go into effect at 11:59 p.m. Sunday and last through the entire holiday shopping season. (Mink and Carlson, 12/6)

Orange County Register: Some Southern California Business Owners Will Defy Governor’s Coronavirus Shutdown Order
From the apple-growing foothills of Oak Glen to the Pacific Ocean, owners of restaurants, wineries, resorts, hair salons and other enterprises said they would defy the coronavirus shutdown taking effect a minute before midnight on Sunday, Dec. 6. In the midst of a holiday shopping season dramatically reshaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, some Southern California small business operators were making the calculated choice to stay open — or continue offering outdoor dining — at the risk of being shut down by authorities later. Some entrepreneurs said they’d take that gamble against the likelihood they would go out of business, anyway, if they didn’t ignore the shutdown and continue operating as they have been — in pandemic-modified fashion. (Downey, Christian Goulding and Rosenfeld, 12/6)

Los Angeles Times: Many Aren’t Buying Public Officials’ ‘Stay-At-Home’ Message. Experts Say There’s A Better Way
“My message couldn’t be simpler: It’s time to hunker down. It’s time to cancel everything,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said last week. “If you’re able to stay home, stay home. ”Some 33 million Californians are now under a new regional stay-at-home order that began Sunday night, a last-ditch effort to turn the corner on an alarming rise in coronavirus cases statewide. The blunt messaging worked to bend the curve in the spring, when fear of the novel virus and the insidious ways it might spread kept many indoors. But nine months later, the words seem to have lost their meaning. (Karlamangla, 12/7)

CNN: Los Angeles Restaurateur Says Politicians Are 'Living In La-La Land' As Covid Measures Hit
A besieged California restaurateur is accusing politicians of "living in la-la land" after anti-Covid measures forced her to shut her business and lay off staff despite investing thousands to make her business safe to operate. California is experiencing record numbers of new case and hospitalizations and the state has a new stay-at-home order coming into effect on Sunday evening that limits restaurants to takeout and delivery service. (Vercammen and Moshtaghian, 12/7)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento County Considers Fines Up To $10,000 For Violating COVID Health Orders
The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors will consider an ordinance Tuesday that would authorize financial penalties for residents and businesses that violate public health orders in place to contain the spread of the coronavirus. The proposed ordinance would give broad discretion to county code and health enforcement officers, as well as law enforcement and the director of emergency services, to fine businesses between $250 and $10,000 if they’re found in violation of the health orders. The penalty for non-commercial citations would range between $25 and $500. (Finch II, 12/5)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Employers Have New Emergency Safety Rules To Follow For COVID 
California Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal-OSHA) just issued 21 pages of COVID-19-related emergency rules, effective for up to six months. The new rules require employers to establish a written COVID-19 Prevention Program. Here’s what employers must do now. (Eaton, 12/7)

San Francisco Chronicle: Stakes In Stay-Home Order Higher This Time Around In Bay Area
Nine months into the pandemic, much of the Bay Area is nearly back where it started: sheltering at home, laid low by a virus that’s proved bitterly hard to contain.The coronavirus by most metrics is more threatening now than at any other point over the past year. For the first time, Bay Area hospitals are on the cusp of being overwhelmed, a scenario that public health authorities have warned about since the spring. And despite weeks of increasingly severe restrictions on people’s work and social lives, this most recent surge has swelled to record peaks, seemingly unabated. (Allday, 12/5)

Capital Public Radio/KXJZ: Larger, Low-Income Nursing Homes At Higher Risk As COVID-19 Surges In California, Experts Say
Skilled nursing facilities have been a major source of spread since the pandemic began. Nursing home residents make up 0.5% of California’s population, but 26% of COVID-19 deaths, according to a report out this month from the University of California, San Francisco, IBM Watson Health and the California Health Care Foundation. The analysis found the death toll in these facilities is rising. In May, a quarter of the 800 nursing homes studied had one or more residents with COVID-19, and 16% had at least one resident death. By August, 66% of facilities had a COVID-19 case, and 37% had at least one resident who had died of COVID-19, according to the report. (Caiola, 12/4)

The Bakersfield Californian: Bakersfield Churches Forge Their Own Path As COVID Cases Increase 
Driving past many churches on Sunday, one can see parking lots filled with the vehicles of those attending a weekly service. As the coronavirus pandemic has stretched on, local places of worship have been forced to institute a variety of measures designed to keep the congregations active. Nearly all make Sunday sermons available online. Some hold services outdoors. And some, in defiance of a state order, have taken church back inside. “I’ve seen an amazing amount of creativity,” said Angelo Frazier, one of the pastors at River Lakes Community Church. “I’ve talked to a lot of pastors. There’s a tremendous amount of frustration because of the inconsistency. And our leaders, some of them are saying one thing and then doing another.” (Morgen, 12/6)

Fresno Bee: COVID-19 Pandemic Continues To Devastate California Latinos
At a small gathering in mid-June, Monse Villarreal celebrated her college graduation at her family’s Sacramento home. The graduation ceremony had gone virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the first person in her household to graduate from college, it was important for the 22-year-old to mark the milestone with her loved ones. But more than two weeks after the gathering, her grandmother, Hermelinda Ruiz, had trouble breathing and chest pain. (Bojorquez, 12/7)

KQED: California May Consider Historical Injustice In Deciding How To Allocate Coronavirus Vaccine
“We will be very aggressive in making sure that those with means, those with influence, are not crowding out those that are most deserving of the vaccines,” Governor Gavin Newsom said at a press conference on Thursday. Adding historical injustice to the equation of these decisions would take equity considerations to an even deeper level, and it is a step the state appears willing and eager to take. The state asked 65 organizations to join the Community Vaccine Advisory Committee to help develop an equitable vaccine distribution plan, including the Sacramento-based policy advocacy organization Hedrick runs, the California Consortium for Urban Indian Health. (Dembosky, 12/7)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Sonoma County Health Officials Prepare To Distribute First COVID-19 Vaccines
One of the darkest periods of the pandemic in California and across the country is being met with the promising arrival of the first round of vaccines for COVID-19. Sonoma County health officials expect to receive 4,875 doses of a vaccine produced by Pfizer in about two weeks, the first round allocation..(Johnson, 12/5)

Capital Public Radio/KXJZ and CalMatters: Deep Distrust: Why Few Farmworkers Show Up For COVID-19 Testing
On Sept. 9, a mobile testing site rolled up to Huron Middle School in the 7,000-person rural city 50 miles south of Fresno. In four hours, only four people showed up for free COVID-19 testing. At five other coronavirus testing events organized by the Fresno County Health Department that month in Huron and the slightly larger city of Mendota, attendance remained in the single digits. Besides the big cities, the rural farmworker communities of Fresno County have been hardest hit by the pandemic. But eight months into the virus, frontline workers and their families in small towns continue to avoid what experts deem a key step in overcoming the virus — testing. (Tobias, 12/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: Amid Virus Outbreaks, Majority Of Medically High-Risk Prisoners Were Not Considered For Release
Just 59 medically high-risk prisoners with more than a year left on their sentence were granted expedited release, according to Corrections Department figures obtained through a public records request. Advocates said the numbers suggest that California officials are letting political considerations drive their approach, instead of science and public health. Many of the most vulnerable prisoners have been convicted of violent offenses, and Newsom has suggested that releasing such people may jeopardize public safety. However, research shows that people tend to “age out” of crime, and that older prisoners are less likely than younger ones to reoffend. (Mishanec, 12/6)

LA Daily News: Veteran LAPD Sergeant Dies Of COVID-19 
A Los Angeles Police Department sergeant died on Sunday following a battle with COVID-19, the LAPD reported. 22-year veteran Sgt. Fred Cueto worked at LAPD’s Foothill station, the Police Department reported. Cueto is the second sworn officer and the third LAPD employee to die from the coronavirus since March. (Wilson, 12/6)

Bay Area News Group: Why Are There So Few COVID-19 Drugs?
When future historians recount the medical advances of the 21st century, a crowning achievement will surely be the swift development of COVID-19 vaccines to prevent the disease. So why is it so hard to deliver drugs that can treat it? Despite more than 14 million infections and 281,000 deaths, the United States has struggled to channel its expertise, energy, focus and resources into clinical trials for medicines that could reduce misery and save lives. “We need better drugs. We want this to be an entirely curable disease,” said Dr. Annie F. Luetkemeyer, an infectious disease physician at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. (Krieger, 12/6)

Bay Area News Group: Scrambling For ICU Capacity, Bay Area Hospitals Staff Up, Turn To Tech
Will the Bay Area’s early adoption of the state’s new coronavirus lockdown measures keep hospitals here from being overwhelmed?Hospital and public health officials say they are confident it will, and the result could save hundreds of lives. They are already preparing for a crush of COVID patients, scrambling to add beds, hiring traveling nurses and even arranging for ICU doctors to monitor patients from miles away in a bid to boost their capacity. (DeRuy, 12/5)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Santa Rosa Doctor Uses Twitter To Describe Isolation, Grief And Joy In Hospital COVID Ward
On a recent day, Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital doctor Mark Shapiro held his arm out and snapped a photo of himself against a mural inside his Santa Rosa hospital, what was once a pediatric unit that has since been reconstructed into a special ward for patients with COVID-19. An indefatigable optimist, he was smiling through the plastic of what’s called a CAPR helmet, a respirator with a face shield sealed with plastic. He wore blue scrubs under a protective clear plastic medical gown. ... Like this local doctor, more medical professionals are talking openly about their experiences with COVID-19 patients than ever before. Shapiro, an avid commentator on social media about his profession who produces a medical podcast called Explore the Space, wasn’t writing for the doctors in his network. He was writing to the rest of us. (Johnson, 12/6)

Sacramento Bee: UC Davis Basketball Teams Cancel Games Indefinitely Due To COVID-19 Restrictions
The UC Davis men’s and women’s basketball teams will pause games indefinitely to follow Yolo County’s new health order. Athletic director Kevin Blue announced the suspension on Saturday in anticipation of the stricter COVID-19 restrictions imposed at the beginning Sunday. The women’s team’s games Sunday at home against Fresno Pacific and Tuesday at Sacramento State are canceled. The players haven’t participated since their season-opening game on Nov. 25, a home win over San Francisco. (Burke, 12/6)

Fresno Bee: Students Learning In Fresno COVID Pandemic Pod See Progress 
For the past four months, Pastor Rici Skei has been welcoming nearly a dozen students into her Lowell neighborhood church for what some have been missing since the pandemic shut down schools in March — mentorship, meals, and socialization. Skei has been a Lowell resident for 14 years, finding ways to lift the historic Fresno community from its spot as the city’s poorest neighborhood. So when a parent came to her asking if there was a way to help her son with school as she worked during the day, Skei said, “absolutely.” Then she got to work at On Ramps Covenant Church, where she is a co-pastor alongside her husband. (Panoo, 12/7)

Sacramento Bee: Group Submits 1 Million Signatures To Overturn Flavor Tobacco Ban
The tobacco industry-funded group behind an effort to undo a pending state ban on the sale of most flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, has submitted more than 1 million petition signatures. The California Coalition for Fairness — which is funded by R.J Reynolds Tobacco Company, Philip Morris USA and ITG Brands — must submit at least 623,212 verified signatures in order to qualify a referendum on Senate Bill 793 for the 2022 ballot. The group expressed confidence that it will meet that number as counties verify signatures this month. (Sheeler, 12/6)

LA Daily News: L.A. County Cities Face A Tough Task If Serious About Own Public Health Departments 
Just as the pandemic is at its worst, a handful of cities in Los Angeles County are seeking to break away from the county’s massive Public Health Department, seeking to create their own. On Thursday, the city of Lancaster approved a city report on how to do it. That came on the heels of the city of Beverly Hills’ resolution to do the same earlier. Whittier, West Covina, Santa Clarita and Palmdale are all exploring the idea. The county has initiated waves of restrictions aimed at battling the virus’ relentless recent surge, but the tipping point was the decision to shut down outdoor dining at the county’s 31,000 restaurants. (Carter, 12/4)

Sacramento Bee: California Workers’ Layoffs Continue, And Congress Isn’t Acting. How Can The State Help?
With the pandemic raging on for months, parts of the economy have recovered, but the lives of many working-class Californians have not. The stock market is booming, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average recently hitting 30,000. The country’s billionaires gained a combined $1 trillion since the pandemic. Yet, in the week ending Nov. 21, more than 167,000 Californians filed for unemployment insurance for the first time. The state’s unemployment rate stands at 9%, well below the peak seen in the spring but still far above pre-pandemic numbers. (Park, 12/6)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: On Sonoma County Dad’s Wish List: A Heart And A Liver
The Tin Man knew for sure he had a heart when he felt it break for Dorothy. A Montgomery High and SSU alum by the name of Christopher Bowers is keenly aware of his heart because doctors tell him it really has to go. His liver, too. A musician and social worker until complications of a congenital birth, Bowers is right now at the hospital at Stanford University. He hopes to get on the waiting list for a double transplant, but first the medical staff must get a handle on what’s damaging his kidneys. (Smith, 12/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Releases Most Detailed Plan Yet For Homeless Living In Hotels. Here’s What’s At Stake
Over the next year, San Francisco’s homeless department says it will “end homelessness” for 2,300 people living in city-funded hotels. It’s a costly, ambitious plan that could potentially make a dent in the city’s unrelenting homeless crisis, if it succeeds. But if the department falls short, hundreds of people with medical issues, mental illnesses and drug addiction could wind up back on the streets, and unravel the progress they might have made while living indoors the past few months. (Thadani, 12/5)