Sacramento Bee: California’s Average COVID-19 Deaths Drop To Low Point 
California’s average daily COVID-19 deaths have hit a low point not seen for several months, despite national infection rates that continue to increase. As of Sunday, the California Department of Public Health recorded a seven-day average of deaths of 63, a level not seen since mid-summer, near the end of June and into early July. The Mercury News reported that the seven-day death average hit 61 on Friday, which was last reported by state health officials on July 5. (Moleski, 10/11)

LA Daily News: LA County’s New Coronavirus Cases Top 1,200 For 4th Straight Day
For the fourth day in a row, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health reported more than 1,200 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, in an unexpected spike officials last week vowed to keep close watch on as more business sectors reopened amid the enduring pandemic. County health officials on Saturday, Oct. 10, posted 28 new deaths and 1,285 new cases. (10/10)

Los Angeles Times: 41st L.A. County Child Diagnosed With COVID-Related Syndrome 
Another Los Angeles County child has been diagnosed with a rare, potentially deadly syndrome believed to be related to the coronavirus, according to the county Health Department, bringing the total number of children with the ailment in the region to 41. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said all of the children in the county diagnosed with multisystem inflammatory syndrome since the beginning of the pandemic had been hospitalized. The department said in a written statement Friday that 70% of the children with MIS-C were Latino, reflecting the high incidence of COVID-19 among Latinos overall. (La Ganga, 10/11)

Los Angeles Times: California Prison Factories Put Inmates At High COVID-19 Risk 
In early May, COVID-19 broke out in the sewing factory, sickening at least four incarcerated workers, including Hall. She spent weeks in the hospital struggling to breathe. California’s prison system has taken drastic measures to combat the coronavirus, halting rehab programs, religious services and educational classes. But correctional authorities kept one type of operation running through much of the last six months: prison factories. (Feldman, 10/11)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Sonoma County Family Entertainment Businesses Rally For Relief From COVID-19 Restrictions
Since 1976, Cal Skate has been part of the lives of hundreds of thousands of Sonoma County residents — whether for birthday parties, date nights or training for inline speed skating competitions. But, like other entertainment venues that rely predominantly on indoor space, its future is in doubt from closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Swindell, 10/11)

Bay Area News Group: Coronavirus: Stanford Doctors Among Leaders Of Global Anti-Lockdown Movement 
Doctors at Stanford University are at the forefront of a global movement of health experts who are criticizing lockdowns to control COVID-19 and say schools and businesses should reopen, but with a focus on protecting the elderly and infirm who are most vulnerable to the virus. Called the Great Barrington Declaration after the western Massachusetts town where it was hatched this month at an economic policy think tank, their statement of purpose is the handiwork of three principal drafters who include Stanford medical professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. “As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists, we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies,” the declaration states. (Woolfolk, 10/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: ‘I’d Just Rather Work Out Outside’: Why Bay Area’s Outdoor Gyms Could Last Beyond The Pandemic 
Even as Bay Area gyms reopen at 10% capacity indoors, there may be a fundamental shift away from business plans built on cramming people into a confined space for classes, camaraderie and a good sweat. (Simmons, 10/11)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: High School Sports Slowly Returning In Sonoma County, But Nothing Looks Quite The Same
It’s hard to teach a volleyball player the proper way to dig when practices are not held on the shiny wooden floors of a gymnasium but on a grass patch in the middle of the quad. Add to the list of challenges the temperature checks before workouts, the requirement to wear facial coverings that get hot and sweaty almost immediately, and then the frequent use of spray disinfectant on balls. (Benefield, 10/12)

Los Angeles Times: State Launches Review Of Long Delays In L.A. County Specialty Care 
As current and former doctors in Los Angeles County’s public hospital system condemn delays in providing specialist care, California regulators have launched a review of the long, sometimes deadly waits faced by patients who need treatment from one of the nation’s largest public health systems. The actions come in the wake of a Times investigation that found patients of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services face agonizing delays to see specialists after referrals from primary care providers, leaving many with intolerable pain, worsening illnesses and a growing sense of hopelessness. The Times report included several patients who died of the conditions they waited to have treated. (Dolan and Mejia, 10/12)

Bay Area News Group: Thousands Of Bay Area Seniors Left Scrambling As Financial Woes Strike Medicare Advantage Plan
A Southern California insurance company’s financial woes are sending thousands of seniors in Santa Clara and San Joaquin counties scrambling for health care coverage amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. More than 10,000 people in the two counties enrolled in Vitality Health Plan’s Medicare Advantage option — insurance that provides expanded Medicare coverage — after it began serving the area in January 2019, attracted by good benefits and promises of inexpensive medication. But for many, the company’s offerings turned out to be too good to be true. (DeRuy, 10/11)

The Desert Sun: Doctors Concerned People Unknowingly Spread STIs As Routine Testing Wavers Amid COVID-19
Some Coachella Valley health care providers are worried about a different public health concern amid the coronavirus pandemic: sexually transmitted infections. After seeing positivity rates increase and routine testing waver due to COVID-19 restrictions, doctors have become concerned that asymptomatic carriers are unknowingly spreading infections. (Sestito, 10/10)

LA Daily News: Free Flu Shots Offered Through Mid-November Around L.A. County
Free flu shots are being offered  through mid-November throughout Los Angeles County at a series of drive-thru clinics offered by L.A. Care Health Plan and Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan’s network of Community Resource Centers. People lined up in Pomona for the first of the drives on Friday, and again at the Wellness Center at Historic General Hospital in Los Angeles on Saturday, for the first two drives. (10/10)

LA Daily News: Restaurants Closed Due To Health Hazards, Aug. 24-Sept. 30, In The San Fernando Valley Area 
Nine restaurants were closed in the San Fernando Valley area recently due to health hazards. The food facilities had their health permit suspended for either cockroaches, sewage discharge or no hot water according to reports from the Los Angeles County Public Health Department. (Andres, 10/10)

Bay Area News Group: Should California Invest $5.5 Billion More Into Promising Stem Cell Research? 
Sixteen years ago, voters were promised that $3 billion of bonds for embryonic stem-cell research would deliver cures for diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and heart disease. Instead, we’ve gotten cures or potential treatments for a very different and unexpected set of afflictions, such as a deadly immune disorder, spinal cord injury, a type of cancer and a form of blindness.The moral of the story — as Californians decide whether to continue support by approving Proposition 14’s nearly doubled research budget of $5.5 billion — is this: Science marches to its own beat and on its own clock, awe-inspiring but oblivious to political pledges. (Krieger, 10/11)

Los Angeles Times: LAPD Data Show Few Officers Report Excessive Force By Peers 
With a new state law requiring police officers to report excessive force by their peers, a Los Angeles police commissioner this summer asked department commanders how many times such reporting had occurred in the last five years. The answer that Dale Bonner got back, in a July email obtained by The Times through a public records request, was five. When The Times asked for a synopsis of the five incidents, LAPD officials said that the number was actually two. (Rector, 10/12)

Bay Area News Group: How Coronavirus Is Changing The Bay Area’s Homelessness Crisis
The health of those who remain outside is worsening, and that could have ripple effects throughout the health care system for years. [Dr. Margot] Kushel, a UCSF professor of medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, and the director of the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations, spoke with this news organization about the ways coronavirus has changed the fight against homelessness, and what comes next. (Kendall, 10/11)

San Francisco Chronicle: PG&E Shut-Offs Possible In Northern California, Including In Bay Area, Starting Wednesday 
PG&E said fire-prevention power outages are possible in parts of the Bay Area on Wednesday and Thursday as it anticipated a “potential Diablo wind event.” Other parts of the utility’s vast service territory may also be affected, with outages potentially extending into Friday. (Galbraith, 10/11)

Los Angeles Times: Bankruptcy Could Let Exide Evade Vernon Lead Battery Cleanup 
For decades, families across a swath of southeast Los Angeles County have lived in an environmental disaster zone, their kids playing in yards polluted with brain-damaging lead while they wait on a state agency to remove contaminated soil from thousands of homes. Now, the cleanup faces even greater uncertainty. A bankruptcy plan by Exide Technologies, which operated the now-closed lead-acid battery smelter in Vernon that is blamed for the pollution, would allow the site to be abandoned with the remediation unfinished. (Barboza, 10/12)