Modern Healthcare: COVID-19 Cases On The Rise In California Border Towns
The federal government should "immediately begin medical checks" at the U.S.-Mexico border in Southern California to slow a surge of COVID-19 cases in border communities, two hospitals said Tuesday in a letter to HHS and the Department of Homeland Security. Scripps Health and Sharp HealthCare also asked the Trump administration to give the San Diego region "priority status to receive more personal protective equipment (PPE) and pharmaceutical supplies" because hospitals near the border are running low on critical supplies. The Federal Emergency Management Administration has also redirected supply shipments destined for the San Diego area to other parts of the country, straining local supply chains. (Brady, 4/29)

Sacramento Bee: What California Counties Have The Highest Coronavirus Rates? 
Gov. Gavin Newsom continues to send signals that he may be weeks or perhaps days away from beginning to reopen the California economy, albeit slowly. He’s compared it to sliding a dimmer switch incrementally on. In contemplating how to do that, he has acknowledged the state is not a single geography, and the coronavirus assault has not hit all parts of the state at the same levels. A Sacramento Bee review of infection and death rates in each of the state’s 58 counties shows vast differences in the depth of the crisis, notably between lightly-hit rural and harder-hit urban spots. (Reese, Bizjak and Chesler, 4/29)

Los Angeles Times: A Record One-Day Spike In Coronavirus Cases Shows Challenges Facing L.A. County
Los Angeles County is seeing a surge of new coronavirus cases as testing expands, with institutional settings such as nursing homes and prisons being particularly hard hit. Health officials Wednesday announced the largest increase in new coronavirus cases reported in a single day since the pandemic began, pushing the county’s total number of infections past 22,400. Los Angeles County continues to be the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis in California, with cases and deaths jumping significantly even as other parts of the state see cases declining. (Winton, Gerber and Fry, 4/30)

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus: UCSF Researchers Wait To Draw Conclusions On Lack Of Positive Tests In Bolinas 
Researchers at UCSF on Wednesday cautioned that results from mass coronavirus testing in Bolinas and San Francisco’s Mission District were not final after reports that no one tested positive in the small Marin County town. Officials said they expect to release summary results, which will be aggregate and anonymous, on Friday once “all results are final and the data has been appropriately analyzed.” (Serrano, 4/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: ‘The Finest Minds In The World’: Bay Area Researchers Race To Fight Coronavirus With Innovation And Creativity 
An academic army has assembled in the Bay Area over the past several weeks, shifting research efforts to combat the coronavirus and its far-reaching impact. The endeavor, composed of thousands of scientists, researchers and scholars, is a historic and virtually unheard of effort, with some of the biggest brains in the world dropping whatever they were working on to focus their expertise on the disease. (Tucker, 4/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: New UCSF Study Finds Potential Drugs For Treating COVID-19 
A global team of scientists led by UCSF has discovered a range of existing drugs and experimental compounds that block the new coronavirus in lab tests, revealing some of the virus’ key weaknesses for the first time. Their findings point to possible treatments for COVID-19, according to a paper released Thursday in the journal Nature. (Fagone, 4/30)

The Associated Press: Amid Coronavirus, U.S. Jobless Claims Top 30 Million
More than 3.8 million laid-off workers applied for unemployment benefits last week as the U.S. economy slid further into a crisis that is becoming the most devastating since the 1930s. Roughly 30.3 million people have now filed for jobless aid in the six weeks since the coronavirus outbreak began forcing millions of employers to close their doors and slash their workforces. That is more people than live in the New York and Chicago metropolitan areas combined, and it’s by far the worst string of layoffs on record. It adds up to more than 1 in 6 American workers. (4/30)

San Francisco Chronicle: No Coronavirus Temperature Check For One Passenger Coming Into SFO From Asia 
Outside Lands promoter Gregg Perloff called in a telling travel tale of an associate who recently flew in from Asia. “He started at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, where they took his temperature and grilled him about where he had been and what he had been doing,” Perloff said. “He flew onto Seoul, South Korea, where they took his temperature again, and again asked a number of questions about where he had been and what he had been doing. Then he flew on to San Francisco International, where they didn’t take his temperature on entry, and the only question they asked was if he was carrying more than $10,000 in cash,” Perloff said. (Matier, 4/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: SF Supervisors Push Legislation For ‘Safe’ Tent Encampments In Parks And Parking Lots Due To Coronavirus
Two San Francisco supervisors are considering legislation that would turn open spaces around the city — including parking lots and parks — into spots where homeless people can pitch their tents at a safe distance from each other amid the coronavirus pandemic. Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer and Supervisor Gordon Mar said Tuesday that they are working with the City Attorney’s Office to explore the possibility of such legislation. The move comes as San Francisco struggles to lease enough hotel rooms for the city’s 8,000-plus homeless population, and leaders desperately search for alternatives where the unhoused can socially distance from each other. (Thadani, 4/29)

CalMatters: "Someone Will Contract The Virus Here:" Meet Homeless Californians Trying To Survive A Pandemic
The vast majority of people who were unhoused in California before coronavirus swept across the state are exactly where they were. Encampments still line the streets. Shelters feel more like a risk than a refuge. And affordable housing is as elusive as ever. (Lyons, 4/30)

San Francisco Chronicle: Asymptomatic Staff, Untested At Many Nursing Homes, Are Spreading The Coronavirus 
As coronavirus infections increase in nursing homes throughout the state, Santa Clara County made the chilling discovery this month that dozens of staff members with no symptoms of the coronavirus had unknowingly infected the very people they cared for at three facilities experiencing big outbreaks. The revelation raises questions about what Bay Area county public health departments — which oversee testing at nursing homes — are doing to prevent outbreaks. (Ravani, 4/29)

Sacramento Bee: When Is Sacramento County Coronavirus Stay At Home Order Over?
Sacramento County health officials announced Wednesday they will extend the coronavirus stay-at-home order another three weeks to May 22, saying they want to see infection numbers drop and testing increase before they allow more businesses to open and more people back to work. With warming weather, however, officials say they now will allow tennis courts and dog parks to reopen and food trucks to do business, with people still following the six-foot social distancing rule. (Bizjak and Yoon-Hendricks, 4/29)

Sacramento Bee: Newsom Starring In New Trump Campaign Ad On Coronavirus 
Donald Trump’s campaign debuted an online ad Wednesday featuring extensive praise of the president’s response to the coronavirus pandemic from one of his fiercest critics: California Governor Gavin Newsom. The ad, which will run online on Facebook and YouTube in 17 states, starts and ends with Newsom thanking the Trump administration for its help in combating the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has reached every state and killed over 55,000 people in the United States. (Wilner, 4/29)

Bay Area News Group: Coronavirus: Alameda, San Mateo Counties Each Log Some Three Dozen New Cases
San Mateo and Alameda counties each added about three dozen confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in new numbers released Wednesday, and San Francisco closed in on recording its 1,500th confirmed case, health officials said. Two more deaths also were recorded in Alameda County and another in Santa Clara, according to health officials there. No other Bay Area county recorded a death early Wednesday. (Hurd, 4/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus And Seniors: How Life Will Change When Bay Area Shelter-In-Place Restrictions Are Lifted 
We already know life will not return to normal when Bay Area shelter-in-place restrictions are lifted. But for seniors, and other people who are at higher risk for developing more serious complications from COVID-19 illness, things will be especially challenging. (Vaziri, 4/29)

Fresno Bee: Coronavirus: Possibly Last California Public School Closes 
A Tulare County elementary school — believed to be the only public school in California to remain open in April amid the coronavirus pandemic — has closed its doors, The Bee confirmed late Wednesday. Tim Hire, the Tulare County Office of Education superintendent, said Outside Creek Elementary School is closed “until further notice.” (Velez, 4/29)

Fresno Bee: Fresno Coronavirus Cases Climb Once Again, Officials Say 
Fresno County Health officials said the number of patients who have tested positive for coronavirus climbed Wednesday, bringing the total to 538 — an increase of 17 cases. Seven people in Fresno County have died from COVID-19, the respiratory illness related to the coronavirus. More than 200 people in Fresno County have recovered. (Miller, 4/29)

Fresno Bee: Kings County’s Coronavirus Cases Increases By 15
One day after the Kings County Board of Supervisors lifted the county’s shelter-in-place order during the coronavirus pandemic, the county had its biggest daily surge in confirmed COVID-19 cases. The Kings County Department of Public Health on Wednesday night reported 17 new cases of COVID-19, which brings the county’s total to 96 cases since the outbreak started. (Anteola, 4/29)

Sacramento Bee: How ‘Fire Of Infections’ Could Sweep Through CA Evac Centers 
The town of Paradise and the surrounding communities had burned to the ground. The victims, many of them poor and with nowhere to go, barely escaped. They were exhausted and scared. Then the norovirus hit as they crammed together in churches and a local fairground. They shared restrooms and slept shoulder-to-shoulder on cots... Now, with the new coronavirus pandemic sweeping through the U.S., public health experts are worried again about the spread of disease in crowded evacuation centers. (Sabalow, 4/29)