San Diego Union-Tribune: First Day Of Mega Vaccine Clinic Delivers Thousands Of Doses 
San Diego County’s first large coronavirus vaccination clinic put more than 2,500 doses in arms during its first full day of operation Monday as local coronavirus activity appeared to be riding a plateau. Vehicles filed into the tailgate lot at Petco Park from 7 a.m. past 7 p.m., proceeding under a series of white canopies that allowed them to check in, get their shots and wait 15 minutes to make sure there were no severe side effects before leaving the area. (Sisson and Wosen, 1/11)

Los Angeles Times: COVID-19 Vaccines Will Be Administered At Disneyland
Health officials will begin distributing COVID-19 vaccines this week at Disneyland, the Orange County Board of Supervisors said Monday, making the resort the first “super” vaccination site in the county. In a statement Monday night, county supervisors said Disneyland will be one of five large “point-of-dispensing” sites that collectively would be able to vaccinate thousands of residents each day. Arrangements for the other sites are being finalized, the statement said. Supervisor Doug Chaffee, whose district includes Disneyland, called such large-scale vaccination sites “absolutely critical in stopping this deadly virus.” (Ormseth, 1/11)

Bay Area News Group: Disneyland To Be Orange County’s First Large-Scale Vaccination Site 
On the day the coronavirus death toll in California reached 30,000, Disneyland and other locations such as Dodger Stadium were established as vaccination super sites. Newly confirmed infections are rising at a dizzying rate of more than a quarter-million a week and during the weekend a record 1,163 deaths were reported – Orange County surpassed 2,000 reported deaths. Bereft of visitors for months because of the pandemic, Disneyland will soon see thousands of guests when it serves as one of Orange County’s five planned mass vaccination sites. (Robinson, 1/12)

Modesto Bee: Vaccine Sites Opening At Cal Expo, Dodger Stadium. How California Plans To Speed Up Rollout
California is taking steps to ramp up its lagging vaccination efforts, including setting up sites at Sacramento’s Cal Expo, Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium and San Diego’s Petco Park, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday. “We recognize that the current strategy is not going to get us to where we need to go as quickly as we all need to go,” Newsom said. California’s rollout has been among the slowest in the nation, according to a tracker maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Park and Bizjak, 1/11)

Bay Area News Group: Oakland Coliseum Could Be Used As COVID-19 Vaccine Site 
The Oakland A’s are in discussions with state and local officials, as well as local health care providers, about launching a drive-thru COVID-19 vaccination site at the recently re-named RingCentral Coliseum. The A’s and the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority received a request from health care systems in the Bay Area asking to use the site’s sprawling parking lots as a location for health care workers to administer vaccines. (Rubin and DeBolt, 1/11)

Bay Area News Group: California Tries To Catch Up In COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout
After weeks of lagging behind most of the nation in the effort to administer its share of COVID-19 vaccines, California is in a mad dash to catch up and inoculate as many people as possible. While it has inoculated the second-highest number of people in the nation after Texas, California ranks 43rd nationwide, including Washington D.C., in administering the shots per 100,000 residents. The nation’s most populous state has vaccinated about 1.5% of its residents, while South Dakota has vaccinated upwards of 5.5%, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To speed up the pace, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday announced he was granting public health departments more “flexibility” in deciding when to progress to the next tiers of people to receive the vaccine. (Angst, 1/11)

Orange County Register: Medical Workers Say Culver City Hospital Denied Them COVID-19 Vaccines In Favor Of Employee Relatives
“It seemed to be less about what you did for a living and more of who you knew” to obtain a vaccine, said Katie Brockert, a home health physical therapist who went to the hospital three times but was denied a vaccine on each occasion. “California Department of Public Heath guidelines for distribution were not being adhered to and those who have direct risk of exposure were being pushed aside because family members of Southern California Hospital were being prioritized and favored.” Southern California Hospital officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment regarding the allegations. However, in an email last week, hospital spokeswoman Laura M. Gilbert said relatives of staff members were not invited to the facility for vaccinations. (Schwebke, 1/11)

Modesto Bee: Surprising Number Of Frontline Workers Skeptical Of Vaccine. Can The State Force Them?
Pat Withrow, the San Joaquin County sheriff, survived a bout with COVID-19 last summer. Dozens of inmates and staff at the county jail also have tested positive. So it was with a good deal of alarm that Withrow reported last week that many of his deputies are reluctant to take the new coronavirus vaccines. The same is true, he said, for a shocking number of healthcare workers in the region. “If you want to help small businesses in our area, then get vaccinated — just go out and get vaccinated,” he told the Board of Supervisors. “That’s when our businesses will be able to open. That’s when our schools will be able to open — when we reach that critical mass of enough people having been vaccinated.” (Sabalow and Kasler, 1/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: Can A Common Childhood Vaccine Protect Against Coronavirus? Here’s What Experts Say
New research suggesting that a common childhood vaccine may help protect against COVID-19 has caught the attention of some at the back of the line for coronavirus vaccinations hoping to reduce their pandemic risk. But Bay Area scientists caution that far more study needs to be done before people consider seeking booster shots for that older vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps and rubella. A recent study published in mBio, the journal for the American Society for Microbiology, found that people who had higher levels of antibodies for mumps tended to have less severe cases of COVID-19. According to the study, that suggests there may be a relationship between the two viruses, and that the MMR vaccine could have potential positive effects against the coronavirus. (Vainshtein, 1/12)

AP: Virus Deaths Surging In California, Now Top 30,000 
The coronavirus death toll in California reached 30,000 on Monday, another staggering milestone as the nation’s most populous state endures the worst surge of the nearly yearlong pandemic. Newly confirmed infections are rising at a dizzying rate of more than a quarter-million a week and during the weekend a record 1,163 deaths were reported. Los Angeles County is one of the epicenters and health officials there are telling residents to wear a mask even when at home if they go outside regularly and live with someone elderly or otherwise at high risk. (Thompson, 1/11)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area ICU Availability Plummets To 0.7% As California Tops 30,000 Deaths
Intensive care availability in the Bay Area plummeted to 0.7% on Monday, an alarming drop over the weekend that was somewhat tempered by hospitalizations for COVID-19 showing signs of leveling off across the state and region. Though availability is technically close to 0% by California’s metrics, that does not mean there are no ICU beds available. Instead, it means that many hospitals in the region are perilously over-capacity, and that people with COVID-19 are making up a high percentage of all patients in intensive care. (Vaziri, 1/11)

Capital Public Radio/KXJZ: Why Is This South Sacramento Area A COVID-19 Hot Spot?
Neighborhoods in the 95823 zip code, which encompasses the Valley Hi, Laguna and Parkway neighborhoods, have been a COVID-19 hot spot since the start of the pandemic. Five thousand cases have been reported there since March, the highest of any zip code in Sacramento County by more than a thousand cases, according to the municipality’s COVID-19 dashboard. In the past 30 days, there have been over 1,500 cases reported in this area alone. County Public Health Officer, Dr. Olivia Kasirye said she believes cases are higher here because of a number of nursing homes and assisted living facilities, but also because of the area’s high immigrant and low-income population. (Mizes-Tan, 1/11)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. Faces 'Worst Disaster' In Decades With COVID-19 Surge
The coronavirus is continuing to rampage through Los Angeles County, infecting thousands of people every day and hammering already overworked hospitals with a deluge of new patients — a devastating double blow with deadly consequences. The impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 surge represent “the worst disaster our county has experienced for decades,” according to Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer, “and, as with other terrifying situations, the end of this surge only happens when more people and more businesses take control and do the right thing.” (Money and Lin II, 1/11)

Southern California News Group: As Coronavirus Hospitalizations Stabilize In LA County And State, Officials Brace For New Surge
At the state level, there were 21,668 coronavirus hospitalizations on Sunday, Jan. 10, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced — about a 6% growth rate over the last two weeks, which is “among the smallest increases we’ve seen over a two-week period in some time,” he said, adding that the growth rate over the past week has been just 0.3%. But LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer and Newsom both emphasized in Monday briefings that they expect a surge from gatherings over Christmas and New Year’s Eve could still be coming.“ We haven’t continued to see the steep acceleration,” Ferrer said. But “we might be entering into another period of surge and, should we start seeing again case numbers rise to 15,000 a day, we will have another experience like we had before at our hospitals where they will see increased occupancy, as well.” (Munguia, 1/12)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Surges Beyond L.A.: Ventura, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara Now Hit Hard
Three counties northwest of Los Angeles are experiencing alarming spikes in coronavirus cases, further heightening the level of infections in already hard-hit Southern California and triggering fresh fears about potentially overtaxing local healthcare systems. Conditions in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties have worsened considerably due to a post-holiday surge of the virus, with the average number of daily new cases more than doubling the rate seen two weeks ago, according to data compiled by The Times. Infections in Ventura County have risen so rapidly that one doctor publicly wondered whether the area could face its own “New York moment.” (Money, Lin II and Smith, 1/12)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Sonoma County Steps Back From Curative Virus Testing That Drew FDA Concerns
Sonoma County’s health department has ended a brief partnership with a coronavirus testing company that last week drew a U.S. Food and Drug Administration warning over the risks of false negative results that have led other public entities to stop using the test. (Espinoza and Fixler, 1/11)

The Bakersfield Californian: Kern Latino COVID-19 Task Force Launches Test Sites In Partnership With BCSD
The Kern County Latino COVID-19 Task Force announced two free coronavirus testing sites this week in partnership with Bakersfield City School District. The sites are part of a continued effort from the task force and the Kern County Public Health Services Department to increase testing in hopes that it allows for loosening of state-induced restrictions on the local economy. (1/11)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego Zoo Safari Park Gorillas Test Positive For COVID-19 
Gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park tested positive for the novel coronavirus Monday, marking the first known case of the virus infecting any of the great apes — a group that includes gorillas, bonobos, chimps and orangutans. Lisa Peterson, executive director of the Safari Park, said that more than one gorilla has tested positive but would not provide an exact number. During a Monday COVID-19 press briefing, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said that two gorillas have tested positive for the virus and that a third is showing COVID-19 symptoms. (Wosen, 1/11)

Los Angeles Times: Gorillas Contract Coronavirus At San Diego Zoo Safari Park
Multiple gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park have contracted the coronavirus in the first known instances of natural transmission to great apes, the zoo announced Monday. The zoo tested the gorillas’ fecal samples after two of them began coughing Wednesday, the zoo said in a news release. Preliminary results returned Friday showed the animals had tested positive, and U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratories confirmed the results Monday, the zoo said. The tests confirmed the presence of the virus in only some of the gorillas but did not rule it out in others, the zoo said. Because gorillas live together, zoo officials are assuming that the entire troop has been exposed. (Wigglesworth and Wosen, 1/11)

Bay Area News Group: Coronavirus: Weeks Before Christmas Outbreak, Kaiser San Jose Fined $85,000 For Violations 
A month before Kaiser Permanente came under fire for failing to report a deadly Christmas Day coronavirus outbreak at its San Jose medical center, the health care giant was fined more than $85,000, in part for keeping quiet when one of its employees was hospitalized for a week with COVID-19 early in the pandemic. And while the outbreak was spreading through the San Jose emergency department in late December, Kaiser’s sister hospital in Antioch was fined $56,000 on Dec. 28 for repeatedly failing to report employees falling ill with the virus. (Sulek, 1/11)

Ventura County Star: Ventura County Food Share Distribution Up 138% In 2020
Ventura County’s regional food bank distributed more than 20 million meals from April through December 2020, roughly a 138% increase over the same time frame a year earlier. Many of those receiving the emergency food had lost jobs as the coronavirus pandemic swept through California and businesses and schools closed to try to slow its spread, said Monica White, CEO of Food Share, the Oxnard-based nonprofit. (Carlson, 1/11)

Los Angeles Times: Report: COVID Job Losses To Worsen L.A. Homelessness By 2023
Massive job losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic nationwide will leave tens of thousands of low-wage workers without homes over the next three years, a report published Tuesday by a Los Angeles-based research group forecasts. Los Angeles County, already struggling with one of the nation’s largest homeless populations, will be especially hard hit, on a per-capita basis, because of its large low-wage labor force and high housing costs. Based on the effects of the 2008 recession, the Economic Roundtable report “Locked Out” concludes that pandemic-related unemployment will start a brutal cycle of homelessness. It says the uptick began as a trickle in 2020, but will triple this year and peak by 2023. (Smith, 1/12)