Fresno Bee: Valley Children’s Hospital Receives Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine 
Valley Children’s Hospital received 975 doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday morning. The hospital is one of 33 sites in California to receive the first shipment of Pfizer vaccines and will receive and store vaccines for all of Madera County, hospital spokeswoman Zara Arboleda said in a news release. (Calix, 12/15)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Rady Children's Hospital, Naval Medical Center San Diego Administer Pfizer's COVID-19 Vaccine 
The first San Diegans to receive a COVID-19 vaccine got their shots Tuesday as thousands more doses poured into the county, marking a slow but steady shift from defense to offense in the fight against the coronavirus. Naval Medical Center San Diego started vaccinating health care workers around 1 p.m. Tuesday, just an hour before Rady Children’s Hospital. (Wosen, 12/15)

Fresno Bee: Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccinations Doses Arrive In Fresno 
Matt Joslin, vice president at Community Medical Centers, explains how the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination process will work in inoculating the organization's providers and staff. (Kohlruss, 12/15)

Bay Area News Group: How Bay Area Hospitals Decide Who's At The Front Of The Vaccine Line
As health care workers line up for the precious COVID-19 vaccine, what matters is not power or privilege – but need. On the long list of eligible employees compiled by every hospital, this is who counts: The janitor who disinfects the emergency room. The aide who strains to lift and move a patient. The critical care nurse who monitors breathing machines. The physician who shuttles between ICU beds. The transport staff who roll bodies to the morgue. “They take priority … over anyone in the ‘C suite’ or the directors of departments,” said Sarah Sherwood of Regional Medical Center in San Jose, which serves hard hit Latinx and Asian communities. (Krieger and Savidge, 12/15)

Fresno Bee: Fresno Health Officer: COVID Vaccine Arrival ‘Bittersweet’ As Deaths Climb, Hospitals Fill
Fresno County’s top health officer called the arrival Tuesday of COVID-19 vaccine “bittersweet” as patients continued to die and hospitals struggled to staff full facilities. Fresno County Department of Public Health received 7,800 doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday. (Calix, 12/15)

KQED: California’s Farmworkers Feed The World. Should They Be Next For A Vaccine?
While doctors, nurses and other health care workers began to receive the new COVID-19 vaccine this week, the state is still actively debating which essential workers will be next in line. Officials are using a framework of risk, equity and societal impact to decide who should be prioritized — meat packers, teachers, those who manage wastewater or electrical supply — and based on discussions so far, they appear to be giving deep consideration to agricultural workers. Studies show farmworkers are at higher risk of contracting the coronavirus than the average population because they earn lower wages that force them to live in crowded conditions, or drive to work sites in crowded trucks. There have been multiple outbreaks at Foster Farms’ poultry processing plants in the state. And when agricultural workers do get sick, Reyes says, they can’t afford to take time off work or go to the doctor. (Dembosky, 12/16)

The Bakersfield Californian: Local Employers Navigate Vaccine Skepticism 
The question was bound to come up at some point: What happens when an employer tells its workers to get a COVID-19 vaccine but some don't want to? Bottom line, an employer can make vaccinations a condition of employment, workplace specialists say. But it's not always that simple — it has to be job-related, for example, and local employers say they intend to proceed cautiously. (Cox, 12/15)

Los Angeles Times: California Expects 1 Million More COVID-19 Vaccine Doses
California stands to receive at least 1 million more doses of COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the month, an influx that will help arm the state’s healthcare workforce against the most intense and severe wave of the disease yet. The additional 393,900 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, as well as potentially 672,000 doses of the Moderna therapeutic — should it receive U.S. authorization, as expected — would supplement the state’s previously announced first allocation of about 327,000. (Money, 12/15)

Los Angeles Times: California Shatters Single-Day COVID-19 Death Record, With 295
California has shattered yet another single-day record for COVID-19 deaths: 295, according to the Los Angeles Times county-by-county tally for Tuesday. That breaks the single-day record last set Dec. 8 and repeated Dec. 11, when 219 deaths were recorded. California is now averaging 175 COVID-19 deaths a day over the last week, a new record for the pandemic in the Golden State. The record for average daily deaths over a weekly period has been broken for seven consecutive days. The deadliest day of the pandemic thus far in California was fueled by record death tolls in six counties from San Diego up to the Bay Area, according to a Times analysis. (Lin II, Money and Murphy, 12/16)

Modesto Bee: Newsom’s Options Limited As COVID Patients Fill Hospitals
“The biggest scarcity right now is the workforce,” said Anthony Wright, director of consumer advocacy group Health Access. “We see it as a health access issue for everybody. Even if you’re not at risk of dying of COVID, you’re at risk if you can’t get the care you need because the hospitals are overrun.” Across the state, intensive care units are filling up. In the Sacramento region, less than 15% of beds are available. In Southern California, capacity has fallen below 2%. The Central Valley’s available ICU capacity dropped to zero over the weekend, but has since crept up to 1.6%. (Bollag, 12/16)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Ambulances Turned Away As Hospital Emergency Rooms Overwhelmed 
Severe impacts on local emergency departments have forced paramedics to wait for hours before they can deliver their patients, prompting unprecedented changes to San Diego County ambulance bypass procedures Tuesday. The change came as intensive care capacity across the state continued to dwindle, prompting local hospitals to reach out to Sacramento for staffing help even as the first batches of vaccine began to arrive. (Sisson, 12/15)

Los Angeles Times: With ICUs Hitting Capacity, Hospitals Turn To Desperate Measures
With intensive care units in Southern California and the Central Valley lurching perilously close to full capacity Tuesday, officials are turning to increasingly desperate measures to prevent the state’s coronavirus surge from killing more patients. Hospitalizations are continuing to rise at unprecedented levels, and officials have limited options for boosting capacity. Among the tools: Canceling scheduled surgeries; keeping critically ill patients in emergency rooms; sending ICU patients into step-down units earlier; training nurses from elsewhere in hospitals to help with intensive care; and increasing the numbers of patients an ICU nurse can treat. (Lin II and Money, 12/16)

Modesto Bee: Stanislaus County Ranks Third In Coronavirus Deaths Per Capita
Stanislaus County has the third highest coronavirus deaths per capita in California, according to a statewide tracking system. Over a nine-month period, the county through Monday has recorded 478 deaths for a rate of 88.6 deaths per 100,000 residents. As of Tuesday, Stanislaus has reported 55 deaths from COVID-19 disease this month as a recent surge has run rampant in Modesto and other cities. The grim toll midway through this month has surpassed the total for November. (Carlson, 12/16)

The Bakersfield Californian: On 'Single Highest Day' Of Reported Cases, Kern County Extends Coronavirus Surge Measures 
On the day Kern County reported its highest-ever number of new coronavirus cases, the Board of Supervisors extended several measures designed to manage a protracted surge of COVID-19 illnesses. Kern County finds itself once again as a coronavirus hotspot. Public Health Services Director Matt Constantine said during a supervisors meeting on Tuesday that new cases have been identified throughout many of Kern’s skilled nursing facilities and prisons, both of which are vulnerable to rapid spread of the virus. (Morgen, 12/15)

The Bakersfield Californian: Kern County Latino COVID-19 Task Force Rolls Out Free Hotline 
The Kern County Latino COVID-19 Task Force is unveiling its new mental health and wellness hotline this week. According to a news release from the task force, the hotline will connect people who have coronavirus concerns with mental health experts, health counselors and others who can provide feedback and information as COVID-19 cases are expected to pick up again during the holiday season. (12/15)

San Diego Union-Tribune: COVID-19 Has Affected A High Proportion Of Latinas, Advocates Say 
Latinas in San Diego County have been disproportionately affected physically and economically by the COVID-19 pandemic, a report discussed Tuesday shows. About 60 percent of Latinas in the county work in at least one of three economic sectors most impacted by the coronavirus — education, tourism and retail, according to the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) report, presented by Chula Vista Mayor Mary Casillas-Salas. (Mendoza, 12/15)

Orange County Register: Orange County ICU Capacity Remains Dangerously Low
Orange County’s intensive care capacity hung by a thread this week as nine-in-10 adult ICU beds were occupied and inundated emergency rooms redirected ambulance traffic elsewhere. State and county leaders spared no effort, announcing new beds and staff at makeshift hospitals as medical centers flexed their surge plans further to accommodate their sickest patients. Open adult ICU beds among the county’s hospitals hovered around 10% since the weekend and remained there by Tuesday, Dec. 15, when 296 coronavirus patients were in critical care and 68 of the high-priority beds remained. Two weeks ago, double that availability was free. (Wheeler, 12/15)

Orange County Register: Surging COVID Outbreak At Patton State Hospital Prompts Demand For Release Of Patients
Attorneys are demanding that Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino take immediate steps to reduce its patient population and enhance safety protocols amid a surging coronavirus outbreak that has infected 110 patients in the past 10 ten days. In an emergency motion filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Riverside, attorneys with the Sacramento-based nonprofit Disability Rights California and the law firm Covington & Burling, on behalf of four Patton patients, sought a judicial order for the immediate discharge or transfer of patients at highest risk for COVID-19 to safer, noncongregate facilities and for Patton to implement greater infection-control measures. Since July, 10 patients have died from COVID-19 and at least 11 patients have required acute hospitalization. “Critical action is required now,” according to the motion. (Nelson, 12/15)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. Dispatches Mobile COVID-19 Testing To High-Risk Communities Of Color
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Tuesday dispatched five mobile coronavirus testing teams to predominantly Black and Latino communities in the East San Fernando Valley and South Los Angeles, where infections nearly doubled in early December. “Angelenos must remain vigilant in the face of this surge,” Garcetti said in a statement, pointing to an explosion of cases across L.A. County and beyond in recent weeks. As of Monday, L.A. County was averaging nearly 10,700 new coronavirus cases a day over the last week and 58 new COVID-19 deaths a day — both at or near records. (Seidman, 12/15)

Los Angeles Times: Youth Sports, Mall Singing, Parties Alarm Ventura County Health Officials. ‘It’s Irresponsible’
Health officials in Ventura County say parties, indoor church services and youth sports events currently banned amid COVID-19 restrictions are continuing, hindering the county’s ability to fight the spreading coronavirus. The county’s intensive care unit capacity has dropped to 1%, and COVID-19 hospitalizations have broken records for 10 consecutive days. On Sunday, 181 COVID-19 patients were in the county’s hospitals, 72% higher than the peak of the July surge. “The numbers are getting to be astronomical,” said county health officer Dr. Robert Levin. “People are going to die that don’t need to die.” (Lin II and Money, 12/15)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Pushing 100, Married Couple Survive COVID-19 
Rachel Smith, a physician with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, knew the prognosis was not promising when she learned her grandparents in San Diego had contracted COVID-19 last month. “I told my grandfather when he went into the hospital that if he recovered, I’d tell everybody about it,” she said. (Warth, 12/15)

Bay Area News Group: As Coronavirus Pandemic Complicates Life For Those Aging Out Of Foster Care, Silicon Valley Nonprofit Steps Up
When Jasmine Terranova became sick with the coronavirus recently, the 26-year-old couldn’t climb into a cozy bed to recuperate or count on loved ones to deliver soup to her front porch. That’s because the Gavilan College student found herself sleeping alone at night in her 2002 Toyota Camry. She struggled to breathe as she prayed that police wouldn’t boot her from a parking space near a gas station in Morgan Hill. (DeRuy, 12/16)

Los Angeles Times: California Health Officials Scramble For COVID-19 Staffing
California is scrambling to find enough nurses, doctors and other medical staff for the increasing demands of the unrelenting pandemic, with the state having so far acquired just one in 10 temporary contracted positions needed to treat surging caseloads. Meanwhile, the state’s Health Corps, created by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration in March, has been unable to provide the help needed to make up the difference, with only a small fraction of the thousands of people who signed up for the volunteer service available to staff overloaded facilities. (Gutierrez, 12/15)

Sacramento Bee: CVS Looks To Hire More Than 200 In Sacramento Region As Pharmacy Techs, Nurses And More
CVS Health is looking to hire more than 220 new employees — pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, nurses and more — in the Sacramento region as it prepares to join the effort to immunize the most vulnerable U.S. citizens against COVID-19. “If you think about what these individuals will be doing ... the thing they can say is that this is part of their legacy,” said Jeff Lackey, CVS Health vice president of talent acquisition. “They can tell their grandchildren they were actually part of the fight against the pandemic. As bad as this has been for all of us as a nation and as a world, we can all say we were part of the solution.” (Anderson, 12/16)

Fresno Bee: COVID-19: Traveling Medical Team In Fresno To Boost Capacity 
A medical team working under a contract with the Fresno County Department of Public Health is working with Community Regional Medical Center to establish a 50-bed alternative-care unit to help take stress off of hospitals across Fresno County as coronavirus cases continue to surge. “Fifty beds is a huge boost,” Fresno County emergency services administrator Dan Lynch said Tuesday. (Sheehan, 12/15)

AP: San Francisco Board Rebukes Naming Hospital For Facebook CEO
Supervisors in San Francisco overwhelmingly approved a resolution Tuesday condemning the naming of the city’s public hospital for Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, in 2015 after the couple gave $75 million toward a new acute care and trauma center. The nonbinding resolution does not have the force of law and does not require the hospital to do anything. The hospital was the first in San Francisco to administer vaccines protecting against the coronavirus on Tuesday. The current board does not have the authority to revoke the agreement, resolution co-sponsor Supervisor Gordon Mar said. (Har, 12/16)

The Bakersfield Californian: Houchin Community Blood Bank Announces New President, CEO 
There's a new leader at the helm of Houchin Community Blood Bank. According to a news release from the blood bank, Sean McNally has been appointed as new president and Chief Executive Officer of the organization. Houchin said that McNally brings over 30 years of business experience to the position. (12/15)

The Bakersfield Californian: Supervisors Appoint New Director Of Behavioral Health And Recovery Services 
The Kern County Board of Supervisors has appointed Stacy Kuwahara as the new director of Behavioral Health and Recovery Services. A 10-year veteran of the department, Kuwahara will replace outgoing Director Bill Walker when her appointment becomes effective Jan. 2. (12/15)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Republican COVID Liability Shield May Hurt California Workers 
Frontline California workers could lose protections if Republican efforts to limit corporate liability is included in a new stimulus package, advocates warn. (Wire and Zou, 12/15)

The Bakersfield Californian: COVID-19, Flu And Valley Fever Present A 'Triple Threat' In Kern County
Respiratory symptoms are among the most common reasons patients seek medical attention. And in the last month of 2020, the number of patients presenting with respiratory symptoms has been daunting for hospitals, physicians and other caregivers. (Mayer, 12/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Must Continue Moving Homeless People Into Some Hotel Rooms, Supes Say
As San Francisco winds down its homeless hotel program, the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed legislation Tuesday ordering the city to continue moving people off the streets and into some empty rooms for at least the next 60 days. More than 2,300 homeless people currently live in city-funded hotel rooms, where many have their own beds, bathrooms and three meals a day for the first time in years. But there are still hundreds — maybe thousands — of people sleeping outside, as San Francisco experiences a massive COVID-19 surge amid cold, wet winter weather. (Thadani, 12/15)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento To Open Warming Center Shelters For Homeless
The city of Sacramento will open warming centers for the homeless this winter for the first time in four years. City officials will open a 60-bed shelter at the Tsakopoulos Library Galleria in downtown Sacramento when temperatures dip below 33 degrees, Mayor Darrell Steinberg announced in a news release Tuesday. The city will also open warming centers in about 60 trailers at the Cal Expo fairgrounds, currently being used for coronavirus isolation, as they become available. The number of motel vouchers will also be increased. (Clift, 12/15)

Bay Area News Group: Alameda County, San Francisco Vote To Extend COVID Hotels
Supervisors in Alameda County on Tuesday voted to extend leases on four hotels sheltering unhoused people, providing a brief reprieve to some residents who had been warned they’d have to vacate “very soon. ”With the extensions, the last hotels are set to close at the end of February. Meanwhile, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to pass a 60-day emergency ordinance to ensure its COVID hotel program continues sheltering homeless residents. (Kendall, 12/15)