Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
Using Stories To Mentally Survive As A COVID-19 Clinician
The practice of narrative medicine helps health care professionals hear the life stories behind a patient’s immediate complaints. Some doctors are finding that these skills also provide an alcove of needed reflection amid the pandemonium of COVID-19. (Stephanie Stephens, )
New Coronavirus Hot Spots Emerge Across South And In California, As Northeast Slows
Nationwide, coronavirus infection numbers are trending down, but several states are seeing upticks, with the heaviest impact falling on communities of color and nursing home residents. (Martha Bebinger, WBUR and Blake Farmer, Nashville Public Radio and Jackie Fortiér, LAist, )
Newsom Reiterates Confidence In California’s Ability To Manage Coronavirus Cases As They Continue To Climb: California recorded at least 2,000 new coronavirus cases for the 17th consecutive day Tuesday as the state topped 136,000 total cases since the beginning of the pandemic. With 90 new deaths announced Tuesday — including 11 in the Bay Area — the state death toll reached 4,746. “As we phase in, in a responsible way, a reopening of the economy, we’ve made it abundantly clear that we anticipate an increase in the total number of positive cases,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said. “But we also made it abundantly clear that the concurrent recognition and commitment that we are in a substantially different place than we were 90 days ago. We have hundreds of millions of masks now in our possession.”
But many experts remain wary of moving too fast to reopen the economy when the virus clearly is still spreading easily in communities. “I’m very concerned about the pace,” said John Swartzberg, a UC Berkeley infectious disease expert. “It’s like the reopening has taken a life of its own. There’s this momentum behind it, and it’s very hard to stop it and pause it.” Case counts likely will continue to rise in the near future from the Black Lives Matter protests. Also, as the summer progresses, there may be surges from children going to camp and people lowering their guard and socializing more often.
State health officials this week listed nine counties on a watch list. The list includes both large and small counties that appear to have trouble containing the virus, each for different reasons. In each case, state officials say they are stepping in to help those counties with particular problems each is having dealing with virus outbreaks or hospitalizations. The list includes Sacramento County, where family gatherings are partly to blame for an increase in hospitalizations.
Read more from Kerry Crowley of the Bay Area News Group; Erin Allday of the San Francisco Chronicle; and Tony Bizjak and Michael McGough of the Sacramento Bee.
In related news:
Bay Area News Group: What’s The Risk For George Floyd Protesters?
Sacramento Bee: Sacramento Coronavirus Cases Are Spiking — And Family Home Gatherings Are A Key Cause
Los Angeles Times: The Politics Of Coronavirus: Who Gets The Blame If Major New Outbreaks Come As California Reopens?
The San Francisco Chronicle: Are US Cities Reopening Ahead Of The Bay Area Seeing Surges In Coronavirus Cases?
Below, check out the full round-up of California Healthline original stories, state coverage and the best of the rest of the national news for the day.
More News From Across The State
Los Angeles Times:
California, Others Got Screwed In Race For Coronavirus Masks
Desperate for face masks, California paid $800 million to a politically connected firm that failed to deliver most of the state’s order. State officials in Mississippi paid nearly $500,000 to a company whose owner was convicted on federal fraud charges after he resold to grocery stores food that was intended for animals or meant to be destroyed. The state of Georgia paid a company nearly $7 apiece for masks that normally cost less than half that. (Phillips and Wilber, 6/10)
CalMatters:
Converting A Motel To Homeless Housing, Step By Step
Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to go on a hotel shopping spree to help California's homeless. He's got six months to do it before the federal money goes away. (Levin, 6/9)
Sacramento Bee:
CA State Hospitals To See Some Mandatory Coronavirus Testing
California’s state-run psychiatric hospitals are expected to begin mandatory coronavirus testing for workers and patients in their skilled nursing facilities, a step that labor leaders call inadequate. The Department of State Hospitals announced the testing Thursday in an email to staff. Under the testing plan, all patients and workers at the facilities will undergo baseline testing and then everyone will be tested once a month, with a quarter of patients and workers being tested each week. (Kristoffersen, 6/9)
CalMatters:
California Coronavirus Contracts Show Collapsed Deals, Untested Vendors
A medical equipment supplier that was once raided by the FBI. A business executive fined for making false or misleading statements in financial reports. A corporation fined for Medicaid fraud. At least two companies that had existed less than a week. These are among the hundreds of vendors the state of California has contracted with, or nearly gone into business with, as government officials rushed to prepare for the coronavirus pandemic. (Lyons and Rosenhall, 6/9)
San Jose Mercury News:
Coronavirus: Bay Area Tenants Paying Rent, Despite Pandemic
High unemployment, coronavirus worries and social upheaval have done little to prevent Bay Area residents from paying their rent. Roughly 9 in 10 tenants in the Bay Area made at least some payment by the first week of June, according to a survey released Tuesday by real estate data firm RealPage. The payment rate fell from the previous year in the East Bay (down 1.8 percent), Santa Clara County (down 3.5 percent) and San Francisco and San Mateo County (down 4.8 percent). (Hansen, 6/9)
San Francisco Chronicle:
San Francisco Passes Sweeping Pandemic-Related Eviction Ban
Landlords will be permanently barred from evicting tenants if they can’t pay rent due to coronavirus-related issues, like job loss or getting sick from the virus, under legislation passed by the Board of Supervisors Tuesday. The legislation passed 10-1, with Supervisor Catherine Stefani in dissent. (Thadani, 6/9)
Bay Area News Group:
Tesla Workers In Fremont Reportedly Test Positive For Coronavirus
Some Tesla workers at the company’s facility in Fremont reportedly tested positive for coronavirus shortly after the electric carmaker got the go-ahead from Alameda County officials to start up vehicle production at the massive plant in late May. Two Tesla employees told the Washington Post that company supervisors said some Fremont workers had tested positive for coronavirus and were told to stay home from work. The Post said the Tesla workers it spoke to requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation at their workplace. The report says two workers who tested positive are based at Tesla’s seat manufacturing facility near the main Tesla factory. (Crum, 6/9)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Fear Of The ‘Quarantine 15’ Speaks To Deeper Anxieties
The pandemic, as the reigning preoccupation of the year thus far, has birthed a plethora of memes, from jokes about how we’ll spend our $1,200 stimulus checks to the new awkwardness of our email introductions during “these uncertain times.” And as our opportunities for outdoor activities have gotten more limited and the appeal of comfort food, home-baked bread and childhood snacks has only grown stronger in a time of worldwide anxiety, memes about weight gain wrought by our current conditions abound. (Ho, 6/9)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Sunnyvale Medical Technology Executive Charged With Coronavirus-Related Fraud
Federal authorities unsealed charges Tuesday against the president of Sunnyvale medical technology company Arrayit, alleging that he attempted to mislead investors and inflate the company stock price with fraudulent claims about the company’s coronavirus testing and other testing capabilities. The U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco charged Mark Schena, 57, with one count of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. (DiFeliciantonio, 6/9)
Sacramento Bee:
Sacramento Bars And Movie Theaters To Reopen Friday, June 12
Sacramento County health officials intend to allow bars, movie theaters and campgrounds to reopen on Friday, despite a recent spike in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. County health chief Dr. Peter Beilenson said Tuesday he has decided to allow hundreds more businesses to open this week — after getting the go-ahead from Gov. Gavin Newsom last Friday — because the surge of new cases in the county in recent weeks is confined to a handful of groups and does not reflect a wide spread of the virus through the broader community. (Bizjak, 6/9)
Sacramento Bee:
Senior Programs Face $410 Million Cuts During Pandemic
California lawmakers are questioning why Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed cutting services for the elderly in this year’s budget at the same time the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated nursing homes throughout the state in an unprecedented medical crisis. A joint hearing between the Health Committee and the Aging and Long-term Care Committee was convened Tuesday as COVID-19-related deaths in nursing homes more than doubled in May. Residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities now account for about half of the total COVID-19-related deaths in California, public health data shows. (Hoplamazian, 6/10)
Los Angeles Times:
Doctors Use Stories To Help Them Cope With The Coronavirus
Dr. Christopher Travis, an intern in obstetrics-gynecology, has cared for patients with COVID-19 and performed surgery on women suspected of being infected with the coronavirus. But the patient who arrived for a routine prenatal visit wearing two masks and gloves had a problem that wasn’t physiological. “She told me, ‘I’m terrified I’m going to get this virus that’s spreading all over the world,’” he said of the March encounter. She was also worried that the coronavirus would hurt her baby, he added. (Stephens, 6/10)
San Francisco Chronicle:
‘Defund The Police’: Advocates Say It Means Reimagining Policing, Not Getting Rid Of It
“Defund the police” is no longer just a slogan spray-painted across boarded-up storefronts or a theory supported by academics and community activists. The concept is now a movement being discussed on “Meet the Press” as part of the national conversation and pursued in cities across the nation — including San Francisco. But the rapid rise of “defund” ideas comes in the middle of a presidential campaign, widespread unrest and a pandemic that has the nation’s anxieties in overdrive. Its advocates worry that the timing leaves the concept vulnerable to attack for what they insist it’s not — eliminating police departments. (Garofoli, 6/10)
Sacramento Bee:
Are Those Blue Ribbons For Coronavirus Or Police?
Months ago, as the coronavirus crisis set in, Greenhaven resident Greg Alves tied blue ribbons on the trees in his front yard to honor health care workers on the front lines, a move many of his neighbors also followed. At 11:53 a.m. Monday, Alves’ Ring doorbell camera captured a man walking up and leaving a note on his front door admonishing him for hanging a pro-police “Blue Lives Matter” ribbon that the note said “sends the message that you don’t care about the killing of civilians.” (Stanton and Smith, 6/9)
Fresno Bee:
Fresno State Nursing Programs Re-Earn Accreditation
Two of Fresno State’s nursing programs were granted accreditation this spring, the university announced Tuesday, after a troubling time where one program lost its accreditation and the other was found to have never been accredited at all. Fresno State’s online mental health nurse practitioner program is now accredited through June 2030, and the nursing master’s degree program is accredited through 2025. In fall 2018, students and alumni found out the one-year online mental health program had not been accredited since its inception nearly a decade earlier. The university said it was due to an administrative error. (Panoo, 6/9)