Santa Clara County is implementing a new check-in system at walk-up COVID-19 testing sites — wristbands will be provided to reduce the amount of time waiting in line.
Anyone seeking a test can check in at any of the county’s pop-up sites and receive a wristband for an hour-long time slot later in the day. They can then leave and return at the designated time.
It’s best to check in early in the day, officials said. When wristbands run out, people will be directed to other testing options nearby.
The walk-up testing sites in Santa Clara County provide COVID-19 tests free of charge without an appointment, symptoms, insurance, or a doctor’s note, and regardless of immigration status. Locations may change each week based on testing needs.
In addition to the county’s pop-up sites, an OptumServe test center is moving to Gavilan College, 5055 Teresa Blvd., in Gilroy. OptumServe sites are by appointment only — for appointments call 1-888-634-1123 or sign up here.
Pop-up sites next week in San Jose and Gilroy will be at:
More information is here.
— Bay City News
A Muni operator was attacked with a half-size baseball bat after asking three young men to wear masks aboard a Muni bus in the South of Market neighborhood, Wednesday.
But while that incident was widely reported, perhaps less known is when the bus driver asked the young men to wear a mask, one of them spat at the driver and accused the Asian bus operator of having coronavirus.
That’s according to Transport Workers Union Local250-A President Roger Marenco, who told KQED that after the assault bus drivers may be more reluctant to enforce mask rules.
It’s the latest incident in a spike of verbal and physical assaults against Asian people amid the coronavirus pandemic, which advocacy groups have begun to track since March.
“When he asked them to keep their face coverings on, they said ‘they didn’t have to’ and said the operator ‘probably had’ (coronavirus) because he was Asian,” Marenco said.
The bus operator pulled over at Division and 11th Streets, in South of Market, and opened a side panel on the bus. The bus driver told them to stop and went back on the bus. That’s when one of the young men boarded with a baseball bat and struck the driver.
When the driver managed to grab hold of the bat, the man then punched the driver twice in the face.
“They spit at him, they hit him with a bat, they fractured one of his fingers,” Marenco said. “What does that do for the operator? It puts them in fear.”
Verbal and physical attacks against Asian people have spiked during the pandemic, according to a coalition including the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council, Chinese for Affirmative Action, and the Asian American Studies Department of San Francisco State University, which launched a project called Stop AAPI Hate.
In California between March 19 and June 30, Stop AAPI Hate tracked 81 physical assaults against Asian people, 64 incidents suggesting “potential civil rights violations” including workplace discrimination and 90 incidents of discrimination against “elderly” Asian Americans.
— Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez (@FitztheReporter)
San Francisco city officials on Friday announced an update to the city’s face-covering requirements for residents to cover their nose and mouths in a variety of settings to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Per the updated health order issued by the San Francisco Department of Public Health, all residents age 10 and up must now keep their face covered when approaching a distance of six feet from others in enclosed shared workplaces with shared equipment, even when working alone in a cubicle.
Masks are also mandated in building common areas like elevators, break rooms, laundry rooms, lobbies, hallways and bathrooms, as well as when working in foodservice.
Under the updated health order, those who can’t wear a face-covering due to a medical condition must carry a written exemption from a medical professional, city officials said.
The new rule, which went into effect at midnight and will remain in place indefinitely, aligns with the latest guidelines from the California Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as COVID-19 cases continue to skyrocket in the city and throughout the state.
— Daniel Montes, Bay City News
Gov. Gavin Newsom called on the state Legislature Friday to expand benefits to front-line workers with COVID-19.
With the virus and its economic effects disproportionately falling on grocery, restaurant and agricultural workers, Newsom threw his weight behind proposals to expand sick leave and workers’ compensation for those employees.
“This is where we are seeing the spread — the essential workforce disproportionately represented by the Latino/Latinx community,” he said.
Newsom previously signed an executive order granting up to two weeks of paid sick leave for farmworkers and grocery store and fast food workers. Because many of those workers are employed by large companies, they were excluded from a federal expansion of paid leave in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
Under another order, essential workers who contract COVID-19 can access workers’ compensation insurance, shifting the burden to employers to prove that transmission did not occur on the job.
Newsom said he hopes the Legislature can expand or codify the protections into law when the state Senate and Assembly return from recess on Monday.
“People that are feeling sick, people that may be sick, we don’t want them going to work and infecting other people,” he added.
The push for state action comes as federal relief measures under the CARES Act are slated to expire in the next week, including enhanced weekly unemployment benefits of $600.
Assembly Bill 196, written by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, would go a step further, preventing businesses from contesting whether an essential worker who contracted COVID-19 did so on the job.
The California Chamber of Commerce opposes the legislation, arguing it will drive up workers’ compensation costs for employers, while establishing “an extremely concerning precedent for expanding presumptions into the private sector for COVID-19 issues.”
— Guy Marzorati (@GuyMarzorati)
During a windy press conference at Lake Merritt on Friday, Oakland and Alameda County officials implored residents to step up their vigilance in following health guidelines, as local cases of the coronavirus continue to rise sharply in the city and county.
Much of the spread has been linked to large gatherings at popular areas like the lake, said Oakland Councilwoman Nikki Fortunato Bas, who urged residents to keep wearing face coverings and stay at least 6 feet apart from each other.
“What we are seeing is an alarming spike in the cases of COVID,” she said. “And we are also seeing that much of that spike is because of gatherings and parties, including among young people — almost 40% of the cases.”
Health officials expect the total number of cases in the county to top 10,000 this weekend, a threefold increase from early June. More than 4,000 of those cases are in Oakland, with Latinx and Black residents disproportionately impacted.
“When we look at the county as a whole, Oakland’s numbers are most concerning. And when we look at East Oakland, the case rates are double and even triple the rest of Oakland,” said Dr. Noha Aboelata, CEO of Roots Community Health Center in East Oakland. “So things are heading in the wrong direction at the same time that people seem to be letting down their guard.”
— Matthew Green (@MGreenKQED)
In a private call to a group of health officials, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, included San Jose in a list of 12 U.S. cities she said were experiencing a concerning rise in coronavirus cases.
“There are cities that are lagging behind and we have new increases in Miami, New Orleans, Las Vegas, San Jose, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Columbus and Baltimore, so we’re tracking this very closely,” she said during the Wednesday call, according to audio obtained by journalism nonprofit Center for Public Integrity and reported by CNN. “We’re working with the state officials to make sure we’re responding together, but when you first see that increased test positivity, that is when to start the mitigation efforts.”
The number of new cases in Santa Clara County, where San Jose is located, has recently spiked, with 2,855 cases in the last two weeks. Of the more than 8,500 total cumulative confirmed cases in the county, over 5,400 are in San Jose.
In response, the Santa Clara County Public Health Department issued a statement Thursday acknowledging the recent increase in infections, but said its numbers were still “much lower than those of most metropolitan areas in the state and the country.”
“We are concerned about the increase in cases nationally and believe that this highlights the need for a coordinated national approach to address this pandemic, something the President has failed to put into effect,” the statement read. “We call upon the Trump Administration to finally implement the national strategy our nation needs to contain COVID-19.”
— Matthew Green (@MGreenKQED)
A federal prison complex in Lompoc, California, struggled to contain the spread of the coronavirus because of staff shortages, limited use of home confinement and ineffective screening, the inspector general for the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday as he released the first results of a remote inspection.
The report found that staff members went to work despite experiencing coronavirus symptoms and that officials in March failed to test or isolate an inmate who had begun having symptoms two days earlier and eventually tested positive.
As of mid-July, four inmates there had died and more than 1,000 had tested positive, according to the inspector general’s office, which has embarked on a review of 16 prisons, halfway houses and other institutions.
In Lompoc, which has four facilities housing about 2,700 inmates, 75% of inmates in one facility had positive test results as of mid-May.
“Our reports are intended to assist the [Bureau of Prisons] and the Justice Department in identifying strategies to most effectively contain current and potential future COVID-19 outbreaks,” said Inspector General Michael Horowitz in a video statement accompanying the release of the report.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr had directed the federal prison system to reduce the prison population by making more liberal use of home confinement and to expand the criteria for such transfers, but Lompoc officials did so sparingly.
When the inspector general’s office asked why only 34 inmates had been moved out of the complex as of mid-May, the acting warden said the institution would not transfer inmates until a halfway house could confirm that it was available to assume responsibility for them.
Read the full story from the Associated Press.