Bay Area COVID-19 Roundup: Friday Night Lights Prep Football Returns; Bay Area Back In The Red Tier; Shortages Slow Vaccinations
CBS San Francisco Staff Report
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- It's been a year since the historic COVID-19 shutdown and the battle with the virus is still impacting our daily lives. Here's a roundup of the COVID stories we've published over the last 24 hours.
Heath Officials Increasing Optimistic Of Reaching COVID-19 Green Tier This Year
SAN FRANCISCO -- With single shot Johnson & Johnson vaccines beginning to be administered at mass vaccination sites in Los Angeles and Oakland, state health officials were becoming more optimistic as to when California will reach the Green Tier. While the Green Tier is not currently on the state's color-coded, sliding COVID-19 reopening scale, it will soon be added. Alameda, San Francisco, Marin, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, Napa and Solano counties as of Friday are in the Red Tier. Contra Costa and Sonoma counties hopefully will be reassigned to the Red Tier next week. Dr. Mark Ghaly, California's health secretary, said he felt counties reaching the Green Tier could happen by the fall of 2021. Read More
Contra Costa, Sonoma Counties Move From Purple To Red Tier
SAN FRANCISCO -- State health officials Friday elevated both Contra Costa and Sonoma counties to the Red Tier, allowing restaurants, gyms and retail establishments to open or expand indoors operations beginning on Sunday. The announcement means the entire 10-county Bay Area region has emerged from the state's most restrictive Purple Tier. Eleven other counties in the state were also elevated to the Red Tier including Los Angeles, Mendocino, Mono, Orange, Placer, San Benito and San Bernardino. At the same time, officials also announced the state has reached its goal of delivering 2 million vaccine doses to California's hardest hit communities. "While we have reached a milestone today, we still have a lot of work ahead of us to help ensure we can put an end to this pandemic," said Tomás Aragón, CDPH Director and State Public Health Officer. "We must all do our part by getting vaccinated as soon as it's our turn and continue to wear masks and practice physical distancing to keep our communities safe." Read More
Friday Night Lights Shine Over Bay Area With Return of High School Football
OAKLEY -- March is typically not the time of year for football but the Friday night lights are back on as schools in the Bay Area try to salvage some sort of season. In Oakley, March 12 marked the first Friday night football game in about a year and, while everything on the field looked fairly normal, the stands did not. They were practically empty except for a few people who got special tickets to the game. "Most of us have been waiting two years to play so it's exciting and it's fun," said Vincent Nunley, a senior on the varsity Freedom High School team which hosted Campolindo in Oakley Friday night. The teams are required to test weekly to be able to suit up on game day. It's not just about the football. The cheer team tried to rally a subdued crowd at Freedom High. According to public health guidelines, fans, for the most part, weren't allowed. Read More
Lawmakers, Community Leaders to Rally in San Jose Saturday Against Anti-Asian Violence
SAN JOSE -- Lawmakers are taking action in the wake of the recent rise in anti-Asian hate and violence. "I was waiting for some type of rally organically to happen, weeks pass by and I saw nothing," said Assemblymember Evan Low (D-Campbell). "So I said to myself, 'We must just do it ourselves.'" Low not only organized a "Stop Asian American and Pacific Islander Hate" rally, he also got a long list of attendees to RSVP, including Santa Clara County district attorney Jeff Rosen, San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo plus members of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, the San Jose police department, the San Francisco 49ers and the San Jose Sharks. "This rally is certainly about us standing together but it's also about empowering the community with information," Liccardo said. "There's a long tradition we know of racism and xenophobia against Asian Americans in this community." Read More
Bay Area Community Leaders Say Many Attacks on Asian Americans Go Unreported
OAKLAND -- Bay Area Asian community leaders said the string of recent attacks against seniors is just the tip of the iceberg. They said victims often don't report the crimes to police. Just as the George Floyd video forced Americans to see that police brutality against Black Americans is a real issue, recent videos show unprovoked attacks on Asian seniors are another serious problem it's time to confront. "With these videos, people are finally seeing that it's actually happening," said Carl Chan, president of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce. He said such attacks go back decades. What is new is they're now caught on camera and, with social media, it is easier for people to see and share them and organize to call out the injustice. Read More
Despite J&J Doses, Vaccine Shortage Problems Continue For Bay Area - 'Just Don't Have Enough Supply'
DALY CITY -- No matter if you're getting a COVID shot in San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda or Marin counties, the story is often the same: there are not enough doses to go around. "Today, the main limitation is that we just don't have enough supply," said Dr. Grant Colfax from the San Francisco County Department of Public Health. In Daly City Friday afternoon, 300 essential workers were getting a Moderna dose after county leaders say the state's zip code equity failed here. "I respect the state, I respect the governor, but we're doing it by zip codes, right? In San Mateo County, where we have Daly City, where we have East Palo Alto, where we have farm workers on the coast - we had zero that qualified within those zip codes to get those extra doses," said president of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, David Canepa. Read More
California Grocers Association Sues Over Grocery Hazard Pay Ordinances In Daly City, San Jose
SAN JOSE -- A trade group representing California grocery stores has filed lawsuits against San Jose and Daly City after requiring large grocers to offer hazard pay to employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. On Friday, the California Grocers Association filed the challenges in federal court. The group claims that the measures are unconstitutional, violate the National Labor Relations Act and would raise the cost of groceries. "In addition to clearly violating federal and state law, the extra pay mandates will harm customers and workers," Ron Fong, president & CEO of the California Grocers Association said in a statement. "A $5/hour mandate amounts to a 28 percent average increase in labor costs for grocery stores. That is too big a cost increase for any grocery retailer to absorb without consequence," Fong went on to say. Read More
San Francisco Begins Distributing Johnson & Johnson Single Shot Vaccinations
SAN FRANCISCO -- Hundreds of San Franciscans lined up Friday morning to receive the Johnson & Johnson single dose vaccine at a mass vaccination site located at City College. San Francisco Director of Public Health Dr. Grant Colfax said the goal was to administer 1,000 of the 4,800 doses shipped to the city at the City College drive-thru site. The arrival of the J&J doses has helped to ease a shortage of vaccine from Pfizer and Moderna that had forced San Francisco to temporarily shut down its mass site at Moscone Center. Colfax said residents should not be choosey over which vaccination they receive. "All three prevent COVID death and hospitalization," he said. "That's what this is really all about. Getting vaccinated as quickly as possible. Everyone should get vaccines when they're eligible. The vaccine offered is the right vaccine to take." Read More
Bay Area Transit, Airport Workers Eligible For Shots Next Week
SAN JOSE -- Public transit workers in the Bay Area and across California will be eligible to receive their COVID-19 vaccines beginning next week, according to state officials. The California Department of Public Health expanded eligibility starting Monday, March 15 to those who work in public transportation, in airports and commercial airlines, but not private airplanes. "They are at high risk for occupational exposure and maintaining continuity of transportation operations is critical," officials said in an update posted Thursday. Transit advocates hailed the state's new guidance following advocacy from operators, unions and local officials. Read More
California Lost Nearly 70,000 Jobs In January, But Recovery Likely Coming
SACRAMENTO -- California lost close to 70,000 jobs in January as the coronavirus pandemic stretched into the new year, but the unemployment rate dropped slightly, to 9%, as more people stopped looking for work amid another round of state-imposed lockdowns. Numbers released Friday by the Employment Development Department show the nation's most populous state lost 69,900 jobs in January. Revised numbers from December show 145,300 jobs were lost over those two months, slowing the recovery. California has regained about 39% of the more than 2.7 million jobs lost in March and April 2020 when the pandemic took hold. But since January 2020, more than 768,000 people have stopped looking for work, a number likely driven by the demands of caring for children during virtual learning and people seeking advanced degrees as they wait for the economy to improve. Read More
All Santa Clara County Educators, School Employees Given Opportunity for Vaccination
SAN JOSE -- Santa Clara County education officials on Friday announced that all teachers and other school employees working in K-12 public schools in the county have been offered the opportunity to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccine eligibility was expanded to the education and childcare sector on February 28, which led to the establishment of a targeted vaccination site for the K-12 workforce at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, officials said in a press release. The County Office of Education additionally worked with other vaccine providers and offered scheduling support aimed at giving everyone in K-12 sector access to inoculation, particularly focusing on staff from schools in areas most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Read More
Pacifica Family Embarks On Road Trip To Create Pandemic Memories
PACIFICA -- With the classroom and work place likely to remain remote art least for a few more months, Pacifica residents Ron and Shannon Di Sandro have joined a growing trend of families renting or buying RVs or custom vans and hitting the road. Schools will soon be offering in-person instruction in classrooms, but they will also continue the remote option until the end of the academic year allowing families to become mobile. "In Pacifica, our house is really small," said Shannon Di Sandro. "So home schooling and having my husband working at home -- us all crammed into our little house -- is really difficult. Going on the road gives you a different perspective and the kids are really happier." "It's really cool to see Hazel (her daughter) thrive during his class zooms because she's like -- 'Look where I'm at, I'm doing this today and tomorrow we are going here.'" Read More
