8/14/2020 San Bernardino County reports 470 new COVID-19 cases, 3 more deaths Thursday - News - vvdailypress.com - Victorville, CA

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By Laine Henry, Palm Springs Desert SunPosted Aug 13, 2020 at 5:11 PM

San Bernardino County health officials on Thursday reported 470 new cases ofCOVID-19 and three additional virus-related deaths.

The county has now confirmed 38,760 coronavirus cases and 558 virus-relateddeaths.

California announced Tuesday that it would begin adding additional coronaviruscases to its public record after state officials acknowledged a data problem in lateJuly that resulted in nearly 300,000 records not appearing in its health system. Anote on San Bernardino County’s online COVID-19 dashboard notes that“recent” data “may not be accurate.”

County officials on Thursday reported that 7,674 coronavirus diagnostic testshad been conducted in the past 24 hours, exceeding its target of 3,288 tests a day.

The county currently has a 12.8% positivity rate, while the state’s guidelinesadvise that each county should strive to have a positivity rate under 8%.

More than half of the county’s cases are among people under the age of 40. Thecases are broken down by age as follows, according to health officials:

2,338 (6%) cases are among people ages 0 to 14

1,892 (4.9%) cases are among people ages 15-19

8,920 (23%) cases are among people ages 20-29

7,418 (19.14%) cases are among people ages 30-39

San Bernardino County reports 470 new COVID-

19 cases, 3 more deaths Thursday

8/14/2020 San Bernardino County reports 470 new COVID-19 cases, 3 more deaths Thursday - News - vvdailypress.com - Victorville, CA

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6,457 (16.7%) cases are among people ages 40-49

5,665 (14.6%) cases are among people ages 50-59

3,395 (8.76%) cases are among people ages 60-69

2,640 (6.8%) cases are among people older than 70

The ages for 34 cases (0.1%) are unknown

The county has not updated hospitalization numbers since Monday, when 30.5%of intensive care unit beds were still available and a total of 152 ICU coronaviruspatients were receiving care within the county. As of Monday, 468 totalcoronavirus patients were hospitalized.

The county on Thursday projected that 30,944 patients have recovered, whichtotals about 80% of the total number of coronavirus patients.

Here is the list of confirmed cases and deaths in the High Desert as of Thursday.Numbers in parentheses show increases from the previous day:

Adelanto: 545 cases (+1), 14 deaths (+1)

Apple Valley: 720 cases (+16), 6 deaths

Baker: 10 cases

Baldy Mesa: 1 case (-2)

Barstow: 136 cases, 5 deaths

Daggett: 1 case

8/14/2020 San Bernardino County reports 470 new COVID-19 cases, 3 more deaths Thursday - News - vvdailypress.com - Victorville, CA

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Helendale: 38 cases (+1), 1 death

Hesperia: 1,319 (+25), 13 deaths

Hinkley: 6 cases

Joshua Tree: 44 cases (+4), 2 deaths

Landers: 3 cases (-1), 1 death

Lucerne Valley: 17 cases, 1 death

Morongo Valley: 18 cases

Needles: 36 cases

Newberry Springs: 4 cases

Oak Hills: 153 cases (+4), 2 deaths

Oro Grande: 10 cases, 1 death

Phelan: 149 cases

Piñon Hills: 44 cases (+2)

Pioneertown: 1 case

Twentynine Palms: 30 cases

Trona: 9 cases

Victorville: 2,236 cases (+33), 18 deaths

Yermo: 8 cases

8/14/2020 San Bernardino County reports 470 new COVID-19 cases, 3 more deaths Thursday - News - vvdailypress.com - Victorville, CA

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Yucca Valley: 157 cases (+19), 5 deaths

Total: 5,695 cases, 69 deaths

Here is the list of cases and deaths in the mountain communities:

Angelus Oaks: 2 cases

Big Bear City: 29 cases

Big Bear Lake: 41 cases

Blue Jay: 9 cases, 1 death

Cedar Glen: 4 cases

Crestline: 55 cases, 3 deaths

Forest Falls: 3 cases

Rimforest: 1 case

Running Springs: 21 cases

Sugarloaf: 10 cases

Twin Peaks: 8 cases, 1 death

Wrightwood: 17 cases

Total: 200 cases, 5 deaths

8/14/2020 San Bernardino County reports 470 new COVID-19 cases, 3 more deaths Thursday - News - vvdailypress.com - Victorville, CA

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Laine Henry is an intern at The Desert Sun. You may reach him at

laine.henry@desertsun.com.

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Multiple COVID deaths reported at Yucca Valley nursing home | Hi-Desert Star

https://hidesertstar.com/news/172549/multiple-covid-deaths-reported-at-yucca-valley-nursing-home/[8/14/2020 9:25:42 AM]

Multiple COVID deaths reported at Yucca Valley nursinghome

By Stacy Moore Hi-Desert Star

Aug 13, 2020 12:09 PM

YUCCA VALLEY — The last time Walter Marienschek saw his dad, it was in a COVID-19 isolation ward at Yucca Valley

Nursing and Rehabilitation. His father was separated from other patients by plastic sheets that were unzipped to let him

inside. There was no TV, no distraction from the grinding business of being sick and dying.

Marienschek lay down with his dad, holding his hand.

“He was pretty unresponsive. He squeezed my hand at the end.”

Photos show Thomas Anderson spending time with his children over the years. Anderson died of COVID-19 on July 19.

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Multiple COVID deaths reported at Yucca Valley nursing home | Hi-Desert Star

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Thomas Ivar Anderson died the next day: at 6:50 a.m. on July 19, according to his death certificate. The cause of death:

COVID-19.

Marienschek says the home didn’t call him right away to tell him his dad had died; someone called that afternoon and

asked him what he wanted to do with the body.

Ten days later, he read an article in the Hi-Desert Star about the COVID-19 outbreak at Yucca Valley Nursing and

Rehabilitation, along with fines levied against the facility. The county reported no one had died from COVID at Yucca

Valley Nursing. Marienschek knew differently.

San Bernardino County now reports 10 patients and 10 staff members have tested positive for the novel coronavirus

2019 at the nursing home. Citing state regulations, the county will not report the number of people who have died there,

saying only it is less than 11.

That number may grow, and if it gets above 11, the exact number of deaths will be reported, county spokesman David

Wert said.

California Guard boosted staffing

As a young man, Thomas Anderson worked drilling companies all over the world. The family moved to Yucca Valley in

1985.

“Then he fell in love with Pioneertown,” Marienschek said. “Dad lived in Pioneertown for 31-something years.”

Anderson had a ranch with horses and didn’t want to leave, even as his Parkinson’s Disease and dementia got worse.

“It was like pulling a magnet apart to get him to leave there,” Marienschek said.

As his condition got worse, however, Marienschek moved his dad into a trailer on his property in Johnson Valley.

When he couldn’t take care of his dad anymore, he talked to some friends about Yucca Valley Nursing and

Rehabilitation.

“There were a couple of people I know who worked there and they assured me it was a really good place.”

Once he dropped his dad off, for the most part, he couldn’t see or talk to him. Anderson had trouble using the phone,

but one of Marienschek’s friends who worked at the facility would take Anderson into an office and help him FaceTime

with his son.

“The people who worked there, they went above and beyond,” he said.

About a month before Anderson’s death, a nursing home staffer called Marienschek and told him his dad had tested

positive for the novel coronavirus 2019.

“They said they’d brought someone else in who was sick (with COVID-19), so they tested everyone,” the son

Multiple COVID deaths reported at Yucca Valley nursing home | Hi-Desert Star

https://hidesertstar.com/news/172549/multiple-covid-deaths-reported-at-yucca-valley-nursing-home/[8/14/2020 9:25:42 AM]

remembered.

“At first, they said he had it but he wasn’t showing symptoms. Then he got worse.”

Marienschek was told his dad had been taken to a quarantined part of the facility where there were no landline phones

and no cellphone reception.

On his dad’s birthday, one of Marienschek’s friends who works at the facility was able to connect them on the phone.

Marienschek talked to his dad and his dad mumbled to him.

“July 18, they called and said, ‘You need to get down here. He’s not doing well.’”

Marienschek went to the nursing home and was led to the quarantine section. That was where he could lay next to his

dad and hold his hand.

He was taken aback by the lack of TV or phones in quarantine, but grateful for the chance to see his father — the man

who had raised him since the age of 2, and who he never thought of as a stepfather, but only as his dad.

“I felt pretty good they actually called me and let me be with him,” Marienschek said.

Then came the call the next afternoon, not to gently tell him his dad had died, but to ask what he wanted to do with the

body.

Days later, he read about how another woman had died there in December. State investigators fined the facility $10,000

after determining that staff allowed the woman to scream in pain throughout the night, refused to clean up her vomit and

called her a bitch before she died.

The story said the county reported no deaths from COVID-19 there, and he called the Hi-Desert Star to share his story.

The nursing home is owned by a company called Sweetwater Care. Chief Operating Officer Steven Jones told the Star

last month that things are changing.

“This facility dating back years and years has had a history of clinical outcomes that we’re not proud of,” he said, “and

we’re at a point here where we’re putting a great clinical team.

Since that story was published, the newspaper has also learned that the state deployed a strike team and the National

Guard to the facility to boost its staffing.

“California Department of Health sent a strike team of infection prevention staff to the facility to assist in mitigating

impacts and assess for potential exposures,” a state spokesperson said via email.

“The facility was also experiencing staffing issues, and received assistance from the National Guard and California

Health Corps.”

Monday, the state Department of Public Health said the National Guard left on July 24.

Multiple COVID deaths reported at Yucca Valley nursing home | Hi-Desert Star

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“The facility is down to less than 11 positive residents, and is stable with no reported issues,” the spokesperson said.

Marienschek thinks more has to be done to safeguard people like his dad, whose loved ones trust nursing homes to

care for them.

“When they tell me it’s going to be 10 grand a month to keep my dad in the home, you figure they’re going to take care

of him,” he said.

“There’s got to be better regulations on homes. I understand it’s a money-making thing, but come on, this is a person.”

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8/14/2020 COVID-19 continues to impact operations at Ontario International Airport | Business | fontanaheraldnews.com

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COVID-19 continues to impact operations at OntarioInternational Airport

Aug 13, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact operations at Ontario International Airport (ONT) in July as passengervolume decreased by more than 60 percent, while air freight shipments increased nearly 27 percent compared to Julylast year.

The COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact operations at Ontario International Airport (ONT) in

July as passenger volume decreased by more than 60 percent, while air freight shipments increased

nearly 27 percent compared to July last year.

Ontario has been a focal point in the Southern California supply chain network throughout the

pandemic as local residents have increasingly relied on e-commerce to supply their households,

leading to higher cargo volumes through ONT. Since the onset of the pandemic, ONT has recorded

�ve straight months of better than 20 percent increases in cargo tonnage.

8/14/2020 COVID-19 continues to impact operations at Ontario International Airport | Business | fontanaheraldnews.com

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In July, commercial freight totaled more than 79,400 tons, an increase of 26.9 percent from the

same month a year ago. In the �rst seven months of the year, ONT processed more than 500,000

tons of air freight, 21.2 percent more than the same period in 2019.

"These are extraordinary times for the air travel industry and airports around the world, including

Ontario, are feeling the brunt of the impact of the coronavirus,” said Mark Thorpe, chief executive

of�cer of the Ontario International Airport Authority.

“Though air travel is not expected to return to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon, freight

shipments are a great insurance policy for ONT, and we expect they will continue to be a source of

strength and optimism for the rest of this year and into the next.”

The number of passengers who traveled through ONT in July totaled more than 176,000, 64 percent

lower than July 2019, though an improvement over recent months. More than 172,600 were

domestic passengers while the number of international customers was over 3,600, decreases of 63

percent and 86 percent, respectively.

In the �rst seven months of the year, ONT passengers totaled more than 1.5 million, half as many as

the same period in 2019. Domestic passenger volume was more than 1.4 million, a drop of 50

percent, while international travelers numbered less than 70,000, a decrease of 60 percent.

Are Inland pools and splash pads open despite other coronavirus shutdowns? – Press Enterprise

https://www.pe.com/...tdowns/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_content=tw-pressenterprise&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_medium=social[8/14/2020 8:45:18 AM]

LOCAL NEWS

Are Inland pools and splash pads open despiteother coronavirus shutdowns?While the state says pools can be open, some remain closed

Are Inland pools and splash pads open despite other coronavirus shutdowns? – Press Enterprise

https://www.pe.com/...tdowns/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_content=tw-pressenterprise&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_medium=social[8/14/2020 8:45:18 AM]

By JENNIFER IYER | jiyer@scng.com and STEVE SCAUZILLO | sscauzillo@scng.com | Redlands DailyFactsPUBLISHED: August 13, 2020 at 4:10 p.m. | UPDATED: August 13, 2020 at 4:10 p.m.

Everybody’s stuck at home and there’s a heat wave rolling across the region, so families are likelywondering if they can cool off at public pools and splash pads. It’s complicated.

The state says such facilities can be open despite other mandated closures due to the coronavirus,but every jurisdiction seems to be taking a different approach.

San Bernardino County does not have any restrictions that go beyond what the state has mandated,and as of June 12 the state says pools can be open, with restrictions.

“The County hears from many residents who believe that because something ‘can’ be open then it

Vicki Nibecker, of Yucaipa, swims during her water aerobics exercise at Crafton Hills College Aquatics Center in Yucaipa onThursday, August 13, 2020. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

S

Are Inland pools and splash pads open despite other coronavirus shutdowns? – Press Enterprise

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‘must’ be open,” San Bernardino County spokesman David Wert said in an email. “Individual ownersand operators have the option of staying closed even if they are allowed to open.”

The state says while aquatic venues such as pools can be open, water slides, saunas and hot tubsare not. Face masks are required when out of the water for indoor pools, and when a 6-foot socialdistancing standard cannot be maintained for outdoor pools. Facilities also are encouraged to provideadequate equipment such as pool noodles and flotation devices to discourage sharing.

The city of Riverside operates seven pools, and all are closed.

“We were preparing to open on July 13 but the rise in infection numbers stopped our plans and wedecided not to open this summer,” said Adolfo Cruz, director of Riverside’s Parks, Recreation andCommunity Services Department.

Two Riverside pools do have year-round tenants, the Riverside Aquatic Association and the RiversideAquuettes. Those groups submitted safety plans which were approved in June.

Riverside also has seven splash pads.

“While splash pads are allowed, we have not opened them because they will create a gathering placefor families and children,” Cruz said in an email.

In preparation for possible splash pad reopening, the city has installed 30-minute timers to reduce thenumber of button pushes, and painted circles to keep children 6 feet apart, “but we know it will bedifficult for children to stay in a restricted space,” Cruz said.

“Our City and County are experiencing high numbers of infections and we will keep the public poolsand splash pads closed until our numbers decrease,” Cruz added.

M

A

By

Are Inland pools and splash pads open despite other coronavirus shutdowns? – Press Enterprise

https://www.pe.com/...tdowns/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_content=tw-pressenterprise&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_medium=social[8/14/2020 8:45:18 AM]

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The city of Corona, meanwhile, opened its two splash padsdaily 10 a.m. to 7 p.m beginning June 16, said Cindy Solis,city spokesperson.

Splash pads are located at Ridgeline Park, 2850 RidgelineDrive, and at Citrus Park, 1250 Santana Way.

Social distancing is required, Solis said.

However, the city’s swimming pool, at City Park Pool, 930E. Sixth St., is not open for general swimming but only forsemi-private swim lessons. Swim lessons are given in a 1:4teacher-student ratio.

The city of Ontario swim lessons program is available attwo pools: Westwind, at 2455 E. Riverside Drive, andDorothy A. Quesada Community Center, 1010 S. Bon View Ave. These pools are available only forswim lessons.

Ontario residents must register online at the city’s website ontarioca.gov/Recreation/Registration.Registration for Session 8 begins Aug. 19 for Ontario residents and 8 a.m. Aug. 20 for non-residents. For more information on the Ontario aquatics program schedule, call 909-395-2513.

The city of Montclair’s splash pad, located at Alma Hofman Park, 5201 Benito St., remains closed forthe 2020 summer season due to COVID-19, said Mikey Fuentes, senior management analyst in anemail.

Montclair does not own or operate a public swimming pool.

In nearby Upland, through a joint agreement, the city and the Upland Unified School District share useof the high school swimming pool.

But this summer, due to the coronavirus pandemic, all aquatics programming has been canceled, saidLonnie Shipman, interim recreation manager for the city.

Upland does not operate any splash pads.

Crafton Hills College in Yucaipa is open to the generalpublic. Beginning Monday, Aug. 17, the hours will be 9:30a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 10:30 a.m.

Are Inland pools and splash pads open despite other coronavirus shutdowns? – Press Enterprise

https://www.pe.com/...tdowns/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_content=tw-pressenterprise&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_medium=social[8/14/2020 8:45:18 AM]

100,000 Disneyland and Disney Worldcast members

Coronavirus tracker: California surpasses600,000 cases; marks ninth day of declinein hospitalizations, as of Aug. 13

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Valley megachurch and LA County tradelawsuits in battle over indoor worshipservices

Redlands East Valley grad helps createworldwide virtual summer camp

to 1:30 p.m. on Fridays, said Michelle Riggs, director ofinstitutional advancement.

The cities of Rancho Cucamonga and Redlands do not ownor operate public pools or splash pads.

Staff Writer Ryan Hagen contributed to this report.

Newsroom GuidelinesNews TipsContact UsReport an Error

Jennifer Iyer | Staff writerA lifelong Inland resident, Jennifer Iyer started working in journalism at The Press-Enterprise in 2000. She has written(and shot photos for) stories on wildflowers, camping with a dog, and many community events, and as a videographercovered wildfires and war games to blimp rides and camel racing from Temecula to Big Bear Lake, Twentynine Palmsto Jurupa Valley.

jiyer@scng.com

Follow Jennifer Iyer @Jen_Iyer

Steve Scauzillo | reporterSteve Scauzillo covers environment, public health and transportation for the Southern California NewsGroup. He has won two journalist of the year awards from the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club andis a recipient of the Aldo Leopold Award for Distinguished Editorial Writing on environmental issues.Steve studied biology/chemistry when attending East Meadow High School and Nassau College in

New York (he actually loved botany!) and then majored in social ecology at UCI until switching to journalism. He alsoearned a master's degree in media from Cal State Fullerton. He has been an adjunct professor since 2005. Stevelikes to take the train, subway and bicycle – sometimes all three – to assignments and the newsroom. He has twogrown sons, Andy and Matthew. Steve recently watched all of “Star Trek” the remastered original season one onAmazon, so he has an inner nerd.

Tags: Coronavirus

8/14/2020 Opinion | Is Your Child’s School Ready to Reopen? - The New York Times

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https://nyti.ms/31OdHIp

Opinion

Is Your Child’s School Ready to Reopen?By Yaryna Serkez and Stuart A. Thompson Aug. 14, 2020

Last upated Aug. 14 at 11:30 a.m. ET

Many parents have one question on their minds right now: Can my child’sschool open safely amid the pandemic? Times Opinion looked at whichcounties might be able to open schools by examining where the rate of newcoronavirus cases may be low enough, and testing rates high enough, toallow it.

San Bernardino County, Calif. is not ready to reopen schools.

All schools should stay remote.

Note: Case data and state-level positivity test rates as of August 11. | Sources: Harvard Global Health Institute (case data, state-level positivity test rates); state governments (county-levelpositivity test rates)

The analysis found that most schools across the country should remainpartially or fully closed, including in almost the entire South, where casesare still surging and testing is insufficient. But in other states, like those in

San Bernardino County, Calif.

San Bernardino County, Calif.San Bernardino County, Calif.

8/14/2020 Opinion | Is Your Child’s School Ready to Reopen? - The New York Times

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the coastal Northeast, schools can reopen — with conditions, like avoidinghigh risk activities, wearing masks and physical distancing.

Our analysis considers two main things: the rate of new infections in acounty and the county’s testing capabilities. We used guidelines from theHarvard Global Health Institute, which proposed a variety of ways to openschools as long as the county has fewer than 25 cases of Covid-19 per100,000 people. We also used the World Health Organization’s proposal toopen only if fewer than 5 percent of all those who are tested for the virusover a two-week period actually have it.

The second part matters because if a higher proportion of people aretesting positive, it could mean that not enough tests are being conducted toadequately measure the spread.

Not every county that opens schools would do it the same way. Guidelinesproposed by Harvard allow some elementary schools to open first whilehigh schools would remain online. Here are those guidelines applied to ourrankings.

Where schools can reopen?Based on number of new cases and positivity test rates

Sources: Harvard Global Health Institute (case data, state-level positivity test rates); state governments (county-level positivity

test rates)

Schools should stay remote Elementary and middle school can reopen,high school stays remote

Elementary and middle school can reopen,high school partially remote

Safe to reopen all schools

8/14/2020 Opinion | Is Your Child’s School Ready to Reopen? - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/14/opinion/politics/covid-school-reopening-guidelines.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Home… 3/7

Areas with the lowest number of new cases per capita, such as parts ofNew Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, shown here in green, can reopenschools for all grades if safety precautions are taken.

Yellow areas, such as most of New York and Michigan, could resume in-person learning for pre-K to 5th grade, and for middle schools, with highschool students on a schedule that mixes online and in-person learning.

For orange areas, like much of California and Maryland, recommendationsare similar with the exception of high schoolers staying completelyremote.

Red zones, like Louisiana, Florida and Georgia, shouldn’t open theirschools because the higher case rates means the virus is more likely tospread. But that could change in just a few weeks if testing improves andcases fall.

“We’re not saying close schools forever. We’re saying postpone. Give it afew weeks,” said Dr. Thomas Tsai, an assistant professor in thedepartment of health policy and management at Harvard.

Many school districts in those red zones have already reopened. A photo ofa crowded high school hallway in Paulding County, Ga., went viral after theschool reopened this month. Just days later, half a dozen students andthree teachers tested positive for the coronavirus, leading the school toreturn to online-only instruction for at least a few days.

Our analysis showed Paulding County did not meet the criteria to openschools. Meanwhile, some school districts in the Northeast are stillquestioning whether they should open schools, though the data suggeststhey could.

“There’s a rush to reopen in the South and there’s a delay to reopen inplaces where the community transmission is low,” Dr. Tsai said.

Is it safe?Governors face a difficult decision on schools. Many public health expertshave argued that their policies on reopenings should account for not onlynew infections and testing but also the risks of hospitalizations and deaths.

The map of “safe” areas looks very different depending on the standardsadopted. Leaked documents revealed the White House set a generousstandard, allowing up to 10 percent of people in a region to test positivebefore more severe restrictions should be considered. Researchers atHarvard set this number at just 3 percent.

Where is there enough testing? Depends on who you ask.

3% positivity test rate suggested bythe Harvard Global Health Institute

5% positivity test rate suggested bythe World Health Organization

10% positivity test rate suggested bythe White House

8/14/2020 Opinion | Is Your Child’s School Ready to Reopen? - The New York Times

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Note: Data as of August 11. Sources: Harvard Global Health Institute (state-level positivity test rates); state governments

(county-level positivity test rates)

Nevertheless, a phased county-by-county approach was key to reopeningthe economy in many states and could help students get into class faster inplaces with lower case levels.

California is already relying on a similar approach, allowing counties toreopen schools after being removed from the state’s “watch list” for twoweeks. The watch list tracks new cases, hospitalizations and hospitalcapacity.

While Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York proposed a region-by-regionapproach, case levels are low enough statewide for all New York schools toopen — for now.

“Everybody wants to reopen schools, but you only reopen if it’s safe toreopen, and that’s determined by the data,” said Mr. Cuomo in anannouncement. “You don’t hold your finger up and feel the wind, you don’thave an inspiration, you don’t have a dream, you don’t have an emotion —look at the data.”

Who gets left behind?The regional approach could also make the education gap wider if richer,whiter students are allowed back before others.

Our analysis found that that is likely to be the case, as schools that couldreopen were mostly in wealthier, whiter neighborhoods.

Whiter counties could reopen soonerCovid-19 risk levels and share of white population, by county (circles sized by countypopulation)

·

10MA V E R A G ESchools should stay remote

Elementary/middle schools open,high schools remote

Elementary/middle schools open,high schools partially online

All schools can reopen

8/14/2020 Opinion | Is Your Child’s School Ready to Reopen? - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/14/opinion/politics/covid-school-reopening-guidelines.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Home… 5/7

Sources: Harvard Global Health Institute (risk levels); American Community Survey (race, population)

In the coronavirus era, income can often determine who safely stays athome and who must risk their lives on the frontlines. It also influences whowill succeed in a remote learning environment; studies have found thatlower-income students without good access to the internet and whoseparents can’t afford private tutors can fall behind.

Richer counties could reopen soonerCovid-19 risk levels and median income, by county (circles sized by county population)

Sources: Harvard Global Health Institute (risk levels); American Community Survey (race, population)

Our analysis also found that the counties where it was safer to openschools also had higher rates of health insurance coverage and lowerprevalence of chronic diseases. Chronic diseases like high blood pressure,obesity, diabetes and lung and heart diseases are known to put Covid-19patients at risk of severe sickness. The majority of counties that shouldremain closed have a higher prevalence of those risk factors, according tothe Covid Health Risk Index.

In certain states, the risk is alarmingly high. Among the West Virginiancounties that should keep schools closed, most rank in the top 10 percentnationwide for health risks. Many Southeastern counties rank above thenational median.

Health risks are higher in counties that should stay closedCovid-19 risk levels and health risks, by county (circles sized by county population)

10% 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Share of white population

Schools shouldstay remote

M E D I A N

Elementary/middle schools open,high schools remote

Elementary/middle schools open,high schools partially online

All schools can reopen

$20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110

Median income

10M Schools should stay remoteA V E R A G E

Elementary/middle schools open,high schools remote

8/14/2020 Opinion | Is Your Child’s School Ready to Reopen? - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/14/opinion/politics/covid-school-reopening-guidelines.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Home… 6/7

Sources: Harvard Global Health Institute (risk levels); PolicyMap (health risk); American Community Survey (population)

These disparities complicate the more data-driven approach advocated byGovernor Cuomo and other governors. We can’t just look at cases of Covid-19; we also need to look holistically at the community’s health.

“If we just focus on our own individual needs, our entire society is going tosuffer. We have to be in it together,” said Dr. Naomi Bardach, an associateprofessor of pediatrics and health policy at the University of California SanFrancisco. “If we decide pragmatically that schools who can afford to opennow can — without paying attention to the fact that there are a bunch ofcommunities that are going to suffer because they can’t open, and we’rejust going to abandon them — that’s the wrong societal perspective.”

The solution, Dr. Bardach said, is to fund schools that cannot otherwiseafford to follow guidelines, help communities reduce infection rates andimprove testing capacity nationally.

But those goals are harder to achieve because many of those communitieshave other conditions that make them particularly fragile.

Consider health insurance: The median income in most counties with highcase rates in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida and Texasis well below the national median. They also have uninsured ratessignificantly higher than the national average. The federal governmentrequires Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers to cover testing anddoctor visits for Covid-19. But this doesn’t extend to the cost ofhospitalizations, and millions of uninsured Americans have alreadyincurred immense expenses most of them won’t be able to cover.

Counties that could reopen are better insuredCovid-19 risk levels and share of adults without health insurance, by county (circles sized bycounty population)

Elementary/middle schools open,high schools partially online

All schools can reopen

Average Higher riskLower riskhealth risk

10MA V E R A G E

Schools should stay remote

Elementary/middle schools open,high schools remote

8/14/2020 Opinion | Is Your Child’s School Ready to Reopen? - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/14/opinion/politics/covid-school-reopening-guidelines.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Home… 7/7

Sources: Harvard Global Health Institute (risk levels); American Community Survey (health insurance)

In places where communities are particularly vulnerable, getting thepandemic under control should be the priority before reopening schools.After all, the kids are only as safe as bus drivers who take them to school.

Yaryna Serkez (@iarynam) is a graphics editor for Opinion. Stuart A. Thompson (@stuartathompson) is a writer and thegraphics director for Opinion.

Contributions by Gus Wezerek and Lora Kelley.

Methodology — Times Opinion assembled county-level test positivity rates from each state where they were available. Not allstates report positivity rates the same way or for the same period. Where available, we used the most up-to-date two-weekaverage. In some cases, only a one-week average was available. Some states did not report county-level test positivity data. Inthose cases, we applied the state-level average to the counties. States may update daily county-level data after it is published.Due to reporting and publishing delays, test positivity rates may not capture positive coronavirus cases for the same timeperiod, and vice versa. In some cases, counties reported no positive test results while also reporting positive cases. In thoseinstances, we used state-level testing averages instead of county data.

Updates — Aug. 14: County-level test positivity data was added for Kansas.

San Bernardino County, Calif.

Elementary/middle schools open,high schools partially online

All schools can reopen

5% 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Share of adults without health insurance

Recruit at Riverside County sheriff’s academy dies – Press Enterprise

https://www.pe.com/...y-dies/?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_content=tw-pressenterprise&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social[8/14/2020 8:38:41 AM]

By BRIAN ROKOS | brokos@scng.com | The Press-EnterprisePUBLISHED: August 13, 2020 at 8:48 p.m. | UPDATED: August 13, 2020 at 8:49 p.m.

A recruit training at the Riverside County sheriff’s academy fell ill and died on Tuesday, Aug. 11, theSheriff’s Department said.

The state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control said Cecil Kidd, 26, of Moreno Valley, was hiredby ABC on July 28.

“Agent Kidd will be remembered by his colleagues for his caring nature, bright smile, and delightfulpersonality. ABC is heartbroken over the passing of Agent Kidd, and the flags at ABC Headquartersare at half-staff to honor him,” ABC spokesman John Carr said in an email Thursday.

Paramedics were called about 7:20 a.m. to the Ben Clark Public Safety Training Center nearRiverside when a recruit said he was not feeling well, a sheriff’s news release said. The recruit thenlost consciousness and died at a hospital.

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Recruit at Riverside County sheriff’s academydies

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Recruit at Riverside County sheriff’s academy dies – Press Enterprise

https://www.pe.com/...y-dies/?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_content=tw-pressenterprise&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social[8/14/2020 8:38:41 AM]

Pay and benefits total nearly $500,000 forSan Bernardino’s acting police chief

Is a minimum 664 training hours enoughto become a California police officer?

Woman allegedly made death threats

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The Sheriff’s Department on Wednesday said the recruit’s death was under investigation. Cpl. LionelMurphy, a department spokesman, would not answer questions about whether Kidd was participatingin drills at the time, whether any other recruits were sickened or whether any changes have beenmade to training as a result of the death.

“The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department offers its condolences to the family during this difficulttime,” its news release said.

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Orange County awaits remaining backlogged coronavirus test results from state - Los Angeles Times

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A man wears a mask in Huntington Beach. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

By COLLEEN SHALBY | STAFF WRITER

AUG. 13, 2020 | 5:35 PM

The state is expected to fully restore backlogged COVID-19 test results to counties by theend of the week. The data from July 31 to Aug. 4 were lost after a technical issue affectedthe state’s electronic system that gathers the information.

In Orange County, Supervisor Michelle Steel said Thursday that while the local outlook ispromising, the fact that the technical issue occurred at all is a concern.

“For months now [the Board of Supervisors] has asked questions and raised concernsabout the data,” Steel said about Orange County’s request for information on how thedata, which is used to make policy decisions, was recorded.

“Our cities rely on this data to best determine how to respond to the change in case countand COVID-19-related deaths.”

The county reported 24 coronavirus-related deaths and 348 more cases Thursday,bringing the total to 42,171. The case count included some backlogged numbers, butcounty officials did not say how many. It is unclear to what extent the backloggedinformation will affect individual counties.

Hospitalizations in Orange County, and throughout the state, have continued to decline

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and county officials believe that the seven-day average for new infections has droppedbelow the state’s safety threshold of 8%. If true, that could factor into the state’s decisionto remove the county from the watch list.

“I’m cautiously optimistic,” said Dr. Clayton Chau, director of the Orange County HealthCare Agency.

The county’s two most populous cities — Santa Ana and Anaheim — exceed thatinfection rate. Chau said that the cities’ rates are 19.7% and 19.1%, respectively. But he saidthat a myopic view of an individual community does not provide the full picture.

“Obviously Santa Ana and Anaheim are higher compared to other cities. That’s becausethey’re compacted,” Chau said, adding that many people work in those areas and liveelsewhere, or visa versa, leading to a higher rate of transmission than other, moresuburban areas may encounter.

As residents continue to face unknowns about the virus, officials are encouraging them toseek mental health help through the county’s services. According to Mind of O.C. CEOMarshall Moncrief, calls to the county’s hotline have been up 50% over the past severalmonths. Roughly 20% of those calls have been related to COVID-19.

“We want you to reach out. We want you to seek support,” he said.

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L.A. County sues church for violating coronavirus orders - Los Angeles Times

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(Los Angeles Times)

By COLLEEN SHALBY | STAFF WRITER

AUG. 13, 2020 | 2:52 PM UPDATED 3:18 PM

A church that has gained national attention in recent weeks for repeatedly defying stateand county orders by holding indoor services is the subject of a countersuit filed Thursdayby Los Angeles County.

The suit was filed in L.A. County Superior Court against Grace Community Church andPastor John MacArthur for violating the county health officer’s order, which in mid-Julyprohibited indoor operations in various sectors, including places of worship.

Hours earlier, lawyers representing MacArthur and the church had filed suit against L.A.County public health officials along with Gov. Gavin Newsom, Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra,L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti and other California health officials.

L.A. County sues church for violating coronavirus orders - Los Angeles Times

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Beach baptisms draw large gatherings to the shoreAug. 13, 2020

According to the county’s lawsuit, the church in Sun Valley started holding indoor serviceson July 26. It cites a “Tucker Carlson Tonight” segment on Fox News in which MacArthurquestions the validity of California’s coronavirus case and death counts and downplays theCOVID-19 mortality rate — the number of deaths divided by the total population.

“Last Sunday, 3,000 of them [parishioners] came back,” MacArthur said, “and they rejoicedand they hugged each other and they didn’t wear masks and they sang songs.”

In the weeks since, the county has instructed the church to cease indoor services. But thechurch has ignored such demands. On Sunday, MacArthur welcomed worshipers to “theGrace Community Church peaceful protest.”

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Newbury Park church holds indoor services in defiance of judge’s orderAug. 9, 2020

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“The county took this action reluctantly, after working with the church for several weeks inhopes of gaining voluntary compliance with the Health Officer Orders, which allow forreligious services to be held outdoors in order to slow the spread of a deadly and highlycontagious virus,” the county said in a statement.

MacArthur thinks the state’s current order is a violation of people’s 1st Amendment rights.

“The government can’t intrude on worship,” he told Carlson.

“Community Church decided that it would no longer sit by and watch its congregants andtheir children suffer from an absence of religious worship and instruction,” the church’slawsuit states.

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In an interview with CNN, MacArthur said it was not his job to warn people of the dangersof congregating, adding that he has his own doubts about the true scope of the

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L.A. County sues church for violating coronavirus orders - Los Angeles Times

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pandemic.

“Our people know life is being restricted in a way that is not constitutional and isburdensome,” he said.

The state has reported a recent decline in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations aftersurpassing 10,000 fatalities. But progress is dependent on people’s social behaviors, andmuch about the virus — like its long-term effects on survivors — is still unknown.

L.A. County Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis previously implored places of worship to hostonly outdoor services and refrain from holding indoor events. In the absence of a vaccineor medical therapies, social distancing practices are one of the few weapons to combatthe spread of the disease.

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Though he said he couldn’t comment on the lawsuit specifically, Davis said at a newsbriefing Thursday that, generally speaking, “we start by using education as the primarystep in gaining compliance.”

“However, when compliance is not achieved, we have to look at other tools at ourdisposal,” he said, adding that “we won’t be able to enforce our way out of this pandemic,and we need everyone doing their part.”

“We, as a county, are so grateful to those religious institutions that are adhering to theorder and have found ways to worship” that do not put their congregations orcommunities at risk, he said.

Grace Community Church is not the only place of worship to defy county and state orders.On Tuesday, a judge declined to order the immediate closure of a church in VenturaCounty that had been holding indoor worship services.

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L.A. County sues church for violating coronavirus orders - Los Angeles Times

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-13/la-county-sues-church-for-violating-covid-19-orders-with-indoor-worship-services[8/14/2020 8:39:40 AM]

The county had asked that Rob McCoy, the pastor of Godspeak Calvary Chapel inNewbury Park, be held in contempt of court and was seeking the court to direct theSheriff’s Office to close the church. The county’s request to shut the church was denied,but a hearing on the contempt claim was scheduled for Aug. 21.

Times staff writer Luke Money contributed to this article.

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8/14/2020 Postal workers are sounding the alarm as mail sorting machines are removed from processing facilities

https://news.yahoo.com/postal-workers-sounding-alarm-mail-203218629.html 1/6

Postal workers are sounding the alarm asmail sorting machines are removed fromprocessing facilities

Summer Meza, The Week • August 13, 2020

It's not just business as usual at the United States PostalService.

While President Trump is publicly saying he plans toblock funding for the USPS so that Democrats can'tachieve their goal of expanding mail-in voting across allstates ahead of the November election, the PostalService is also facing some internal changes.

Vice News' Motherboard reported Thursday that USPSis quietly removing mail sorting machines — the verymachines that are responsible for sorting ballots. There'sno official explanation for the changes, and it's unclearwhy the machines would be removed rather than simply

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8/14/2020 Postal workers are sounding the alarm as mail sorting machines are removed from processing facilities

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not used when not needed. The removals and plannedremovals are reportedly affecting several processingfacilities across the U.S.

"It'll force the mail to be worked by human hands insorting. Guarantees to STOP productivity," a Post Officesource told The Washington Post's Jacqueline Alemany."On top of cutting the overtime needed to run themachines, can you imagine the [overtime] needed to dothis [the] old hard way?"

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A USPS spokesperson said the move is routine. "Packagevolume is up, but mail volume continues to decline,"said the spokesperson. "Adapting our processinginfrastructure to the current volumes will ensure moreefficient, cost effective operations." Since there is anexpected influx of mail as Americans begin sending inballots, postal workers urged voters not to wait until thelast moment to avoid overwhelming the dwindlingnumber of sorting machines. Read more at Vice News.

More stories from theweek.comGOP Sen. Susan Collins is 'concerned' about U.S. PostalService delays, she tells postmaster generalPennsylvania ballots might not be delivered in time tobe counted, Postal Service warnsHurricane-force storm in Iowa flattens 10 million acresof crops

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8/14/2020 As Trump takes aim at postal funding, could he undermine California’s all-mail election? | PublicCEO

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As Trump takes aim at postalAs Trump takes aim at postalfunding, could he underminefunding, could he undermineCalifornia’s all-mail election?California’s all-mail election?

Voter rights groups warn that recent Postal Service changes could make it more difficult for voters toVoter rights groups warn that recent Postal Service changes could make it more difficult for voters to

cast ballots in the mail this November. But Californians still have options.cast ballots in the mail this November. But Californians still have options.

For months President Donald Trump has been reluctant to extend a lifeline to the financially infirmFor months President Donald Trump has been reluctant to extend a lifeline to the financially infirm

Postal Service, a reluctance his critics have said is motivated by his Postal Service, a reluctance his critics have said is motivated by his loathing of vote-by-mailloathing of vote-by-mail..

Today Trump made that subtext…text.Today Trump made that subtext…text.

Speaking about the ongoing COVID relief negotiations on Fox Business, the president claimed thatSpeaking about the ongoing COVID relief negotiations on Fox Business, the president claimed that

without new funding for the Postal Service, California and other states that plan to send every voter awithout new funding for the Postal Service, California and other states that plan to send every voter a

ballot before the November election will be out of luck.ballot before the November election will be out of luck.

“Now, they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions“Now, they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions

and millions of ballots,” the and millions of ballots,” the president saidpresident said. “If we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the. “If we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the

money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting. They just can’t have it.”money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting. They just can’t have it.”

Today’s statement comes amid a flurry of changes at the nation’s public mail delivery system, includingToday’s statement comes amid a flurry of changes at the nation’s public mail delivery system, including

placing new restrictions on overtime and restructuring executive leadership. Voting rightsplacing new restrictions on overtime and restructuring executive leadership. Voting rights

organizations say that could make it more difficult for voters to cast ballots by mail during theorganizations say that could make it more difficult for voters to cast ballots by mail during the

coronavirus pandemic.coronavirus pandemic.

California’s top election administrator, Democratic Secretary of State Alex Padilla, is concerned.California’s top election administrator, Democratic Secretary of State Alex Padilla, is concerned.

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8/14/2020 As Trump takes aim at postal funding, could he undermine California’s all-mail election? | PublicCEO

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“If we don’t make a deal, that“If we don’t make a deal, that

means they don’t get themeans they don’t get the

money. That means they can’tmoney. That means they can’t

have universal mail-in voting.have universal mail-in voting.

They just can’t have it.”They just can’t have it.”

In an Aug. 10 letter to recently appointed Postmaster GeneralIn an Aug. 10 letter to recently appointed Postmaster General

Louis DeJoy, Padilla warned that the changes “createLouis DeJoy, Padilla warned that the changes “create

unnecessary risk so close to the election and undermine theunnecessary risk so close to the election and undermine the

ability of state and local election officials to administer freeability of state and local election officials to administer free

and fair elections.”and fair elections.”

But But California voters will not be entirely dependentCalifornia voters will not be entirely dependent on the on the

timeliness of its mail carriers.timeliness of its mail carriers.

Earlier this year, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom Earlier this year, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed asigned a

billbill that accounts for the possibility of delivery delays. Now that accounts for the possibility of delivery delays. Now

county registrars are required to accept mail-in ballots up tocounty registrars are required to accept mail-in ballots up to

17 days after Election Day — so long as they are postmarked17 days after Election Day — so long as they are postmarked

by Election Day itself.by Election Day itself.

California voters will also have the opportunity to bring their mail-in ballot to a polling location or dropCalifornia voters will also have the opportunity to bring their mail-in ballot to a polling location or drop

box. And counties will still operate a reduced number of in-person voting locations, allowing voters tobox. And counties will still operate a reduced number of in-person voting locations, allowing voters to

cast their ballots the old-fashioned way.cast their ballots the old-fashioned way.

In his remarks today, the president seemed to be referring to the $3 trillion COVID In his remarks today, the president seemed to be referring to the $3 trillion COVID recovery billrecovery bill passed passed

by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives in May, which included an additional $25by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives in May, which included an additional $25

billion for the Postal Service. That proposal has stalled in the Senate. Alex Sackler, a lobbyist withbillion for the Postal Service. That proposal has stalled in the Senate. Alex Sackler, a lobbyist with

the the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal ServiceCoalition for a 21st Century Postal Service,, an industry group representing high-volume mail users, an industry group representing high-volume mail users,

said the most recent version of a potential compromise put funding for the service somewheresaid the most recent version of a potential compromise put funding for the service somewhere

between $5 billion and $15 billion.between $5 billion and $15 billion.

But contrary to what the president said, the Postal Service has enough funding now to handle theBut contrary to what the president said, the Postal Service has enough funding now to handle the

surge in ballots.surge in ballots.

“Without one additional dime, the Postal Service has both the capacity and the cash on hand to handle“Without one additional dime, the Postal Service has both the capacity and the cash on hand to handle

all the ballots that will be put in the mail this year,” Sackler said. According to the Postal Service’s ownall the ballots that will be put in the mail this year,” Sackler said. According to the Postal Service’s own

number crunchers, the nation’s public mail delivery system number crunchers, the nation’s public mail delivery system has enough moneyhas enough money to operate through the to operate through the

end of the year.end of the year.

The funding proposal “is not for voting by mail,” said Gaare Davis, president of the American PostalThe funding proposal “is not for voting by mail,” said Gaare Davis, president of the American Postal

Workers Union in California. “As always, the president is trying to divide the American people from theWorkers Union in California. “As always, the president is trying to divide the American people from the

Postal Service.”Postal Service.”

Even so, the president’s statement may indicate the extent he is willing to go to prevent states fromEven so, the president’s statement may indicate the extent he is willing to go to prevent states from

effectively administering vote-by-mail elections.effectively administering vote-by-mail elections.

Though the president regularly asserts that making it easier for voters to cast their ballots by mailThough the president regularly asserts that making it easier for voters to cast their ballots by mail

during the pandemic will result in widespread fraud and abuse, there is during the pandemic will result in widespread fraud and abuse, there is vanishingly little evidencevanishingly little evidence to to

back that up.back that up.

“In the middle of a global pandemic, the safest way for voters to cast their ballots is through the mail,”“In the middle of a global pandemic, the safest way for voters to cast their ballots is through the mail,”

said California’s senior U.S. senator, Dianne Feinstein, in a statement. She has co-sponsored a bill thatsaid California’s senior U.S. senator, Dianne Feinstein, in a statement. She has co-sponsored a bill that

would provide an additional $25 billion to the Postal Service for pandemic-related expenses. “It’swould provide an additional $25 billion to the Postal Service for pandemic-related expenses. “It’s

unbelievable that an American president wants to defund the Postal Service to prevent individualsunbelievable that an American president wants to defund the Postal Service to prevent individuals

from exercising their constitutional right to vote.”from exercising their constitutional right to vote.”

Future funding is only one of the Postal Service’s concerns. The crackdown on overtime, and otherFuture funding is only one of the Postal Service’s concerns. The crackdown on overtime, and other

cost-cutting measures, have resulted in cost-cutting measures, have resulted in widespread reports of delayed deliverieswidespread reports of delayed deliveries. Other reporting. Other reporting

suggests the service is suggests the service is removingremoving ballot processing machines from its facilities around the country, and ballot processing machines from its facilities around the country, and

that Postal Service leadership is that Postal Service leadership is consideringconsidering hiking the delivery rates for mail ballots, something a hiking the delivery rates for mail ballots, something a

spokesperson for the service denied is in the works.spokesperson for the service denied is in the works.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMPPRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP

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8/14/2020 As Trump takes aim at postal funding, could he undermine California’s all-mail election? | PublicCEO

https://www.publicceo.com/2020/08/as-trump-takes-aim-at-postal-funding-could-he-undermine-californias-all-mail-election/ 3/3

“The question is whether the operational changes put into place by the new postmaster general will do“The question is whether the operational changes put into place by the new postmaster general will do

what he wants, which is to make the place more efficient and save money, or if it will do what a lot ofwhat he wants, which is to make the place more efficient and save money, or if it will do what a lot of

people on the Hill fear, which is simply delay the mail,” said Sackler.people on the Hill fear, which is simply delay the mail,” said Sackler.

With the possibility of postal delays and reduced mail capacity, Kim Alexander, president of theWith the possibility of postal delays and reduced mail capacity, Kim Alexander, president of the

nonprofit California Voter Foundation, said she is encouraging voters to opt for in-person voting sitesnonprofit California Voter Foundation, said she is encouraging voters to opt for in-person voting sites

or drop boxes over the mail system whenever possible.or drop boxes over the mail system whenever possible.

And if not, she said: “Vote early.”And if not, she said: “Vote early.”

To learn more about California’s November vote-by-mail election, read this To learn more about California’s November vote-by-mail election, read this CalMatters explainerCalMatters explainer..

By Ben Christopher. Originally By Ben Christopher. Originally published on CalMatterspublished on CalMatters. . 

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies andCalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and

politics. politics. CalMatters health care coverage is supported by a grant from the Blue Shield of CaliforniaCalMatters health care coverage is supported by a grant from the Blue Shield of California

Foundation.Foundation.

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Trump opposes Postal Service funding to undercut mail voting - Los Angeles Times

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-13/trump-admits-to-blocking-postal-service-funding-to-undercut-voting-by-mail[8/14/2020 8:38:56 AM]

POLITICS

Trump vows to block new Postal Service funding to undercut voting bymail

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Trump opposes Postal Service funding to undercut mail voting - Los Angeles Times

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-13/trump-admits-to-blocking-postal-service-funding-to-undercut-voting-by-mail[8/14/2020 8:38:56 AM]

May 2020 photo from inside USPS Processing & Distribution Center in City of Industry. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

By ELI STOKOLS | STAFF WRITER

AUG. 13, 2020 | 1:12 PM

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Thursday that he would block a funding boost forthe U.S. Postal Service to handle an expected flood of mail-in ballots in coming weeks,admitting it’s part of a White House effort to limit Americans voting by mail and raising thechances of chaos surrounding the election in November.

Democrats have pushed to provide up to $25 billion in emergency funding for the cash-strapped Postal Service, which was under immense strain long before the coronaviruscrisis spurred numerous states to expand access to mail-in balloting to reduce the risk ofinfection at crowded polling stations.

Trump claims voting by mail will hurt his reelection chances, arguing that Democrats aremore likely to stay home while his supporters vote in person. Two polls this week show hemay be right, including a Pew survey Thursday showing 58% of Democrat-leaning votersprefer to cast ballots by mail, compared with just 20% of those likely to support Trump.

Trump opposes Postal Service funding to undercut mail voting - Los Angeles Times

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-13/trump-admits-to-blocking-postal-service-funding-to-undercut-voting-by-mail[8/14/2020 8:38:56 AM]

He also charges that mail-in ballots lead to rampant fraud, although no evidence supportsthat. States use signature databases and other verification measures to assure theauthenticity of ballots.

But severe bottlenecks in delivering the mail, and then in verifying and counting theballots, led to lengthy delays in close elections in several states this year, highlighting thepotential danger of political and legal bedlam if reforms aren’t put in place before Nov. 3.

By choking off fresh funding, Trump appeared intent on sabotaging the process andmaking his warnings a self-fulfilling prophecy.

POLITICS

‘Chaos and confusion’: Post Office cuts fuel worries over mail votingAug. 13, 2020

During an interview Thursday on Fox Business Network, Trump said he would reject $3.5billion in supplemental funding to help local election officials increase staffing for the vote,and a broader $25-billion boost for the USPS, that Democrats sought in the now-stallednegotiations to help Americans in the current recession.

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“They want $3.5 billion for the mail-in votes. Universal mail-in ballots. They want $25billion, billion, for the Post Office. Now they need that money in order to make the PostOffice work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said,repeating his false claims that mail-in voting would be “fraudulent.”

“But if they don’t get those two items that means you can’t have universal mail-in votingbecause they’re not equipped to have it,” Trump added.

Much as he has urged businesses and schools to reopen — and has largely ignored theresulting spike in deaths and infections — Trump insisted it was safe for voters to line upand cast ballots inside schools, churches, town halls and other polling places.

Trump opposes Postal Service funding to undercut mail voting - Los Angeles Times

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-13/trump-admits-to-blocking-postal-service-funding-to-undercut-voting-by-mail[8/14/2020 8:38:56 AM]

“There’s nothing wrong with getting out and voting.... They voted during World War I andWorld War II,” said Trump, who votes by mail in Florida.

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Speaking to reporters later Thursday in the White House briefing room, Trump decriedmail “ballots that come out of the sky from nowhere” but appeared to ease his oppositionon funding, saying he was open to approving federal aid for the Postal Service as long asit wasn’t tied to $1 trillion for local governments that Democrats have sought innegotiations.

Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, told reporters that thepresident’s effort to undermine the Postal Service was “pure Trump.” Biden added: “Hedoesn’t want an election.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) also pushed back, noting that the agency’sbipartisan Board of Governors, which was appointed by Trump, had recommended the$25-billion boost. The money would be used not just to process mail ballots but to ensurethat health precautions are in place to protect both voters and poll workers.

“It’s a health issue,” Pelosi told reporters on Capitol Hill. “You shouldn’t have to choosebetween your health and your ability to cast your vote.”

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Democrats in Congress have called for an investigation of Louis DeJoy, a mega-donor tothe president before Trump named him postmaster general in May.

DeJoy has purged a number of experienced officials from the agency’s executive ranksand instituted sweeping changes — including reductions of overtime availability,restrictions on extra mail delivery trips, testing of new mail sorting and delivery policies athundreds of post offices, and cutbacks in the number and use of mail processingequipment — that are widely blamed for an increase in delayed and undelivered mail,including ballots in states where primaries have taken place.

In a letter, Pelosi and 174 other House Democrats urged DeJoy to halt the changes. Theysaid timely deliveries of medicine, paychecks and tax refunds are especially critical duringthe pandemic and expressed concerns that reduced service and a recent move to stopclassifying all election mail as first class may affect voting in the fall.

Trump opposes Postal Service funding to undercut mail voting - Los Angeles Times

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-13/trump-admits-to-blocking-postal-service-funding-to-undercut-voting-by-mail[8/14/2020 8:38:56 AM]

POLITICS

Trump claims without evidence that mailvoting leads to cheating: A guide to facts onabsentee ballotsJune 22, 2020

“If implemented now, as the election approaches, this policy will cause further delays toelection mail that will disenfranchise voters and put significant financial pressure onelection jurisdictions,” the Democrats wrote.

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Senate Democrats sent a similar letter to DeJoy, expressing frustration with changes thatseem broadly aimed at slowing mail delivery.

“Under normal circumstances, delayed mail is a major problem — during a pandemic inthe middle of a presidential election, it is catastrophic,” they wrote.

Trump has claimed, perplexingly, that “absentee” voting is fine while mail-in voting is not,even though they are the same thing. He also has expressed confidence in just one state— Florida, where he is an official resident and votes by mail — and its ability to processmail ballots, if only because a political ally is in charge.

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“Florida’s got a great Republican governor,” Trump said recently. “Florida’s different fromother states.”

Trump’s vow to block fresh funding for the Postal Service comes as Trump’s campaignand the Republican National Committee have filed legal challenges to several states thathave expanded access to mail ballots and early voting.

After Nevada approved universal mail-in ballot legislation, Trump called the vote by thestate legislature “an illegal late night coup” and tweeted “See you in Court!” Nevada is oneof the states where Republicans have filed lawsuits.

Trump opposes Postal Service funding to undercut mail voting - Los Angeles Times

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-13/trump-admits-to-blocking-postal-service-funding-to-undercut-voting-by-mail[8/14/2020 8:38:56 AM]

Republican leaders. who were quick to reject the president’s suggestion to delay theballoting, have been largely silent about his efforts to curtail mail-in voting, much to thechagrin of election watchdogs.

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Trump is deliberately “throwing the election into chaos,” said Wendy Weiser, a vicepresident at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice and founder of the Voting Rights andElections Project.

“This is beyond inappropriate — it is an attack on our entire constitutional system,” sheadded. “The ball is now in Congress’ court not to be complicit.”

Negotiations between the White House and Democrats on another coronavirus reliefpackage remain at a standstill, with Trump objecting to the $2 trillion in aid thatDemocrats have suggested as a compromise. No resolution appears imminent, and theSenate recessed on Thursday until after Labor Day, Sept. 7.

Trump’s opposition to aiding the Postal Service — even after his negotiators, TreasurySecretary Steven T. Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows reportedlyagreed in principle to $10 billion — was a bigger sticking point than previously known,possibly even the primary reason talks broke down over measures to extendunemployment benefits and eviction protections and provide local governments withmuch needed funding.

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Trump first made his motivations explicit during a news briefing Wednesday at the WhiteHouse, stating outright that he would not approve $25 billion in emergency funding forthe Postal Service, or $3.5 billion in supplemental funding for election resources, arguingthat it costs too much.

“The bill is not going to happen ... because we can’t give them the kind of ridiculous thingsthat they want that have nothing to do with the China virus,” Trump said. “So, therefore,they don’t have the money to do the universal mail-in voting. So, therefore they can’t doit, I guess. Right?”

Times staff writers Sarah D. Wire and Jennifer Haberkorn contributed to this report.

8/14/2020 Students return to El Dorado County’s schools despite COVID | The Sacramento Bee

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article244888317.html 2/14

Days before some El Dorado County schools are set to open, teachers at RescueElementary School are preparing their classrooms for students. Like every year,colorful borders line the walls, cubbies are labeled, and classroom rules areprominently displayed.

Some of those rules now include, “I can sit 6 feet away,” and “I can clean my tools.”

Plexiglass, used for personal protective equipment, is placed between desks in someclassrooms.

TOP ARTICLES

That’s because most of the 500 students at Rescue Elementary will return to schoolon Monday, in person, visiting classrooms for the first time in five months.

Listen to this article now07:21 Powered by Trinity Audio

Will the ethnic studies plan include Pacific Islanders and Arab Americans? Eventually

8/14/2020 Students return to El Dorado County’s schools despite COVID | The Sacramento Bee

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article244888317.html 3/14

Rescue Union School District, home to 3,700 students at its five elementary schoolsand two middle schools just outside of El Dorado Hills about 30 miles east ofSacramento, is able to open since the county has remained off of the state’smonitoring list and complied with the long list of requirements to reopen.

Masks are mandatory for students in third grade and older, desks are 6 feet apart,and teachers are sanitizing desks between class sessions – all the safety protocolsspelled out by the state and local health officials in recent months.

About 800 of Rescue districts’ students, including 120 students at Rescue Elementary,chose to continue distance learning in the fall, along with millions of students acrossthe state who had no other choice. Those students were assigned teachers who alsochose to work from home as they identify as high risk.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS ADJUST

Not all El Dorado County schools physically opened, however, including the highschools in the region. And nearby schools in Sacramento, Placer and Yolo countieshave been unable to open during the coronavirus pandemic, as the region faceschallenges in bringing case numbers down.

The state offered waivers to elementary schools, but with data errors in the system,Sacramento health officials put a hold on those plans.

That leaves Rescue’s nearly 3,000 students – some of the only students in NorthernCalifornia – preparing their backpacks, and boarding school buses to attend classesfive days a week.

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8/14/2020 Students return to El Dorado County’s schools despite COVID | The Sacramento Bee

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“People saw the governor’s guidelines as reasons why not to open, and weapproached it as telling us what we need to do to be able to open,” said RescueElementary Principal Dustin Haley. “If we can do it, then we should open. There arestudents that need us. That’s the bottom line.”

The district’s reopening committee, which included teachers, nurses, secretaries, andbus drivers, met throughout the summer to discuss what health and safety measuresin reopening would look like. District surveys revealed most families wanted theirchildren back in school.

Haley said reopening came with challenges. The school staff, along with DistrictSuperintendent Cheryl Olson,formed committees to ensure that teachers andstudents had options, and could return to a safe and healthy environment during thepandemic.

“It makes us nervous,” Haley said. “We are literally doing things we have never donebefore. But if it’s safe for them to be here, we want to give the students theopportunity.”

Haley said he knows the efforts the team has made to prepare for opening day, andthose include a lot of attention to detail

Students will be back on campus on a morning-and-afternoon hybrid schedule, witha maximum of 14 students in each cohort. Desks are set up in pairs – afternoonstudents don’t sit at the same desks or in the same chairs as the morning students.

Books that students touch are placed in a bin labeled “need to be cleaned” andsanitized before they are returned to the shelves. Arrows are taped onto classroomcarpets, similar to those in stores, to keep students safely in line as they submitassignments or line up to leave.

Librarians will make visits to classrooms with books, as opposed to studentsentering the library. Morning students will be handed to-go lunches to take home,and afternoon students can pick up their lunches before class.

Students who are attending class in person are still responsible for submitting onlinework, through the district’s chosen program Fuel Education, to ensure their schoolday is longer than the three hours on campus.

8/14/2020 Students return to El Dorado County’s schools despite COVID | The Sacramento Bee

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article244888317.html 5/14

‘THEY NEED TO SEE MY FACE’

Teachers, such as kindergarten teacher Gretchen Belleci, devoted many late nightsfinalizing details for her classroom in anticipation of school starting. Her classroomwill serve 13 students in the morning and six students in the afternoon, with 65minutes in between to clean and sanitize.

Each cohort, for all grades, will be at school just under three hours.

Belleci said she worked hard to ensure cross contamination wouldn’t be an issue inher classroom. Students are assigned one desk, one chair, a cubby, and even onepermanent spot on the circle-time rug – with a spot reserved for the star student ofthe week.

Cubby supplies are stored in personalized mesh bag to enable Belleci to spray alltools, pencils and blocks at once.

Principal Dustin Haley shows arrows on the floor to help third-grade students to socially distance in theirclassroom at Rescue Elementary School on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2020 in Rescue. The school will reopen tostudents on Monday. Paul Kitagaki Jr. PKITAGAKI@SACBEE.COM

8/14/2020 Students return to El Dorado County’s schools despite COVID | The Sacramento Bee

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article244888317.html 1/14

NMLS #3030REPLAY

EDUCATION

With face shields and sanitizer, this El DoradoCounty school gets ready to open its doors

BY SAWSAN MORRAR

AUGUST 13, 2020 05:00 AM

Rescue Elementary School’s principal and teachers prepare on Wednesday. Aug. 12, 2020, for its Mondayopening for classroom instruction with students. El Dorado County is not on the coronavirus watchlist, soclassroom instruction is permitted. BY PAUL KITAGAKI JR.

DW

8/14/2020 Students return to El Dorado County’s schools despite COVID | The Sacramento Bee

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article244888317.html 6/14

With all the physical adjustments in place, grace and practicality (in accordance withthe guidelines) must be implemented. Belleci, for example, will wear a face shieldwhen she is teaching children phonics sounds.

“They need to see my face, and my smile, because school can feel overwhelming,”she said. “This is one of their first learning experiences in a classroom environment,so we want to make things as easy as possible for them.”

A lot of the planning, she said, was a result of collaboration with other teachers anddistrict officials. Rescue teachers and staff considered every detail, down to aplayground schedule.

Belleci plans to focus on reminding students how to remain healthy rather thanremind them they are living through a pandemic. Just like every year, her

Kindergarten teacher Gretchen Belleci prepares her classroom for safe distancing at Rescue ElementarySchool on Wednesday, August 12, 2020 in El Dorado County. She has created numbered trays for each studentthat match their numbered desk spaces and chairs to limit cross contamination. Paul Kitagaki Jr.PKITAGAKI@SACBEE.COM

8/14/2020 Students return to El Dorado County’s schools despite COVID | The Sacramento Bee

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article244888317.html 7/14

kindergarten students will learn a handwashing song to teach them how to preventthe spread of germs.

“Kids are really resilient,” she said. “They’re like sponges, and they take things inand understand rules quickly.”

While kindergarten students are not required to wear masks, Belleci said most ofher students came to their kindergarten assessments wearing one.

PROTECTING TEACHERS

And teachers are taking extra precautions. The plastic dividers that sit betweendesks are placed in all kindergarten and first-grade classrooms. Teachers workedwith Olson to ensure younger students would have an additional layer of PPE whenthey return to the classroom.

“With these little guys, it’s hard to space them out or for them to know their personalspace,” Belleci said.

Teachers, such as Megan Brown, who teaches third grade, have plastic in front oftheir desks so that students can safely sit near them during one-on-one breakoutsessions.

Children may need to practice more independence this school year tying their shoelaces and zipping their jackets. But Haley said the measures teachers and staff tookto ensure Rescue Elementary can reopen showed just how committed they are toreopening schools for students.

Renee Mallot, who has been teaching for 18 years, said she is excited to return to herfifth-grade classroom on Monday.

She is focusing on the positive factors of the hybrid model: fewer students in theclassroom means more individualized learning and one-one-one sessions.

8/14/2020 Students return to El Dorado County’s schools despite COVID | The Sacramento Bee

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article244888317.html 8/14

“I definitely anticipate there could be a loss of learning,” Mallot said of students whoare returning to the classroom after so long. “But it’s amazing what you can getaccomplished when there are 14 students in each class.”

Three of Mallot’s children are returning to campus with her. Another starts eighthgrade in-person.

Valerie Berry of Cameron Park said she was open to having her child return to theclassroom. But her 13-year-old son, Riley, opted to continue distance learning atPleasant Grove Middle School.

“Transitions aren’t always easy,” Berry said. “He would rather have consistency.With the chance that there could be another shutdown, he was not on board withthat at all. I am proud that he recognized that this wouldn’t be his jam.”

The sign in front Rescue Elementary School on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2020, shows the school’s upcomingopening date on Monday when students will return to in-class instruction as well as several planned “distancelearning days.” Paul Kitagaki Jr. PKITAGAKI@SACBEE.COM

8/14/2020 Students return to El Dorado County’s schools despite COVID | The Sacramento Bee

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article244888317.html 9/14

Haley said he knows the stakes are high, and that teachers, parents and studentsacross the region are watching as they open their classroom doors.

“Last spring was different, because we had been through two-thirds of the schoolyear,” Haley said. “Students knew their teachers and trusted them. But with acomputer screen on day one, 5 and 6-year-olds need that connection. That’s what isdriving us, and we believe we can do it.”

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California's coronavirus response hampered by resignations - Los Angeles Times

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-14/californias-coronavirus-response-resignations-public-health[8/14/2020 8:37:54 AM]

CALIFORNIA

California’s coronavirus response has been hampered by high-levelresignations

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California's coronavirus response hampered by resignations - Los Angeles Times

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-14/californias-coronavirus-response-resignations-public-health[8/14/2020 8:37:54 AM]

Dr. Sonia Angell is joined by California Gov. Gavin Newsom during a news conference on Feb. 27. (Randall Benton/Associated Press)

By TARYN LUNA, MELODY GUTIERREZ

AUG. 14, 2020 | 5 AM

SACRAMENTO — The sudden departure this week of California’s public health officer isintensifying instability in the state’s vital health departments as they struggle with crushingworkloads and navigating the worst health crisis in a century, according to interviews withcurrent and former healthcare and government officials.

Dr. Sonia Angell stepped down from the California Department of Public Health onSunday after only 10 months in the job. Her second-in-command, who led the state’stesting task force, left in July. The resignations add to a list of more than a half dozen tophealth officials who have departed over the last year, raising concerns that the upheaval isthreatening the state’s response at a critical time.

“We’re going to run out of people,” state Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) said of theturnover in the state’s public health infrastructure. “How many people do you think arequalified to be California’s [public health] director that are floating around out there in the

California's coronavirus response hampered by resignations - Los Angeles Times

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-14/californias-coronavirus-response-resignations-public-health[8/14/2020 8:37:54 AM]

whole country? It’s not a very large pool. And if we’re going to churn through them likethis, we’re going to be in big trouble — if we’re not already in big trouble.”

The numerous changes have increased pressure on California’s underfunded state healthdepartments as they try to keep pace with the governor’s flurry of announcements on newguidelines, programs and policy changes, which one former agency official likened to adaily fire drill. Public health leaders at the state and county levels have also become atarget of hostility over business and mask restrictions.

Since September, four people have worked as director of the Department of Health CareServices, which oversees the state’s MediCal healthcare program that serves 13 millionlow-income and vulnerable residents.

When the director of the California Department of Managed Health Care retired lastmonth, the acting chief deputy director of the department stepped in to fill both roles.

The exodus includes holdovers from former Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration thatNewsom was slow to replace. Others have left under more unexpected circumstances.

Newsom tapped Angell, a former New York City health official, to lead the CaliforniaDepartment of Public Health in September. She faced a steep learning curve in a statewith thorny healthcare politics. Many of her predecessors had served previously as countypublic health officers.

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Angell played a supporting role at Newsom’s first press conference on the COVID-19pandemic in late February, describing common symptoms of the virus and reassuringCalifornians that the risk to the general public remained low with only 33 confirmed casesin the state. But over time she made fewer appearances as Newsom turned more often toDr. Mark Ghaly, the secretary of Health and Human Services.

When Newsom inaccurately described a drop in positive COVID-19 cases last week, it wasGhaly who went in front of the camera the next day and disclosed the massive data errorin a system overseen by Angell’s department. Later, Ghaly said Newsom “directed a fullinvestigation of what happened and we will hold people accountable.”

Angell abruptly resigned on Sunday, effective immediately. The following day, Newsomrefused to directly address whether he asked her to step down, but added that “if it’s notobvious, then, I encourage you to consider the fact that we accepted the resignation.”

“We’re all accountable in our respective roles for what happens underneath us,” he said.Newsom emphasized that he was unaware of the data problem when he touted thedecrease.

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Little has been publicly shared about the events leading up to Angell’s departure otherthan the existence of data errors in the system she oversaw. For some, the departure felttoo rash.

“This is a near-impossible job to do well in normal times,” said Dr. Richard Jackson, aformer California state health officer under then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger andprofessor emeritus at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health.

Jackson said those in the state’s public health officer role have long been hindered whenresponding to emergencies due to layers of bureaucracy, including inflexible rules foradjusting spending. Add noncompetitive salaries for medical, scientific and datamanagement staff with a cumbersome hiring process and it creates a nightmare forrecruiting, he said.

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California's coronavirus response hampered by resignations - Los Angeles Times

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The failure of the California Reportable Disease Information Exchange, the state’selectronic disease reporting and surveillance system, didn’t come as a surprise to thosefamiliar with it.

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The system, known as CalREDIE, was not originally built to handle both positive andnegative test results or a large volume of information from many labs, said Karen Smith,who preceded Angell and was appointed director of the California Department of PublicHealth in 2015 by Brown.

“We’ve been trying to get funding to improve the laboratory reporting system and thecase management functionality of CalREDIE virtually since it was begun,” Smith said.

While Ghaly has said human erroradded to the problem, Smith said a“tiny” group of people are managinghundreds of data systems within thestate’s public health department.

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Jackson said Angell was put in an untenable situation.

“I have a feeling Dr. Angell was blamed for a rickety system,” Jackson said. “There needs tobe an aggressive look at this.”

It’s not the first time a top health official has left state service following controversy.

Jennifer Kent, director of the state Department of Health Care Services, resigned underpressure in September after she criticized vaccine bill protesters on her private Facebookpage.

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Kent was temporarily replaced on an interim basis by Newsom’s deputy Cabinet secretary,Richard Figureroa Jr., that month. In late January, Newsom named Dr. Brad Gilbert thenew director, having pulled the former chief executive officer of the Inland Empire HealthPlan out of retirement. Four months later, Gilbert resigned.

In June, Newsom appointed Will Lightbourne to Gilbert’s former role, the fourth person tohold the position in nine months. Lightbourne, 70, had retired in 2018 as director of thestate Department of Social Services.

In addition to Gilbert, Angell’s resignation from the Department of Public Health onSunday came on the heels of other key departures. Last month, Dr. Charity Dean, thedepartment’s second in command, stepped down.

Their departures were also compounded by the resignations of more than a half dozencounty public health officers during the pandemic.

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“People say it’s a marathon, not a sprint, but quite frankly you’ve got to feel like you’resprinting for an entire marathon because it just keeps coming,” Smith said. “There is noquestion that the degree of stress has increased the number of people who’ve chosen toretire and or who left.”

Angell’s job responsibilities will be split between two women, state officials said: SandraShewry will take over as acting director of the Department of Public Health, and Dr. EricaPan will become the acting state public health officer after having joined California’s public

California's coronavirus response hampered by resignations - Los Angeles Times

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-14/californias-coronavirus-response-resignations-public-health[8/14/2020 8:37:54 AM]

health department in June as the state’s epidemiologist.

Shewry, who is vice president at the nonprofit California Health Care Foundation,previously oversaw the state’s Medi-Cal program under Schwarzenegger. Pan, who waspreviously Alameda County’s health officer, notably clashed with Tesla Chief Executive ElonMusk in May over his electric car factory’s decision to restart production despite shelter-at-home orders at the time.

Smith said state law prevents the administration from splitting the state public healthofficer and director roles on anything more than a temporary basis, indicating anothershift at the top ranks of the health department is on the horizon.

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The changes come as some counties and business groups complain about an inconsistentpandemic response. Many note that the lack of strong leadership at the national level hasplaced an undue burden on the state, but say it’s difficult to get clear guidance from theNewsom administration.

Rachel Michelin, president of the California Retailers Assn., said her group has tried toengage with public health officials to understand how counties can get off the state’swatch list. The list determines which counties have to close gyms, shopping malls andother businesses. It was frozen over a week ago in light of the data problems.

“We’re trying to figure out what’s the path and the Department of Public Health just hasn’tbeen responsive,” Michelin said. “What are the rules? And it does seem like the rules keepchanging in the middle of the game.”

Matt Willis, a public health officer in Marin County, said the data problem, the rapidspread of the virus and resignations of top leaders have left California in “a vulnerableposition.”

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“We are coming out of a month and a half of significantly elevated transmission across thestate and a lot of dynamic changes and policies to try and match that,” Willis said. " Theground has been shifting in a lot of other ways and this is another stress for us as a state.”

8/14/2020 Coronavirus: When Will Long-Term Care Facilities Reopen to Visitors? - The New York Times

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https://nyti.ms/3aoNDat

THE NEW OLD AGE

When Will Long-Term Care Facilities Reopen to Visitors?Struck hard by the pandemic, nursing homes and assisted living facilities shut their doors to outsiders. Many families are still waiting to seetheir loved ones.

By Paula Span

Aug. 14, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET

Three years ago, Cathy Baum helped both her mother and her mother-in-law move into memory care in an assisted living facility inReston, Va. Because Ms. Baum lived nearby, she could visit four to five days a week and keep a watchful eye on them.

“I’d check the bathrooms to be sure they’d had a shower when they were supposed to,” said Ms. Baum, 69. She stuck around at lunchtimeto help cut their food or see that a staff member did. She made sure that her mother-in-law got the right clothing back from the laundry.

Then the coronavirus struck. On March 10 the facility, like nursing homes and assisted living complexes across the country, shut down andbarred family visits. Ms. Baum did not see her 98-year-old mother or her 82-year-old mother-in-law until administrators again permittedvisitors on June 30.

Even then, the experience proved frustrating. At first, employees escorted residents into an outdoor courtyard, where family memberscould talk to them over a wrought-iron fence. When the weather became too hot, the facility rigged a plastic curtain at an entrance, so thatresidents could sit in the air-conditioning while relatives visited.

Ms. Baum isn’t sure how much the two women understand when she, her husband or her brother try to communicate through the barrier.Cognitive impairment makes phone calls and video chats unworkable, too.

“They appear to be well,” she said, noting that the women didn’t seem to have lost weight and had visited the recently reopened beautysalon. Distanced dining room service has resumed.

But Ms. Baum is having trouble sleeping. “When I could check on things, I could go home and not worry,” she said. “Now, I can’t check.”

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In the early weeks of the pandemic, a shutdown made sense to experts. “We faced so much risk,” said David Grabowski, a health careresearcher at Harvard Medical School. “It was a crisis.” More than 40 percent of those who have died from Covid-19 were long-term careresidents or staff members, a New York Times database shows.

Given such uncertainty about the new virus, Dr. Grabowski and others think the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services madethe right initial call in banning outsiders, a policy that most assisted living facilities (which are not federally regulated) also adopted.

“We felt they were being responsive and protecting residents,” he said.

Now, a number of geriatricians, researchers and advocates — and frantic family members — fear that months of restrictive visitingpolicies have become injurious.

“It’s not just Covid that’s killing residents in long-term care,” said Dr. Jason Karlawish, a geriatrician at the University of Pennsylvania.“It’s the isolation, the loneliness.” Studies have repeatedly shown that isolated older adults have higher rates of heart disease, stroke anddementia and increased mortality rates comparable to those linked to smoking.

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8/14/2020 Coronavirus: When Will Long-Term Care Facilities Reopen to Visitors? - The New York Times

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Moreover, Dr. Karlawish said, “Covid exposes a secret everyone knows” — that such facilities are chronically understaffed, with relativesoften filling the gap. “The family were covert caregivers,” he said, providing not just connection and stimulation but hands-on help withdressing, walking, eating and monitoring residents’ health.

In a study Dr. Grabowski co-authored, nursing home residents with dementia received better quality care at the end of life if a familymember visited regularly.

Could nursing homes and assisted living facilities start to resume family visits? Some already have, most commonly scheduling briefcontacts outdoors or encounters through windows, sometimes supplemented by video chat and phone calls.

But the response has not been universal. “We are hearing that many facilities are refusing to permit visits even if they are allowed to doso,” Robyn Grant, director of public policy and advocacy for the National Consumer Voice, said in an email.

Moreover, scheduled outdoor visits don’t give family caregivers the same ability to participate in residents’ care or monitor theirconditions. Suzanne Thomas, who has been able to visit her mother only through the front window of her assisted living facility nearCharlotte, N.C., wonders if anyone inside remembers that her mother, who is 81 and has dementia, needs her hearing aid batteries changedevery other day.

And soon, winter weather will make outdoor visits impractical in many locations, as summer heat does now in some places.

“Some have termed this isolation ʻinvoluntary confinement,’” said Dr. Christian Bergman, a geriatrician and internist at VirginiaCommonwealth University. “We can’t continue down this path for another six months.”

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Cathy Baum and her husband, Mark, whose mother also lives at Tall Oaks. Ms. Baumdreads “the idea that one of them might pass without one of us next to them,” shesaid. Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times

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In May, Medicare officials issued recommendations for state and local officials on phased reopening for nursing homes. It includesexpanded visiting with masks and distancing when a home has entered Phase 3, meaning that it has had no new Covid cases for 28 daysand can provide adequate testing and protective equipment, with no staff shortages.

Dr. Bergman, who heads a panel of health care professionals who are developing reopening guidelines for long-term care, estimated thatfewer than 5 percent of facilities nationally have reached that point.

Thirty-four states have issued guidelines for nursing home visits and 27 for assisted living, according to LeadingAge, which representsnonprofit senior service providers. But individual facilities can decide whether to permit visitors and under what conditions.

For nursing homes, Medicare “left it to the discretion of the states, and the states essentially left it to the discretion of the providers,” saidDee Pekruhn, an executive at LeadingAge. With no central federal authority, assisted living providers arguably have more leeway, but asan industry, their approach to visiting is even less clear.

A study in 26 nursing homes in the Netherlands, demonstrating that families can visit without causing new Covid infections, hasencouraged advocates. Perhaps, they say, in areas with low community infection rates, when facilities have sufficient protectiveequipment and testing capacity, family caregivers can be cautiously reintroduced.

But many long-term-care facilities still can’t meet those conditions. Dr. Bergman, whose group expects to publish its recommendationsnext month, pointed out that some still report shortages of protective equipment, particularly N95 masks in appropriate sizes. In manyregions, bottlenecks in testing have so delayed results that they are useless for screening visitors.

Moreover, Dr. Karlawish said, “one thing that haunts long-term care is fear of litigation.”

Medicare vowed last month to send a rapid testing kit to each of the nation’s 15,000 nursing homes, prioritizing those with outbreaks or inCovid hot spots; so far it has allocated about 2,400. But these antigen tests produce more false negative than the slower but more reliableP.C.R. tests, experts said; facility administrators also worry about the cost of supplies the kits require.

“Providers are eager but cautious to welcome visitors and volunteers back into their buildings,” the American Health CareAssociation/National Center for Assisted Living said in an email. “That is why we need public health officials to direct resources —testing, PPE and funding — to long-term care on an ongoing basis.”

There’s always a reason to delay, and facilities where residents and staff members have already suffered and died from Covid-19understandably fear a recurrence. But they could exercise judgment, Dr. Karlawish said, and at least allow visitors for residents whoclearly struggling with the isolation. “Nursing homes care for a group of people for whom high-stakes ethical decisions are part of life,” hesaid.

Almost by definition, long-term care residents have limited life spans; nursing home residents are particularly fragile. Do they so valuesafety over quality of life that they want to spend their last months or years separated from their loved ones? Has anyone asked them?

Ms. Baum keeps visiting her mother and mother-in-law from a distance, but she is haunted by “the idea that one of them might pass,without one of us next to them,” she said. “I don’t know what I would do.”

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8/14/2020 Untested for Covid-19, Nursing-Home Inspectors Move Through Facilities - WSJ

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WSJ NEWS EXCLUSIVE | HEALTH

Untested for Covid-19, Nursing-HomeInspectors Move Through FacilitiesSome states that aren’t regularly testing surveyors have seen significant spread of coronavirus

◆

A nursing home in Texas. Since much of the U.S. began to reopen at the end of May, nursing homesreported an additional 82,209 Covid-19 cases.PHOTO: DAVID J. PHILLIP�ASSOCIATED PRESS

By Aug. 14, 2020 9�00 am ET

Anna Wilde Mathews

More than half the states, including Texas, Pennsylvania and Ohio, don’t require their owninspectors to be tested for Covid-19 before going inside nursing homes, despite concernsthat asymptomatic visitors could pose a risk to residents.

The federal government said in June that states needed to complete special infectioncontrol-focused examinations of the approximately 15,000 federally-certified nursinghomes by late August, or risk losing some federal funding. But the Centers for Medicareand Medicaid Services, or CMS, the agency that oversees nursing-home inspections,didn’t require states to test workers who perform site visits.

8/14/2020 Untested for Covid-19, Nursing-Home Inspectors Move Through Facilities - WSJ

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The Wall Street Journal contacted health regulators in all 50 states to ask about testingrequirements for nursing-home inspectors, known as surveyors. At least 26 states don’trequire regular testing, though some, including New Hampshire and New Jersey, said theyoffer it on a voluntary basis. Others, such as South Carolina, Washington and Idaho, aredeveloping new testing programs for inspectors.

“With the increased spread of the virus in Idaho, and surveyors being in and out ofnursing homes, it is the responsible thing to do,” said Niki Forbing-Orr, a spokeswomanfor the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. The state knows of two surveyors whohave previously tested positive for the virus, she said.

Nursing homes have been locked down since March to most visitors to keep the newcoronavirus out. That generally includes residents’ family members, though some statesare beginning to allow limited access, often in outdoor settings once a nursing home hasmet certain requirements.

New weekly Covid-19 cases in U.S. nursinghomes, for weeks ending:

Source: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

May31

June14

June28

July12

July26

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“All surveyors should be tested because they could potentially bring Covid in,” saidPatricia Stone, a professor at the Columbia University School of Nursing. “They’re goingfrom potentially one hot spot to another, and there’s so much community spread.”

Since much of the country began to reopen at the end of May, nursing homes reported anadditional 82,209 Covid-19 cases, according to a Journal analysis of CMS’ most recentweekly data. The data also shows nearly 10,000 nursing-home residents died of the virusfrom June 1 to Aug. 2, the last day covered in the data.

The Journal’s analysis of the federal data included only nursing homes that reported datathat consistently cleared the government’s data-quality checks and excluded someadditional nursing homes that reported more Covid-19-linked deaths than total deaths inany week.

More states, including California, Tennessee and Colorado, are adding testing mandatesfor their staff who perform nursing-home surveys. Some state officials say tests areneeded to protect the elderly facility occupants.

“It was a no brainer,” said David Morgan, a spokesman for the New Mexico Department ofHealth. “People in nursing homes and long-term care facilities are our most vulnerablepopulations.” In New Mexico, inspectors must be tested monthly, and before they visit afacility.

‘All surveyors should be tested because they could potentiallybring Covid in.’— Patricia Stone, a professor at the Columbia University

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California, which began a testing requirement on July 31, knows of seven inspectors whohad previously tested positive for the virus, according to the state’s public-healthdepartment.

Some of the states that aren’t regularly testing inspectors, including Texas and Georgia,have seen significant spread of the coronavirus among their populations, and recent casesin nursing homes, according to federal data. The Texas Health and Human ServicesCommission and the Georgia Department of Community Health both said they wereadhering to federal guidance.

“The surveyors are in the facility for a limited period of time, have the appropriate[personal protective equipment] to ensure their safety as well as the safety of theresidents and staff,” said Melanie Amato, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department ofHealth. She said the inspectors are “observing limited treatments with residents.”

A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Health said the state is working toensure that inspectors who need testing, or have Covid-19 symptoms, have access to it.

Louisiana, which doesn’t require nursing-home inspectors to be tested, said that monthsago, seven inspectors who were symptomatic tested positive for Covid-19. A spokesmanfor the Louisiana Department of Health said the inspectors provide no direct patient care,wear protective equipment and spend limited time inside facilities.

Seema Verma, the CMS administrator, said inspectors wear full personal protectiveequipment, following recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control andPrevention, and go through nursing homes’ screening protocols. “They’re protected, andthe people that they’re around are protected,” she said.

The agency “continues to look at this issue and work with the CDC to evaluate appropriatetesting protocols given the activities and potential exposure in a given area,” a CMS

COVID�19 AND NURSING HOMES

Nursing Home Deaths Are Rising Again (Aug. 8)•

Florida’s Elder-Care Facilities Buckle (Aug. 5)•

Trump Administration to Mandate Covid-19 Tests for Nursing-Home Sta� (July 22)•

Covid-19 Cases Jump in Sunbelt Nursing Homes (July 11)•

8/14/2020 Untested for Covid-19, Nursing-Home Inspectors Move Through Facilities - WSJ

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spokeswoman said.

The CDC didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Protective equipment might not be enough to prevent spread of the virus from inspectorswho might not know they are infected, researchers said.

“Of course they should be tested,” said Tamara Konetzka, a professor of health-servicesresearch at the University of Chicago. “Surveyors by definition need to be in the facilityand observing things…PPE is not foolproof.”

Nursing-home industry representatives also said inspectors should be tested. More stateshave implemented testing requirements for nursing-home employees, and CMS has said itplans to do so in states with significant Covid-19 cases in their communities.

“They should be being tested the same as the staff,” said David Gifford, chief medicalofficer of the American Health Care Association, an industry group. “They’re at the samerisk as the staff, who are wearing PPE and being screened.”

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Write to Anna Wilde Mathews at anna.mathews@wsj.com

If you or a family member are in a nursing home or assisted-living facility a�ected by the coronavirus, we'd like to hearfrom you. What's been your experience? What are your greatest concerns or challenges? *

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Working from home? California employers must reimburse you for some utilities – San Bernardino Sun

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Working from home? California employers mustreimburse you for some utilities

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Working from home? California employers must reimburse you for some utilities – San Bernardino Sun

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By DAMIAN MOOS | damian.moos@bbklaw.com | Best Best & Krieger LLPPUBLISHED: August 14, 2020 at 8:30 a.m. | UPDATED: August 14, 2020 at 8:50 a.m.

By Damian Moos and Kandice Kim | Contributing columnists

In response to state and local COVID-19 stay at home orders, many California employers transitionedto a remote workforce to continue operating. Since that initial transition, some businesses haveannounced that some or all of their employees will continue to work remotely even after the pandemicis over.

Increased employee happiness and productivity, or decreased overhead and expense, are a few ofthe reasons listed by employers that are transitioning to a remote workforce.

While the benefits of transitioning to a remote workforce may be appealing and significant, California

Employers in California must reimburse remote employees for expenses they necessarily incur in connection with the fulfillment oftheir job duties. (iStockphoto)

S

Working from home? California employers must reimburse you for some utilities – San Bernardino Sun

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employers must be aware of several laws that impact remote employees.

First, employers must reimburse remote employees for expenses they necessarily incur in connectionwith the fulfillment of their job duties.

For example, if employees are indeed required to use their home Internet to work remotely, then anemployer must reimburse their associates for a portion of the Internet expense they incur underCalifornia Labor Code Section 2802. The same goes for employees’ personal cell phones or landlinesif employees must use them in connection with their jobs.

As one California court explained, the law is intended to prevent an employer from receiving a windfallby passing its operating expenses on to its employees. Hence, while a remote workforce may reducean employer’s operating expenses, it cannot do so by shifting those costs to its employees.

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An employer who fails to reimburse its employees for necessary business expenditures incurred whileworking remotely can face significant consequences.

The employer is liable for whatever expenses its remote employees incurred to fulfill their job duties,plus interest and attorney’s fees. In addition, the Labor Commissioner may seek to recover civilpenalties against an employer that fails to reimburse its employees for necessary business expenses.

While the actual cost to an employer to reimburse its employees for necessarily incurred businessexpenses may be small and manageable, the costs of defending against a class action lawsuit — ifenough remote employees are affected — or a Private Attorney General Act lawsuit to recover civilpenalties on behalf of aggrieved employees, could significantly impact an employer’s exposure andexpense.

All minutes count

Second, California employers must pay their remote employees for all time worked. When employeeswork from home and/or set their own working hours, an employer may be less able to monitor andrecord the actual time worked by those employees.

While the consequences of failing to track and pay an employee for a few minutes may seem (or be)relatively minor by itself, affected employees who pursue legal action are entitled to recover interestand attorneys’ fees for unpaid wages, which could significantly magnify the cost of failing to pay anemployee for all time worked.

Moreover, as with a claim for reimbursement, the possibility of a class action lawsuit or a PAGA actioncould prove extremely costly to an employer that fails to accurately track its employees’ work hoursand pay them for all time worked.

Working from home? California employers must reimburse you for some utilities – San Bernardino Sun

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Data collection

Third, employers that use technology to monitor their remote employees may need to disclose theirdata collection and use practices to employees.

With employees working outside of an employer’s view, some employers may need to use technologyto track employees’ work hours or productivity, monitor activity over company electronic resources orprotect trade secrets and proprietary information.

Employers required to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) must provide noticeto employees regarding any personal information collected and how such information is used.Moreover, on Jan. 1, 2021, employers’ obligations under the CCPA will expand, unless the law isamended before then.

Currently, an employer who violates the CCPA’s data collection disclosure requirement may besubject to a civil action by the state attorney general. Although the CCPA includes a private right ofaction under certain circumstances in which employees’ personal information is unlawfully accessedby a third party, there is currently no private right of action by an employee for an employer’s violationof the data collection disclosure requirements.

However, an employee could seek a court order to make the employer comply with the CCPA’sdisclosure requirements under California’s Unfair Competition Law, and then seek attorneys’ feesunder statutes allowing the recovery of such fees in actions resulting in a significant public benefit.

For businesses that rely on a remote workforce, it is essential to understand how labor and privacylaws apply to such employees. Many of the laws require a relatively easy and cheap adjustment, whilethe consequences for violating the law may be significant.

Damian Moos is a partner at Best Best & Krieger LLP. He represents clients throughout SouthernCalifornia in matters involving business and employment disputes, intellectual property, privacy andfalse and deceptive advertising. He can be reached at damian.moos@bbklaw.com. Kandice Kim is anattorney at Best Best & Krieger LLP who handles a variety of litigation matters for both public andprivate entities. She can be reached at kandice.kim@bbklaw.com.

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A researcher tests possible COVID-19 antibodies in an Eli Lilly laboratory in Indianapolis. The company is trying to develop treatments based on the infection-fighting proteins. (DavidMorrison / Eli Lilly)

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AUG. 14, 2020 | 5 AM

With a coronavirus vaccine still months off, companies are rushing to test what may be thenext best thing: drugs that deliver antibodies to fight the virus right away, without havingto train the immune system to make them.

Antibodies are proteins the body makes when an infection occurs; they attach to a virusand help it be eliminated. Vaccines work by tricking the body into thinking there’s aninfection so it makes antibodies and remembers how to do that if the real bug turns up.

But it can take a month or two after vaccination or infection for the most effectiveantibodies to form. The experimental drugs shortcut that process by giving concentratedversions of specific ones that worked best against the coronavirus in lab and animal tests.

“A vaccine takes time to work, to force the development of antibodies. But when you givean antibody, you get immediate protection,” said Dr. Myron Cohen, a virologist at theUniversity of North Carolina. “If we can generate them in large concentrations, in big vatsin an antibody factory ... we can kind of bypass the immune system.”

These drugs, given through an IV, are believed to last for a month or more. They couldgive quick, temporary immunity to people at high risk of infection, such as health workersand housemates of someone with COVID-19.

If they proved effective and if a vaccinedoesn’t materialize or protect as hoped,the drugs might eventually beconsidered for wider use, perhaps forteachers or other groups.

They’re also being tested as treatments,to help the immune system andprevent severe symptoms or death.

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“The hope there is to target people who are in the first week of their illness and that wecan treat them with the antibody and prevent them from getting sick,” said Dr. MarshallLyon, an infectious disease specialist helping to test one such drug at Emory University inAtlanta.

Having such a tool “would be a really momentous thing in our fight against COVID,”Cohen said.

Vaccines are seen as a key to controlling the virus, which has been confirmed to haveinfected more than 20 million people worldwide and killed more than 738,000. Severalcompanies are racing to develop vaccines, but the results of the large final tests needed toevaluate them are months away. (Russia on Tuesday approved a vaccine that hasn’tundergone such a test, sparking international concern that it was cutting corners.)

The antibody drugs are “very promising” and, in contrast, could be available “fairly soon,”said Dr. Janet Woodcock, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration official who is leadinggovernment efforts to speed COVID-19 therapies. Key studies are underway, and someanswers should come by early fall.

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One company, Eli Lilly, has already started manufacturing its antibody drug, betting thatstudies now underway will give positive results.

“Our goal is to get something out as soon as possible” and to have hundreds ofthousands of doses ready by fall, said Lilly’s chief scientific officer, Dr. Daniel Skovronsky.

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Another company that developed an antibody drug cocktail against Ebola — RegeneronPharmaceuticals Inc. — now is testing one for coronavirus.

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“The success with our Ebola program gives us some confidence that we can potentially dothis again,” said Christos Kyratsous, a Regeneron microbiologist who helped lead thatwork.

Regeneron’s drug uses two antibodies to enhance chances the drug will work even if thevirus evolves to evade action by one.

Lilly is testing two different, single-antibody drugs — one with the Canadian companyAbCellera and another with a Chinese company, Junshi Biosciences. In July, Junshi said nosafety concerns emerged in 40 healthy people who tried it and that larger studies weregetting underway.

Others working on antibody drugs include Amgen and Adaptive Biotechnologies. TheSingapore biotech company Tychan Pte Ltd. also is testing an antibody drug and hassimilar products in development for Zika virus and yellow fever.

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“I’m cautiously optimistic” about the drugs, said the nation’s top infectious diseases expert,Dr. Anthony Fauci. “I’m heartened by the experience that we had with Ebola,” where thedrugs proved effective.

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What could go wrong?

First off, the antibodies may not reach all of the places in the body where they need to act,such as deep in the lungs. All the antibody drugs must make their way through thebloodstream to wherever they’re needed.

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Second, the virus might mutate to avoid the antibody. That’s why Regeneron is testing acombination of two antibodies that binds to the virus in different places to help prevent itsescape.

Skovronsky said Lilly stuck with a single antibody because manufacturing capacity wouldessentially be cut in half to make two, and “you will have less doses available.” If a singleantibody works, “we can treat twice as many people,” he said.

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Another concern is that the antibodies might not last long enough to be useful. If theyfade within a month, they’d still OK for treatment since COVID-19 illness usually resolves inthat time. But for prevention, it may not be practical to give infusions more often thanevery month or two.

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A San Francisco company, Vir Biotechnology Inc., said it has engineered antibodies to lastlonger than they usually do to avoid this problem. GlaxoSmithKline has invested $250million in Vir to test them.

Giving a higher dose also may help. If half of antibodies disappear after a month, “if yougive twice as much, you will have two months’ protection,” Lilly’s Skovronsky said.

And then there’s the big fear: Antibodies may do the opposite of what’s hoped and

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actually enhance the virus’s ability to get into cells or stimulate the immune system in away that makes people sicker.

This is a theoretical concern that hasn’t been seen in testing so far, but large, definitiveexperiments are needed to prove safety.

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“As best as we can tell, the antibodies are helpful,” Lyon said.

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Many Covid-19 patients may be dying from their immune response to the virus, not from the virus itself. Can science figure outhow to save them?

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Aug. 11, 2020

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ack in April, as the pandemic was cresting over New York, Iris Navarro-Millán, a physician at Weill Cornell Medicine inManhattan, treated a Covid-19 patient, a Hispanic woman in her 60s, who would prove to be a turning point in how sheapproached the disease. The woman was just a little short of breath when Navarro-Millán first saw her; a day later, shedeteriorated so rapidly that she was rushed to intensive care, put on a ventilator and hooked up to a dialysis machine for her

failing kidneys. Navarro-Millán feared that she would die. (She survived after spending two months sedated on the breathing machine.)When Navarro-Millán saw another Covid-19 patient soon after — a white man in his 60s already struggling to breathe — her first thoughtwas, Not again. Believing that the prevailing standard of care — which, lacking drugs to directly fight the virus, consisted primarily ofsupportive measures like supplemental oxygen — was insufficient, she resolved to try something different, a treatment that was hereticalin some circles but that she thought could save his life.

Navarro-Millán had unusual expertise for a hospitalist. Weill Cornell had asked her to move into that role when the pandemic hit, but shewas a rheumatologist by training, a doctor whose specialty is autoimmune ailments in which the immune system, tasked with defendingthe self from invading pathogens, inexplicably turns on the body’s own tissues. Now she drew on her experience to try to help this Covid-19 patient.

She suspected that the greatest danger here wasn’t the coronavirus itself but an immune overreaction so severe that it could cause lungsto fill up with fluid and prompt organs to shut down, possibly killing the patient. Rheumatologists often describe this type of immunereaction as a “cytokine storm” or “cytokine release syndrome.” Cytokines are proteins released by cells in order to send messages to othercells — signaling, for instance, that a viral invasion is underway. The number of different cytokines is large, perhaps exceeding 100, andeach one calls for a specific response. To save her patient, Navarro-Millán decided that she would have to calm his immune system andprevent that storm from getting started.

Early in her career, Navarro-Millán worked at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where most of her patients had lupus, anautoimmune disease that can affect various parts of the body, including the kidneys, blood and even the brain. Its sufferers are especiallyprone to cytokine storms, which are often triggered by viral infections. What Navarro-Millán saw now in her Covid-19 patients wasn’t, shethought, all that different from what she encountered in Alabama.

A major lesson learned from her years there was that saving patients from cytokine storms often required doctors to intervene early,preferably long before the patients landed in the I.C.U., when it was frequently too late to bring the immune system to heel. So, the soonershe treated her Covid patient by tamping down his inflammatory response, she figured, the better. At the same time, she was leery ofsubduing his immune system for too long or too profoundly, because that might hobble his body’s ability to fight the virus that was makinghim sick in the first place.

An array of drugs was available to her, ranging from antibodies that target specific pathways in the immune system to molecules that havea more widespread effect on the body. One, called tocilizumab, blocked the cytokine interleukin-6, but it remained in the body for up to amonth — too long, in her view. Steroids, which dampen the entire immune system, might open the door to other infections.(Hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug that has been promoted by President Trump for its supposed coronavirus-fighting potential,also happens to suppress the immune system. But because this effect, which is mild, comes only after months of daily use, it is unlikely tobe suitable as a way to quell an immune firestorm started by an infection. The evidence so far suggests that it doesn’t work as an antiviralremedy, either, and that it can cause severe side effects.)

Navarro-Millán settled on anakinra, a drug originally developed to treat rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune condition. The drug targetsa cytokine involved in fever called interleukin-1. As a biologic, anakinra mimics the body’s own antibodies; unlike other biologics, however,it remains in the body for mere hours, not weeks. If her attempt at immune suppression here started to go awry — if some other infectiontook hold — it could be reversed quickly.

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After her patient provided his consent, Navarro-Millán gave him the anakinra. His improvement was rapid. When she had first seen him,he was wearing nasal tubes that dispensed oxygen; by the next morning, his condition had deteriorated, and he needed a rebreather maskto get more oxygen. He received his first anakinra injection that day; the morning after, his breathing became less labored and he nolonger needed the mask. Nose tubes were sufficient. A little more than a week later, he went home.

Navarro-Millán was not a lone pioneer in what she was doing. Horrified by the death toll among very ill patients, physicians around theworld had already tried or were trying versions of her approach; as they battled the novel coronavirus, these doctors were trying to calmimmune systems that they thought were out of control. Navarro-Millán thus belonged to a community of physicians who, eager to lowerthe mortality rates among their hospitalized Covid patients, were turning to still-unproven treatments directed at the immune system.

The idea of manipulating the immune system as a way to fight Covid-19 first arose last winter in China after physicians there observedthat greater inflammation seemed to correlate with worse outcomes. In March, some Italian doctors turned to immune-modulating drugsas well, says Marco Gattorno, head of the Center for Autoinflammatory Diseases and Immunodeficiencies at the Giannina Gaslini Institutein Genoa. So many intubated patients were dying, he told me, that physicians felt they had to try something to lower mortality rates. “Theywere rather desperate, because they realized that indeed it was a grave problem,” he says, referring to his colleagues on the front lines.“We were able to convince the people not to be too shy with glucocorticoids” — that is, steroids. And the death rate among I.C.U. patientsat his hospital who received immune-modulating drugs seemed to decline.

It’s probably no coincidence that those who have been most forcefully advocating to try Covid-19 therapies that rein in the immune systemare often rheumatologists. Their specialty makes them quite familiar with the vagaries of the immune system and the drugs used to try tocontrol it. But their willingness to use immune-modulating drugs in this pandemic without supporting evidence from robust studies issometimes frowned upon by other specialists, many of whom worry about the consequences of deliberately weakening immune defenseswhile an infection is raging.

This proposed fix is something of a paradox. It posits that the best way to help some patients survive Covid-19 may not be to fortify theimmune system, so that it can fight the virus with greater ferocity, but to subtly suppress the counterattack, so that the patient avoids self-destruction. The notion is controversial, not least because differentiating an appropriate immune response from a self-harming one can bedifficult. An added wrinkle is the fact that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, may itself stifle aspects of the immune response,meaning that additional immune suppression could make things worse.

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Each new study further complicates the picture of what exactly is going wrong with the immune system in severe Covid-19 cases. But theevidence continues to mount indicating that something is going awry, immunologically speaking. And in the absence of a vaccine, figuringout the best way to correct this dysfunction may prove crucial to helping patients survive the disease. This might be the case even if acourse of treatment includes antiviral medicines. In a recently published preliminary report involving remdesivir, for example, someCovid-19 patients who received that antiviral drug experienced accelerated recovery times — remdesivir seemed to help, in other words.But the drug did not significantly lessen overall mortality rates. The very sick still died. One reason for this lack of improvement,according to Chaz Langelier, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, might be that the immunesystem, not the virus directly, is driving the disease in these instances. Helping those patients may require calming the immune system.

While Langelier and other physicians recognize this enduring problem in medicine — the fact that the immune system can do us in — theystill don’t necessarily endorse the practice of giving immune-suppressing drugs to Covid-19 patients outside an actual trial. “It’s treadingin dangerous territory to practice without evidence-based principles,” Langelier told me in early May. “I think it is just too early to know ifthat type of approach is really beneficial or it’s just putting people at risk.” Then he added, “We’re obligated to do no harm.”

Rheumatologists don’t entirely disagree. But a global pandemic is a unique situation, several told me. In some situations, “letting diseasekill the patient is also doing a kind of harm,” says Randy Cron, a pediatric rheumatologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.“When people are dying in large numbers,” he told me, “we don’t have the time frame to wait.”

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There is a natural tension between what physicians themselves sometimes describe as the art and the science of medicine. Medicine’sbedrock, its science, consists of treatments and protocols that have been tested rigorously and proven to work (better than placebos do).But in daily practice, as they try to help patients, none of whom are the same, doctors sometimes move slightly beyond what has beenproven, particularly when established practices prove ineffective or when it’s unclear what really ails a patient. They may draw onpersonal experience or case studies in the medical literature. They might prescribe drugs off-label, or for uses other than what they wereapproved for, and, within certain bounds, fiddle with dosages. As Navarro-Millán put it to me, “Nothing in medicine is fixed or precise,unlike other sciences.”

The tension between the interpretive (or creative) and the conservative (or scientific), which is probably felt to some degree by everydoctor, can escalate in times like the current moment. Doctors and scientists are facing a virus never seen before and are thereforefiguring out how to treat it for the first time. Some doctors feel impelled to try new treatments in order to help their patients. But this may,as Langelier points out, end up in conflict with Hippocrates’ injunction that physicians “do no harm.” And certainly, there have beenepisodes in which doctors took action in a way that they thought should work but turned out to cause harm. For example, once scientistsgot around to thoroughly studying hormone-replacement therapy for postmenopausal women, beginning in the 1990s — a treatment thatmade sense in theory — they discovered a major downside: It increased the risk of breast cancer, heart disease and other ailments amongcertain groups of women.

That doesn’t mean that physicians’ experiences are useless or don’t warrant attention. A recent opinion piece in The Journal of theAmerican Medical Association noted the current “cacophony” of observational studies and pointed out that even these so-called weakstudies can help advance Covid-19 treatments as long as they lead to well-designed follow-up trials. Stronger studies can test the ideasgenerated by weak studies (though the authors warn against publishing those weak studies in medical journals, so as not to undulyinfluence care).

In the United States, physicians’ efforts to suppress the immune system in Covid-19 patients have been uncoordinated. Institutionsformulate their own approaches. As Covid-19 overwhelmed New York, doctors at Montefiore Health System in the Bronx, a borough hithard by the virus, convened a task force to develop a plan of care focused on the immune system. Over the course of months at New YorkUniversity Langone Medical Center, critical-care doctors slowly increased their use of steroids, according to Sam Parnia, director ofcritical-care and resuscitation research. The gradual embrace of steroids stemmed in part from observations that patients seemed toimprove when treated with them, and then worsen when the drugs were withdrawn.

Officials at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia early on established a protocol for Covid-19 patients centered on aggressiveimmunomodulation. Roberto Caricchio, the head of rheumatology there, told me that the hospital, which serves a high-risk, mostlyAfrican-American and Hispanic population, immediately began giving steroids in low doses to everyone who tested positive for Covid-19and who needed oxygen. Depending on the levels of various inflammatory indicators, patients might then be given anakinra — the short-acting drug that Navarro-Millán used — or tocilizumab, the longer-lasting drug that blocks the cytokine interleukin-6.

In Southern California, Thomas Yadegar, medical director of the I.C.U. at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center, says hechanged how he cared for Covid-19 patients after a number of them suddenly and inexplicably deteriorated and several died. Starting inApril, as soon as the oxygen in their blood began dropping — and before admission to the I.C.U. — Covid-19 patients at his hospital beganreceiving sarilumab, then, later, tocilizumab. He told me that the number of patients needing intubation has since declined greatly. “If youtold me in January that you were coming into my I.C.U. to give immunomodulators, I would have called security and had you thrown out,”he says.

At Weill Cornell, Navarro-Millán spent the April surge working with a team of internal-medicine doctors and rheumatologists, givinganakinra to Covid-19 patients who met certain criteria. (In June, she returned to rheumatology full time.) This summer, Navarro-Millánand her colleagues published a case series, or purely observational study, in the journal Arthritis Rheumatology. They detailed theoutcomes for 11 of their hospitalized patients. Seven who were treated within 36 hours of the onset of symptoms — defined as worseningshortness of breath that didn’t improve with supplemental oxygen — were able to avoid being put on ventilators and went home; four whowere treated four or more days after symptoms began ended up on ventilators (one died). Although the study wasn’t designed to generatefirm conclusions — among other shortcomings, it was tiny and contained no untreated comparison group — giving anakinra to patientsearly in their care seemed to produce better results, as Navarro-Millán anticipated. She is now seeking F.D.A. approval for a stronger trialinvolving multiple hospitals and doctors to test anakinra on Covid-19.

It wasn’t until late June that a controlled study produced strong evidence suggesting that what so many doctors were already tryingmight actually work. That’s when University of Oxford scientists released data from the best designed and largest trial to date — nearly6,500 subjects took part — that has explored an immune-suppressing therapy for Covid-19 patients. The Recovery trial, which has sincebeen published as a preliminary report in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that moderate doses of the steroid dexamethasonecut deaths by one-third among patients on ventilators and by one-fifth among those receiving oxygen who weren’t on the breathingmachines. This was a marked improvement in survival rates, and reason for hope. The findings included an important caveat, though:Mildly ill patients didn’t fare any better when given steroids. In fact, in this subgroup, there was a trend toward worse outcomes.

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One possible explanation for these divergent results is that suppressing the immune system in mildly ill patients actually delays, ratherthan helps, their recovery. For those who are beating back the virus just fine on their own, the treatment might hinder that process. If thisis what’s happening, it would support a criticism I heard often from skeptics, who oppose using immune-suppressing drugs outside trials:Not only might treatments expected to help patients end up doing them no good — they might do actual harm.

One such critic is Carolyn Calfee, a critical-care specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, who opposes targeting theimmune system unless it is done in trial settings. But even she refers to the Recovery results as “practice changing.” In late July, she said,experts at U.C.S.F. were discussing how to incorporate the study findings into the hospital’s Covid-19 protocol. Some questions remained,but “this study has definitely changed my view,” she told me. “I think we have to take it very seriously.” (Chaz Langelier, too, found itconvincing.) N.Y.U. also included dexamethasone in its official treatment plan after the study’s results came out, Sam Parnia says, as didthe hospital at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where Randy Cron had pushed for months to give immune-modulating drugs toCovid-19 patients.

The results of the Recovery trial have not displaced the discomfort Calfee and others feel about giving immune-suppressing drugs toCovid-19 patients in situations other than well-designed trials, however. Suppressing the immune system to help patients surviveinfections has been tried before, they point out. And it largely failed.

Every year, nearly 200,000 Americans develop acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS, from the flu and other infections or frommassive trauma — car accidents, say, or burns. More than one-third of these patients die. Sepsis, a condition in which an overwhelmingreaction to infection triggers blood-pressure loss and organ failure, contributes to 30 to 50 percent of all deaths in the hospital. (Other

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conditions that weaken the body, like cancer, can contribute to the development of sepsis in patients, meaning that sepsis may simply bethe final diagnosis in a patient’s long decline.) Even before Covid-19, lower-respiratory-tract infections were humankind’s single greatestkiller among communicable diseases, according to the World Health Organization.

If an overexuberant immune response is a major contributor to these conditions, as many suspect, then it’s paramount to come up withmethods to combat them by calming the immune system. That has proved to be easier said than done. “In both sepsis and ARDS, wehaven’t made the strides we wish we could have,” says Nuala Meyer, a critical-care physician and scientist at the University ofPennsylvania’s medical school.

And some of the immune-modulating drugs now being tried against Covid-19 have failed to help sepsis and ARDS patients in the past.Researchers have been “trying for decades to find treatment without any success for ARDS,” Calfee told me. Advances have been made innon-drug-based management of the condition. Ventilators now pump smaller “breaths” for their patients than in the past, because studieshave indicated that larger breaths cause spikes in inflammation. And patients with more inflammation fared worse. But, Calfee says,“there’s been absolutely zero success in pharmacological therapy.”

Today’s trials may have a better chance of succeeding, however, because scientists increasingly recognize that patients who appear tosuffer from one affliction — ARDS, say — can be divided into smaller groups, defined by measurements of inflammation and other criteria.And some hope that these smaller, more clearly defined subsets of patients will benefit from treatments tailored to them. That’s onetakeaway from Calfee’s own reanalysis of an old trial.

In 2018, she and an international team went back over data from a study originally conducted in the early 2010s that tested a statin,usually used to protect against heart disease, for ARDS. (Statins have anti-inflammatory properties.) The trial didn’t show a benefit whenfirst published, but after Calfee sorted the patients according to how much inflammation they experienced, she discovered that, in fact,those who suffered the worst — 35 percent were in what she calls a “hyperinflammatory” state — were less likely to die if they receivedtreatment instead of a placebo. Patients not in this inflamed state, however, did not benefit from the treatment. “Maybe there are actuallypatients within these groups responding,” Calfee told me. “But we can’t see them because there’s so much noise.” Randy Cron and hiscolleagues reached a similar conclusion after re-examining an old trial testing anakinra on sepsis, which was also initially deemed afailure. They found a subgroup of subjects with features of macrophage activation syndrome — a kind of cytokine storm that involvesbleeding, clotting and liver dysfunction — who did, in fact, seem to improve after being treated.

Retrospective parsing of old studies can’t definitively prove that something works. Only large, well-designed trials that follow patientsafter treatment can. But these reanalyses hint at the existence of smaller groups within the broader syndromes that may respond to drugsdirected at the immune system. And it may be possible to further subdivide these groups according to how exactly their immune systemshave become unbalanced — too much of the cytokine IL-1 here, for example, or too much IL-6 there — and then to correct the uniqueimbalances of individual patients with specific drugs. This approach, which remains somewhat theoretical, highlights a concept that’salready a buzzword: “precision medicine,” the idea of tailoring care to the particular biology or unique dysfunction of a patient.

The Coronavirus Outbreak ›

Frequently Asked QuestionsUpdated August 12, 2020

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Many states have travel restrictions, and lots of them are taking active measuresto enforce those restrictions, like issuing fines or asking visitors to quarantine for14 days. Here s an ever-updating list of statewide restrictions. In general, traveldoes increase your chance of getting and spreading the virus, as you are boundto encounter more people than if you remained at your house in your own “pod.”“Staying home is the best way to protect yourself and others from Covid-19,” theC.D.C. says. If you do travel, though, take precautions. If you can, drive. If youhave to fly, be careful about picking your airline. But know that airlines are takingreal steps to keep planes clean and limit your risk.

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For Calfee, the likely existence of differing, narrower types of disease within what have largely been thought of as single syndromesunderscores why study design is so important — and why the dexamethasone treatment in the Recovery trial may have succeeded whereprevious trials testing steroids yielded contradictory findings. Earlier studies included ARDS or sepsis patients whose illness stemmedfrom a variety of causes. But the Recovery trial focused solely on Covid-19 patients. “We see much clearer results,” Calfee told me. Theimplication is that when scientists design trials, they should apply strict criteria in selecting study participants. “It’s possible that if wefocus our trial on subsets of patients,” she says, “we may have a better chance of identifying effective therapies.”

8/14/2020 How Covid Sends Some Bodies to War With Themselves - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/11/magazine/covid-cytokine-storms.html?surface=home-discovery-vi-prg&fellback=false&req_id=863399700&algo=i… 6/8

Meyer, Calfee and Langelier hope that all the attention and energy now being brought to bear on the problem of immune overreaction, inresponse to coronavirus, will yield new remedies that work on lots of other medical conditions as well. Such treatments might not onlysave many thousands of ARDS and sepsis patients every year; they could serve us well during the next viral pandemic, which is alsolikely to be respiratory.

The original source of the novel coronavirus, thought to be horseshoe bats in China, may prove to be a source of therapeutic inspiration,too, when it comes to overcoming Covid-19. The only mammals that fly, bats are unusual in several ways. They live far longer than manyother similarly sized mammals — decades, in some cases, compared with years. And they host, without apparent symptoms, a variety ofviruses that are lethal to humans. So some scientists are asking how it is that bats carry their viruses without succumbing — and whetherwe can tweak the human immune system to make it more batlike.

One hypothesis follows from the animals’ adaptations to flight. Flapping wings requires immense amounts of energy, causing bat cells tospew out large quantities of a metabolic byproduct called reactive oxygen species, which might be thought of as cellular exhaust. In otheranimals, that cellular waste, which bears some resemblance to a viral infection, might trigger overwhelming inflammation — a cytokinestorm. But bats have evolved ways to keep that inflammation in check.

A consequence of such adaptation is that some viruses can establish long-term infections in their bodies. Yet to compensate for “turningdown” one function of their immune system, bats have “turned up” another to prevent their bodies from being completely overrun by viralhangers-on. They produce unusual amounts of antiviral cytokines called interferons. In some species, even as one part of their immunesystem remains slow to rouse and relatively muted, another part, the front-line antiviral defenses, seems to engage readily and with force,tightly controlling viral infections.

It may be that fending off bat coronaviruses with batlike panache requires a strong initial antiviral response — interferon — followed by acleanup crew, in essence, that works very softly, preventing a cytokine storm. Indeed, a few years ago, Stanley Perlman, a professor ofmicrobiology and immunology at the University of Iowa, and his colleagues found that mice infected with the coronavirus SARS-CoV(which also came from bats originally) survived the infection if they quickly generated a strong interferon response. Animals that failed toproduce interferon early, however, died not because the virus killed them but because they produced so much interferon later that theiroverreactive immune systems did them in. “If interferon comes up late, it causes really bad disease,” Perlman told me. “In most infectiousdiseases, the immune system is a major part of the problem.”

An immunological disposition that resembles what bats have could explain why children are less vulnerable to severe Covid-19 diseasethan adults. Children, whose immune systems are immature and developing, have naturally high levels of interferons and other cytokinescirculating in their bodies. “Kids are just off the charts with inflammation — without symptoms,” says Paul Thomas, an immunologist at St.Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. Crucially, too, they have high levels of an anti-inflammatory cytokine called interleukin-10,which may play a role in preventing damage from the constant inflammation. This immune profile — an elevated baseline level ofinterferons and IL-10 — may be what helps children survive Covid-19. But it generally wanes as they reach early adulthood. (Nor are theyinvulnerable in the meantime: Some develop a multiorgan inflammatory condition from Covid-19 that resembles Kawasaki disease.)

Adults experience less inflammation and, as they enter old age, have a harder time mounting that interferon response at all, a problemcalled immune senescence. This deficiency may be why older people get so much sicker from Covid-19, Thomas told me. Aging immunesystems may find themselves playing catch-up, increasing the chances that they will overdo it later and damage the self. A pre-existingimmune imbalance may also be why people afflicted with conditions that often feature low-level, chronic inflammation — including heartdisease, diabetes and obesity — fare worse when battling Covid-19. These diseases may tip their immune systems toward overreaction.

Tantalizing, if still inconclusive, evidence has begun to emerge that giving interferons could help in managing Covid-19. In July, the Britishbiotech company Synairgen reported that inhaled interferon-beta, which would probably lessen the side effects that can accompany thedrug in its injected form, greatly reduced severe illness in a small trial. (The company has yet to publish the actual data from the trial, as itplans to do, so its claims should be viewed with skepticism.) Recently, scientists in Hubei Province in China conducted a retrospectiveanalysis of patients who were given antiviral medication plus an inhaled interferon, called IFN-alpha2b. They found that the interferonimproved outcomes in a subset of patients. As seemed to be the case in Perlman’s studies with mice, timing mattered. Those who took theinterferon earlier saw the most benefit compared with those who didn’t take it, while those who took it later seemed to fare worse.

These interferons are not acting as an immune suppressant, of course, but as a kind of immune stimulant. Still, they might pre-empt anexcessive immune response by helping to bring a virus under control at the start of an infection, so that there is no reason to overreactlater. Clearly this is the optimal outcome: Once an immune response to a pathogen has served its purpose, it shuts down to preventdamage and allow the organism to resume its normal functioning.

Janelle Ayres, a physiologist specializing in infectious diseases at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, describes this concept as a“disease tolerance mechanism” — the ability, sometimes hard-wired, sometimes induced by environmental factors, to survive infectionswithout falling ill. “Our traditional view has been: To survive an infection, you have to kill it,” she told me. “We have a very disease-centricapproach to biology.” But infection doesn’t always equate to disease. Many of the most frightening pathogens — tuberculosis, cholera, polioand now the coronavirus — don’t cause illness in everyone they infect. Some people experience these infections with few if any symptoms.

8/14/2020 How Covid Sends Some Bodies to War With Themselves - The New York Times

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Their immune systems evidently handle the invasion with the perfect balance of aggression, restraint and repair — or tolerance — tostave off disease. The drugs of the future, Ayres hopes, will enable these native tolerance mechanisms that help some shrug off, with few illeffects, the diseases that sicken and kill others.

The Covid-19 pandemic has already prompted many physicians to bend in this direction. So few tools exist to reliably eliminate the virusfrom our bodies that they have, out of necessity, turned to the idea of prodding the immune system in various ways. They have shiftedtheir focus in a manner that Ayres has long argued is necessary: from eradicating the pathogen to helping the patient survive thepathogen. They are, in a way, pinning their hopes on innate tolerance mechanisms.

Dozens of trials are currently underway that focus on the immune system. These involve everything from cheap, over-the-counter painmedication to expensive antibodies manufactured in living cells. The drugs they are testing include anakinra, used by Navarro-Millán;leronlimab, a drug with anti-inflammatory properties originally developed to treat H.I.V.; and drugs that block IL-6 (full disclosure: Mywife works for Genentech, owned by Roche, which manufactures tocilizumab, one of the IL-6 blockers). One study in Britain is testing highdoses of a stomach-friendly formulation of the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory ibuprofen, better known in the United States as Advil.(Don’t try this at home.) Researchers are even looking into low-dose X-ray radiation as a way to calm the immune system, a method thatwas used in the early 20th century to treat pneumonia but has since fallen out of use.

There’s an intriguing trial on an old drug originally developed to treat gout, a painful inflammatory condition of the joints, calledcolchicine. The drug, which was recently shown to offer protection against heart attacks, targets the very pathway — called NLRP3inflammasome — that some scientists believe is naturally dampened in bats. Unlike biologics, which are given intravenously, colchicinecan be taken in pill form. And while biologics can cost hundreds of dollars per dose, colchicine is dirt cheap. “We think that in the setting ofthis viral infection, NLRP3 gets activated aberrantly,” says Priscilla Hsue, a professor of medicine at U.C.S.F. and one of the physiciansoverseeing the trials. “And that leads to downstream badness.” The drug, it’s hoped, will prevent the immune system from ever getting tothe point where it becomes overly activated. The study aims to start treatment early by sending pills to the homes of patients who havetested positive for Covid-19. “The thought is, If we can intervene early with an anti-inflammatory agent, we can have an impact on slowingdown progression and keeping patients off ventilators,” Hsue says.

It remains to be seen which, if any, drug will work best, and what might be the unforeseen consequences of suppressing the immunesystem in the midst of its battle with the coronavirus. Some trials are already showing failures. Despite promising results from early, weakstudies, two of the strongest trials to date on the IL-6 blockers tocilizumab and sarilumab suggest no benefit. (The pharmaceuticalcompanies running the studies, Roche and Regeneron, are continuing with other trials testing their IL-6 blockers.)

Or maybe the studies would have produced better results had they been designed differently. Thomas Yadegar, who thinks tocilizumab canbe a lifesaver, if used in the right way, surmises that one study didn’t employ stringent-enough criteria for choosing its study patients.Navarro-Millán thinks the trials tried to treat patients too late in the course of the disease. She likened these efforts to trying to cure Stage4 metastatic cancer — probably doomed from the start.

Other researchers also raise this issue of timing — when doctors should administer drugs to curb immune responses — in a more generalsense. Suppressing the immune system too soon after infection could be counterproductive because it might squelch the initial antiviralresponse and allow the coronavirus to proliferate, says Dawn Wahezi, a pediatric rheumatologist at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore. Yettreating too late may make it impossible to quell the eventual immune overreaction. “Knowing when is the right time — I think that’s oneof the key components,” Wahezi told me. “There’s a very delicate window where immunomodulators can help.”

The debate over study design parallels another disagreement, this one over the very term “cytokine storm.” Several non-rheumatologiststold me that they found the phrase, which has been widely used to describe the immune overreaction that is suspected of taking place insevere Covid-19 cases, maddeningly imprecise and unhelpful. Their frustration partly comes from the fact that the term encompasses anarray of syndromes with different causes, including trauma, burns, infections, cancer, genetic disorders, autoimmune diseases and more.

Adrienne Randolph, a professor of anesthesia and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, told me that doctors and scientists who use theterm “need to be specific about what they are defining as cytokine-storm syndrome, at what level.” She went on to say: “All of thesepatients have cytokines that are elevated, but what cytokines are you following, and for what? And which cytokines are most predictive?”That specificity is important, she and others argue, because it could dictate the pathways physicians will target and the drugs they’ll use.

This complaint about terminology extends to the question of what levels of inflammation really qualify as a “storm.” Cytokine levelsreported in many Covid-19 patients have been far below — sometimes by orders of magnitude — those seen in other conditions thatprompt a strong inflammatory response, like ARDS. For these and other reasons, Calfee and Meyer have preferred to regard Covid-19 as avariation on the ARDS they see every flu season — one that can, if it progresses too far, kill people — rather than as the sort of systemicmeltdown that can occur in sepsis patients.

As I spoke with doctors about these and other disagreements, it became clear that some of the differences in the willingness to use drugsoff-label to modulate patients’ immune systems, as well as embrace the term “cytokine storm” more generally, derive in part from animmersion in distinct scientific literatures. Intensivists and critical-care doctors, among others, operate in a discipline — and are familiarwith that medical literature — in which treating the immune system has been tried for ARDS and sepsis and for the most part didn’t work.

8/14/2020 How Covid Sends Some Bodies to War With Themselves - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/11/magazine/covid-cytokine-storms.html?surface=home-discovery-vi-prg&fellback=false&req_id=863399700&algo=i… 8/8

But rheumatologists know another literature in which targeting the immune system seems to succeed. These are not always huge, robuststudies. Individually, autoimmune diseases are relatively rare, which makes it hard to conduct large trials with hundreds of patients tostudy a given drug in, for example, the sliver of lupus patients who develop cytokine storms. The best available evidence sometimescomes from case series. As Navarro-Millán points out, anakinra is not F.D.A.-approved for treating cytokine storms. Even so, she and Cronand other rheumatologists consider its use standard care.

Everyone’s immune system is different; how a given disease affects an individual patient can vary greatly. As a result, Navarro-Millántold me, she’s always dealing with her patients’ idiosyncrasies, always tinkering, always adjusting, always experimenting to some degree.Uncertainty, in other words, doesn’t stop her from trying to help her patients. “We still treat it to the best of our knowledge and with thebest evidence we have at hand,” she says. “We have done this for years with some successes and some failures.” Why, she asks, shouldn’tshe take the same approach with sick Covid-19 patients?

8/14/2020 Coronavirus Live Updates - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/world/coronavirus-covid-19.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage#link-4e074838 2/16

If you recover from the virus, you re protected for up to three months, the C.D.C. says.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated their guidance recently to suggest that people who have recovered from the viruscan safely mingle with others for three months.

It was a remarkable addition to the body of guidance from the agency, and the first acknowledgment that immunity to the virus maypersist for at least three months.

In June, a study found that antibody levels could wane over a course of two to three months in people with confirmed infections whoexperienced mild symptoms or no symptoms. They drop off, but they may still be present at low levels, including below the limit ofdetection.

The latest C.D.C. guidance — which was tucked into public recommendations about who needs to quarantine — goes a bit further.

“People who have tested positive for Covid-19 do not need to quarantine or get tested again for up to three months as long as they do notdevelop symptoms again,” the guidance says. “People who develop symptoms again within three months of their first bout of Covid-19 mayneed to be tested again if there is no other cause identified for their symptoms.”

Other coronaviruses, including those that cause SARS and MERS, have antibodies that scientists believe last about a year. In the earlydays of the virus’s spread in the United States, scientists had hoped antibodies to the new virus would last at least that long.

A study published in May found that people who recovered from the infection could return to work safely, but it was still unclear how longthey might be protected.

Doctors have reported some cases of people who seemed to be infected a second time after recovery, but experts have said those are morelikely to represent a re-emergence of symptoms from the initial bout.

Tracking the Coronavirus ›

United States › On Aug. 13 14-day change Trend

Medical workers performing an antibody test in San Dimas, Calif., last month. Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

8/14/2020 Coronavirus Live Updates - The New York Times

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United States › On Aug. 13 14-day change Trend

Where cases are highest per capita

Fla. Ga. Miss. Idaho

Ala. La. Tenn. V.I.

Texas Nev. Calif. Ark.

U.S. hot spots › Worldwide ›

New cases 53,956 -18%

New deaths 1,219 -7%

Council hopefuls in Fontana, Rialto, San Bernardino vie for election in November – San Bernardino Sun

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LOCAL NEWS

Council hopefuls in Fontana, Rialto, SanBernardino vie for election in NovemberSan Bernardino voters also will decide whether they want to tax themselvesmore to fund general services

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Council hopefuls in Fontana, Rialto, San Bernardino vie for election in November – San Bernardino Sun

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By BRIAN WHITEHEAD | bwhitehead@scng.com | San Bernardino SunPUBLISHED: August 13, 2020 at 4:07 p.m. | UPDATED: August 13, 2020 at 4:08 p.m.

City leadership in San Bernardino Valley could look quite different in a few months as voters in Colton,Fontana, Grand Terrace, Rialto and San Bernardino cast their ballots ahead of and on Nov. 3 forwhom they want guiding them the next four years.

While voters in certain cities only can vote for candidates vying to represent their geographical district,others still have the opportunity to elect any nominee they choose, regardless of where they live.

Council hopefuls had until Friday, Aug. 7, to file the necessary paperwork to qualify for the ballot. Incities and particular districts where an incumbent did not pull nomination papers, the filing period wasextended to Wednesday, Aug. 12.

A voter support clerk stretches his legs as he waits for voters to arrive to cast their ballots at Fire Station #263 in Redlands Tuesdaymorning, March 3, 2020. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

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Council hopefuls in Fontana, Rialto, San Bernardino vie for election in November – San Bernardino Sun

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Here’s who is running for office inRedlands, Yucaipa, Highland inNovember

Inland Valley cities qualify candidates,measures for November ballot

San Bernardino leaders send 1% salestax measure to November ballot

Complete 2020 Elections coverage

RELATED LINKSSan Bernardino is the only city of the five to have had aprimary election in March.

Two candidates, Third Ward incumbent Juan Figueroa and Sixth Ward challenger Kimberly Calvin,already won their respective two-way races and will be sworn in after the general election is certified.

The top two vote-getters in the Fifth and Seventh wards, meanwhile, are meeting in a runoff.

Only contested seats are listed below, as uncontested races will not appear on ballots.

COLTON

City Council District 5: Jack Woods (incumbent), John Echevarria.

FONTANA

City Council District 2: Jesse Sandoval (incumbent), Priscilla Linares, Sophia Holguin, JeniqueSanders, Jesse Cerda.

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Council hopefuls in Fontana, Rialto, San Bernardino vie for election in November – San Bernardino Sun

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City Council District 3: Amy Malone, Dawn Dooley, Erick Lopez, LaShunda Martin, LindaRichardson, Peter Garcia.

GRAND TERRACE

City Council, at-large four-year term, three seats: Sylvia Robles (incumbent), William “Bill”Hussey (incumbent), Jeff Allen (incumbent), Jeremy Briggs, Ken Stewart, Jeffrey McConnell.

RIALTO

City Council, at-large four-year term, two seats: Andy Carrizales (incumbent), Rafael Trujillo(incumbent), Andrew George Karol, Stacy Augustine, Michael Taylor, Teresa “Terrie” Schneider.

Mayor, at-large seat: Deborah Robertson (incumbent), Ed Palmer, Lupe Camacho.

SAN BERNARDINO

City Council Ward 5: Henry Nickel (incumbent), Ben Reynoso.

City Council Ward 7: Jim Mulvihill (incumbent), Damon Alexander.

Ballot measure: Voters will decide whether to raise the sales tax within their city to 1% to fundgeneral services.

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Apple Valley mom charged in deaths of two babies in 3 years - Los Angeles Times

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-14/apple-valley-mother-charged-deaths-two-babies[8/14/2020 8:38:09 AM]

CALIFORNIA

Apple Valley mother charged in deaths of two babies 3 years apart

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

AUG. 14, 2020 | 2:22 AM

APPLE VALLEY, Calif. — An Apple Valley woman has pleaded not guilty to smothering herinfant daughter in March and causing the death of her other baby girl three years ago.

Kristin Ann Brandon, 28, entered pleas Aug. 6 to a murder charge in the March death andto charges with regard to both babies of assault on a child causing death, the Daily Pressof Victorville reported Thursday.

She was being held on $1.5 million bail.

Brandon’s 2-month-old daughter, Natalie Brandon, was found dead March 3 at a mobilehome park in Apple Valley, near Victorville.

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Apple Valley mom charged in deaths of two babies in 3 years - Los Angeles Times

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-14/apple-valley-mother-charged-deaths-two-babies[8/14/2020 8:38:09 AM]

“During the last five months, detectives have gathered information and evidence thatdetermined Kristin Brandon was under the influence [and] therefore negligent in her careof Natalie and ultimately smothered her,” the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Departmentsaid in a statement Thursday.

During that investigation, detectives learned that Brandon’s 2-month-old daughter,Aryana Harper, died in 2017.

Investigators located a witness who provided information that “determined Aryana’s deathwas also a result of negligence while Kristin was under the influence,” the statement said.

The statement didn’t identify what substances investigators believe Brandon was using atthe times of the deaths.

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8/14/2020 Apple Valley mother accused of murder, charged in connection with deaths of her two infant daughters - News - vvdailypress.com - Victor…

https://www.vvdailypress.com/news/20200813/apple-valley-mother-accused-of-murder-charged-in-connection-with-deaths-of-her-two-infant-daughters 1/2

By Martin Estacio Staff Writer Posted Aug 13, 2020 at 6:03 PM

An Apple Valley woman remains in jail after authorities said she smothered herinfant daughter in March while under the influence and negligently caused thedeath of her two-month-old child in 2017.

Prosecutors charged Kristin Ann Brandon, 28, with one count of murder andone count of assault on a child causing death in the 2020 case, and one count ofassault on a child causing death in the 2017 case.

Brandon pleaded not guilty to all charges on Aug. 6. She is being held at the WestValley Detention Center in lieu of $1.5 million bail.

On March 3, a 2-month-old girl, identified as Natalie Brandon, was found deadat Los Ranchos mobile home park in Apple Valley.

“During the last five months, detectives have gathered information and evidencethat determined Kristen Brandon was under the influence, therefore negligent inher care of Natalie and ultimately smothered her,” the San Bernardino CountySheriff’s Department said Thursday.

Booking records show Brandon was arrested Aug. 4.

Investigators learned that Brandon had a baby in 2017, Aryana Harper, who alsodied at two months old. According to sheriff’s officials, detectives were able tolocate a witness who “provided critical information which determined Aryana’sdeath was also a result of negligence while Kristin was under the influence.”

Court records show the charge for that case was filed for an incident on Aug. 13,2017.

Apple Valley mother accused of murder,

charged in connection with deaths of her two

infant daughters

8/14/2020 Apple Valley mother accused of murder, charged in connection with deaths of her two infant daughters - News - vvdailypress.com - Victor…

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Brandon is expected to appear in Victorville Superior Court on Monday.

She is also scheduled for a hearing in September to consider revoking herprobation which she was serving at the time of her arrest, according to records.

In 2018, Brandon was convicted of fraud to obtain aid over $400 as part of of aplea. She was sentenced to five years probation which was set to end in 2023.

The investigation is ongoing and anyone with information, or anyone whowitnessed the incident, is asked to contact Detective Eric Ogaz, SpecializedInvestigations Division – Homicide Detail at 909-387-3589.

Callers can remain anonymous and dial the WeTip Hotline at 1-800-782-7463 orwww.wetip.com.

Martin Estacio may be reached at MEstacio@VVDailyPress.com or at 760-955-5358.

Follow him on Twitter @DP_mestacio.

Ever hit a pothole and want the city to pay for the damage? – Press Enterprise

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NEWSCRIME + PUBLIC SAFETY

Ever hit a pothole and want the city to pay for thedamage?

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Ever hit a pothole and want the city to pay for the damage? – Press Enterprise

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By JIM RADCLIFFE | jradcliffe@scng.com | Orange County RegisterPUBLISHED: August 14, 2020 at 6:01 a.m. | UPDATED: August 14, 2020 at 6:01 a.m.

Q. Dear Honk: Last week I was cruisin’ north on Vista Del Mar in the El Segundo/Playa del Rey areain my classic ’57 Chevy convertible. In the No. 1 lane there is a GIANT pothole. Of course I hit it withmy left-front tire, causing damage. I haven’t yet gotten an estimate on fixing it. But it will cost,probably, $400 to $500. Can I contact the county/city and make them pay for this damage?

– Dave Kingsley, Torrance

A. With all of the various taxes Southern Californians face, you would certainly think a governmentshould be on the hook, right?

Potholes dot 5th Sreet in Yucaipa in this 2018 file photo. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Redlands Daily Facts/SCNG)

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Ever hit a pothole and want the city to pay for the damage? – Press Enterprise

https://www.pe.com/...damage/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_content=tw-pressenterprise&utm_campaign=socialflow[8/14/2020 8:38:04 AM]

Your first step, Dave, is finding out who owns the stretch of highway where the pothole lives, and whatpart of the government collects the claims. In most cities, the city clerk’s office is a good bet. Google“Caltrans” and “claims” for freeways and state highways.

Honk suspects you were within the confines of the great city of Los Angeles, where the City Attorney’sOffice accepts the claims.

Go to lacityattorney.org/claims. Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer‘s web page is easy tounderstand and offers a simple process to try and get your money back. A claim specialist will beassigned to the case and may call for more info.

The odds of getting your damage paid for?

Rob Wilcox, a spokesman for Feuer’s office, kindly rounded up some stats for Honk.

The city paid out on 56 such claims, for a total of $24,366, in the fiscal year ending June 30. Fifteentimes the city declined to pay out on a claim, lawsuits were filed, and a settlement or a judgment waspaid out that fiscal year for a total of $7,085,999. Safe to say those lawsuits covered some seriousaccidents.

In all, 419 pothole-related claims were filed that year.

A big key to getting compensated is whether the municipality knew about the pothole before theaccident so it could have fixed the problem. Did someone call up the city three days before and reportit, and then city workers failed to hustle out there with some shovels and asphalt?

(Dave, by the way, ended up taking his Chevy in and getting the damage fixed for only $40; he wasleaning against seeking compensation.)

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Have you seen the traffic signals with ayellow border?

Caltrans has ideas other than spike stripsto stop wrong-way drivers

Get a driver license the old-fashioned way— just show up at the DMV

CHP officers temporarily switch from tanto dark-blue uniforms

RELATED ARTICLESQ. For the last of couple weeks I have been driving the 91Freeway between Anaheim Hills and Buena Park. What iswith all the tractor trailers driving in every lane except thecarpool and fast lane? I do not like driving in the fast lane,because I am holding up all the Dale Earnhardt wannabes.I was under the impression truckers needed to be in theright lanes except for passing. Now, everyone is held backbehind trucks and unable to see the traffic ahead. Yourexpertise, please.

– Kitty Yackle, Anaheim

A. That stretch, a major link to the Inland Empire, is heavywith semi trucks.

The law is pretty simple.

Unless otherwise posted, on a freeway with three lanes in one direction, a semi pulling a trailer needsto be in the far-right lane unless passing someone, then the passer can temporarily move into themiddle lane.

On freeways with four or more lanes, those pulling along a trailer of some sort – including cars – cantrundle in either of the far-right two lanes.

Out on the 91, there is at least one sign saying “TRUCKS OK” above the No. 3 lane where thefreeway offers five regular lanes, so truckers are encouraged to slide into that lane at that point totransition to another freeway.

In most places where there aren’t such signs, CHP officers have told Honk they will cut some slack sothe behemoth semis can get over early to prepare to hop onto another freeway.

To ask Honk questions, reach him at honk@ocregister.com. He only answers those that arepublished. To see Honk online: ocregister.com/tag/honk. Twitter: @OCRegisterHonk

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Summer heat wave pushes into Southern California – San Bernardino Sun

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Summer heat wave pushes into SouthernCalifornia

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By RUBY GONZALES | rugonzales@scng.com | San Gabriel Valley TribunePUBLISHED: August 13, 2020 at 5:27 p.m. | UPDATED: August 13, 2020 at 6:06 p.m.

Much of Southern California will face broiling temperatures on Friday that are likely to last through theweekend, and maybe into next week.

“Hot, hot, hot and hot, especially if you go away from the coast,” said Brandt Maxwell, a meteorologistfor the National Weather Service San Diego office which covers Orange, San Bernardino andRiverside counties.

But residents looking for ways to endure hot temperatures also are being asked to save electricity.

The California Independent System Operator on Thursday issued a statewide Flex Alert from 3 p.m. to

A child splashes in the cool the waters of Puddingstone Lake at Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park in San Dimas Thursday afternoonAug. 13, 2020. Temperatures in the inland valleys are expected to reach well into the triple digits over the coming days. (Photo by WillLester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

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10 p.m. on Friday, asking for voluntary electricity conservation during that time period.

The ISO expects an increase in the demand for electricity, mainly from people using air conditioning athome.

“They issue a Flex Alert because they might reach capacity,” Maxwell said. “If it’s really hot outsideand you’re already using the air conditioner, maybe you can wait to use the other appliances until it’scooler.”

The heat wave is due to a dome of hot air hovering over Southern California, Arizona, New Mexicoand Nevada, according to David Sweet, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Oxnardoffice, which covers Los Angeles County.

“It’s (the dome) going to sit there until next week,” he said.

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Summer heat wave pushes into Southern California – San Bernardino Sun

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In Los Angeles County, Sweet said, there is a heat advisory in effect from 11 a.m. Friday to 9 p.m.Sunday for coastal areas, including Long Beach, Santa Monica, Hollywood, Beverly Hills anddowntown Los Angeles.

From Friday through the weekend, he said the high temperatures will be in the upper 70s to mid-80sfor the beaches while the coastal areas will see high temperatures in the upper 80s to 90s.

There is an excessive heat warning for the valleys which will see the mercury hit 96 degrees to 108degrees from Friday to Sunday, Sweet said. The low temperatures are expected to be in the low tomid-70s.

The excessive heat warning will be in effect from 11 a.m. on Friday to 9 p.m. on Monday. He said thewarning could be extended through Wednesday.

“We advise people to stay indoors,” Sweet said. “Limit your exposure to the heat (during) the day.”

If residents have to exercise outdoors or have to go outside, Sweet suggested doing so early in themorning or in the evening. He also suggested opening the windows at night to cool down.

Los Angeles County residents seeking refuge from the heat can head to cooling centers in El Monte,Burbank, Glendale, Los Angeles, Sherman Oaks, San Fernando and at certain county parks andlibraries.

In Orange County, Maxwell said the coast will see temperatures in the 70s to the 80s. But he said goa few miles inland and the temperatures will be in the 90s to the 100s. San Bernardino and Riversidecounties will see a high of 105 possibly 110 degrees from Friday to Sunday, he said.

“If you go to Coachella, it would be 115 degrees to as hot as 120 degrees,” Maxwell said.

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He estimated there is a 15 percent chance of thunderstorms in the mountains and maybe 5 percent indesert areas close to a mountain.

With the heat comes an elevated fire risk, he said.

“The good thing is we won’t have much wind,” Maxwell added.

But he pointed out that it hasn’t rained a lot in Southern California. The last significant rain was inApril, he said.

As of Thursday afternoon, the list of cooling centers in Los Angeles County are as follows:

Quartz Hill Library, 5040 W. Avenue M-2 in Quartz HillFriday to Sunday from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Stevenson Ranch Library, 25950 The Old Road in Stevenson RanchFriday to Sunday from 12 p.m. to8 p.m.

Claremont Library at 208 N. Harvard Ave. in Claremont,Friday to Sunday from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Salazar Park, 3864 Whittier Blvd. in Los AngelesFriday to Sunday from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Valleydale Park, 5525 N. Lark Ellen Ave. in AzusaFriday to Sunday from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Topanga Library, 122 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd. in TopangaFriday to Sunday from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Canoga Park Senior Center, 7326 Jordan Ave. in Canoga ParkFriday to Monday from 12 p.m. to 8p.m.

Sherman Oaks East Valley Adult Center, 5056 Van Nuys Blvd. in Sherman OaksFriday to Mondayfrom 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Pecan Recreation Center, 145 S. Pecan St. in Los AngelesFriday to Monday from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Slauson Recreation Center, 5306 Compton Ave. in Los AngelesFriday to Monday from 12 p.m. to 8p.m.

Grace T. Black Auditorium, 3130 Tyler Ave. in El Monte Friday to Saturday from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Buena Vista Library, 300 N. Buena Vista St. in Burbank,Friday to Monday from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Griffith Manor Park, 1551 Flower St. in Glendale,Friday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Pacific Community Center at 501 S. Pacific Ave. in GlendaleSaturday to Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 6

Summer heat wave pushes into Southern California – San Bernardino Sun

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Excessive heat warning coming toSouthern California this weekend

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Extra hot, dry conditions coming toSouthern California

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p.m.

Las Palmas Park, 505 S. Huntington Street in San FernandoFriday to Sunday from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.

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