California wires mask dealer half a billion dollars, then claws it back
From CalMatters' LAUREL ROSENHALL: "On March 26, as the coronavirus pandemic was mounting and governors across America scrambled to secure medical supplies, the state of California wired almost a half-billion dollars to a company that had been in business for just three days.
The recipient: Blue Flame Medical LLC, a Delaware-based company headed by two Republican operatives who jumped into the medical supply business on March 23. The pair — Mike Gula from Washington, D.C., and John Thomas of Southern California — had vowed, in their words, to help “fight Covid-19 with the industry’s broadest product selection from hundreds of suppliers.”
Within hours of the enormous wire transfer, the deal was dead and California was clawing its money back — $456.9 million, nearly half of what the Legislature had allocated for the state’s pandemic response. The payment to Blue Flame and cancellation of the deal six hours later were revealed in copies of checks, wire transfer receipts and emails obtained by CalMatters through a public records request.
Lifting stay-at-home order too soon would cause more deaths, NorCal officials say
LA Times's RONG-GONG LIN II: "Santa Clara County’s executive officer cautioned Tuesday against moving quickly to lift the shelter-in-place order.
The death toll in California is still going up at significant numbers, Dr. Jeffrey Smith told the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors Tuesday. A Times analysis showed that 495 coronavirus deaths were reported statewide in the seven-day period that ended on Sunday. While the weekly death toll represented a 9% decrease compared to the previous week, it also represented nearly one-quarter of the state’s death toll up to that point.
“You can still see that it’s still gone up pretty significantly in recent times,” Smith said. “There’s a lot of talk in California about relaxing shelter-in-place [orders]. I just want to point out that we’re still, in California, going up dramatically. So there’s no clinical evidence that shelter-in-place [orders] should be relaxed at this point."
‘A ticking time bomb.’ California essential workers fear COVID-19 in warehouses, stores
From MARIJKE ROWLAND and KRISTIN LAM, SacBee: "Everyone has been thanking frontline essential workers these days.
You see it in TV commercials. You see it on homemade signs. You see it from government officials. But the people who have kept the stores stocked and the deliveries shipping every day since the coronavirus crisis started are also sometimes the least protected in the workforce.
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They’re still going to work each day, either in massive warehouses or in crowded stores. And despite some policy changes and new guidelines, workers remain worried. On Monday, two cases were reported to workers at the CVS distribution center in Patterson, which has 500 employees."
For survival, stem cell agency hunts for 'wet signatures'
DAVID JENSEN in Capitol Weekly: "The folks who are trying to save the $3 billion California stem cell agency from financial extinction are using a well-worn technique that goes back to ancient Egypt, at least by some accounts.
It is expensive, depending on what you are peddling, and generates a return as low as 1 percent. It is direct mail, but with a significant twist. It involves the collection of “wet signatures” and the signing of documents that must be produced in a fussy, legal fashion.
The process requires a bit more commitment from voters than, say, returning a pitch from the Readers Digest Sweepstakes. And it is likely that the effort is the first time that anyone has made a major push — both by direct mail and online — to collect tens of thousands of voters’ signatures to qualify an initiative for the ballot in California."
DMV offices could reopen this month, but with pandemic adaptations
LA Times's PATRICK MCGREEVY: "The head of the California Department of Motor Vehicles said Tuesday he hopes to begin reopening field offices this month as the agency improves safeguards in response to coronavirus, but he said some activities, including on-the-road driving tests, will take longer to resume.
DMV Director Steve Gordon said he is planning to reopen the agency’s 170 field offices to in-person visits by appointment in phases, with 25 likely to open this month and all offices opening within about 30 days afterward.
“We have to go through all of the learning that we are going to do of how to [operate] in a COVID-19 world,” Gordon said during a conference call with reporters."
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LA Times's ANDREA CASTILLO: "A panel of three 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judges on Tuesday overruled a lower court’s order to significantly reduce the number of detainees held at the Adelanto ICE Processing Facility northeast of Los Angeles.
The decision by judges Barry Silverman, Jacqueline Nguyen and Daniel Collins came in response to an emergency request by the Trump administration to halt the April 23 preliminary injunction ruling by U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter while it appeals his order. A preliminary injunction is temporarily issued early in a lawsuit to stop defendants from continuing harmful actions as the case moves forward.
In order to protect detainees from a potential coronavirus outbreak, Hatter had declared that the population at Adelanto — one of the largest immigrant detention facilities in the country — must decrease “to such a level that would allow the remaining detainees to maintain a social distance of six feet from each other at all times.” He had directed ICE not to allow any new detainees at the facility and to reduce the population by at least 250 people by April 30."
New strain of coronavirus reported to spread more quickly., but some scientists cast doubt
The Chronicle's PETER FIMRITE: "Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory claim they have discovered a new, dominant strain of coronavirus that spreads faster than previous strains, but several prominent virologists are skeptical about the study and its conclusions.
The new strain was first detected in Europe in February and then spread to the East Coast of the United States, where it has become the dominant strain of coronavirus, said the Los Alamos researchers, who worked with scientists from Duke University and the University of Sheffield in England.
The 33-page report, published Thursday on the research website BioRxiv, has not yet been peer reviewed and has already come under withering attack from scientists working on COVID-19 vaccines and treatments."
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California Supreme Court hears suit on public pension law aimed at saving billions
LA Times's MAURA DOLAN: "The California Supreme Court grappled Tuesday with whether to uphold a state law designed to help reduce a shortfall of hundreds of billions of dollars in state and local pension systems.
During a hearing, the state’s highest court did not clearly indicate which way it would rule. Only four of the court’s seven justices asked questions, and those who did speak challenged both sides in the dispute.
The court is considering a challenge by unions to a 2012 law that forbade the practice of “pension spiking” for all government employees. The practice involves inflating a future pensioner’s pay, usually at the end of their career, by cashing in years of accumulated vacation or sick pay or volunteering for extra duties."
Obama backs Dem in key contest, and Reeps pounce
The Chronicle's JOHN WILDERMUTH: "A late rush of high-level Democratic endorsements in a Southern California congressional runoff race is giving Republicans a chance to strike back for earlier anti-President Trump attacks on their candidate.
In the past couple of weeks, Assemblywoman Christy Smith, D- Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County), has received the backing of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and, on Tuesday, former President Barack Obama. Smith is running against GOP businessman Mike Garcia to fill out the remaining term of former Rep. Katie Hill, a Democrat who resigned last year.
Now, in the regular world, there would be nothing strange or nefarious about a Democratic congressional candidate being endorsed in next Tuesday’s runoff vote by top national Democrats. It would be every bit as normal and unsurprising as, say, a GOP candidate getting the backing of a sitting Republican president."
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in hospital with infection, SCOTUS says
LA Times: "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized Tuesday with an infection caused by a gallstone, the Supreme Court said.
The 87-year-old justice underwent nonsurgical treatment for what the court described as acute cholecystitis, a benign gall bladder condition, at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
She expects to be in the hospital for a day or two, the court said."
Can tech allay the dangers of the Bay Area office of the future?
The Chronicle's CHASE DIFELICIANTONIO: "When workers start to return to high-rises and office buildings, there is one thing they should plan on: a second wave of the coronavirus.
That is according to technologists and legal experts who say the best way to fortify a workplace is to take measures to guard against the virus, but also plan for what happens when the coronavirus penetrates those defenses.
“The best approach for an employer in thinking about this is to prepare for additional waves of the virus spreading,” said Michael Warren, head of the labor and employment practice at the law firm McManis Faulkner."
Bay Area doctors find ways to ease coronavirus recovery
The Chronicle's CATHERINE HO: "In late March, Dr. Josiah Child, an emergency room physician at Daly City’s Seton Medical Center, was at his doctor’s office seeking care for COVID-19 when he got some concerning news: A blood test showed he had three times the normal level of D-dimer, a protein fragment released by the body when it tries to dissolve blood clots.
At the time, Child and his doctor chalked it up to his body’s overall inflammatory response to the virus.
But the next day, Child felt severe rib and chest pain each time he took a breath. He felt nauseous, and the pain cascaded up and down his back as his wife rushed him to the hospital. It turned out a blood clot had traveled from his leg to his lungs."
Photos taken at Kobe Bryant crash site sould be against the law, California lawmaker says
LA Times's PATRICK MCGREEVY: "Outraged by allegations that Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies shared photos from the site of a helicopter crash that killed Lakers star Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others, a California lawmaker wants to make it a crime for law enforcement officers to take unauthorized photographs of those killed in accidents and crimes.
State Assemblyman Mike Gipson (D-Carson) has introduced legislation that would make it a misdemeanor with punishment of up to a year in jail and as much as $5,000 in fines for a first responder to use a smartphone or other device to photograph a deceased person for any purpose other than official law enforcement business.
“Our first responders, when responding to an emergency, should not be taking very sensitive photographs … for their own gain, for their own pleasure,” Gipson said Tuesday. “It was unconscionable. It’s not right."
Napa business owners break coronavirus shelter-in-place orders and reopen
The Chronicle's JILL TUCKER/ERIN ALLDAY: "A handful of business owners in Napa threw open their doors in recent days in violation of state and county shelter-in-place orders, saying six weeks without an income was too long and it was time for officials to relax the rules.
A restaurant, a gun and outdoor gear store, a dog groomer and an art gallery were among the businesses to resume operations in the wine country city, challenging the mandated coronavirus closures with unlocked doors and blinking open signs.
“Public officials: Know that we’re prepared to risk fines, arrest, or jail,” said Quent and Linda Cordair, owners of the Quent Cordair Fine Art gallery in downtown Napa in a letter to the community last week announcing the reopening. “We’re pursuing resources for any necessary legal challenge, up to the Supreme Court if necessary."
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