California economy can start reopening this week from shutdown, Newsom says
The Chronicle's ALEXEI KOSEFF: "California retailers can begin to reopen their businesses to curbside pickup as soon as the end of this week, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday, while some regions of the state with few coronavirus cases will be able to go even further in loosening restrictions on public life.
“We are entering into the next phase,” Newsom said at a news conference. “This is a very positive sign, and it is happening for only one reason: The data says it can happen.”
It may be a while, however, before the Bay Area takes those steps. Six Bay Area counties are under a stay-at-home order through the end of May that is separate from the state’s shutdown, and Newsom said such counties could keep their stricter rules in place past Friday if they choose."
READ MORE related to Economy: Here's what can and can't open this week -- The Chronicle's STAFF; Many California stores can reopen Friday from coronavirus lockdown, Newsom announces -- ANDREW SHELLER and DALE KASLER, Sacramento Bee; Governor clears way for some local businesses to reopen Friday -- U-T's HEALTHGARY WARTH, PHIL DIEHL, LYNDSAY WINKLEY; Newsom: State can begin gradual reopening Friday -- MATT LEVIN, CalMatters
Bay Area golf courses, construction, car washes reopen — ‘I feel like I’m a human being again’
Chronicle's PETER FIMRITE, ANNA BAUMAN, J.K. DINEEN and KURTIS ALEXANDER: "The first baby steps in the long process of reopening began Monday in six Bay Area counties, where about 7 million people were given the go-ahead to once again pound nails, wash their cars, mow the grass and tee off at the local golf course.
Bay Area residents are still required to shelter in place until at least May 31, but on Monday construction and other outdoor businesses, such as plant nurseries, car washes and flea markets, were allowed to reopen as long as they maintain a 6-foot cone of safety between people.
Quite a few people emerged like pupae from their home cocoons to take advantage of the loosened restrictions, which health officials announced last week for people living in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, San Francisco and Marin counties and the city of Berkeley, which has its own health department."
Strict rules, limited access as California Legislature resumes work on coronavirus needs
From the LAT's JOHN MYERS and PATRICK MCGREEVY: "Separated from one another and wearing masks while speaking into microphones draped with protective coverings, some members of the California Legislature returned to the state Capitol on Monday, determined to begin addressing the myriad problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Seven weeks after public health concerns brought the work of the Legislature to a sudden halt, only members of the Assembly are returning to Sacramento this week, with the Senate choosing to do so on May 11. And even then, neither house is planning to reconvene for final votes on bills until June — in large part because of the challenges for adequate physical distancing posed by the tightly placed desks for legislators in the chambers of the Senate and Assembly.
“I know it’s going to be a very different way of doing business. But I think it was important for us to be here, to start thinking about the great challenges that we have ahead,” Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio (D-Baldwin Park) said during the day’s first event, an Assembly hearing on healthcare issues"
Garcetti says L.A. might not begin reopening by Friday, vows ‘careful consideration’
LAT's JAMES QUEALLY, COLLEEN SHALBY, TARYN LUNA: "Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Monday that different cities will need to take different steps to emerge from the pandemic-induced shutdown and that city and county officials are still trying to determine the safest course.
“Our timing on opening may vary from other parts of the state,” he said. “I will reopen our city with careful consideration, guided by public health professionals.”
Garcetti said he did not expect city businesses to be able to offer curbside delivery on Friday in step with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s comments. The city’s “Safer At Home” order is in effect until May 15, and Garcetti said he hoped steps restricting commerce could begin to be rolled back by then."
Viral Sleuths Needed To Track California Coronavirus Cases
BRIAN MELLEY, AP: "California's ambitious plan to double the current number of coronavirus tests is being paired with a massive campaign to track down every person who may become infected by each new person who tests positive for the virus.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that as part of statewide plans to reopen businesses, California aims to reassign 20,000 public employees as COVID-19 case investigators and contact tracers, a job that requires perseverance, resourcefulness and a bit of sleuthing.
“It’s more complicated than you think," said Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who helped design a training program for the new workforce. "They have to be fairly creative in finding people. It’s a lot of detective work.”
Top doc calls California plan to put COVID-19 patients in assisted living facilities ‘medically unsound’
ANNIE SCIACCA and THOMAS PEELE, Mercury News: "Even as senior care centers have been particularly hard hit by the coronavirus — with patient and staff deaths accounting for nearly 40 percent of all COVID-19 deaths across California — the state is calling on assisted living facilities to house infected patients in exchange for money.
A letter from the state Department of Social Services sent to licensees of senior and adult care residential facilities on Friday urged them to temporarily take in patients who have tested positive for the virus — for up to $1,000 a day — to make room in hospitals for people who become critically ill and require acute care.
But health experts and advocates say the plan risks introducing the virus into facilities that have been spared or those already dealing with their own outbreaks."
53% of people who tested positive in Mission District had no symptoms
The Chronicle's CATHERINE HO: "Low-wage workers who are unable to work from home during shelter in place are at higher risk of contracting the coronavirus, according to preliminary results released Monday by UCSF, which conducted thousands of diagnostic tests in San Francisco’s Mission Districtneighborhood in April.
The findings hint at a grim reality: As local economies begin to reopen and more people go back to work, they may be at higher risk of falling ill. The evidence indicates that low-wage workers who haven’t had the option of working from home have been at particular risk.
Of the 2,959 people tested in a four-square-block area of the Mission, 62, or 2%, tested positive for the coronavirus, the researchers said. That is much higher than the city’s overall positive rate of 0.18%."
'Lives are in danger': Lawsuit argues SF needs to clean up the Tenderloin as coronavirus spreads
BOB EGELKO, Chronicle: "Residents and business owners in San Francisco’s reeling Tenderloin neighborhood, together with the UC Hastings School of Law, sued the city in federal court Monday, seeking to force it to clean the streets of crowded encampments and human litter, find housing for the homeless and stop brazen, open-air drug dealing.
“San Francisco should be prohibited from abandoning a single neighborhood, in an apparent effort to spare other neighborhoods the burdens that confront the city,” the lawsuit said.
Plaintiff Randy Hughes, 65, described steering his electric wheelchair from his home at the Cadillac Hotel on Ellis Street to work at a Goodwill store each morning, weaving around tents, needles and piles of human feces on the sidewalks."\
Beverly Hills loosens restrictions on medical procedures, including plastic surgery, in coronavirus crisis
From the LAT's MATTHEW ORMSETH: "Beverly Hills has rolled back its moratorium on elective surgeries during the COVID-19 pandemic, a decision a dissenting city councilman said would “open the floodgates” to not just medically necessary procedures but cosmetic ones as well.
The City Council voted 4 to 1, with Councilman John Mirisch dissenting, last week to follow the state government in easing restrictions on elective surgeries. Gov. Gavin Newsom, bracing for a surge in hospitalizations because of COVID-19, had halted such procedures to ensure that hospitals had the beds and the personnel to treat victims of the virus. Beverly Hills halted all elective surgeries March 17.
Newsom loosened the statewide moratorium April 23, saying people should be able to seek treatment for conditions such as heart disease and cancer that may not immediately amount to a medical emergency but can become one if left untreated."
Newsom quietly added team of crisis communicators as pandemic struck
From Politico's CARLA MARINUCCI: "As Covid-19 crashed down on California, Gov. Gavin Newsom quietly tapped a team of experienced players to help him navigate the pandemic — including former CIA insider and White House pandemic adviser Nick Shapiro.
Shapiro, 40, who helped manage the H1N1 crisis during the Obama administration, was brought on as a temporary adviser to Newsom’s communications team in mid-March, said Newsom spokesperson Nathan Click.
Shapiro’s lengthy resume in the crisis arena includes advising former CIA director John Brennan and serving as a National Security Council staff member to Brennan when he was former President Barack Obama’s assistant on homeland security and counterterrorism. More recently, Shapiro served as San Francisco-based Airbnb’s global head of crisis management."
