COVID: California breweries, wineries can open Saturday without serving food
JESSICA YADARGARAN, Mercury News: "Starting this Saturday, Californians will be able to sip a beer at their local brewery without having to buy food for the first time since the summer.
The California Department of Public Health updated its COVID-19 reopening guidelines on Thursday to allow for breweries, wineries and distilleries to operate without having to serve food from their own kitchens or food trucks...
“We believe breweries are an important part of the community, acting as a gathering place for friends and family,” says Thomas Vo, brewmaster at Calicraft Brewing Company in Walnut Creek. “Even though COVID has limited those interactions, breweries offer a safe, affordable outdoor way to take a break from Zoom calls and get out of the house.”
California releases details on how millions can get COVID-19 vaccinations beginning Monday
LA Times's COLLEEN SHALBY and HAYLEY SMITH: "Four days before an estimated 4.4 million Californians with disabilities or underlying health conditions become eligible for the vaccine, the California Public Health Department released guidance on the verification process.
Notably, the state is not requiring that eligible disabled or sick individuals present documentation of their condition. Instead, all will be required to self-attest that they meet the criteria.
Disability rights advocates had pressed for a process that would not create unnecessary barriers, especially for those less mobile, prompted by issues with vaccine line-jumping. The state also offered specific examples of people who would qualify for eligibility but are not explicitly listed."
Avalanche deaths are mounting. How well can Lake Tahoe manage backcountry skiing?
The Chronicle's GREGORY THOMAS: "Six months into the pandemic, Tristan Biles, a tech worker living in San Francisco, decided it was time to move to Lake Tahoe to fulfill his passion for skiing. He’d been driving up to the mountains on weekends, but as a newly remote worker it just made sense to relocate.
In October, he and his girlfriend moved to a condo near the Heavenly Mountain Resort gondola in South Lake Tahoe. But Biles soon grew tired of competing for turns with the mobs of weekend skiers at major resorts.
“It can be a little excruciating,” he said."
Gun violence researchers fight California DoJ's plan to withhold data
Sac Bee's HANNAH WILEY: "California’s top gun violence prevention experts and activists admonished the Department of Justice on Thursday during a public hearing to consider the agency’s proposal to withhold certain data from a state-funded center tasked with evaluating firearm laws.
They sought to halt the department’s proposed regulations to withhold certain information in gun violence restraining order data it is required by law to provide to the UC Davis California Firearm Violence Research Center.
Without those records, researchers say they’re unable to complete studies on whether California’s gun violence prevention laws are working."
After 12 months of coronavirus, the Bay Area reflects on a year of loss
The Chronicle's RYAN KOST: "The past year has been one of incomprehensible loss.
There is that number, of course: 530,000 dead and counting. The human mind is notoriously bad with big numbers — wasn’t built, never evolved to really understand a figure of this magnitude. So, we talk about it in ways that feel more familiar. In euphemisms.
Or it’s the equivalent of more than 2,690 planes, each with 197 passengers, crashing in one year. It’s the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001, 177 times over — a 9/11 every other day."
A year gone: How the pandemic upended life in the Sacramento region
Sac Bee's MICHAEL MCGOUGH: "Maybe you were at Golden 1 Center waiting for the Kings game to start. Maybe your boss told you to work from home the next week. Maybe you planned to visit a loved one at a nursing home, until you learned it was no longer safe to do so.
Public life as we knew it changed right around this time last year due to the coronavirus, officially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020.
In the year since, California has recorded more than 3.5 million lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases. About 55,000 Californians have died. Hundreds of thousands grew sick enough to require hospitalization, straining hospitals in some places."
California health officials promote J&J vaccine as first doses reach Bay Area
The Chronicle MATTHIAS GAFNI/MEGHAN BOBROWSKY: "The Johnson & Johnson vaccine will keep people alive and out of the hospital, and protect them from severe COVID-19 symptoms. It only requires one shot. It hit impressive efficacy rates in a study flush with coronavirus variants that earlier vaccines have yet to be fully vetted against.
And yet, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, two weeks after its emergency approval and as it starts to roll out across the United States, has been labeled by some as second rate to its two older siblings, Moderna and Pfizer. One city initially turned away doses, and even in the Bay Area health officials say they hear eligible people balk at the third choice.
State and local health officials spent Thursday on a Johnson & Johnson vaccine public relations tour, attempting to dispel those concerns or fears. They shared the hashtag #oneanddone. And at the Oakland Coliseum, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris — the surgeon general of California, who is Black — got a shot of Johnson & Johnson in her left arm."
In recall campaign against Newsom, rural California finds its moment
LA Times's HAILEY BRANSON-POTTS: "Inside Zephyr Books & Coffee, visitors are greeted by a turntable spinning vintage vinyl, cozy leather couches, and the smell of java roasted right here in Siskiyou County.
And by the picture window looking out on Miner Street — a stack of petitions to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Owners Debbie and Guy Scott started collecting signatures after Newsom’s pandemic restrictions hit their bookstore in Historic Downtown Yreka hard, even as the virus’ toll felt far removed from this vast rural county that did not report its first COVID-19 death until November."
Botulism could decimate California wild ducks again. How hunters are trying to save them
Sac Bee's RYAN SABALOW: "Last year, tens of thousands of water birds became paralyzed and died in a gruesome botulism outbreak caused by lack of water at two wildlife refuges on California’s border with Oregon.
And it could happen again this summer.
The crippling drought that has plagued the region for years shows no sign of ending, and there’s been little relief from the bureaucratic gridlock and lawsuits over water that has slowly starved the Klamath Basin refuges of their supplies over the past two decades."
CA teachers could spend more than 12 years on union organizing with new bill
Sac Bee's ANDREW SHEELER: "California teachers could take an indefinite leave from the classroom to work on union business without suffering consequences to their pensions under a bill introduced by a state lawmaker.
Senate Bill 294, authored by Sen. Connie Leyva, D-Chino, would remove a cap that compels teachers to return to schools after 12 years of union-related leave.
Teachers, like other public employees, accrue service credit toward their pensions for each year they work. When they retire, their years of service are a key factor in how big their pension will be. Under current law, teachers may work full-time for their unions while continuing to accrue service credit, but not for more than 12 years. Leyva’s proposal would remove the cap."
SFUSD board approves plan to reopen SF schools after year of distance learning
The Chronicle's EMMA TALLEY/JILL TUCKER: "San Francisco public schools are expected to begin in-person learning for preschool through fifth graders, special education students and vulnerable older groups starting April 12, after the school board unanimously approved a reopening plan Thursday. But even as the plans move forward, frustration and bickering continue to plague the process.
Under the plan, some students would re-enter classrooms for four full days and one partial day each week, while others would go back two full days and spend the remaining three days distance learning, depending on the demand for in-person learning at each school.
The deal also needs sign-off by teachers, who have until Saturday to vote on the deal."
Highly critical report faults LAPD for mishandling summer George Floyd unrest
LA Times's KEVIN RECTOR/EMILY ALPERT REYES: "The Los Angeles Police Department mishandled the unrest that erupted on L.A. streets after the death of George Floyd, a result of poor planning, inadequate training and a disregard for rules on mass arrests and crowd control that were established after past failures to manage protests, according to a new report commissioned by the City Council.
“It is unfortunate that the same issues have arisen again and again, with the department being unable or unwilling to rectify the problem,” the report, prepared by a team of former LAPD commanders, stated.
Hundreds of people were injured or alleged their rights were violated during the summer protests. Officers were sent into the streets with hard-foam projectile weapons that they weren’t adequately trained to use, and police commanders without up-to-date training in crowd control tactics were put in charge of volatile scenes, according to the report."
