California says health care workers must get booster shots
ADAM BEAM, AP: "California health care workers will be required to have coronavirus booster shots to ensure that hospitals are ready to deal with a surge in cases as the more-transmissible omicron variant spreads throughout the state.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the order Tuesday on his personal Twitter account and planned to provide more details at a Wednesday news conference.
California already requires health care workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, a directive that took effect in September and has since led to the firing or suspension of thousands of people. Now it will join New Mexico as at least the second state to require booster shots for health care workers."
L.A. County says no lockdown needed now as California requires boosters for health workers
LA Times, LUKE MONEY, RONG-GONG LIN II and HANNAH WILEY: "Despite the rapid spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant, Los Angeles County’s top health official said Tuesday that no lockdowns are planned at this time, as vaccines and other safety measures remain strong tools to combat the new threat.
The stance in the nation’s most populous county echoes statements from President Biden, national COVID-19 czar Dr. Anthony Fauci and health officials elsewhere in California.
Meanwhile, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday announced that California will mandate boosters for all healthcare workers in hopes of improving immunity and protecting hospitals from an expected surge of patients."
At least 5 UC campuses returning to remote-only classes to start 2022 due to omicron
MICHAEL McGOUGH and ROSALIO AHUMADA, SacBee: "At least five University of California campuses will delay their return to on-campus learning in early 2022, switching to remote instruction for at least the first two weeks of January in response to the omicron variant of COVID-19.
Michael V. Drake, president of the University of California who is also a physician, sent a letter to the system’s 10 chancellors Tuesday, asking them “to design and implement a plan for a January return to campus that mitigates public health impacts, responds to the unique circumstances facing your campus, and maintains our teaching and research operations.”
“This may require campuses to begin the term using remote instruction in order to allow students to complete an appropriate testing protocol as they return to campus,” the letter continued, in part. “Given the differences in local conditions and campus operations across the University, the length of this remote instruction period may vary from campus to campus.”
With California’s congressional maps set, candidates swoop in
LA Times, MELANIE MASON, JENNIFER HABERKORN and SEEMA MEHTA: "After months of stall as they waited for new district lines, California’s congressional incumbents and challengers rushed to declare their candidacies Tuesday as key matchups, including a potential high-stakes contest between Orange County Democrats, began to crystallize.
The redrawing of California’s congressional, legislative and Board of Equalization boundaries will shape the contours of the state’s political landscape for the next 10 years. Politicians, however, immediately turned their attention to a more pressing question for the next 11 months — where they will run in the 2022 midterm election.
Soon after the state’s independent redistricting commission approved the new maps — in some cases, within minutes of the vote — incumbents had announced reelection plans and specified which of the reconfigured seats they’re seeking."
New legislative map could trigger ‘knock-down, drag-out’ Silicon Valley contest
The Chronicle, DUSTIN GARDINER: "State lawmakers across the Bay Area can breathe a collective sigh of relief because most of them haven’t been drawn out of their districts in new political maps.
California’s redistricting commission on Monday finalized maps for state Senate and Assembly districts for the next decade. Only two lawmakers from the region who are seeking re-election were put in the same district: Assembly Members Marc Berman and Evan Low, both from Silicon Valley.
Compared with other populous parts of the state, where numerous incumbents were drawn into the same districts and lost easy paths to re-election, the Bay Area’s delegation faces little disruption."
U.S. population growth hits record low amid pandemic, California population drops
The Chronicle, MIKE SCHNEIDER: "U.S. population growth dipped to its lowest rate since the nation’s founding during the first year of the pandemic as the coronavirus curtailed immigration, delayed pregnancies and killed hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents, according to figures released Tuesday.
The United States grew by only 0.1%, with an additional 392,665 added to the U.S. population from July 2020 to July 2021, bringing the nation’s count to 331.8 million people, according to population estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau.
California was tied with Hawaii for the third-highest percent population drop among states at 0.7%, behind Illinois and New York. California’s population declined by 261,902, the second-highest number of people behind New York’s 319,020. California also had the highest domestic out-migration among states of 367,299 residents."
Bay Area COVID testing ramps up as omicron arrives. Will it be enough?
The Chronicle, CATHERINE HO: "Bay Area health systems and labs are once again ramping up staff and capacity at testing sites in anticipation of an omicron-fueled wave that is expected to hit the region within days.
Local officials are also deploying a new tool: tens of thousands of free home antigen tests that they are distributing to residents. Those efforts came even before President Biden on Tuesday announced the White House would buy and ship 500 million tests to Americans in January.
Whether the efforts will meet demand is impossible to say. In the U.K. and in many U.S. states, including New York, massive omicron waves have caused COVID testing lines to stretch for hours and raised questions about whether the volume of illness is straining testing capacity."
California man who threatened politicians, journalists sentenced to 3 years in prison
GREGORY YEE, LA Times: "A California man who threatened members of Congress and journalists regarding the outcome of the 2020 presidential election has been sentenced to three years in prison, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Robert Lemke previously pleaded guilty to making threatening interstate communications, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.
Lemke, 36, was also sentenced to three years of supervised release upon completion of his prison term, prosecutors said."
Indoor dining may once again be too risky due to omicron, Bay Area health experts warn
The Chronicle, JANELLE BITKER: "Bob Wachter, one of the Bay Area’s leading health experts on COVID-19, is no longer dining indoors because of the highly infectious omicron variant.
In a Twitter thread that went viral over the weekend, the UCSF Department of Medicine chair explained that indoor dining isn’t worth the risk for him even as San Francisco maintains a low case rate and high vaccination rate. Health experts have long maintained that indoor dining is among the riskiest activities during the pandemic because people must take their masks off to eat and drink. Meanwhile, Bay Area restaurants have started temporarily closing their dining rooms because of positive coronavirus cases among staff or simply out of an abundance of caution.
Many people who have tested positive for the omicron variant have been vaccinated, though they are largely not experiencing severe symptons; the unvaccinated are still at the highest risk."
Texas abortion law spurs copycat measures, from guns in California to critical race theory in Florida
LA Times, MAURA DOLAN: "A gun rights group warned the Supreme Court in late October that upholding Texas’ so-called vigilante antiabortion law would have grave consequences for other constitutionally protected activities.
“The most useful way to appreciate the significance of this case is to stop thinking of it as an abortion case and recognize it for what it is,” wrote Erik Jaffe, a Washington, D.C., lawyer for the Firearms Policy Coalition — a vehicle for “deterring the exercise of any and all rights.”
The Supreme Court failed to heed the warning, which came from both the right and the left, and decided 5 to 4 this month to let stand a law that will make obtaining abortions in Texas impossible for most women and that was crafted to prevent abortion rights advocates from obtaining an injunction to block it."
Where to see monarch butterflies as they flock to California Coast in thrilling rebound
The Chronicle, TARA DUGGAN: "If there was ever a time to see monarch butterflies on the Central Coast, this is it.
The butterflies spend every winter along the California Coast, clustering in groups on Monterey pines and eucalyptus trees, glittering orange as light filters through the forest. In recent years, their numbers dropped dangerously low, which is why their unexpected population boom this season is a welcome surprise, as well as a reason to go see them while they’re around.
The scientists who study and track butterflies, including by organizing meticulous counts each Thanksgiving weekend with an infantry of volunteers, are happy to see the total population of Western monarchs on the Central Coast reach an estimated 200,000 this year. That number is not yet official, but it’s expected to rise dramatically compared to fewer than 2,000 in 2020. However, scientists don’t know the reason for the rebound, nor whether it will last."
U.S. opens formal investigation into Tesla letting drivers play video games
AP, TOM KRISHER: "The U.S. has opened a formal investigation into a report that Tesla vehicles allow people to play video games on a center touch-screen while they are driving.
The investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration covers about 580,000 electric cars and SUVs from model years 2017 through 2022.
The action follows a complaint to the agency that Teslas equipped with “gameplay functionality” allow games to be played by the driver while the vehicles are moving."
