Omicron causing less severe illness in Southern California patients, study suggests
RONG-GONG LIN II, LUKE MONEY and EMILY ALPERT REYES, LA Times: "New data from Southern California are providing further evidence that the Omicron variant of the coronavirus is causing less severe illness than its Delta cousin, the culprit behind last summer’s wave.
A preliminary study based on medical records from nearly 70,000 Kaiser Permanente Southern California patients “noted substantially reduced risk of severe clinical outcomes in patients who are infected with the Omicron variant compared with Delta,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The study — which included more than 52,000 Omicron cases and nearly 17,000 Delta cases within the Kaiser system from Nov. 30 to Jan. 1 — found that, compared with patients infected with Delta, those who had Omicron were 53% less likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19, 74% less likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit, and 91% less likely to die of the disease."
Difficulties plague Sec State’s hoped-for searchable database
WILL SHUCK, Capitol Weekly: "More than three years after lawmakers unanimously called for it, the Secretary of State has yet to compile a searchable database to help voters get in touch with the people they put in office.
AB 2707 was signed into law by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in September 2018. It gave the Secretary of State until July 2020 – nearly two years’ lead time – to have the site up and running.
Voters, it was envisioned, would then have one-stop easy access to office contact information for elected officials at all levels of government. That hasn’t happened."
Large gatherings being banned as omicron surge deepens
MICHAEL McGOUGH, SacBee: “As California hospitals fill with COVID-19 cases and essentially all parts of the state record extreme transmission rates, some local health offices are instituting tight restrictions, declaring emergencies and closing K-12 campuses as the omicron variant spreads.
The California Department of Public Health on Wednesday reported the statewide daily case rate at 193 per 100,000 residents and test positivity at 23.1%, again building on record highs for each figure. The case rate is now more than 70% higher than the pre-omicron record of 112 per 100,000 set in the winter 2020 surge.
Fifty of the state’s 58 counties had positivity rates above 15%, with a vast majority at their all-time high, according to the state health department.
Police investigate suspicious fire at the home of former Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez
ANDREW SHEELER, SacBee: "San Diego police are investigating a suspicious fire at the residence of former Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez and her husband, San Diego County Board of Supervisors Chair Nathan Fletcher.
“Our entire family is safe. No one is injured. That’s all that matters,” Gonzalez wrote in a Wednesday morning tweet.
According to a statement released by Fletcher, around 4 a.m. on Wednesday the family was awoken by smoke alarms."
READ MORE about fire: ‘Suspicious’ fire scorches City Heights home of political leaders Fletcher, Gonzalez -- TERI FIGUEROA and LYNDSAY WINKLEY, Union-Tribune
High calculus failure rates thwart students across CSU
LARRY GORDON, EdSource: "At 8 a.m. in a Salazar Hall classroom, Cal State Los Angeles instructor Jennica Melendez was leading her Calculus 1 class through a lively group discussion about the virtual distance a stationary bicycle rider would cover while changing speed over an hour’s workout. From a projection screen, students studied a graphic showing the curve of the accelerating and slowing pace supposedly set by an aerobics trainer.
The calculation was part of an important lesson in Calculus 1, which itself is extremely important to many students. The course is usually required for anyone pursuing careers in science, engineering and medicine, but it has one of the highest rates of failure and withdrawal across California State University campuses statewide.
With active student participation rather than just lectures, Melendez and other Cal State LA calculus professors are trying to get more students to pass Calculus 1 and qualify for majors in the so-called STEM areas of science, technology, engineering and math. The Los Angeles campus and some others are seeing some success with that new teaching approach. But big challenges remain in teaching calculus — the branch of math that studies rates of change."
Stem cell: UC’s odd ‘unmention’ in its top 10 research tales
DAVID JENSEN, Capitol Weekly: "The University of California has identified its 10 best research stories of 2021, and right at the top is an article deeply involving the state’s $12 billion stem cell agency.
The catch is that the stem cell agency was not even mentioned. That despite the fact that 13 persons with significant links to the University of California, including a UC regent, sit on the board that oversees the agency.
The story was put out by the office of the president of the UC system, one Michael V. Drake, who is a physician. The UC news release cited efforts by researchers at UCLA and UC San Francisco to find a cure for sickle cell disease, which afflicts 100,000 persons nationwide, predominantly African American but also Hispanic."
California was supposed to clear cannabis convictions. Tens of thousands are still languishing
The Chronicle, KIERA FELDMAN: "Nearly two decades ago, on a high desert road in San Bernardino County, Sara Rodriguez was pulled over and arrested with 10 small packets of cannabis in her car. She was convicted of a felony, possession of the drug for sale, and eventually spent more than two years in prison.
In the years since, Rodriguez, 39, became the first in her family to go to college, and in June graduated from UCLA with a master’s degree in social welfare.
But Rodriguez still has a felony on her record — a potential black mark for employers and the state social work licensing board."
S.F. appellate justice is latest Biden appointee confirmed to the Ninth Circuit
The Chronicle, BOB EGELKO: "Gabriel Sanchez, a state appeals court justice in San Francisco, was confirmed to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by the Senate on a near party-line vote Wednesday, becoming President Biden's third appointee to the nation's largest federal appellate court.
Sanchez won confirmation on a 52-47 vote, with Republicans Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joining 49 Democrats in supporting him, with one absence. He succeeds Judge Marsha Berzon of San Francisco, who is transferring to senior status with a reduced caseload.
Sanchez, 45, spent six years as deputy legal affairs secretary for Gov. Jerry Brown, a fellow Yale Law School alumnus, before Brown appointed him to the First District Court of Appeal in 2018."
Sick staff. Endless COVID patients. Doctors ‘just scraping by’ as Omicron sweeps hospitals
LA Times, JAWEED KALEEM/EMILY BAUMGAERTNER: "On a single day this week, 616 staffers called out sick with COVID-19 at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. Without nearly a tenth of its workers — doctors, nurses, administrators and janitors — the hospital assigned the National Guard to help with an unrelenting swarm of patients, many of them critically ill.
Such scenes around the nation have been brutal as the highly transmissible — if less deadly — Omicron variant has set a record of nearly 2 million infection cases each week. That surge has battered healthcare systems, sapped the morale of doctors and nurses, delayed thousands of surgeries, postponed treatments for life-threatening diseases such as cancer and turned hospitals into around-the-clock triage centers where nerves bristle and anger echoes alongside despair."
California’s Prop. 12 hasn’t resulted in a bacon apocalypse — at least not yet
The Chronicle, JANELLE BITKER: "Relax, pork obsessives; the so-called bacon apocalypse is still several months away.
Despite proclamations of “the Great California Bacon Crisis” and national headlines stating bacon may disappear this year due to a new state law, bacon and other pork products are still widely available in the Bay Area.
Proposition 12 went into effect Jan. 1, increasing the minimum square footage for the confinement areas for breeding pigs, egg-laying chickens and veal calves that are sold in California."
Progressive Working Families Party lands in California, and is targeting moderate Democrats
The Chronicle, JOE GAROFOLI: "To much of the rest of the country, California is the most progressive state in the union. To the Working Families Party, it isn’t as progressive as it could be - and that’s why the national organization has launched a California branch and will announce former San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim as its executive director Thursday, The Chronicle has learned.
The party, which was founded 23 years ago in New York and has expanded in recent years to seven other states, isn’t aiming to run its own candidates in California next to Democrats and Republicans - for now.
Instead, this year it is aiming to introduce itself to voters by focusing on a handful of legislative races, even if that means taking on more moderate Democrats in the hope of pulling the larger party further to the left - particularly on health care, criminal justice reform and wealth inequality."
S.F. expects 15% of office workers to stay remote permanently. How much will it affect the economy?
LA Times, JONAH VALDEZ: "His skis nearby, John Gabin lounged at a picnic table, gazing up toward the steep slopes carpeted with snow. His 4-year-old son sprawled on his outstretched legs.
“It’s a getaway from L.A., the city, you know?” said Gabin, 46, of North Hollywood, who rented a house in Big Bear Lake with his wife, their two children and a friend for several days.
He spent the sunny midweek morning in January at Snow Summit Resort teaching his children to ski, a pastime he’s carried on since his days as a child living in France. Now, it’s a means to escape the ongoing surge of coronavirus cases as the Omicron variant spreads rapidly throughout the dense neighborhoods of Los Angeles."
S.F. police chief slams D.A.’s office for dropping charges against suspect accused of assaulting officers
The Chronicle, ANDRES PICON: "San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott on Wednesday criticized the district attorney’s office decision to drop charges against a burglary suspect who was accused of assaulting and injuring two police officers, saying the move sends a “dangerous message” to criminals.
The rebuke followed the San Francisco district attorney’s office decision Tuesday to drop charges against Sergio Lugo, a man whom officers arrested on Feb. 17, 2021 while conducting a “burglary surveillance operation” in the Noe Valley neighborhood, according to San Francisco police.
The charges were dropped after prosecutors found that there were inconsistencies in police officer statements and that Lugo was not breaking any laws when he was stopped by police, said Rachel Marshall, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office."
