Inconsistent vaccine supply, lack of state coordination complicate vaccinating school staff
EdSource's DIANA LAMBERT: "An unpredictable vaccine supply and lack of statewide coordination has school districts across California struggling to figure out how to vaccinate their teachers and other school staff — and equally importantly, when.
After health care workers and staff at long-term care facilities, teachers and other school employees are included in the next phase of the state’s vaccine rollout.
But when they actually get vaccinated will depend on how many doses come into the state and are made available in each county, if there are sites to distribute vaccines and whether their counties have finished vaccinating medical workers and nursing home residents in Phase 1A."
State errors confound vaccine rollout in California, as Sacramento pleads for more doses
Sac Bee's JASON POHL/PHILLIP REESE: "Each Tuesday, Sacramento County health officials await an email from the state alerting them to how many doses of COVID-19 vaccine they’ll receive — a number that helps local pharmacies and health officials organize the massive distribution effort.
So, Dr. Olivia Kasirye, the county’s health officer, was alarmed last week when she read that her team would receive just 975 doses — for a county with about 1.4 million people.
It was a mistake. California health care officials were overestimating the number of people over 75 who would get vaccinated by hospitals and undercounting the number of doses the county needed to farm out to smaller clinics and pharmacies, she told The Sacramento Bee on Thursday."\
Bad conduct, leering 'jokes' -- immigration judges stay on bench
The Chronicle's TAL KOPAN: "One judge made a joke about genitalia during a court proceeding and was later promoted. Another has been banned for more than seven years from the government building where he worked after management found he harassed female staff, but is still deciding cases.
A third, a supervisor based mostly in San Francisco, commented with colleagues about the attractiveness of female job candidates, an internal investigation concluded. He was demoted and transferred to a courtroom in Sacramento.
The three men, all immigration judges still employed by the Justice Department, work for a court system designed to give immigrants a fair chance to stay in the U.S. Every day, they hear some of the most harrowing stories of trauma in the world, many from women who were victims of gender-based violence and who fear that their lives are at risk if they are deported to their native countries."
Keeping her options open at 87, Californian Dianne Fenstein brushes off calls to resign
Sac Bee's KATE IRBY: "The left wing of the California Democratic Party might want Sen. Dianne Feinstein to step down and make way for a younger leader, but for the time being President Joe Biden’s agenda depends on the 87-year-old lawmaker keeping her seat.
Feinstein last week filed fundraising paperwork under a committee that suggested she was thinking of running for reelection in 2024, when she would be 91.
She has not actually made that decision, but the paperwork set off a new round of calls for her to resign and allow Gov. Gavin Newsom to choose a successor."
Fatigue, burnout, exhaustion plague hospital staffs during COVID surge
LA Daily News's OLGA GFRIGORYANTS: "When Ruth Godde hooks up her patients to a ventilator at Antelope Valley Hospital, sometimes they grab her arm and ask if they are going to make it.
“You can’t with assurance say ‘yes’ to them, but you don’t want them to be more stressed than they already are, so we say, ‘We’re doing this to save you,’ ” she said. “But you realize as you’re incubating them the chances are they might not make it. In several instances, they don’t.”
As the COVID case count surges across Southern California, medical workers report burnout, fatigue and exhaustion as they scramble to save their patients’ lives."
READ MORE related to Pandemic: LA County seeing 30% fewer coronavirus cases, but rates still elevated -- Daily News's BRADLEY BERMONT
SF lawmaker's bill would make it easier to challenge expert testimony as science advances
The Chronicle's ALEXEI KOPSEFF: "For nearly three decades, JoAnn Parks was imprisoned for killing her three children in a house fire that she said she did not set.
Even after advances in scientific understanding of fire behavior undermined investigators’ conclusion that she had committed arson, Parks was unable to win a new trial — which critics argue exemplifies a fundamental flaw in how expert testimony is treated.
A bill introduced Thursday in the California Legislature seeks to prevent wrongful convictions by raising the standard for using expert witnesses and to provide path for people like Parks who may have been condemned by discredited or outdated science to seek relief."
Bay Area restaurants keep flouting dining restrictions. Are health departments enforcing the rules?
The Chronicle's JUSTIN PHILLIPS: "While Bay Area shelter-in-place orders continue to limit restaurants to takeout and delivery service, a growing number are choosing to violate COVID-19 protocols in hopes of generating more revenue. Because of the dire circumstances, enforcing the rules has become a complicated pursuit for many local health departments.
Most local county health departments base their investigations into COVID-19 protocol violations on complaints they get from the public. Even when restaurants flagrantly break the rules and serve meals in outdoor patios in full public view, many local health departments are hesitant to issue fines and view the act of forcing a restaurant to shut down over its violations as a last resort. Instead, a common approach is to issue warnings.
There are some exceptions. A defiant restaurant in Contra Costa County, Incontro Ristorante in Danville, recently had its health permit revoked and was forced to close, though it had already been cited seven times for violating the county’s health order. The restaurant also had to pay numerous fines, according to reports."
Biden ordering stopgap help as talks start on big aid plan
AP's JOSH BOAK: "President Biden plans to take executive action Friday to provide a stopgap measure of financial relief to millions of Americans while Congress begins to consider his much larger $1.9-trillion package to help those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The two executive orders that Biden is to sign would increase food aid, protect job seekers on unemployment and clear a path for federal workers and contractors to get a $15 hourly minimum wage.
“The American people cannot afford to wait,” said Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council. “So many are hanging by a thread. They need help, and we’re committed to doing everything we can to provide that help as quickly as possible.”"
Warm weather across SoCal to give way to colder temps, light rain, possible snow
LA Daily News's JOSH CAIN: "A few days of winter weather are in store for Southern Californians, with a cold front bringing light rains and chilly temperatures, forecasters said Thursday.
Most areas of Los Angeles and Orange counties and the Inland Empire will see from one-tenth of an inch to less than half an inch of rain starting Friday night, according to the National Weather Service.
The latest weather system will not be nearly as strong or as cold as the recent rain and wind storms the area saw in the last few weeks, which led to minor damage, a few crashes on slick roads and even snow and hail in some neighborhoods."
House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy backs away from blaming Trump for Capitol insurrection
LA Times's SEEMA MEHTA: "House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Thursday that former President Trump’s words at a rally did not incite the violent mob that invaded the U.S. Capitol earlier this month, contradicting his previous comments that Trump bore responsibility for the insurrection that resulted in five deaths.
“I don’t believe he provoked it if you listen to what he said at the rally,” McCarthy, who represents Bakersfield, said during a news conference.
Eight days earlier, during a Jan. 13 House debate on whether to impeach Trump, McCarthy said the president was to blame for the violence, though he voted against impeachment."
News Analysis: Kamala Harris is headed back to the Senate, whether she likes it or not
LA Times's MARK Z BARABAK: "Kamala Harris was never a creature of the Senate.
Its marbled passageways weren’t a destination, but a springboard. Harris saw the office of California governor as a preferable perch and, when the choice presented itself in 2015, had to be persuaded by political advisors the better option was running for Senate.
Once there, Harris was scarcely in the Capitol long enough to leave footprints before launching a quest for her ultimate goal, the White House."
