The SOUTH ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT —
"[The] blog he developed was something that made the district better." - Tim Jemal, SOCCCD BoT President, 7/24/23
✅Coronavirus hospitalizations drop in L.A., Orange counties -- Coronavirus hospitalizations in Los Angeles and Orange counties have dropped over the last week, which may be evidence that actions taken to limit the virus’ spread are working, public health officials said Sunday. Alex Wigglesworth in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/3/20
✅San Francisco flattened the curve early. Now, coronavirus cases are surging -- The Bay Area was supposed to be exceptional. It was one of the first metro areas in the United States to fully shut down to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. Nearly everyone wears masks, in stores and on streets. Its progressive residents generally have been inclined to follow the rules, and there’s a high level of trust in public health officials, local governments and the fast-changing science. Heather Kelly and Rachel Lerman in the Washington Post$ -- 8/3/20
✅Scientists Worry About Political Influence Over Coronavirus Vaccine Project -- Operation Warp Speed has moved along at a rapid clip. But some people involved in the process fear pressure to deliver an October surprise for President Trump. Sharon LaFraniere, Katie Thomas, Noah Weiland, Peter Baker and Annie Karni in the New York Times$ -- 8/3/20
✅Pelosi accuses Trump, Birx of spreading misinformation about coronavirus -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi doubled down Sunday on her claims that President Donald Trump and coronavirus task force coordinator Deborah Birx are spreading misinformation about the pandemic. Allie Bice Politico -- 8/3/20
For the fifth consecutive day, California reported fewer coronavirus-related hospitalizations. According to state reports, there were 7,754 hospitalizations Saturday, Aug. 1, or 245 fewer hospitalizations.
The state’s number of total cases topped 500,000 (506,456) since reporting began, and 9,354 people have died as of Saturday. There were 6,896 new cases of the coronavirus and 182 new deaths reported, according to unofficial counts from county websites. California health officials reported the state’s first coronavirus death of a child on Friday, saying the victim in the Central Valley was a teenager who had other health conditions.
✅COVID-19 Roundup: Study Recommends Testing Every 2 Days
Experts say study offers "wake-up call" as to whether colleges are planning enough testing. Players push back on planned football season, and another college lays off faculty.
Inside Higher Ed
A new modeling study published Friday by researchers at Harvard and Yale Universities concluded that a safe way to bring college students back to campus this fall would be to test them for COVID-19 every two days using "a rapid, inexpensive, and even poorly sensitive" test, and to couple this testing with strict behavioral strategies to keep the virus’s rate of transmission (Rt) -- the average number of individuals infected by a single contagious person -- below 2.5.
Such a strategy, the authors wrote, “was estimated to yield a modest number of containable infections and to be cost-effective.”
They added, “This sets a very high bar -- logistically, financially, and behaviorally -- that may be beyond the reach of many university administrators and the students in their care.”….
As fall semester approaches, students are increasingly opposing liability waivers and "informed consent" agreements required by colleges as a condition of returning to campus.
Colleges are racing to reconfigure dorms, expand testing programs and establish detailed social distancing rules. And then, what to do about sex?
NYT
This month, many colleges around the country plan to welcome back thousands of students into something they hope will resemble normal campus life. But they face challenges unlike any other American institution — containing the coronavirus among a young, impulsive population that not only studies together, but lives together, parties together, and, if decades of history are any guide, sleeps together.
It will be a hugely complex and costly endeavor requiring far more than just the reconfiguring of dorm rooms and cafeterias and the construction of annexes and tent classrooms to increase social distancing. It also crucially involves the creation of testing programs capable of serving communities the size of small cities and the enforcement of codes of conduct among students not eager to be policed….
The South Carolina Democrat compares the president to the Italian dictator.
Politico
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn on Sunday likened President Donald Trump to Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, warning that Trump would resist leaving office.
The South Carolina lawmaker and No. 3 House Democrat said on CNN's "State of the Union" that Trump has taken up "strong-arm tactics." Trump ignited an uproar last week after he floated the idea of delaying the November election, which he lacks the authority to do.
"I don't think he plans to leave the White House," Clyburn said of Trump. "He doesn't plan to have fair and unfettered elections. I believe that he plans to install himself in some kind of emergency way to continue to hold on to office."….
The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, facing a system mandate, financial necessity, and concern for students’ well-being, will reopen even as public-health experts underline extensive risks.
✅Coronavirus deaths rise in L.A., Orange County -- Southern California counties continue to report high death tolls from the coronavirus. Orange County reported 31 new deaths Saturday. Los Angeles County tallied 50, which officials contrasted with last week, when an average of 38 people were dying each day. Alex Wigglesworth in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/1/20
✅Lopez: In Orange County, heart of the mask resistance, a doctor tries to restore faith in science -- The day was fading fast in Laguna Beach, where people often gather at the water’s edge to celebrate gauzy, pink-toned sunsets. Steve Lopez in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/1/20
✅Eviction ban to end in California. And a crisis looms if lawmakers don’t act -- The first of the August arrives with a renewed sense of worry for renters in the capital region and California affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Malaika Kanaaneh Tapper in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 8/1/20
✅'Wrong!': Trump slams Fauci over testimony on Covid-19 surge -- President Donald Trump publicly rebuked Dr. Anthony Fauci on Saturday, forcefully rejecting the nation’s top infectious disease expert's testimony on why the U.S. has experienced a renewed surge in coronavirus cases. Evan Semones Politico -- 8/1/20
The Post’s polling team, Scott Clement and Emily Guskin, delve into conducting and interpreting polls during an election season. How exactly can polls be representative of the electorate? And are they predictive of how a country will eventually vote?
Almost 20 years ago, anti-immigration activist David Horowitz cultivated an angry high-school student. Now his ideas are coming to life in the Trump administration.
Politico
…[David] Horowitz wrote that hope and fear are the two strongest weapons in politics. Barack Obama had used hope to become president. “Fear is a much stronger and more compelling emotion,” Horowitz argued, adding that Republicans should appeal to voters’ base instincts…. . . . Horowitz ran, and continues to run, the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, which was later renamed the David Horowitz Freedom Center: A School for Political Warfare. The foundation says it “sees its role as that of a battle tank, geared to fight a war that many still don’t recognize.” The enemy? In the foundation’s words, it’s the “political left,” which “has declared war on America and its constitutional system, and is willing to collaborate with America’s enemies abroad and criminals at home to bring America down.” Horowitz says the political left poses an “existential threat.” Horowitz has been labeled an anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant extremist by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a hate watch group. . . .
He came to believe liberals had waged a wrongheaded “war against ‘whiteness.’” White European males, primarily English and Protestant Christian, created “America’s unique political culture … [which] led the world in abolishing slavery and establishing the principles of ethnic and racial inclusion,” he wrote in his book Hating Whitey. “We are a nation besieged by peoples ‘of color’ trying to immigrate to our shores to take advantage of the unparalleled opportunities and rights our society offers them.”…. . . . Miller got into Duke University. Horowitz was relieved. His young protégé would go on rising. And he would take Horowitz’s ideas with him; he started with a launch of a Duke University chapter of Horowitz’s Students for Academic Freedom….
✅California surpasses 500,000 coronavirus cases, capping off deadliest month yet -- The state reported 267,974 new cases in July — more than half of the state’s total cases since the start of the pandemic, and more than double the previous monthly record of 120,177 in June, according to Chronicle data as of Friday afternoon. Catherine Ho in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 8/1/20
✅Hospitals Juggle Resources, Continue Surgeries As California’s COVID-19 Cases Rise -- Hospitals throughout California were stockpiling gowns and masks, pulling hospital beds out of storage and cross-training nurses this spring in case droves of COVID-19 patients appeared at their doors. Sammy Caiola Capital Public Radio -- 8/1/20
✅Mail Delays Fuel Concern Trump Is Undercutting Postal System Ahead of Voting -- Welcome to the next election battleground: the post office. Michael D. Shear, Hailey Fuchs and Kenneth P. Vogel in the New York Times$ -- 8/1/20
✅Lobbying Intensifies Among V.P. Candidates as Biden’s Search Nears an End -- Two women, Representative Karen Bass and Susan Rice, the former national security adviser, are among the most formidable contenders on Joe Biden’s list. Jonathan Martin, Alexander Burns and Katie Glueck in the New York Times$ -- 8/1/20
✅July was California’s worst month of the pandemic -- With one day left to go, July has already amounted to California’s worst month of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of cases and deaths. But, as it comes to a close, there are signs that the spread of the virus had begun to slow. Evan Webeck in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 7/31/20
✅Fears grow that releasing thousands of California prisoners will spread COVID-19 into communities -- Missteps by corrections officials handling releases from state prisons are fueling fears in some California counties that thousands of inmates eligible for early release will spread the coronavirus in their communities. Anita Chabria, Richard Winton, Kim Christensen in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 7/31/20
✅Protester had hands up when LAPD officer shot him in head with projectile, video shows -- Footage from a Los Angeles police officer’s body camera shows a man with his hands up being shot in the head with a tactical round as officers advanced on a crowd of fleeing protesters in late May. Kevin Rector in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 7/31/20
✅A new strain of the coronavirus is dominant now. Is it more contagious? -- A mutant strain of the coronavirus that some researchers believe is more infectious is rampaging across the globe and has moved into the Bay Area, but there are conflicting views about how this tiny deviant is impacting people. Peter Fimrite in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 7/31/20
✅With California deaths surging, will Newsom have to do more? -- In a little more than a week, the state has set four coronavirus death records, hitting an all-time high — 193 deaths — on Wednesday. Experts say those numbers are the expected result of the surge in cases that started last month after communities around the state eased their lockdown restrictions. Marisa Kendall, Harriet Blair Rowan, Evan Webeck in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 7/31/20
✅Trump faces rare rebuke from GOP for floating election delay -- GOP officials from New Hampshire to Mississippi to Iowa quickly pushed back against Trump’s suggestion that it might be necessary to delay the November election — which he cannot do without congressional approval — because of the unfounded threat of voter fraud. Steve Peoples Associated Press -- 7/31/20
✅Record economic plunge, bleak jobs numbers reveal virus toll -- The coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy plunging by a record-shattering 32.9% annual rate last quarter and is still inflicting damage across the country, squeezing already struggling businesses and forcing a wave of layoffs that shows no sign of abating. Martin Crutsinger and Paul Wiseman Associated Press -- 7/30/20
Jonathan B. Imber, Jean Glasscock Professor of Sociology at Wellesley College and editor in chief of the journal Society, said in a statement that he regrets publishing a commentary by Lawrence M. Mead that many scholars say is racist.
Publishing the piece "was a mistake, and one I deeply regret," Imber said. "My intent was to have this commentary published alongside two critical reviews of his 2019 book, Burdens of Freedom, on which Mead’s commentary is based, that identify flaws in Mead’s arguments. The decision was entirely my responsibility and no other member of the editorial board of Society was consulted or participated in that decision."
Imber said he's "recommended the call for retraction," and that Springer Nature, Society’s publisher, is conducting an investigation to be completed shortly. "I deeply regret the pain that this has caused. I apologize to everyone affected by this," he said.
Mead, an influential professor of politics and public policy at New York University, denies that his article attributing poverty among Black and Latinx people to their "culture" espouses racist views.
[According to an earlier IHE article:
“Today, the seriously poor are mostly blacks and Hispanics, and the main reason is cultural difference,” [Mead] wrote. “The great fact is that these groups did not come from Europe. Fifty years after civil rights, their main problem is no longer racial discrimination by other people but rather that they face an individualist culture that they are unprepared for.”
Cultural difference, Mead says, “helps to explain the two most puzzling things about the long-term poor: their tepid response to opportunity and the frequent disorder in their personal lives.”]
Supervisor Don Wagner quibbles with typos and minor details, but fails to acknowledge the big picture about race relations and the Covid-19 crisis.
On race relations, Wagner refuses to address the fact the Board of Supervisors rejected the call to put a discussion of the renaming of John Wayne Airport, an avowed White Supremacist, on the agenda of its July 14 meeting or before voters.
Just like Trump, Wagner fails to take responsibility for the County’s failed response to the Covid-19 crisis. Other nations such as China, South Korea, and Italy have beaten back the Covid-19 pandemic with masks, social distancing, testing and contact tracing. But the United States is seeing a frightening resurgence, and Orange County has become a leading hotspot since Memorial Day because President Trump, much of the Republican Party, and the County Board of Supervisors have failed to provide necessary political leadership.
Medical experts agree that thousands of people could have been saved if Trump had not fumbled the national response. Similarly, the local Republican leadership bucked modest efforts to combat the virus. The Sheriff, with Wagner’s backing, initially refused to enforce the mask order and resisted the governor’s call to close Orange County beaches. Wagner resisted the mask recommendation of Nichole Quick–Orange County’s Dr. Fauci–telling Dr. Quick, on June 2, as Orange County cases began to spike, “We’re hearing from our citizens that this is a government overreach … Doesn’t that undermine the evidence that is supposedly behind your order (to wear masks)?”
Supervisor Wagner was part of the group that recommended that K-12 students return to school in Fall without masks or social distancing, and has continued to criticize Governor Newsom’s efforts to stem the virus.
And the virus cases and deaths in Orange County have, since late May and early June, spiraled out of control. This is not leadership.
We continue to believe that the national and local GOP are self destructing, largely due to the absence of leadership that takes responsibility, seeks to solve problems, and seeks to understand the harm that racism and science denial have caused, and continue to cause, in the County, and nationally.
The Orange County Board of Education in a closed session Tuesday night decided to sue Gov. Gavin Newsom to let schools in high-risk California counties reopen for the 2020-21 school year.
In an announcement earlier this month, Newsom said that any counties on the state coronavirus watch list, which includes Orange County, could not have students in classrooms.
In a 4-0 vote, the board decided to move forward with the lawsuit. [Democratic] Trustee Beckie Gomez was absent from the meeting when the decision was made.
“Many families will suffer greatly and experience many unknown, unintended consequences if schools remain closed. We believe students and their families must have the option for in-person learning,” said [Republican] board president Ken Williams Jr. “We have made the decision to put the needs of our students first.”
. . .
The decision to sue comes after a report published by the board calling for a return to schools without masks or social distancing, which saw Orange County pulled into a national spotlight in the debate over returning to schools.
The board’s recommendations directly opposed the county’s department of education’s guidance, which has called for widespread use of masks and social distancing in classes.
“We remain laser-focused on supporting our districts and programs as they develop plans for the fall, based on the guidance of state and local public health experts,” said department spokesman Ian Hanigan in a text to Voice of OC on Tuesday night after the board’s vote….
[Republican] Orange County Supervisor Lisa Bartlett is looking to push state health officials to allow indoor shopping malls to reopen as the coronavirus continues to rip through the Latino community in Anaheim and Santa Ana – where many of those mall workers live.
“A lot of these indoor malls have a wide expanse of space,” Bartlett said at Tuesday’s county supervisors’ Covid update at their regular public meeting. “I’ve been to some of the outdoor malls lately and, because the indoor malls are closed, the outdoor malls are jammed with people.”
She said the outdoor malls are so packed, that people can’t follow the CDC recommended six-foot physical distance from other people to help curb the spread of the virus. Reopening indoor malls would thin crowds at outdoor ones and the indoor malls would be able to do crowd control,” Bartlett argues.
“It also helps to offset the outdoor malls,” she said. “Outdoor malls — they can’t control the people coming in at all.”
“I think we really have to start looking at opening up the indoor mall sector, I think we can do it safely,” she said. “You can’t classify indoor malls as other indoor confined spaces, like movie theaters,
. . .
Yet UC Irvine infectious disease expert, Dr. Saahir Khan, who also treats virus patients at the UCI Medical Center in Orange, sees the move as premature.
“In terms of opening [indoor] shopping malls, I think it’s premature, given that we haven’t yet seen a sustained decrease in spread of the virus. So I think we made the mistake of reopening too quickly before and we shouldn’t make that mistake again,” Khan said in a phone interview.
Khan and his colleague, UCI epidemiologist Andrew Noymer, have repeatedly told Voice of OC business sector reopenings should be done in two to three-week intervals so health officials can measure the impact on public health.
. . .
Meanwhile, the virus has now killed 581 people out of 34,833 confirmed cases, according to the county Health Care Agency.
The total number includes 15 new deaths reported Tuesday, which can span a time frame of up to eight days.
There’s 640 people now hospitalized, including 203 in intensive care units. Nearly 400,000 people have been tested throughout OC, which is home to roughly 3.2 million people.
[County interim health officer Dr. Clayton] Chau noted that hospitalizations have remained high over the past few weeks and hospital staff are being worn out.
“What we are experiencing now is staff fatigue,” Chau said. “Some of them have been infected and so the availability of nurses to make sure the hospital functions is something of a concern for us … we have got people who can’t go to work because they’re exposed or they tested positive, or fatigued.”
“We have three large hospitals in our county [that] are requesting support from the state and for more staffing – and specifically nursing staffing, not so much physicians. So we know that’s something we are watching very closely. So bed availability, ventilator availability is good, but it doesn’t mean that those beds are available if you do not have the nursing staff to support it,” Chau said.
No Supervisor asked questions about the hospital staffing situation….
✅Top health official: More mask wearing could cut California coronavirus spread up to 60 percent -- The spread of coronavirus across California could be cut at least in half with a modest increase in the number of people wearing masks, one of the state’s top public health experts said Tuesday. Paul Rogers in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 7/29/20
✅California Legislature to consider new tax on millionaires for schools, other services -- Democrats in the California Legislature have unveiled a new effort to significantly raise tax rates on taxable income of $1 million and higher, an effort they say would provide billions of dollars to improve K-12 schools and a variety of government services vital to the state’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. John Myers in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 7/29/20
✅California sues to stop Trump’s order to keep undocumented immigrants from census count -- Citing the constitutional mandate to count “the whole number of persons” in the census, California and the cities of Los Angeles and Oakland joined the wave of lawsuits Tuesday challenging President Trump’s order to exclude undocumented immigrants from the 2020 census. Bob Egelko in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 7/29/20
✅California’s recession could get worse if Congress cuts unemployment aid, studies say -- Unemployed California workers stand to lose about 43% of their weekly benefit — and the state’s already-reeling economy is likely to lose billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs — if the Republican plan to dramatically cut jobless payments becomes law, new studies reported Tuesday. David Lightman in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 7/29/20
✅Trump administration refuses to accept new applications for DACA program -- After the Supreme Court ruled last month that the Trump administration’s move to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program nearly three years ago, was “arbitrary and capricious,” undocumented youth who have been barred from applying to the program while it was being litigated were hopeful that new applications would once again be accepted by federal immigration authorities. Betty Márquez RosalesEdSource -- 7/29/20
✅Mysterious seed packets, possibly from China, arriving in Southern California mailboxes -- Mysterious, unsolicited packets of seeds possibly from China are arriving in some Southern California mailboxes, prompting state officials to urge recipients to refrain from planting them. Scott Schwebke in the Orange County Register -- 7/28/20
Members of the Orange County Board of Education are expected to discuss suing the state over the mandatory school shutdown at their meeting this Tuesday night.
According to the agenda for the board’s upcoming meeting, members will be discussing potential litigation “regarding state orders and restrictions against reopening schools.”
. . .
The county board of education does not have the power to return students to classrooms, and that decision can only be made by the 27 individual school districts.
The guidelines also ran in direct opposition to the county’s own department of education, who released suggestions that encouraged the widespread use of masks and social distancing when children returned to school.
The report was also disowned by multiple members of the advisory panel that were listed as contributors, who said they never saw what was planned before it was released to the public. Those members included county supervisor Don Wagner and public health care agency director Dr. Clayton Chau.
The board has also limited in person public comment to 30 minutes for their upcoming meeting, with an additional 15 minutes after they meet in closed session.
✅One question still dogs Trump: Why not try harder to solve the coronavirus crisis? -- Both President Trump’s advisers and operatives laboring to defeat him increasingly agree on one thing: The best way for him to regain his political footing is to wrest control of the novel coronavirus. Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker in the Washington Post$ -- 7/28/20
An increasing number of protesters in Orange County are voicing concern over police officers’ recent conduct in cities where demonstrations against nationwide police violence have occurred.
Most recently, a protest in Anaheim against more federal agents dispatched to demonstrations in Portland, Oregon, was interrupted July 25 when a police car struck someone during the march and was filmed driving away….
✅Oakland mayor, Black Lives Matter allies warn that vandalism plays into Trump’s hands -- The latest peaceful protest to morph into late-night acts of vandalism in Oakland has unleashed a furious response, but this time the torrent of blame didn’t come from President Donald Trump. Angela Ruggiero in theSan Jose Mercury$ -- 7/28/20
✅UCSD, USD Investigating Social Media Accounts Posting Hate Speech -- UC San Diego on Monday denounced an Instagram account claiming an affiliation with the university that posted "hateful, racist content" on its page, while a similar investigation was underway at the University of San Diego. KPBS-- 7/28/20
Senate Republicans in their opening bid for negotiations with Democrats over the next coronavirus aid package proposed giving colleges and universities an additional $29 billion in aid, which is a figure American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten called “woefully inadequate.”….
