COVID-19 cases down 25%, and no masks required at Oscars

Plus: What to do together with your COVID-19 vaccination card. A staffing disaster hits San Francisco eating places. And a tiny city will lower water use by 74%.

I’m Winston Gieseke, philanthropy and particular sections editor for The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, bringing you right now’s California headlines.

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California experiences 25% fewer COVID-19 cases as virus unfold stays gradual

California reported far fewer coronavirus cases within the week ending Sunday, adding 17,739 new cases. That’s down 24.8% from the previous week’s toll of 23,598 new cases.

California ranked forty eighth among the many states the place coronavirus was spreading the quickest on a per-person foundation, in line with a USA TODAY Network evaluation of Johns Hopkins University knowledge. Across the state, cases fell in 27 counties, with the perfect declines in Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Orange counties.

In the week ending Sunday, California reported administering one other 3,337,845 vaccine doses, in comparison with 2,791,743 the week earlier than that. In all, the Golden State reported it has administered 26,092,008 doses in a state of about 40 million individuals. 

California ranked ninth amongst states within the share of individuals receiving at least one COVID-19 vaccine, with 43.2% of its residents at least partially vaccinated. The nationwide fee is 39.5%, a USA TODAY evaluation of CDC knowledge exhibits.

A complete of three,718,210 individuals in California have examined optimistic for the coronavirus because the pandemic started, and 61,038 individuals have died from the illness, Johns Hopkins University knowledge exhibits. In the United States, 31,670,031 individuals have examined optimistic and 567,217 have died.

What to do together with your COVID-19 vaccination card

Now that you simply’re vaccinated, what do you have to do together with your COVID-19 vaccination card? The Los Angeles Times has some do’s and don’ts for what it refers to “the most exciting piece of paper you’ll get this year.”

Among the do’s: Take a photograph of the entrance and again of your card as a backup.

Among the don’ts: Don’t laminate your card. If at some level you want a vaccine booster, it will should be added. It’s higher to guard your card with a transparent plastic sleeve, like a badge ID holder.

And do not submit an up-close picture of your card on social media. Reason No. 1: It comprises your private information. Reason No. 2: There are loads of individuals making an attempt to create faux playing cards. Why make it simpler for them by offering a latest vaccine lot quantity? More succinctly: Don’t be like this man.

And what do you have to do in case you’ve misplaced this valuable piece of paper? Your first step needs to be to succeed in out to the place the place you obtained your photographs to see if they’ll present a alternative. Alternatively, you possibly can attain out to the California Immunization Registry (CAIR) to request a duplicate of your file.

California permits golf followers for US Opens if vaccinated or examined

After consulting with California well being officers, the USGA announced that a limited number of spectators will be allowed at the U.S. Women’s Open in San Francisco and the U.S. Open in San Diego — offered they’re vaccinated or can present proof of a damaging take a look at for the coronavirus. The USGA didn’t point out what number of followers could be allowed at both championship.

While the U.S. Opens is not going to be the primary majors to permit followers, they would be the first to carry spectators to a regular of well being via the COVID-19 vaccine or testing.

Per the USGA’s pointers, face coverings and social distancing shall be required for followers, employees and volunteers, even when they’ve been vaccinated. And spectators who dwell in California should present proof they’ve been vaccinated at least 14 days earlier than the event or that they’ve examined damaging.

“Last year, we missed the energy that fans bring to our U.S. Open championships,” mentioned John Bodenhamer, senior managing director of championships for the USGA. “We are grateful to our local and state health and safety officials in California to be in a position to welcome some fans back this year.”

Oscar attendees is not going to must put on face masks whereas on digital camera

While we’re as regards to COVID and occasions, Variety reports that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will not require Oscar attendees to wear face masks while they’re on while camera in the course of the dwell ceremony happening April 25.

The information was offered Monday morning throughout a Zoom assembly with Academy representatives, nominees and others. The ceremony — happening at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles — is being handled as a TV/movie manufacturing, which implies masks should not required whereas cameras roll.

When not on digital camera, nonetheless — for instance, throughout business breaks — attendees are being requested to put on masks.

Other security precautions embody necessary temperature checks and limiting the viewers capability to 170 individuals. In addition, attendees should take at least three COVID assessments within the days previous to the ceremony and stand seven toes away from pink carpet reporters.

Steven Soderbergh, the occasion’s co-producer, didn’t remark immediately on face-mask protocol throughout a press convention with co-producers Jesse Collins and Stacey Sher, saying solely that masks would play “a very important role in the story.”

“If that’s cryptic, it’s meant to be,” he mentioned. “That topic is very central to the narrative.”

In different Oscars information, final September the Academy introduced it might implement new variety and inclusion requirements for the perfect image race, beginning in 2024. 

How effectively do this 12 months’s finest image nominees meet these requirements? USA TODAY provides an interesting analysis.

To guarantee survival, tiny Borrego Springs agrees to very large water cuts

Borrego Springs, a small desert city at the doorway to California’s Anza-Borrego State Park, has received a choose’s approval for an settlement beneath which massive farmers, resort house owners and its personal water district will slash water use by 74% by 2040. Officials say the cuts are wanted to maintain the city of three,000 alive.

Unlike Los Angeles or the Coachella Valley, there are no enormous pipes or canals delivery imported water to the realm, only a quickly shrinking aquifer under their toes.

As a consequence, greater than a dozen main landholders, together with ranchers and builders who’ve lengthy grown crops and created lush golf greens within the parched desert by pumping massive quantities of water from the aquifer, signed on to the settlement agreement. Together with the city, their share of water rights complete greater than 75% of an estimated 24,000 acre-feet of water pumped yearly out of the desert flooring. Within 19 years, that’s required to be decreased to about 5,700 acre-feet.

Under the settlement, all massive customers shall be required to ratchet down by 5% every year the quantities of water they take from the “critically over-drafted” aquifer that’s step by step replenished with rainfall that flows down from surrounding mountains to Coyote Creek and under the Borrego Valley. By 2030, all could have halved their baseline quantities.

Bay Area eating places have hassle hiring employees

Restaurant house owners within the Bay Area are discovering themselves in the midst of a staffing disaster.

Even earlier than the pandemic, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, the labor market was tight because of “San Francisco’s notoriously high cost of living and relatively low wages.” Then when COVID hit and restaurant employees misplaced their jobs, many left the realm or discovered jobs in different industries.

And although the Golden State recently passed a law that guarantees laid-off hospitality workers their former jobs, restaurant house owners say few individuals truly need them.

In order to lure employees again, many house owners are confronted with elevating salaries, re-examining advantages and specializing in office tradition. And if this does not lead to extra hires, some eating places say they will not be about to completely reopen in June, when restricted capability restrictions are anticipated to be lifted.

Another concern is the scarcity of worldwide employees who sometimes come to the United States on a J-1 visa with the intention to acquire expertise. Fine-dining eating places typically depend on international cooks for low-level kitchen roles, however when the pandemic hit, many of those individuals returned dwelling.

In California is a roundup of reports from throughout USA Today community newsrooms. Also contributing: Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle. We’ll be again in your inbox tomorrow with the most recent headlines.

As the philanthropy and particular sections editor at The Desert Sun, Winston Gieseke writes about nonprofits, fundraising and individuals who give again within the Coachella Valley. Reach him at winston.gieseke@desertsun.com.

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