Tag Archives: Vallejo CA

Solano County to test first responders and medical personnel this week – FEMA delivers 2500 test kits

Solano County says 88 have COVID-19; testing to begin for first responders on Wednesday

Vallejo Times-Herald, by John Glidden, April 6, 2020

Solano County reported 15 new COVID-19 infections on Monday, bringing the county’s total number of Novel Coronavirus cases to 88.

Officials began posting data on the number of cases in each Solano County city. Officials had originally resisted providing that information, arguing it violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

The city of Vallejo has the most COVID-19 cases at 28, closely followed by Fairfield’s 26. Vacaville has 14 reported infections, while the cities of Benicia, Dixon, Rio Vista, Suisun City, and unincorporated areas of the county all had less than 10 cases, according to the county.

Office of Emergency Services Manager Don Ryan said by phone Monday that the county will begin testing first responders and medical personnel at the Solano County Fairgrounds on Wednesday.

He stressed that the testing is not open to the general public, noting that tests for the public may begin next week, depending on supplies and the availability of personnel.

Ryan said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provided the county with about 2,500 testing kits. The goal is test the medical personnel and first responders through Friday, he said.

“Of course, since they interact with the public so much, we want to make sure they are not spreading it,” he said.

Ryan said he hopes to test about 250 each day.

Vallejo Mayor Bob Sampayan said by phone on Monday said the testing was “sorely needed.”

“I’m thankful they are doing this,” he added.

County officials reported last week that an 85-year-old person was the first confirmed death associated with COVID-19.

They said the individual had recently traveled outside the country and had multiple severe underlying health conditions.

A bulk of the total cases, 64, are considered “non-severe,” according to the county. For this designation, there are 51 cases for individuals between the ages of 19 and 64, and 13 for persons 65 and older.

COVID-19 in Solano County – 15 new cases over the weekend, curve continues up, partial city listings, fewer tests

UPDATE: See today’s latest information

Monday, April 6 – 15 new cases – 3 on Saturday, 9 on Sunday, 3 more on Monday, total now 88:

Solano County Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Updates and Resources, April 1, 2020.  Check out basic information in this screenshot.   IMPORTANT: Note the County’s interactive page has more.  On the County website, you can click on “Number of cases” and then hover over the charts for detailed information.

Last report (Friday, April 4):

Summary:

Solano County reported 15 NEW POSITIVE CASES over the weekend and today – total is now 88No new deaths in Solano County – still only 1.

For the first time, County officials are disclosing case numbers for Solano cities.  Larger cities show numerical data: Vallejo 28 cases; Fairfield 26 cases; and Vacaville 14 cases.  Smaller cities are not assigned numerical data: all show <10 (less than 10).  Residents and city officials have been pressuring County officials for city case counts for the past two weeks.  Today’s response is welcome, but incomplete.

As of today, 63 positive cases were individuals between the ages of 19 and 64 (72% of the total – up 2% since last report), and 25 were 65 were older, (28% of the total – down 2% since last report).  35 of the 88 are active cases (2 more than previously reported), and 23 of the total cases have resulted in hospitalizations (1 more than previously reported).

TESTING seems to be minimal in Solano County and most recently somewhat on the decline.

Most recent numbers for specimens collected are:

    • 3 on Saturday, April 4
    • 4 on Friday, April 3
    • 6 on Thursday, April 2.

Check out basic information in the screenshots here on Benicia Independent.  IMPORTANT: Note the County’s interactive page has more.  On the County website, you can click on “Number of cases” and then hover over the charts for detailed information.

Solano’s steep upward curve

The chart at right gives a clear picture of the infection’s trajectory in Solano County.  Our coronavirus curve is on a steep uphill climb!

Everyone stay home and be safe!

Vallejo emergency orders: curbside medical marijuana, essential businesses, no evictions

Greg Nyhoff issues emergency orders for medical weed, evictions, and essential businesses

Vallejo Times-Herald, by John Glidden, March 18, 2020 at 6:02 p.m.
Nyhoff

Allowing the city’s cannabis businesses to offer curbside pick-up of medical marijuana is one of three orders issued Wednesday by Vallejo City Manager Greg Nyhoff, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nyhoff’s orders also included keeping essential businesses open to the public, while limiting residential and business evictions in the city.

The orders come just two days after the Vallejo City Council approved a proclamation declaring a local state of emergency as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. The move also gives Nyhoff emergency powers as Vallejo’s director of emergency services.

“These three orders really help to keep the city safe,” Vallejo Mayor Bob Sampayan said by phone on Wednesday. “They also keep the city up and running.”

The city’s 11 cannabis storefront businesses are now allowed to “conduct curbside pick­-up of medical cannabis goods under video surveillance or under monitor of the retailer’s security personnel,” the order states. Retailers are still required to check a customer’s age under state law.

Nyhoff stated that such businesses are essential health care operations. His second order listed almost every type of business as essential, including grocery stores, certified farmers’ markets, food banks, convenience stores, and other establishments engaged in the retail sale of canned food, dry goods, fresh fruits, businesses that provide food, shelter, and social services, and other necessities of life for economically disadvantaged or otherwise needy individuals.

Also listed as essential were newspapers, and other media services, gas stations and auto-supply, auto-repair, and related facilities, banks and related financial institutions, hardware stores, plumbers, electricians, exterminators, and other service providers who provide services that are necessary to maintaining the safety, sanitation, and essential operation of residences.

The order further identifies businesses providing mailing and shipping services, including post office boxes, educational institutions, laundromats, dry cleaners, and laundry service providers, restaurants and other facilities that prepare and serve food, airlines, taxis, and other private transportation providers providing transportation services necessary for essential activities and other purposes expressly authorized in Nyhoff’s order.

The order stipulates that Nyhoff is “to assist continuing services of an Essential Business and to support its operations to maintain financial feasibility, that any Essential Business is able to provide delivery services of its products to all residents of the City of Vallejo.”

Finally, Nyhoff declared that all residential and business evictions based on a tenant’s loss of income or need to pay out-of-pocket medical expenses due to COVID-19 are prohibited.

All three orders stay until the council rescinds the emergency proclamation they approved on Monday.

For more information, visit cityofvallejo.net/NCOV.

Letter: Bay Area Air Board needs to step up for cleaner air

Repost from the Vallejo Times-Herald

Where our mayor, supervisor stand

By Michelle Pellegrin, 08/04/16, 4:09 PM PDT

There are 24 people in the Bay Area with the power to regulate the air we breathe. Their decisions cause or reduce asthma, cancer and other illnesses that can and have resulted in death.

This regional board has so much power to affect peoples’ lives and deaths, yet most people haven’t even heard of this agency with the unwieldy name: The Bay Area Air Quality Management District — or BAAQMD.

The 24 members of this board — which includes Vallejo Mayor Osby Davis — have a mandate to protect public health.

The neighborhoods around the refineries have suffered severe health effects from emissions. The 2012 Chevron toxic explosion and fire in Richmond sent more than 15,000 people to the hospital, which is now closed. A broad coalition of Bay Area groups would like to see refinery emissions, which have continuously gone up for the past 20 years, capped and then methods found to reduce harmful emissions. The first step in this process is an Environmental Impact Report (EIR).

On Wednesday, July 20, after four long years and several refinery incidents, the board, in a room with standing room only, was to vote on this. What appeared as a simple slam dunk became a political football between clean air advocates and Big Oil.

Bay Area refineries have been preparing to process heavier dirtier crudes, which will increase emissions and their diseases. The wave of Crude By Rail (CBR) of proposed projects, such as the Valero Benicia CBR project, are designed to facilitate the importation of extreme crudes, such volatile oil from the Bakken fields and volatile heavy crude from the Canadian Tar Sands.

BAAQMD staff, in what can only be seen as another move to interminably delay implementing modern and necessary emission standards on Bay Area refineries, supported combining the simpler refinery emission cap EIR with a complex EIR on toxic chemical emissions for up to 900 businesses.

Bay Area refinery corridor communities and their allied cities want the EIRs to be conducted separately, as the EIR on refineries can be done much more quickly than the more complex toxic chemical EIR because it requires no infrastructure changes. They want answers and relief from the constant health problems they are suffering.

And here is where our mayor stepped in to show his stripes. Davis, just recently appointed to the board, gave a critical speech supporting combining the two EIRs. Who would have thought the BAAQMD’s newest member would have such sway with the board?

Anyone with respiratory health problems or cancer can give a big round of applause to our mayor and Solano County Supervisor Jim Spering, who made the motion to combine the two EIRs. We in Solano County have the dubious distinction of having the most anti-public health, pro-corporate members on the board.

Even the Contra Costa appointees where four of the five refineries are located weren’t as instrumental as the Solano reps in pushing for the delay of this most important EIR.

Luckily, other board members did uphold their duty to the public’s health and a compromise was reached. The EIRs will be combined but if they become bogged down then they will be separated out. In addition, and a very important one from the public’s point of view, there will be citizen oversight of the process.

The irony here is that this is a false dichotomy. Big Oil will keep functioning and we need them for those cars we drive. These companies provide jobs and add to our economies. But it is no longer legitimate to trade health for jobs. It is an outmoded model and has no place in deciding public policy. It is no longer acceptable for companies to dominate local economies and the policies of the people in those communities where they are located.

Big Oil has known for years that this is the direction things are moving. A 2014 article in the San Jose Mercury News notes the refineries are already working on improving their systems in anticipation of processing the dirtier and volatile oil from outside California.

As Tom Griffith, head of the Martinez Environmental Group back in 2014 stated, “The missed opportunity here is for the oil companies to refocus their sights on the future of renewable energy.”

We should be working together to improve public health. The corporate stranglehold on such important regional boards must end. Citizens need to be attend BAAQMD board meetings and provide input on upcoming board decisions for this to happen. The next meeting is Wednesday, Sept. 21, at 9:30 a.m. at the BAAQMD headquarters at 375 Beale St. San Francisco.

And here in Vallejo we need to do the same and be more engaged. We have seen the result of complicity between politicians and corporations that excluded public input: The absurd notion of putting a cement factory in a residential area with its disastrous public health consequences. Don’t let Mayor Davis and his cronies put our community in harm’s way. Say “no” to the Orcem/VMT cement plant and don’t vote in November for any candidate who supports it!

— Michelle Pellegrin/Vallejo