Bay Area projected to reach threshold in “mid-late December”
twitter.com/KQED – Governor Newsom announced the details of a sweeping new stay-at-home-order that will come into effect for three weeks in certain California regions when their intensive care unit capacities drop below 15%. The Bay Area is projected to reach that point in “mid-late December.”
Newsom to impose new stay-at-home orders in California’s hardest-hit areas
San Francisco Chronicle, by Alexei Koseff and Peter Fimrite, Dec. 3, 2020 2:32 p.m.
Two respiratory therapists (no names given) wheel a CPAP machine with a modified viral filter through the emergency department at Seton Medical Center in Daly City, Calif. Friday, May 1, 2020. Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle
SACRAMENTO — Vast swaths of California will fall under new shutdown orders in the coming weeks after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced additional restrictions Thursday to try to slow the surging number of coronavirus cases in areas where intensive care unit capacity is dwindling.
Newsom said he was “pulling the emergency brake” to help California through a third surge of the pandemic this winter, one he hoped would be a final ordeal before a coronavirus vaccine becomes widely available.
“The bottom line is if we don’t act now, our hospital system will be overwhelmed. If we don’t act now, we’ll continue to see a death rate climb, more lives lost,” Newsom said during a news briefing. But, he added, “There is light at the end of this tunnel. We are not in a permanent state.”
The regional orders will close personal care services such as hair and nail salons, playgrounds, bars and wineries, movie theaters, museums and zoos in places where ICU capacity has dropped below 15%.
Retailers, grocery stores and other businesses in those regions that are allowed to remain open will have to operate at 20% capacity, and restaurants will be able to offer only takeout or delivery. No outdoor or indoor dining will be allowed. Schools that have received a waiver to reopen can continue to offer in-person classes.
Wednesday, December 2: 226 (!!) new cases overnight, no deaths. Since February: 10,957 cases, at least 603 hospitalized, 81 deaths.Compare previous report, Tuesday, Dec. 1:Summary
Solano County reported 226 (!!) new cases overnight. As of today, Solano has seen an average of 121 new cases per dayover the last 14 days! Total of 10,957 cases since the outbreak started.
Deaths – no new deaths reported today, a total of 81 Solano deaths since the pandemic began.
Active cases – Solano reported 148 (!!) more active cases today, a Solano record for single-day increase in active cases. New total of 956 active cases – also a record high for Solano County. Active cases have increased alarmingly lately – COMPARE: average number of Active Cases during October was 284 – today we are at 956!! Is the County equipped to contact trace so many infected persons? Who knows? To my knowledge, Solano has offered no reports on contact tracing.
Hospitalizations –(For best info, see BenIndy page, COVID-19 Hospitalizations Daily Update for Solano County.) CAUTION ON COUNTY REPORTING: According to Solano Health Officer Dr. Bela Matyas, the County occasionally updates Age Group hospitalizations retroactively, adding substantial numbers. Thus, many hospitalizations are never reported as CURRENTLY hospitalized. So the County’s daily updates on hospitalizations are nearly meaningless. Today, Solano County reported the number of CURRENTLY hospitalized persons decreased by 3, total of 65. TOTAL hospitalized since the outbreak began supposedly remained unchanged today, a total of 603 of all ages hospitalized since the outbreak began. The County will likely change this figure at a later date.[For my manual calculation of total, see age group stats below.]
Testing – The County reports today that 453 residents were tested since yesterday, a total of 128,318 unduplicated residents tested for COVID-19 since the outbreak began. 28.7% of Solano County’s 447,643 residents (2019) have been tested.
Positive Test Rate – extremely high, 13.6%
Solano County reported our 7-day average positive test rate rose today from yesterday’s 11.9% to 13.6%, the second highest rate ever in Solano County – and far and away over the State’s purple tier threshold of 8%. Average percent positive test rates are among the best metrics for measuring community spread of the virus. The much lower and more stableCalifornia 7-day average test rate has also been on the rise lately, and rose substantially today from 7.0% to 7.3%. (Note that Solano County displays past weeks and months in a 7-day test positivity line graph which also shows daily results. However, the chart does not display an accurate number of cases for the most recent days, as there is a lag time in receiving test results. The 7-day curve therefore also lags behind due to unknown recent test results.)
By Age Group
Youth 17 and under – 26 (!) new cases today, total of 1,257 cases, representing 11.5% of the 10,957 total cases. No new hospitalizations reported today among this age group. Thankfully, no deaths have ever been reported in Solano County in this age group. But cases among Solano youth rose steadily over the summer, from 5.6% of total cases on June 8 to 11% on August 31 and has plateaued at over 11% since September 30. Youth are 22% of Solano’s general population, so this 11.x% may seem low. The significance is this: youth are SERIOUSLY NOT IMMUNE (!) – in fact at least 14 of our youth have been hospitalized since the outbreak began.
Persons 18-49 years of age – 128 (!!) new cases today, total of 6,385 cases. This age group is 41% of the population in Solano, but represents just under 60% of the total cases, by far the highest percentage of all age groups. The County reported no new hospitalizations among persons in this age group today. A total of 194 have been hospitalized since the outbreak began. No new deaths in this young group today, total of 6 deaths. Some in this group are surely at high risk, as many are providing essential services among us, and some may be ignoring public health orders. I expect this group is a major factor in the spread of the virus.
Persons 50-64 years of age – 52 (!) new cases today, total of 2,149 cases. This age group represents over 19% of the 10,957 total cases. The County reported no new hospitalizations among persons in this age group today. A total of 162 have been hospitalized since the outbreak began. No new deaths in this age group today, a total of 15 deaths.
Persons 65 years or older – 20 new cases today, total of 1,160, representing 10.6% of Solano’s 10,957 total cases. The County reported no new hospitalizations among persons in this age group today. A total of 233 have been hospitalized since the outbreak began. No new deaths in this age group today, total of 60 of our elders who died of COVID, accounting for 74%of Solano’s 81 total deaths.
City Data
Benicia added 3 new cases today, total of 290 cases since the outbreak began.
Dixon added 24 new cases today, total of 769 cases.
Fairfield added 60 new cases today, total of 3,303 cases.
Rio Vista added 1 new case today, total of 94 cases.
Suisun City added 12 new cases today, total of 755 cases.
Vacaville added 49 new cases today, total of 2,255 cases.
Vallejoadded 77 new cases today, total of 3,451 cases.
Unincorporated areas remained steady today, total of 40 cases.
Race / Ethnicity
The County report on race / ethnicity includes case numbers, hospitalizations, deaths and Solano population statistics. This information is discouragingly similar to national reports that indicate significantly worse outcomes among black and brown Americans. Note that all of this data surely undercounts Latinx Americans, as there is a large group of “Multirace / Others” which likely is composed mostly of Latinx members of our communities.
Asian Americans are 14% of Solano’s population, and account for 10% of cases, 12% of hospitalizations, and 19% of deaths.
Black Americans are 14% of Solano’s population, and account for 12% of cases, but 16% of hospitalizations, and 23% of deaths.
Latinx Americans are 26% of Solano’s population, but account for 23% of cases, 26% of hospitalizations, and 18% of deaths.
White Americans are 39% of the population in Solano County, but only account for 26% of cases, 28% of hospitalizations and 33% of deaths.
The State of California’s COVID19.CA.GOV website is an incredibly rich resource for daily updates with latest data on hospitalizations (and much more) – both for the State and by individual Counties.
Each day the State updates the numbers along with “Change from Prior Day” and “14-Day Rolling Average.” Below is a summary, followed by a screenshot of today’s results. The CURRENT data on the CA.GOV Hospitalizations page provides much more by simply hovering over various components.
Today CA.GOV showed Solano County COVID19 hospitalizations as of yesterday, Tuesday November 1:
69 Positive Patients (3 more than previous day, 14 day rolling average of 61)
12 additional Suspected Patients (1 fewer than previous day, 14 day rolling average of 11)
21 ICU Positive Patients (3 more than previous day, 14 day rolling average of 15)
3 additional ICU Suspected Patients (same as previous day, 14 day rolling average of 2)
12 ICU Available Beds (same as previous day)
As of yesterday, Tuesday, December 1, 2020
Previous day’s report – data as of Monday, November 30, 2020
Thanks, election analysis, the pandemic and looking to the future
Benicia Mayor Steve Young
First of all I want to thank the more than 8600 people who voted for me and gave me a decisive victory.
But even more impressive was Benicia’s voter turnout – 87%!!!
I was fortunate to have a great team to support my campaign efforts:
Jennifer Hanley Allan Lemone Bob Berman Terry Mollica Chris Kerz Chris and Maryanne Esparza
Tom Bilbo Karen Sims Tony Shannon Jack Kolk Kari Birdseye
I also want to congratulate our new Vice Mayor, Tom Campbell, who easily finished first, a tribute to how Benicians respect his work on the Council.
Also congratulations to Trevor Macenski on becoming Benicia’s newest and perhaps youngest Council Member ever elected;
I know you to be a smart guy, and I look forward to having your knowledge and skills on the Council.
It’s great to have younger people stepping up into positions of leadership in our town.
To Terry Scott, you are one of the smartest and most visionary people we have in town, and I was proud to support you. I look forward to your continuing involvement in our community; I really hope Benicia will have the chance to vote for you again in the future.
I also want to thank Jason Diavatis and Christina Strawbridge for putting themselves out there and running clean campaigns. I know they have the best interest of our community at heart and, although disappointed in the results, I expect they will refocus their energy on working for a better Benicia.
You may have noticed that the election was unusually contentious, primarily because of the nearly $300,000 spent by the Working Families PAC for negative campaign ads, this time against me -a similar smear campaign was run by the same PAC in 2018 and was successful in defeating Kari Birdseye.
This time, Benicia voters were too smart to be fooled by the nasty ads full of lies and doctored photos.
I can’t help but imagine what that same $300,000 could have accomplished in our community, at a time when small businesses are closing, hunger is increasing exponentially, and people are struggling with rent and the possible expiration of the eviction moratorium.
$300,000 given to the Food Bank would have made a real positive impact on our community, instead of money wasted on political consultants, fliers and Facebook ads.
Hopefully, this will be the last time we see this kind of negative campaigning. But it probably will not be.
I hope the Council will take another look at how we might protect our local elections from outside intervention in the future.
But now with the election behind us, it’s time to focus on the challenges ahead.
With the Pandemic spreading rapidly as predicted by public health experts, it is crippling our ability to fully reopen many businesses and impacting our city economy in so many ways.
We will have to make some difficult personal choices if we hope to get back to some semblance of normality.
We can choose to follow basic health protocols until vaccines finally become available.
We can choose to wear a mask and observe social distancing as necessary preventative measures to protect ourselves and our community.
We can choose to postpone family gatherings.
We can choose to support local businesses during the holidays and beyond.
We can choose to help each other pull through this difficult time.
Through my work with Benicia Strong, a coalition of churches and nonprofits that has organized around the issue of food insecurity, I have seen first hand the rapid increase of hunger in Benicia; St. Paul’s was serving 75 meals a week one year ago; last week they served over 350 ; food contributed to the Food is Free stands at Northgate and Heritage Presbyterian Churches has disappeared almost as quickly as supplies are replenished; the Community Action Council exhausted their supply of food boxes given for Thanksgiving in record time. The need, even in our relatively well off community, is very real.
But I have also been amazed and gratified by the obvious and continuing generosity of Benicia residents in reaching out to help our friends and neighbors in need.
I hope the City Council will look at all future requests for spending through this prism of need that could likely be increasing in the days and weeks ahead.
We have some tremendous City staff who have been working hard during this pandemic to ensure that the City continues to function at its highest level. And we need to work to retain our skilled workers instead of losing them to other cities who pay more.
Without the passage of Proposition 15, our city cannot count on much help from the state or any other government agencies at this time.
This means we will likely be on our own, and we will need to either cut costs or raise revenues.
Or both.
As a full service city, we provide comprehensive public services: police, fire, water, sewer, roads, parks, planning, building inspection, a library, and even a cemetery.
The costs for all these services are increasing at a time when our revenues are decreasing.
If the Pandemic goes on another year, which is possible, we may start to feel real pain in our budget, not to mention the unfunded work for our streets and utilities.
We have over 200 miles of roads to maintain and improve, and many are in poor condition. I get it- people want their streets repaired.
It’s going to cost about $60 million to bring our roads up to acceptable conditions, but over the last several years we have been only able to budget, on average, $2 million per year.
Then there is the issue of water bills – why do they seem so high? Believe it or not, our current water bills are about average for surrounding jurisdictions, though our wastewater bills are still a bit above average..
It currently costs us roughly $40 million each year to provide high quality water and sewer services, with fewer than 10,000 customers to spread those costs between. Included in this cost is our long-term commitment for the pensions of past and present employees of the utilities division. The pensions, though, account for only 5% of these bills.
The Council has discussed moving the sewer bill to the property tax, as is done in several other nearby cities.
This would lower your bi-monthly cost, but not eliminate it. We need to revisit that issue and formalize our decision.
One of the few ways we have to reduce water bills is by adding new customers to help share the cost.
This would require responsible growth to build up our customer base as well as our revenues. If we do it right, smart growth could generate significant new sales taxes and property taxes.
How would we do that?
We are beginning the study of the area around Military East and East 5th Street for possibly more dense development.
For our Downtown business district, should we look at expanding the area that allows commercial zoning? Perhaps raise height limits? Or expand the use of the Southern Pacific Rail Depot?
Then there is the Seeno property and its 526 acres situated below Lake Herman Road.
That property will eventually be developed, and the City should lead the way in deciding what type of development that should be. Anything happening there will require extensive citizen involvement in planning workshops and hearings, as well as negotiations with the property owner and, ultimately, the selection of a master developer.
1/3 of Benicians are over 55. Building housing for seniors, both affordable and market rate, would provide an alternative for seniors who are living in larger, multi-level housing and who would like to downsize, but do not necessarily want to leave Benicia. If they had reasonable alternatives, they might sell their homes and open up more opportunities for families wanting to move here.
But even smart growth is not possible without a secure water supply. We are currently in a period of drought and I believe climate change will make having an adequate water supply a continuing issue and concern.
Currently Valero uses 60% of our raw water supply. To assure their needs for a regular supply of water, and to assure the City will always have enough to serve our existing and future population, we should start planning and implementing a water reuse project. Achieving that would make Benicia nearly self sufficient in water use.
I recognize Valero’s importance to Benicia, and to our economy, and there are many ways we can and should work together on things of mutual benefit.
For example, real-time air quality monitors viewable on the internet would vastly improve communications between the City and the refinery, as well as providing instant notification to the public in the event of flaring or other events.
I would also like to receive more specific suggestions from the Chamber, Valero, and all of our businesses on how the City can become a more efficient and business friendly partner.
One of the recent City Council initiatives involved the question of racial equity. The Council approved both the hiring of a limited term, part-time, employee to oversee our efforts, but also the formation of an ad hoc commission to review issues of diversity and equity.
I want to give kudos to our interim City Manager, Erik Upson, for his leadership of this effort as Police Chief. Several people in town have questioned the need for these actions, believing that Benicia was not affected by racism. I believe systemic and structural racism is everywhere, and Benicia is not immune to its corrosive effects. One only needs to follow any social media platform to see ugly and unfortunate examples of this in our own town. We need to acknowledge as a City that racism is real here and that Black Lives Matter, and start to do the hard work needed to make our community a more diverse and accepting one for ALL of our citizens and visitors alike.
Finally, I hope to encourage the City to greatly improve communications with the public through both its webpage and its social media presence. One thing we’ve learned from this election is the importance of social media as a platform that’s now used by so many Benicians to access local news. I’ll be giving regular video updates about issues on upcoming council agendas as well as having virtual office hours.
As we thankfully put 2020 behind us, and look forward to 2021 with the hope for a return to normalcy, I intend to act as the Mayor for all Benicia, and pledge to work with staff, Council and community to help us move forward into the future.
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