Summer programs for high school students in bay area

Sonoma County scaling back COVID response team

Sonoma County is trimming its coronavirus task force this week, reducing a temporary workforce of about 60 staff within the county health department by a third. County health officials told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat that the shift aligns with the evolving nature of the pandemic. It comes just ahead of a June 30 deadline when millions of dollars in government pandemic funding is set to run out. They said everyone knew the pandemic response would scale back at this time, with some workers notified last week and others sooner. “Many had already resigned weeks ago, and a month ago, because they knew that come June 30, the COVID response was being demobilized,” Health Services Director Tina Rivera told the newspaper. But many temporary workers were in the dark on details, and some providers operating clinics and COVID-19 services said they didn’t know until last week whether they would continue to be part of the county’s vaccination program after June 30, the newspaper reported.

CDC: Paxlovid prevented 99% of hospitalizations in patients with mild-to-moderate COVID

Fewer than 1% of COVID-19 patients required hospital admissions and emergency department encounters 5-15 days after completing Paxlovid treatment, a CDC study found using data from Kaiser Permanente Southern California. “The rarity of these outcomes is consistent with evidence from recent case reports and large observational studies, which found that symptoms experienced by patients with COVID-19 rebound after treatment with Paxlovid are milder than those experienced during the primary infection” and are unlikely to lead to hospitalization, the authors wrote. However, they indicated that further research is needed to determine the cause of rare rebound infections that can occur after taking Paxlovid: “The recurrence of COVID-19 symptoms after Paxlovid treatment might also be related to other factors, including viral reinfection or the emergence of treatment-resistant mutations.”

UCSF opens new psychiatry building aiming to “redefine mental health services”

UCSF is welcoming its first patients to one of the few buildings in the nation that combines outpatient mental health care for all ages with top programs in psychiatry and psychology training, the Nancy Friend Pritzker Psychiatry Building. UCSF said the timing of the opening coincides with the mental health crisis tied to the COVID pandemic, and the building aims to “redefine mental health services and make a bold statement against stigma.” The five-story,150,000-square-foot building is seen as a departure from traditional psychiatry facilities, with its “central location and proximity to transportation hubs, together with its light-filled atrium and interior transparency” that “signal openness to the community outside, as well as within the building itself.” Matthew W. State, chair and Oberndorf Family Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, emphasized the building’s features of light and nature aiming to integrate physical and mental health services and “healing in a low-stress environment.”

California COVID death rates for Latinos have declined, but advocates say more help is needed

The success of vaccination campaigns has narrowed disparities in COVID death rates in California , especially for the Latino community, which has been disproportionately affected with coronavirus infection during the pandemic. Since the state began tracking deaths in April 2020, more than 91,000 Californians have died from COVID-19 — approximately 230 deaths per 100,000 people — according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

Will the Bay Area’s massive outdoor parades and protests spur any outbreaks?

A spate of massive outdoor crowd events swept through the Bay Area over the past week, with the region still beset by fast-spreading offshoots of the omicron coronavirus variant. Risk of transmission is less outside than indoors, and the region is comparatively highly vaccinated, so it’s not known to if outbreaks might occur such as those tied to some crowded festivals and events elsewhere, San Francisco’s Pride parade on Sunday was estimated at 500,000 celebrants who marched and mingled along Market Street for four hours and ended up at a pulsating party at the Civic Center. That followed numerous protest gatherings with people converging in the streets after the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion rights. And the week kicked off with throngs also crowding Market to celebrate the NBA championship of the Golden State Warriors. All involved people in close proximity for extended periods.

“It’s hot, but it’s not super windy,” Dwight Good, assistant chief of Cal Fire’s Santa Clara unit, told The Chronicle. “The humidities and the field moistures are still high enough to keep things manageable.”

From June 19 through 27, Cal Fire battled 14 major fires across the state that torched 10 acres or more, nine of them in the greater Bay Area region stretching from Sonoma County to the San Joaquin Valley in the east and south in the Santa Cruz mountains.

Good’s unit alone fought 25 fires of varying sizes, including the Tesla Fire which charred 524 acres in the Altamont area of Livermore. Cal Fire’s San Mateo-Santa Cruz unit responded to eight brush fires within the same time period, and assisted other agencies with seven fires.

While the number of conflagrations has dropped slightly statewide compared to last year — from 3,784 as of June 24, 2021, to 3,311 as of June 27, 2022 — last week’s spate of incidents seemed to usher in a sense of familiar apprehension in the Bay Area, where cell phones bleated evacuation orders and motorists encountered thick clouds of smoke on Interstate 280 and Highway 4 .

The breakneck pace for Cal Fire’s Santa Clara unit, which averaged more than three fires a day last week, has become normal for June, Good said. This year’s summer solstice arrived baked in triple-digit temperatures, followed by a round of monsoon rains and lightning strikes in the San Benito county area , before the region settled into its more typical pattern of sunshine and fog.

Despite those dramatic fluctuations, some indicators of fire danger have been less severe this year than in 2021, according to John Abatzoglou, an associate professor at UC Merced who researches climate and weather.

A few light rains and periods of respite between heat waves have kept the landscape from getting too arid, he said, and the clustering of fires near urban areas — while threatening — has also made it easier for crews to get the upper hand. The large infernos that tear through remote wildnerness “are given a head start,” he said.

Warren Blier, science officer at the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office, also credited mild winds and humidity for helping keep scores of wildfires at bay last week. He noted that many of the larger, out-of-control fires ignite at times when the air is parched, the wind is violent and the land is tinder-dry, conditions that can arise after weeks of roasting in torrid summer heat.

The Wine Country Fires that burned vast swaths of the Napa and Sonoma valleys in October, 2017 erupted after summer turned to fall, a time of year when the foliage is crackly and brittle. A dry atmosphere and gusty winds played a much bigger role in fueling those wildfires than the outside temperature, which was moderate for autumn the night the flames exploded, Blier said.

While climate change has redefined California’s seasons so dramatically that wildfires are now a year-round phenomenon, climate and weather alone don’t determine the path or intensity of a fire. The Wine Country fires were more dangerous because they sparked at night, when it was harder to deploy crews and evacuate residents, Blier said. Last week’s string of fires seemed to flare up during the day, when they were easier to control.

Fires also tend to be less daunting in early summer because crews are less fatigued, Good said, and more people are available to respond.

The biggest factor, however, is human behavior. People, and their infrastructure, cause the vast majority of fires, and were probably largely to blame for the cluster scalding the Bay Area in June.

“It’s poor judgment, bad luck, or bad habits,” Good said. “A vehicle backfiring. A flat tire. A trailer dragging chains. Illegal fireworks. A gender-reveal party. Someone running their lawnmower in knee-high grass in the middle of the afternoon.”

Blier agreed. “As is widely known, there really are only two sources of ignition,” he said: Lightning and people.

Fire experts constantly warn California residents to be more vigilant, given how this year’s fire season is shaping up.

“The book on California’s 2022 fire season is still being written,” Abatzoglou said. And in most parts of the state, the brush and grass are still damp, and the high winds haven’t yet arrived.

Many of these consequences of rising interest rates, especially when coupled with high inflation, aren’t exactly surprising. What might surprise some Bay Area residents though, is the impact all of this could have on the rental market.

“​​When we look at the price of renting versus the price of a mortgage [in the Bay Area] this is the largest divide we see across the country. It’s almost three times more expensive to pay for a mortgage than to rent, so we’ll likely see rent rise as a result,” Nicole Bachaud, an economist with Zillow, said.

If a seller can’t sell their home, they may decide to rent their property while they wait for it to sell, in addition to having to rent themselves, since in the Bay Area it’s rare to live in your home while it’s on the market. Moreover, those who were in the market to buy are now back in the rental market, perhaps looking to upgrade their space since they weren’t able to buy.

While the Bay Area may be the only place in the country where rents have not surpassed pre-pandemic levels , that’s unlikely to last in the current environment.

Bachaud said interest rate hikes are more likely to hit first-time home buyers in the region harder than they would in the rest of the country, forcing many out of the market entirely. “When you look at the typical home value in San Francisco at $1.5 million, that’s up significantly, about 30%, since before the pandemic. When you also couple the interest rate hikes with that, you’re looking at thousands of dollars more a month in a mortgage than even just a year ago,” Bachaud said. “Using that example and looking at a 3% interest rate versus a 6% interest rate, that’s more than a $2,000 difference. That’s more than most people’s mortgages across the country.”

Redfin agent Andrea Chopp said while so many buyers have been priced out of the market, she thinks it’s actually a great time to buy — if you can afford it. “A lot of [homes] are just sitting now. There’s no competition. Where there might have been competition a few months ago, now you have interest rates, high gas prices, inflation and people have just stopped,” Chopp said. “Buyers right now have the most power they’ve had since I’ve been doing this.”

It’s still the Bay Area, though. “For the buyers still in the market, they’ll see less competition and they can take a little more time to make decisions … but it’s not necessarily going to be a buyer’s market because we’re still going to have homes that are still unaffordable for most folks,” Bachaud said.

While inventory has increased across the Bay Area in recent months, rising interest rates could continue to make inventory a challenge, as those homeowners who locked in at a low rate are less likely to list their homes since they won’t be able to buy something at the same rate. “That’ll keep prices high for the foreseeable future,” Bachaud said.

Chopp, an agent since 2015, said some of her sellers are considering renting their properties given how long it’s taking to get an offer. She said sellers have had to adjust their expectations and be prepared for a lower price than they were anticipating and even accept contingencies. “Now all of a sudden three weeks on the market and sellers are freaking out. That’s normal in the rest of the country,” Chopp said. “Contingencies were impossible before.”

Listings with a price cut have risen to 8% up from 5% in April in San Francisco, according to recent Zillow data. “Sellers may have been a little too ambitious given the changing tides we’re seeing,” Bachaud said.

There is typically a slight summer slowdown in the housing market, but the past few weeks have been jarring. “It’s like it just stopped. Buyers have completely disappeared,” Chopp said. “Since I’ve been doing this, it’s never been this slow.”

But we’re likely still in the midst of a transition, and experts say to look at pending sales data, which is cooling, according to a recent Compass report . Even with all this volatility, the Bay Area is a wealthy region and there are plenty of buyers paying with cash for whom mortgage rates don’t matter.

Bachaud said that it’s important to remember how differently housing markets like San Francisco and New York operate from the rest of the country. “In the rest of the country we’ve seen record-high home price appreciation, but in the Bay Area we didn’t get even near the peak appreciation we saw in 2013,” she said. “As fast as the area was growing recently, it’s had faster periods of acceleration.”

A parent filed a complaint and the school district launched an investigation, Fong said in her letter. She did not disclose the result of the investigation but said she is moving forward as principal to unite and heal the school community. A district spokesperson did not confirm the investigation or say whether discipline resulted.

“I am truly sorry that the use of the N-word has caused harm to this community. I understand that the word is toxic to our families and it triggers horrific experiences for some,” Fong said in the letter. “It is a harmful word used to demean a whole group of people by the color of their skin. I am aware that I have made a mistake and I would like to sincerely apologize for this action.”

Fong’s address to parents came the same day that the four-month-old incident resurfaced during a school board meeting. Three months ago, voters recalled board member Alison Collins , who had drawn criticism last year for a series of tweets in 2016 addressing “anti-black racism in the Asian community.” In a now-deleted tweet, Collins, who is Black, used the epithet in a reference to Asian Americans and the treatment of Asian Americans. She later said that she was trying to illustrate the pitfalls of white supremacy in pitting communities of color against each other.

Gabriela López, who served as school board president, and Faauuga Moliga, a board member, were also ousted . The recall stemmed largely from frustration among parents over the slow reopening of schools during the pandemic, as well as the board’s focus on controversial issues, like renaming 44 school sites and ending the merit-based admission system at Lowell High School.

The incident puts SFUSD in a thorny position as parents consider whether it is ever appropriate to invoke the epithet and if there are standards for disciplining those who use it.

Fong, who is Asian American, said she was trying to use the discussion with students after the lunchtime fight in January as an effort to teach children about the wrongs of using the epithet.

During lunchtime on Jan. 27, a fight broke out between two students in the schoolyard in front of other fifth-graders at Ulloa Elementary, according to Fong’s letter. Fong said that to ensure that fighting and the use of racial slurs were not deemed acceptable, she decided to address the incident with the class. In her recounting of the incident to the students, 40% of whom come from non-English-speaking families, she said the epithet in full.

Soon after, a parent filed an official complaint against Fong. During the district’s investigation, Fong said she used the word again when recounting what she said, and what the student said, to district officials looking into the matter.

“In repairing the harm, I have apologized to the specific parent and her child,” Fong said. “I have apologized to all the fifth-graders. I have also apologized to the Ulloa African American Parent Advisory Council.”

Fong did not respond to The Chronicle’s request for an interview.

Hope Williams, a Black parent and SFUSD worker, said she was holding back emotions and feared for her child’s well-being.

“I’m sick and tired of coming down here to sit and battle for what it should mean to be (a) Black parent in this school,” she said at the Tuesday board meeting. “I don’t feel safe with my child being in SFUSD.”

Her 7-year-old daughter also spoke, saying, “I hear people talk about bad things at me. I feel like I don’t have power — but I do.”

Referring to the Collins case, another parent said: “When there is harm and there’s no accountability when others have been held accountable for it — (it) is a slap in the face.”

In a statement submitted to the district, the school’s African American Parent Advisory Council called Fong’s use of the epithet a “misguided attempt at a teachable moment.” But the group criticized Fong for using the slur several more times when speaking to parents, staff and district staff during the investigation.

“Yet, the community of Black parents and students at Ulloa who expressed their outrage as well as fear for their children’s safety have somehow been drowned out. That is where you all are supposed to show up standing on truth and responsibility to the ‘each and every’ that is a notion commonly denied when the one harmed is Black,” the council said.

The group also noted that it received a letter in support of Fong that declared the process a “witch-hunt and smear,” and demanded “the reputation of our beloved principal and the school” be restored.

SFUSD said in a statement to The Chronicle on Wednesday that the district values diverse voices, cultures, backgrounds and experiences of students, families, and staff members: “We do not tolerate any instance of hate, bigotry or racism in our schools. Anti-racist practices are a priority for us and we actively work to support all of our staff with implementing anti-racist approaches both in and out of the classroom.”

A spokesperson for the school said there are times when harm is caused in a school community and relationships must be repaired by implementing “restorative practice” which include restorative circles among affected parties, family meetings, classroom discussions and more.