Football season is very much still in full swing. The weather is starting to change and we are getting some perfect fall weather over the last week or so. However, basketball is right around the corner. In fact, the college basketball season tips officially off in just 25 days. Monday, November 7th will be here before you know it. Likely preseason Top 10 team Baylor is among the group that will tip off the season at noon EST with a huge slate of games to follow on opening day.

In honor of hitting the 25-day-out mark, let’s begin by taking a look at five of the biggest storylines entering the 2022-2023 season. Every five days we will release five more headlines and ultimately reach a total of 25 when the season begins on the 7th of November. As Jon Rothstein would say: And Here. we Go.

New Faces on the Sidelines at Power Programs

Don’t worry college basketball fans, the Mike Krzyzewski farewell tour is over. However, the Duke Blue Devils still promise to be one of the most talked about teams this upcoming season. 35-year-old Jon Scheyer takes over at his alma mater and will likely have a preseason top 5 team. He played a big role in landing the top-ranked recruiting class and those freshmen will make an instant impact.

It isn’t just Blue Devils who made headlines with a coaching change though. At Villanova, Jay Wright decided to forgo a season-long retirement celebration in favor of announcing his surprise departure from the sport on April 20th at age 60. The Wildcats also went with a familiar face, hiring Wright’s long-time assistant Kyle Neptune.

Time will tell if these two new head coaches can find the same success that Hubert Davis experienced in his first season taking over for legendary North Carolina boss Roy Williams. However, we do know that all eyes around college basketball with be on Duke and Villanova early in the season.

Reigning National Player of the Year Oscar Tshiebwe Returns

You didn’t really think we would get further than this without mentioning the Wildcats, did you? This is Kentucky Sports Radio after all. On paper, it seems shocking that Oscar Tshiebwe would return to college basketball after sweeping the national player of the year awards. Only Ralph Sampson in 1982 and Tyler Hansbrough in 2008 have done the same. However, as a projected second-round NBA draft pick, it made sense for Tshiebwe to return. When you factor in the Name, Image, and Likeness money he is set to earn in Lexington and it is very likely that Kentucky’s big man is making more as a collegiate player than he would have as a professional.

Southeastern Conference Hires Six New Head Coaches

The head coaching changes at Duke and Villanova certainly dominated the college basketball offseason. However, the Southeastern Conference made a lot of waves in its own right by turning over nearly half of the league’s head jobs. Chris Jans (New Mexico State -> Mississippi State), Lamont Paris (Chattanooga -> South Carolina), Todd Golden (San Francisco -> Florida), Matt McMahon (Murray State -> LSU), Mike White (Florida -> Georgia) , and Dennis Gates (Cleveland State -> Missouri) filled the six open SEC jobs.

High Scoring Guards Chasing Records

Detroit guard Antonio Davis has already broken into college basketball’s all-time top 25 scoring leaders with 2,734 points. The prolific guard will surpass the 3,000-point milestone and could finish as high as second all-time.

Additionally, last season’s second-leading scorer in the country, Darius McGhee, returns to Liberty after scoring 24.6 points per game. The 5’9″ guard has 1,864 career points and will easily crack the 2,000-point threshold.

Oral Roberts guard Max Abmas has returned to college basketball as well after back-to-back All-American Honorable Mention seasons. The 6’1″ guard has scored 1,818 points in just three seasons so far. Playing at the mid-major level these guys don’t always get national attention, but they are all worth the price of admission.

How Many Forwards/Centers Can We Fit on an All-American List?

Everyone has their own opinions on how All-Conference or All-American lists should be constructed. Is it the five best players regardless of position? Do you need to be able to actually put this team of five players on the floor in a real-life basketball game? Or, does it even need to consist of only five players to begin with? Those questions will be challenged this season as traditional big men are officially back at the forefront of college basketball.

Oscar Tshiebwe, the consensus National Player of the Year from last season, is back at Kentucky. He’s a lock to be a preseason first-team All-American. Drew Timme, is back at Gonzaga after two consecutive All-American seasons. The 6’10” forward is also a lock to be a preseason First Team All-American. 6’10” forward Armando Bacot is back for his senior season at North Carolina. All he did last year was earn First Team All-ACC honors and lead North Carolina to the national championship game. In the tournament, Bacot averaged 15.3 points and 16.5 rebounds per game. He is almost assuredly going to be a preseason First-Team All-American. That marks three traditional, back-to-the-basket forwards on the list.

Tshiebwe, Timme, and Bacot deserve first-team honors, but we haven’t even mentioned the player who has arguably gotten as much hype as anyone this offseason. Trayce Jackson Davis at Indiana elected to return after averaging 18.3 points and 8.1 rebounds per game in ’21-22. He is a big reason why the Hoosiers have become a trendy Top 15 team in the country and will likely lead to him being placed on plenty of preseason All-American ballots. Also, 7’1″ center Hunter Dickinson is back at Michigan after a season of 18.6 points and 8.6 rebounds per game. He’s a likely All-American who has to battle with Jackson-Davis to even be the best at his position in the Big Ten. Then there is 7’4″ behemoth Zach Edey at Purdue. Edey averaged 14.4 points and 7.7 rebounds as a sophomore and will likely be the focal point of the boilermakers this season.

With shoutouts to Dereck Lively II (duke) Ryan Kalkbrenner (Creighton), Colin Castleton (Florida), and Adam Sanogo (UConn), there are certainly plenty of worthy big men in college basketball this season. It will be interesting to see how media members handle the All-Conference and All-American lists.

The post 5 Storylines 25 Days Out From Faculty Basketball: Pt. 1 appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

It pays to be handy — if you’re in the right city at the right time, and you charge the right rate.

When his mother was alive, Brian Keith Schrier was her go-to handyman. “Even when I didn’t know how to do it, she had faith in me to figure it out,” he says. “I would learn how to do it. When I was young, I used to take everything apart and didn’t always get them back together. I enjoy figuring things out.”

He has worked in construction and owned a petition management company, which collected signatures for special interest groups to put issues on the ballot and, in 2014, Schrier, 45, found himself at a career crossroads. He signed up to work for TaskRabbit, the online marketplace that allows users to outsource small jobs to others that, along with other odd-job service apps such as Handy and Fiverr, partnered with Amazon Home Services earlier this month to offer handyman services.

Schrier, who lives in San Francisco, spoke to MarketWatch about how he can earn up to $14,000 a month doing odd jobs.

MarketWatch: How did you come to work as a handyman?

Schrier: I had a friend stay with me who had moved to San Francisco from Missouri and he picked up TaskRabbit for some side work, he’d come home and brag about it. He showed me all the jobs that he could pick from and talked about it until it was actually a bit of an annoyance.

MarketWatch: What do you charge?

Schrier: I charge $150 an hour. I used to do minor home repair and handyman things, but since my rate went up, mostly I do more of the specialized tasks that take a higher skill: Electrical plumbing, TV mounts and things like that. Some of the other categories like deliveries and IKEA furniture assembly, most of the people who do those charge cheaper rates, so I don’t really get picked for that anymore.

MarketWatch: What did you start out at?

Schrier: $20 to $25 an hour.

MarketWatch: Whoa! That’s quite a jump.

Schrier: I was working between 12 and 16 hours a day and I was getting way, way too much work. I didn’t know how to say no to that work. I started raising that rate to meet supply and demand. I just wanted to reduce my hours. I enjoyed fixing a problem from scratch rather than putting together IKEA furniture. It’s more important.

MarketWatch: Does it get complicated?

Schrier: Yes, if someone wants a chandelier hung but there isn’t an electrical socket. Sometimes you have to reroute the electrical wiring for that stuff.

MarketWatch: So how much are you making these days?

Schrier: I have a pretty major project in my life right now. Normally, I will work 20 to 25 hours a week. I’ve been working a bit more this month. I think I’m at about $14,000 this month.

MarketWatch: Did you say 14,000? Is that rubles or dollars?

Schrier: We have a way of checking on our app. It’s exactly $13,976 for 30 days.

MarketWatch: wow. That must have been a particularly big project. You are clearly busy. I recently had a tasker who earns about $3,000 a month, but he only charges $38 an hour and that’s in New York.

Schrier: They’ve given me a huge lift. I had to fix a door, sand and re-stain a banister and hang a chandelier.

Podcast: These blue-collar workers make $100,000 a year

MarketWatch: Yes, you really have to be careful, especially with expensive items like chandeliers. Does TaskRabbit pay you to do PR for them?

Schrier: No. TaskRabbit has done a lot for me and I’m more than happy to give back where I can. They’ve given me the freedom to work when I want to work, to take days off when I want, to pick and choose the jobs I want to do. I made a midlife career change that was really scary and it put me in a great place.

MarketWatch: Do you have children?

Schrier: I have three kids and they’re all grown, going to school and starting their own lives…

MarketWatch: Do people really pay $150 to mount a TV in San Francisco?

Schrier: At that rate they get peace of mind that I’m going to get it done right.

MarketWatch: How did you get so handy? And what’s the most common task?

Schrier: I’ve picked it up along the way. I grew up on my father’s ranch in Eastern Oregon. TV mounting is the most common task. I usually get picked for one of the most complicated mounts. Drill into their wall and make holes. I get picked a lot more for those.

MarketWatch: I am picturing a nice San Francisco townhouse and a Silicon Valley millionaire who can write complex computer codes, but doesn’t know how to use a hammer and a nail.

Schrier: The tech industry is moving into this city, starting off fresh. I do get a lot of younger clients. As far as male and female, I think it’s pretty even.

MarketWatch: Really?

Schrier: Well, I think it’s slightly more female.

MarketWatch: Has anyone ever hit on you or flirtted with you?

Schrier: I just had that experience a week ago. It wasn’t the client, it was the client’s neighbor. As soon as the client left, she told me how lonely she was. It was really awesome. All I did was bounce across the house with different tasks. So I didn’t engage in that conversation. Afterwards, it was really funny but at the time, it was more, ‘Oh, boy, lady.’ When the client came back, I told her in a lighthearted way. I didn’t want the client to feel like she had put me in a bad position.

MarketWatch: What’s the oddest job you’ve had?

Schrier: I got hired to fold T-shirts for $70 an hour. It really blew my mind that someone needed to do that. It was a startup that needed them done right away.

MarketWatch: Nice work, if you can get it.

Schrier: For some of these jobs that I do, the only other alternative is to hire a contractor. They’ll say, ‘I’ll hang that TV, but I’ll charge you for half a day’s labor.’ For me, I can hang a TV in less than an hour or access behind a bookshelf to get to a phone plug and it’s still cheaper than having a contractor. Many movers charge a four-hour minimum.

MarketWatch: Any challenging tasks?

Schrier: I will get a job when the client is really not in a good mood. That’s a little bit stressful. I’m kind of walking on egg shells. I’ve still got that job to do, but in the back of my mind I’m wondering if their world is dark like that, if that is going to spill over to me in my review.

MarketWatch: I still wouldn’t call $150 an hour cheap.

Schrier: Maybe people have gone through some bad experiences and they’re just not ready to roll the dice anymore. I get as much work as I want. With this amount of work, I could raise my rate, but at this point I really don’t want to. I’m not greedy. I’m going to keep it where it’s at.

MarketWatch: And now you have more business through Amazon AMZN, +1.49% .

Schrier: I have my first actual appearance for Amazon later today. The client’s RV has gotten some water damage. They want the roof of the RV stripped off and weather sealed and made strong enough so they can put some lawn chairs on that and hang out. The client’s out in Treasure Island.

MarketWatch: Treasure Island! That’s the perfect place to end.

(This interview was originally published in April 2015.)

The post This handyman earned $14,000 in simply 30 days appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

He stood in the corner of San Francisco’s Department of Motor Vehicles, clutching the handles of his walker and waiting for his turn to apply for an identification card. He’d lost it a few years ago, along with his home, his health and his dignity.

“I recognize those two people right there,” he whispered to me, anxiously, nodding at a man with a long braid and a young woman in a blue dress just feet away.

Ben Campofreda, 41, had smoked fentanyl many times with the pair on the sidewalks of the Tenderloin. He hoped they wouldn’t spot him.

After lifesaving surgeries and a hospital detox, he could stand instead of slumping in his old wheelchair. His long hair, once grimy, was cut short. He wore clean clothes.

Ben had been sober for four months by that September afternoon and aimed to keep it that way. Reconnecting with anyone from his old life, he figured, could jeopardize that. Fortunately, his former friends took no notice of him.

“I love that nobody recognizes me,” he said. “There’s a rumor on the streets that I died on the operating table. I told my dad about that, and he said, ‘Good. Let everybody think that you’re dead.’”

The rumor may be more believable than the truth — Ben had managed to kick fentanyl, the terribly powerful and addictive opioid that has radically changed San Francisco. He told me that of all the friends he made smoking “fetty” on city streets, 40 had overdosed and died. Just one, he said, is in recovery.

I’ve been following Ben since late August because his story exemplifies so much about the cruelty of a city that makes it far easier to buy deadly drugs than to access treatment to leave them behind. But his journey shows there’s hope for the legions of people like him dotting the Tenderloin and South of Market districts in a fentanyl-fueled fugue, often sprawled on the sidewalks or folded over where they stand.

With the help of family and friends, talented health care workers and the resolute determination to be free of addiction, a better life is possible. But the obstacles are significant. The question as I kept in touch with Ben was whether he could hold on to his new sobriety and avoid falling back into the chaos of life on the drug.

In the DMV, the numbers ticked.

“Lucky 13!” Ben said. “I’m next! All right, I’m ready.”

Ben Campofreda, about age 7, at his grandparents’ house in Virginia

Courtesy Judi Johnson

Ben Campofreda, in his early 20s, at a restaurant celebrating his great-grandmother Mary’s birthday.

Courtesy Judi Johnson

Left: Ben Campofreda, about age 7, at his grandparents’ house in Virginia. Right: Campofreda, in his early 20s, at a restaurant celebrating his great-grandmother Mary’s birthday. Photos provided by Judi Johnson. At top of story: Campofreda walks through San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood to catch a bus to his drug treatment program.
Top: Ben Campofreda, about age 7, at his grandparents’ house in Virginia. Above: Campofreda, in his early 20s, at a restaurant celebrating his great-grandmother Mary’s birthday. Photos provided by Judi Johnson. At top of story: Campofreda walks through San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood to catch a bus to his drug treatment program.

Ben, who grew up in Virginia, developed spinal stenosis as a teenager; a lack of space in the backbone puts pressure on nerves in his spine. By 20, he had constant, extreme back pain.

A doctor prescribed Oxycodone, and Ben loved both the relief from his pain and the energy the pills gave him. Within a couple years, he’d developed a serious addiction, consuming an entire month’s supply of 120 pills in a day by crushing and snorting them. He found an M.D. who would write prescriptions for more for $100 a pop and supplemented all that by buying pills on the street.

This allowed him to live a successful life as a snowboarding instructor in Colorado, then as a sound engineer and production manager who toured with musicians including the rapper Macklemore.

But the addiction grew stronger, and buying all those pills was expensive. In his early thirties, Ben switched to heroin, which was cheaper.

He moved to Santa Clara with a girlfriend six years ago to be near her family, working remotely for a Colorado company that provides online courses to educate people about cannabis, including how to run successful dispensaries and how to cook with it. He tried to hide his worsening dependence on opioids from his girlfriend, but she was suspicious of his increasingly strange behavior and dumped him after catching him smoking heroin on a camping trip.

His boss fired him too after Ben was high and incoherent during a weed conference in Seattle.

Next came a stint in an RV that he parked in Millbrae, providing an easy starting point for Uber rides into the city to buy heroin. When his RV broke down and was impounded, he couldn’t afford to get it out. So he settled into life on the streets of the Tenderloin, never calling one corner home, but just wandering.

Almost immediately, someone stole his backpack with his wallet and phone. And finally he did what so many have done: He switched to fentanyl, which was cheaper than heroin and far stronger.

He funded his addiction by dumpster-diving, explaining to me that many San Franciscans are so rich that they throw away clothes with tags on them, sunglasses, electronics and toys. He sold whatever items he could salvage by spreading them on a tarp or a blanket at Sixth and Market streets at night.

He often ate breakfast, used the bathroom and got toiletries at Glide Memorial Church or St. Anthony’s and got more goods from outreach workers.

“There was a lot of food offered,” he said. “People would hand out tents and sleeping bags, toothbrushes, deodorant, harm-reduction supplies. They would give out meth pipes, crack pipes, aluminum foil.”

The drugs were the easiest to score of all — dealers were everywhere, and fentanyl was dirt-cheap — and soon his life was entirely centered around scoring his next hit.

“The dealers figured out the science of that one real good,” he said of fentanyl. “It’s a jackpot for them. You constantly need it, you constantly want it and you’ll do anything you can to get it.”

A cop, every so often, would approach him in the Tenderloin and tell him to put his drugs away. He doesn’t recall a single outreach worker offering him treatment on the street, even as the city’s drug crisis grew so severe that one or two people, on average, died of overdoses every day.

He rarely slept at night, using methamphetamines to stay awake, and sometimes stretched out on a pew at St. Boniface Church to doze during the day.

“Everywhere else,” he said, “you’ll just get robbed.”

He managed to get by OK for a while, but then an infection in his legs made its way into his spine, and he couldn’t walk. He became confined to a wheelchair, unable to use the bathroom or get food without help. He normally weighed 170 pounds, but as his health grew worse, he shrunk to a startling 100 pounds. His hands grew red and puffy, a common symptom of opioid use.

“I wasn’t taking care of myself at all,” Ben said. “I didn’t know what was wrong with me.”

Campofreda on the streets of San Francisco shortly before his friend took him to UCSF in the spring for medical help and to beat his addiction.

Courtesy James Nugent

One thousand two hundred and seventy four. By the count of Judi Johnson, that’s the number of days her son was homeless.

“San Francisco reminds me of a Mad Max movie,” she said. “It’s beautiful and the weather’s nice, but I don’t understand how you can let people do drugs on the street like that. It’s not compassion. It didn’t seem like there was any help.”

She flew to the city from Virginia four times to visit Ben and was shocked by his worsening health. The skinny, filthy man in the wheelchair looked nothing like her little boy.

“He was gaunt. He was sick. He was off-color. He had sores,” she said, crying at the memory. “It just broke me. It still hurts to think about it.”

She found him easily each time just by walking around, then offered him help like food, hotel stays and phones he kept losing.

“I never went there thinking I could change him,” she said. “I just hoped Ben would see how much I loved him and come back.”

He didn’t, and when the pandemic struck, she stopped flying out west. She worried about her son during the day and dreamed of him at night, joining a growing number of parents whose children are addicted, homeless and lost here.

“San Francisco reminds me of a Mad Max movie.”

— Judi Johnson

Allison Lawler, 33, Googled her old college boyfriend on Valentine’s Day of this year on a whim. She found Ben’s name and photo in an online essay about San Francisco’s homeless people and their pets. Shocked, she flew south from Oregon.

Arriving one weekend in March, she found her once-vibrant and athletic companion sitting in his own waste in a wheelchair in United Nations Plaza, his back wrecked, his skeletal body nearly folded in half. He was, she recalled, “continuously smoking drugs and having uncontrollable twitches.”

Mayor London Breed had by then opened the Tenderloin Center in the plaza, with a goal of linking the city’s most vulnerable people to housing and treatment, but Lawler learned that it offered no assistance on weekends.

She initially booked a room at the Phoenix Hotel in the Tenderloin, planning to clean Ben up and accompany him to the center that Monday. But after she realized her friend had open, feces-infected sores on his legs, she called 911 against his wishes.

She urged the paramedics who arrived to place him under an involuntary psychiatric hold. They said they couldn’t. One, Lawler said, suggested she wait until Ben fell unconscious from the infection in his legs, then call 911 again. That made no sense to her.

“It’s a slow suicide, right?” she said. “Who are we protecting by letting someone die on the streets?”

Lawler returned in April on a weekday to visit the Tenderloin Center. She said she spent a frustrating day there with Ben, who smoked fentanyl in an outdoor area. (The practice was allowed and may have saved lives, with workers able to administer the antidote Narcan to those who overdosed.)

While the staff was kind, she said, the programs didn’t seem coordinated, and finding housing for someone in a wheelchair seemed particularly difficult. After many hours, staff members gave Campofreda a spot at the Cova Hotel on Ellis Street. But the bathroom wasn’t big enough for his wheelchair and he didn’t stay. Lawler went home again, defeated.

In the nearly 11 months it was open, people made about 123,000 visits to the Tenderloin Center, where basics like food and laundry were plentiful. Center staff members reported making 1,500 connections to housing or shelter, but there were only 397 “linkages” to mental health or substance abuse services.

Whether those referrals were successful is unclear. The city didn’t measure outcomes, a lost opportunity to help more people like Ben recover.

Breed had pitched the center as a conduit to longer-term care. By that measure, it failed. And rather than work to improve it, Breed this month shuttered it with nothing new to take its place for the more than 7,700 people in the city who are homeless and the untold number who are struggling with addiction.

I wanted to ask the mayor about the closure of the Tenderloin Center and whether she considers the city’s treatment system effective, but multiple requests for interviews with her over three weeks were not granted.

James Nugent, one of Ben’s best friends, was trying to find him, too, calling police, homeless aid groups and even the city morgue.

His breakthrough came after contacting Miracle Messages, a nonprofit that aims to reconnect unhoused people with their families. Soon after Nugent called, one of the group’s volunteer detectives, Liz Breuilly, called him back and agreed to search for Ben, finding him quickly.

Nugent flew in from Washington, D.C., in May, met Breuilly and then found his friend smoking fentanyl in United Nations Plaza, his head covered by a dirty jacket.

“He’d hit his drugs and then all of a sudden would be in la-la land for 45 minutes to an hour and then do it again,” Nugent said.

When some addicts fell unconscious, he noticed, dealers stole their belongings. Police officers were scarce. Meanwhile, office workers strolled through the plaza carrying bags of Whole Foods groceries, ignoring the scene around them.

“It looked like a war zone,” Nugent said. “And no one was doing anything about it.”

At one point, Ben asked Nugent to lift one of his legs onto the footrest of the wheelchair because it was dragging on the ground, and he couldn’t raise it. Nugent felt warm liquid. “He was actually peeing on me,” he said.

That was it. He told his friend he was going home and wouldn’t visit again. “I said, ‘I don’t want to remember you like this. I want to remember the good times.’ I think that hit him hard.”

Nugent left for his hotel, but soon received a call from Breuilly. Ben had called her to say he was finally ready to get help.

When they met at 9 the next morning, Breuilly told Nugent to take Ben to UCSF Medical Center, where he would have a better chance at obtaining long-term, intense help than at the smaller hospitals nearer the Tenderloin.

After arriving at UCSF, Nugent and Ben said, medical staff removed Ben’s soiled pants. Maggots fell out of the sores on his legs. Doctors later told Nugent that Ben, if he remained outside the hospital, would have died within a week.

That was May 15. It was the last day Ben used fentanyl or any other illicit drug, he told me. He marks May 16 as his sober date — the day he began to come back to life.

Ben arrived at UCSF Medical Center with osteomyelitis and discitis, severe bacterial infections in his lower back. The infections had eroded his two lowest vertebrae and spread to his tailbone. He was extremely skinny and, in the words of Dr. Alekos Theologis, a UCSF orthopedic surgeon, “depleted of all nutrition.”

“People who are addicted to drugs and who are malnourished and who have a compromised immune system are prone to these infections,” he told me.

What came next, Theologis said, was “miraculous.”

The treatment by a team of surgeons, doctors, nurses, nutritionists, social workers and others began with a complicated surgery to remove bone that was pressing on the nerves in Ben’s back. A second surgery included cutting out the infection and using a metal cage to reconstruct his spine.

Over the summer in the hospital, Ben began to recover the use of his legs. He gained more than 50 pounds. “Even though his recovery was slow, I must say that it was dramatic,” Theologis said.

The team gave him the anesthetic drug ketamine to ease his withdrawal and later prescribed him methadone for the same purpose upon discharge.

Ben, who is on Medi-Cal and paid nothing for his stay, said someone in the hospital told him his care cost more than $1 million. Theologis said he didn’t know the exact figure, but that the estimate “was very possible.”

Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a UCSF professor of addiction medicine who didn’t work on Ben’s case, called Ben’s transformation “a welcome miracle.” He said he doesn’t know how many people like Ben recover from fentanyl addiction, but called it “unfortunately low.”

“Even though his recovery was slow, I must say that it was dramatic.”

— Dr. Alekos Theologis

Fentanyl is highly potent and addictive. Treatment slots are too few. The federal government heavily regulates methadone to treat it, limiting its availability and requiring frequent trips to licensed opioid treatment facilities to access small quantities. Another drug, buprenorphine, isn’t effective until after a few days of painful withdrawal, Ciccarone said, noting that many patients give up in the meantime.

“You have to be lucky and persistent and know people and be motivated and be ready to go through all the hard work that it means to go through recovery all at the same time,” he said. “People do it, and I find it utterly remarkable and extraordinary.”

Ben, his family and his friends praised the hospital for devoting so much time and effort to him. But at his discharge in August, the city’s lack of a coherent treatment system became clear.

Ben needed to stay nearby for follow-up appointments, but UCSF social workers could not find a good place for him to go.

They recommended a medical respite facility at Eighth and Mission streets. But the corner teemed with drug dealers, and Ben said he had a panic attack when told that was his best option. The only other place the social worker could find, he said, was a medical respite facility in Oakland.

Ben went there with a prescribed stash of painkillers for his back and methadone to curb his cravings, expecting someone would keep it for him and dole it out in small quantities. Nobody did. He stayed alone in a room with piles of drugs, frantically trying to find a program that fit his needs.

In late August, Breuilly, the Miracle Messages detective, reached out to me. She’d been phoning her contacts, asking where someone who had three months of sobriety and no home could go. She couldn’t find anything.

Ben Campofreda, a recovering fentanyl addict, walks back from the pharmacy in Oakland, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 2, 2022. He is recovering from multiple surgeries in a respite in Oakland before seeking drug treatment.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

“I’m so desperate to help him, I could just scream,” she told me in one of our conversations. “He is scared to death. He doesn’t leave his room.”

Ben and I started chatting, and he provided regular updates. He said he left “dozens” of messages at city agencies and treatment centers, but either didn’t get calls back or received contradictory information.

“It’s been a lot harder than I planned,” he said. “They keep asking me if I have a case worker, but they can’t tell me how to find one.”

A UCSF social worker suggested he visit the Tenderloin Center — and he did, wearing a ball cap, sunglasses and COVID face mask as a disguise in hopes of avoiding his old friends.

He’d visited the center about a dozen times before, but only to smoke fentanyl and meth in the back, lured by free meth pipes and the ease of bumming drugs off fellow users. He said San Francisco should create overdose-prevention sites, but also drug-free places to seek treatment.

“I was literally looking out a window watching someone use while I’m trying to find rehab and trying to stay sober,” he said.

“I’m so desperate to help him, I could just scream.”

— Liz Breuilly, Miracle Messages volunteer

Ben said he visited the center five times in the fall, but it never led to much help. Once, after being assessed for housing, he said he was told he didn’t qualify. Another time, he said a staffer recommended visiting the office of HealthRight360, a treatment program, “to introduce himself.”

He said a staffer at HealthRight360 asked why he was there since he was already sober. “I’d like to stay that way,” he responded. He said he was told it was too late in the day to enter the nonprofit group’s detox program, but that he could come back the next day and try again.

UCSF provided car rides from Oakland, but needed several days of advance notice. Ben said he wanted to make sure HealthRight360 could place him immediately if he went back. He said he called the nonprofit and left messages that weren’t returned.

He grew increasingly frantic. He knew his recovery was fragile.

Ben should have been able to get treatment at any hour of any day. San Francisco voters in 2008 passed a measure mandating it. But 14 years later, the city is far from reaching it.

At a recent Board of Supervisors hearing, officials with the Department of Public Health were adamant that San Francisco offers treatment on demand, but advocates say that’s not true.

San Francisco has no nighttime or weekend options for seeking treatment, makes little effort to proactively educate people addicted to drugs about treatment options, and offers no navigators to help people figure out the bureaucratic treatment system once they’re ready. For people like Ben, who are already on the edge, the system needs to be a lot more supportive. Any delay or confusion can be devastating.

Department of Public Health officials said in a statement that 4,544 people received drug treatment — including methadone to curb cravings, outpatient treatment and residential treatment — through its programs in 2021. The wait time for methadone programs is less than one day, and the wait time for 90-day residential drug treatment is four days, they said.

The department said people seeking treatment should visit the Behavioral Health Access Center at 1380 Howard St., from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays, or call the center 24 hours a day at 415-255-3737.

I called the number recently and, as a test, asked how someone can get treatment for a fentanyl addiction.

The call-taker said to visit the Howard Street center, but noted it was open for intake only from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays and was closed for two hours Wednesday afternoons. He said detox was usually available quickly, but that securing outpatient or residential treatment could take up to two weeks.

Critics of the city’s system say people addicted to drugs often hit rock bottom at night or on weekends and that if they can’t get immediate help, they may seek fentanyl.

I described Ben’s plight to Dr. Hillary Kunins, the city’s behavioral health director. “It’s important feedback for us to receive, and we want to make sure people know how to get help,” she said, noting she intends to expand the hours for the Howard Street facility.

She said outreach teams do “motivational interviewing” in which they ask addicts what they need but also urge them to change their behavior.

But Sara Shortt, co-chair of the Treatment on Demand Coalition, an advocacy group, said the city needs to improve its treatment services and ensure that people addicted to drugs know about them and can access them.

“Much more public education needs to be put out there, and in some cases, people really need more navigators or case managers or people who are going to hold their hand through the process,” she said. “All of that is nonexistent for the most part.”

San Francisco has a new advocate for people like Ben in Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who’s in recovery himself after years of alcohol and crystal meth addiction. He smartly wants to task police with keeping dealers away from blocks with treatment facilities. He wants treatment intake available 24/7, a 311-like call center for people seeking help and a response team available to pick them up within an hour and help them navigate the process.

He said he recently helped a friend addicted to crystal meth access treatment, a process he found frustrating and confusing.

“This is never going to be the issue of the month for me,” he said. “I consider it the obligation of my survival.”

Ben made a Sept. 22 morning appointment at HealthRight360, and I asked permission to attend. That’s when things finally clicked. They told him he could move into a treatment facility on the edge of Buena Vista Park that day.

“That’s awesome!” Ben said. “I’m stoked.”

Getting into detox can happen quickly if someone shows up by 3 p.m., said Vitka Eisen, executive director of the nonprofit. But she acknowledged that a city that truly offered treatment on demand would have it available all day, every day and would be more explicit about how to get the help. She said a staffing shortage has made offering immediate treatment even more challenging.

I visited Ben at the Buena Vista Park facility the following week, and he seemed calm and happy. He described attending morning meetings in the chapel and walking in circles around the large room in the afternoon for exercise. He attended online Narcotics Anonymous meetings and had been connected to a doctor, a psychiatrist and a dentist to pull meth-rotted teeth.

“It’s been really great here,” he said. “The program is awesome now that I’m in it.”

After a couple of weeks, he moved to a longer-term treatment facility on Hayes Street. Now, he can go for walks outside. All participants must perform jobs; he folds laundry.

He talks to his parents every day, and numerous friends have visited. He voted on Election Day and celebrated Thanksgiving at the facility with turkey and stuffing. He’s recording a podcast called “Rehab Undercover.” Perhaps most stunningly, he no longer needs his walker and can walk and climb stairs with ease.

Ben Campofreda is dropped off at HealthRIGHT 360 in San Francisco, Calif., Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. Campofreda began his 90 day-residential treatment in his attempt to stop his fentanyl addiction.

Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle

Ben Campofreda arrives at HealthRIGHT 360 in San Francisco, Calif., Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. Campofreda began his 90 day-residential treatment in his attempt to stop his fentanyl addiction. He sits in an office to process his paperwork before going to the treatment center.

Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle

Left: Ben Campofreda is dropped off at HealthRIGHT 360 in San Francisco on Sept.Santiago Mejia 22. Right: He sits in an office to process his paperwork before being admitted to the treatment center. Photos by Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle
Top: Ben Campofreda is dropped off at HealthRIGHT 360 in San Francisco on Sept.Santiago Mejia 22. Above: He sits in an office to process his paperwork before being admitted to the treatment center. Photos by Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle

Campofreda walks through HealthRight360’s Walden House in San Francisco, where he was undergoing his drug rehabilitation.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

Ben Campofreda, a recovering fentanyl addict, shows off his bracelet reading “ Every Day Counts” while in his room in rehab at Walden House in San Francisco, Calif., on Saturday, Nov. 6, 2022. He is recovering from multiple surgeries while getting drug treatment.

Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

Ben Campofreda, a recovering fentanyl addict, (right) meets with his therapist to discuss his progress in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022. He is recovering from multiple surgeries while getting drug treatment.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

Ben Campofreda, a recovering fentanyl addict, organizes a piece of laundry at his drug rehabilitation program at Walden House where hopeful messages are on the walls in San Francisco, Calif., on Saturday, Nov. 6, 2022. He is recovering from multiple surgeries while getting drug treatment.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

Left: Ben Campofreda shows off his bracelet reading “ Every Day Counts.” Top right: He meets with his therapist to discuss his progress. Bottom right: Campofreda does laundry at his drug rehabilitation program at Walden House in San Francisco. Photos by Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle
Top: Ben Campofreda shows off his bracelet reading “ Every Day Counts.” Middle: He meets with his therapist to discuss his progress. Above: Campofreda does laundry at his drug rehabilitation program at Walden House in San Francisco. Photos by Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

Ben Campofreda organizes chairs in a meeting room at Walden House’s 30-day detox center in San Francisco.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

He plans to enter a HealthRight360 step-down facility where he’ll be able to live for a year or two while getting help seeking a job. He hopes to become a drug counselor.

Dec. 16 marks his seven-month-sober date. His mom and friends still can’t believe their happy, healthy guy is back. A miracle, his mom calls it. Like winning the lottery, his ex-girlfriend said. As good an outcome as one could have possibly hoped, his surgeon told me.

He goes back to his old stomping grounds for methadone appointments and no longer worries about getting recognized by his old friends.

“I hope that when people see me out there and see what I’m doing, it can maybe be a glimmer of hope for them,” he said.

And he no longer worries much about succumbing to the lure of fentanyl.

“Actually, it’s the complete opposite,” he said. “I can’t believe that s— had such a crazy hold on me. It’s like being held hostage.”

But now, at last, he’s free.

Heather Knight is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf

Campofreda greets a friend he had used drugs with on the streets after a therapy session in San Francisco.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

The post He was days from demise. Right here’s how he kicked fentanyl and bought off San Francisco’s streets appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Research objective

The market research report on the “HVAC Systems Market” has been released by Rowelto Associates, with an overview of the market size, turnover, various segmentations, growth factors, restraining factors, and regional branch presence. The objective of the Rowelto Associates market investigation is to analyze the ‘HVAC Systems Industry’ in detail and to provide detailed information about the industry. The research also offers an insight into COVID 19’s influence on the sector and comparisons of income both before and after the epidemic. In summary, the customer gains in-depth knowledge about industries and business from a historical, current, and future point of view and may invest in money and correctly deploy resources.

the HVAC Systems Market report aids to concentrate on the important aspects of the market. All statistical and numerical information given in the report is symbolized with the help of graphs and charts which facilitates the understanding of facts and figures. In addition, this market research report predicts the size of the market with information on key vendor revenues, development of the industry by upstream & downstream, industry progress, key companies, and segment type & market application. The HVAC Systems Market report has been formed by using information from trustworthy sources such as journals, websites, and annual reports of the companies, white papers, and mergers.

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The worldwide pandemic was followed by a supply side shock due to disruption in the supply networks. The COVID pandemic has a big market impact, since over xx% of unit sales are impeded by disruptions to the manufacturers’ transportation capacities because of rigorous lock-out standards and increased safety concerns. It made it difficult for industries to continue throughout Europe to shut down industries because of a shortage of manpower. With lessening lockdowns, followed by relaxation in the following months, supply eventually began to satisfy demand. In the next few months and the projection term, companies are very likely to gain traction.

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This report segments the Global HVAC Systems Market

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• Heat pumps
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• residential
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Global HVAC Systems Market Regional Analysis:

• North America (US, Canada, Mexico)
• Europe (UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Central & Eastern Europe, CIS)
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• Latin America (Brazil, Rest of LA)
• Middle East And Africa(Turkey, GCC, Rest of Middle East)

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• To provide historically and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries-North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America and Rest of the World.
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Company profiles

Rowelto provides high-quality market research services at a convenient cost. We are a global leader in market research, able to reach as many nations as feasible. We provide one-of-a-kind data collection services in various industries and ensure that our insights are unique and objective. We’ve assembled a global research unit and advisors familiar with your role, company, and sector.

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Video restorer NASS, who has a passion for restoring and upscaling old videos using neural networks, has breathed new life into footage of a busy San Francisco street originally shot on April 14, 1906.

The scene was shot from a cable car that was traveling eastbound down Market Street in San Francisco from between 8th and 9th Streets until it reaches the car turnaround point at the Ferry Building. The footage was shot just four days before a massive and tragic earthquake hit the city, sparking a massive fire that nearly brought the city to its ruin.

The original footage is stored with the Prelinger Archives in San Francisco and was produced by “moving picture photographers” Harry, Herbert, Earle, and Joe Miles. The brothers hand-cranked the Bell & Howell camera that they had placed on the front of a streetcar during the strip to the Ferry Building. Just a few days later when the brothers were on the way to New York they learned about the 7.8 magnitude earthquake and its destructive force. They then sent the negative to New York to be processed and returned to the Bay Area city to discover that their studios had been destroyed.

The technique NASS used to enhance the video follows his previous colorization techniques. The first step he takes involves boosting the frame rate to 60 frames per second, after which he upscales the image resolution to high definition, before working to improve the video’s sharpness and brightness. At this point, the footage is colorized and sounds are added to provide additional environmental tone and feel. Once these steps are done, the entire package is then stabilized, cleaned, denoised, and deblurred to complete the restoration process to be as close to today’s standards as he can obtain.

NASS, who says the goal of the colorization is to create an aesthetic rather than for accuracy, says as much to his viewers. The actual colors of many of the things captured in these old frames have been lost to history.

“Please, be aware that colorization colors are not real and [are] fake, colorization was made only for the ambiance and does not represent real historical data.”

Colorization is a contentious topic among historians. While some say it helps make important historical events more interesting for a modern audience, others argue that the practice does more harm than good and takes away from the original intent of the capture.

The post Colorized Footage of San Francisco Taken 4 Days Earlier than 1906 Fireplace appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Day 9 of 13 Days of Giveaways – Basset HVAC & Plumbing – KRDO circle-arrow Play Button Stop Button chevron-right chevron-left chevron-up search warning chevron-left-skinny chevron-right-skinny x clock calendar play-button cancel- circle user twitter facebook youtube instagram email linkedin Skip to Content

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SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) – Another day… another record-breaking San Francisco home sale.

It’s becoming a trend in Bay Area real estate.

Berkeley tops list of homes sold over asking price

464 Lansdale Ave in San Francisco just sold for $3.5 million, which was 40% over the initial listing price of $2.5 million.

The home received three offers, all of which were more than $500,000 over asking, according to Compass real estate agents Richard Woo and Holly Phan.

“We didn’t price the house low – it was priced based on area comps so when we saw the offer come in at more than $1 million over asking with no contingencies, it was amazing and we thought, is this real?” Woo said.

“But the timing was right, the location was good, and the seller did everything you could think of to modernize the home. Even so, the offer was amazing to him too.”

The home has been completely remodeled and features a wall of windows that open up to panoramic city and bay views.

The seller bought the house from the same Compass real estate agents just two years ago for $1.4 million.

Housing boom: Why people are paying thousands more than the asking price

“While this was the highest over asking offer we’ve received in our real estate careers, we had another record-breaking San Francisco sale in August at 1455 27th Avenue that received 16 offers in 6 days and sold for almost 58 percent over asking and was not underpriced either,” Woo said.

“People will pay premium right now when the house is prepared right.”

The post ‘Is that this actual?’: San Francisco house sells for $1 million over asking value in 3 days appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) – Another day, another record-breaking San Francisco home sale.

It’s becoming a trend in Bay Area real estate.

464 Lansdale Ave in San Francisco just sold for $3.5 million, which was 40% over the initial listing price of $2.5 million.

The home received three offers, all of which were more than $500,000 over asking, according to Compass real estate agents Richard Woo and Holly Phan.

“We didn’t price the house low — it was priced based on area comps, so when we saw the offer come in at more than $1 million over asking with no contingencies, it was amazing and we thought, is this real?” Woo said.

‘Succession’ condo hits the market in NYC for $23 million

“But the timing was right, the location was good, and the seller did everything you could think of to modernize the home. Even so, the offer was amazing to him too.”

The home has been completely remodeled and features a wall of windows that open up to panoramic city and bay views.

The seller bought the house from the same Compass real estate agents just two years ago for $1.4 million.

“While this was the highest over-asking offer we’ve received in our real estate careers, we had another record-breaking San Francisco sale in August at 1455 27th Avenue that received 16 offers in 6 days and sold for almost 58% over asking and was not underpriced either,” Woo said.

“People will pay premium right now when the house is prepared right.”

The post ‘Is that this actual?’: San Francisco dwelling sells for $1 million over asking value in 3 days appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

It’s going to be a soggy holiday week with rain in the forecast for the next eight days straight through Christmas Day and potentially for several days beyond that and up until the end of the year, the National Weather Service said.

Between Monday and Dec. 26, the weather service is predicting 2 to 3 inches of rain in urban areas including San Francisco and Oakland and up to 5 inches of rain in the coastal mountain ranges of the North Bay. The Santa Cruz Mountains and the Santa Lucia Range in Big Sur could record over 6 inches of rain.

“We already had a wet December and we’re looking to continue this pattern, probably close to the end of the month,” said Brooke Bingaman, a forecaster with the weather service.

This is good news for the drought-ridden San Francisco Bay Area. The region along with all of California is facing low water supply after two, consecutive dry winters. This year the rainy season is getting off to a wet start and Brian Garcia with the weather service said that rainfall totals at most locations across the Bay Area since Oct. 1 are running at least 200% of normal for this time of year.

Light rain and drizzle are in the forecast Monday night as the first storm of the week approaches the region. The system is expected to first arrive in the North Bay Tuesday morning, and gradually push southward Tuesday afternoon but, Bingaman says, several waves of rain will continue into Tuesday night and Wednesday.

“That first significant rain comes in Tuesday,” she explained. “Right now there is a low-pressure system that’s sitting out over the Pacific Ocean. It’s centered due west of the Oregon-California border. A low-pressure storm system rotates counter clockwise, and the moisture associated with that storm is going to rotate into California. That’s how we get several waves, the moisture rotates around it.”

A second system traveling from western Canada is forecast to push into the region in the Wednesday-Thursday timeframe and will be absorbed by the first storm. Rain chances continue through the weekend.

“We’re in this trough pattern and it just keeps evolving and lingering all over the West Coast of North America,” Bingaman said.

Beyond the weekend, models are suggesting a possibility of rain through the end of the year though the chances are less than they are this week. It’s more challenging to predict the weather beyond seven days and the weather service will fine-tune the forecast for next week in coming days.

“The good thing for us is we’re getting this rain spread out for many days,” she said. “We’ll get good precipitation coming in gradually but consistently. That will help with the drought but because it’s spread over so much time that will lessen the risk of major flooding or major burn scar debris flows. We could still have some localized flooding or Land movement but because we’re not getting a fire hose of rain over a short amount of time, it’ll mitigate that risk.”

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The highly infectious variant of Omicron appears to be well established in the Bay Area and is likely to fuel outbreaks and early spikes in COVID cases across the region, health officials said Tuesday.

Case numbers in San Francisco have doubled in the past five days, almost certainly due to the spread of omicrons in the community, said Dr. Grant Colfax, Head of the Department of Health. He said the city has now identified 32 Omicron cases, but he suspects there are many more.

The variant is also the likely source of a major COVID outbreak in Marin County that infected more than half of those attending a Christmas party. At Stanford, nearly three-quarters of the virus samples screened for variants in the past week appear to be omicrons, said Dr. Ben Pinksy, director of the clinical virology laboratory that performs genome sequencing for several Bay Area counties.

“It has really picked up speed over the last week. We went from very few to essentially the most omicrons, ”Pinksy said. “I think almost all cases will soon be omicron.”

The soaring tide from Omicron is reported across California and resulted in Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday saying he would soon have all health care workers boosted in addition to a full vaccination. Studies are increasingly showing that Omicron is better able to evade vaccine immunity than previous variants, but boosters appear to numb infection and prevent serious illness.

Bay Area health officials are preparing for a spate of Omicron cases in the coming weeks or even days as Omicron spreads across the country at an amazing rate. The first US case of Omicron was reported in San Francisco on December 1, and by last week the variant accounted for three-quarters of the cases nationwide, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In response to swelling cases across the country, President Biden announced new maneuvers to combat Omicron on Tuesday, including plans to ship half a billion rapid test kits to American households and deploy thousands of federal health workers to parts of the country to deal with an intolerable burden of hospitals to expect.

Much remains uncertain how an omicron surge would play out in the United States, and especially in high-vaccine places like the Bay Area. Local health officials say they are concerned that even if most of the cases caused by Omicron are mild, a massive spike – potentially causing a more widespread disease than any previous spike – could overwhelm hospitals or disrupt basic services like education or transportation .

“It’s so difficult to get our collective minds under it because Omicron is moving at a breathtaking speed,” said Dr. Sara Cody, Santa Clara County Health Officer. “It’s difficult for us humans to keep up with this virus.”

Kaiser Permanente Tent, 2350 Geary Blvd .; Monday-Friday, 8.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m.

Chinese Hospital, 845 Jackson St .; Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (closed from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.)

San Francisco General Hospital, 1001 Potrero Ave., Building 30; Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Southeast Health Center, 2401 Keith St .; Open Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-4.30 p.m., Thursday until 7 p.m.

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Omicron appears to be taking over at a particularly challenging time in the Bay Area – just days before Christmas, a holiday many residents wanted to celebrate two or three weeks ago with little fear of COVID given the overall high vaccination rates.

Health officials said they wouldn’t stop people from gathering for the holidays this year. But the new variant, which is heavily mutated and potentially better able to evade immunity and infect even fully vaccinated individuals, poses new risks.

According to Bay Area health officials, there is an urgent need for anyone who has been fully vaccinated for at least six months to receive a booster, if they haven’t already. “What is worrying is that vaccination may not offer much protection in people who are not given a booster,” said Dr. Chris Farnitano, Contra Costa County Health Officer. “A booster shot may not protect you from a mild illness, but it should protect you from a serious illness.”

Cody noted that the Bay Area’s robust vaccine uptake could make the region a little more susceptible to Omicron than other parts of the country, given that so many people were vaccinated early, which means their antibody immunity has now faded.

“We were in great shape and now the immunity is off and we all need to be strengthened,” said Cody. “Now if I could hire anyone eligible in the county to increase, I would wave my wand and do that.”

Omicron has not yet turned into a regional surge in coronavirus cases, although numbers are rising across the Bay Area. On Monday, the region reported about 1,100 cases a day, about double what it was a month ago. Hospital stays have also increased by around 20%.

But local health officials said they see worrying signs of an impending spike and have no reason to believe the region will be spared the spate of cases already reported in other parts of the country.

Preliminary reports in San Francisco show the case rate doubled from December 13 to December 18 – from about 10 cases per 100,000 people per day to 21 cases per 100,000, according to Colfax. “And I expect that case rate will double every two to three days,” he said.

“If Delta COVID was on steroids, Omicron COVID is on speed,” Colfax said. “It’s so much more transferable.”

Colfax noted that while only 32 Omicron cases have been reported to date, San Francisco should assume this is much more widespread – a concern that is being echoed by health officials across the Bay Area, even in counties that still support Omicron have not identified.

“We haven’t contacted Omicron yet, but we expect there are many cases in San Mateo County,” said Dr. Curtis Chan, the assistant health officer. Coronavirus cases had risen in San Mateo County for about two weeks, he said, attributing the rise to Delta and Omikron.

In Alameda County – which identified one of the first omicron outbreaks in the country in early December, among a group of healthcare workers who attended an out-of-state wedding – cases are also rising, likely due to the new variant, said Dr. Nicholas Moss, the health officer.

Like his colleagues, Moss advised people to make more arrangements than they might originally intended for holiday celebrations. Ideally, people would do quick tests before attending a gathering, Moss said, though he acknowledged the tests can now be hard to find.

But aside from the tests, he and other health officials said people should consider skipping large holiday parties and focusing on smaller get-togethers with close family members. They should try to gather outdoors whenever possible and open windows and doors if they need to meet indoors. People should wear face covering around those at high risk.

“We have now reached the point where the mental health needs – the human needs – of being with loved ones and friends are so important,” said Dr. Karen Relucio, Napa County’s Health Officer. “We don’t want to tell people what to do. People have to decide individually whether to take this risk. “

The Chronicle’s author, Catherine Ho, contributed to this report.

Erin Allday is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: eallday@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @erinallday

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