Yvonne Hinde opens her fridge to reveal three big bottles of water. There are two buckets full in her garden. “We have to be prepared,” she says. She isn’t being dramatic. Like other residents of Everton in Bedfordshire, Hinde, 59, a childminder, can no longer take running water for granted.

Since the start of July the supply has been severely interrupted or cut off five times. Often the taps run dry for hours at a time. The problems have forced the pub to close and the village school to tell children to stay at home. “It makes life really difficult,” says Hinde, who is forced to close her business when the water isn’t running.

Amid extreme heat and a drought warning covering the region, Hinde and Everton’s other residents fear the situation will get worse. The village, in farmland between Bedford and Cambridge and home to about 500 people, is one of the hottest and driest spots in England.

Map of where hosepipe bans are and where they are likely

Even before the record-breaking temperatures it had been struggling with its supply, because of old pipes that often burst and pumping equipment that villagers say cannot cope with demand.

Add to that the fact that the village is slightly uphill from the source at the end of a water line, and the heightened demand in the hot weather, and it’s a “perfect storm,” says Everton parish council chair Andy Simpson, 70, who Regularly fills five five-liter containers with water to keep as a backup supply.

“The extreme heat is a particular concern: the hotter the temperatures, the more people need water, and the more outages there are for us,” he says. “There’s this nagging fear all the time that the water isn’t going to be there.”

Jo Neville, who works as a nurse, is forced to have back-up supplies on hand at all times. Photographer: Fabio De Paola/The Observer

Many villagers have become accustomed to the lack of a reliable supply. Jo Neville, 54, a resident of 16 years, keeps five bottles in the fridge. It’s enough to keep the family – Jo, husband Andy, 56, and their three teenage children – hydrated if the supply stops. “The nearest shop is over two miles away, so it’s not like you can just nip and buy a few bottles,” she says.

While the stockpile tides them over for a few hours, it isn’t enough for the household to function smoothly. Neville is a nurse; her husband is a chimney sweep, so there are showers to be had and uniforms washed. “Everything becomes a lot harder. Everyone is frustrated,” she says.

Last month, after days of low pressure and an on-off supply, things reached boiling point when the problem ruined the biggest event of the Everton calendar: the village hog roast. Anglian Water had sent a tanker to provide an emergency supply. After a few hours it left, with the driver promising a replacement would soon return, villagers claim. But as 100 people gathered at the local hall for the 7.30pm feast, the replacement tanker hadn’t showed up. Soon, the water had run out. With none to flush toilets or wash up, the result was “chaos”. “Tempers were frayed to the extreme,” Simpson says.

More dramatic consequences are not beyond the realms of imagination. Amid extreme heat on 19 July the village green caught fire, sending plumes of smoke over houses and charring the hedgerow. Nearby, an even more serious blaze raged in a farmer’s fields. As firefighters tried to bring them under control, residents were told the domestic supply needed to be shut off to cope with the “unprecedented demand”.

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Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.Colin Allen struggles when the water supply is cut off. Photographer: Fabio De Paola/The Observer

Anglian Water says it is doing all it can “to reduce the risk of further interruptions for residents”. It said the water network had been severely affected by the hot weather, with demand for public water supply up significantly, meaning pressures were lower in many areas. It added that it was investigating the quality of local pumps and was in the process of replacing pipes.

But residents say the solutions are “sticking plasters” and accuse Anglian of failing to take the problems seriously enough, despite knowing about them for years. They also say they are often left in the dark when they are cut off, with “polite and quick to answer” customer service agents often unable to provide insights into the availability of tankers or updates on when issues will be fixed.

For the local pub, the Thornton Arms, the problems are having a major impact. “It’s been a huge pain in the backside,” said Hannah Cruise, 28, who recently took over the local pub. “We use a lot of water for cooking, washing glasses and toilets, so it has a big impact on business. The uncertainty is the worst thing. If they said they’d cut the water off once every few weeks, you’d be able to cope with it, but there’s no warning.”

Colin Allen, 92, an army veteran and retired teacher, said that the problems were damaging his quality of life. He lives alone and relies on a consistent water supply to be able to cook, clean and offer cups of tea to guests, including a helper who supports him to remain independent. If she comes at a certain time and there’s no water, it throws the day into disarray.

He accused Anglian of “kicking the can down the road” and called for urgent action by the government and Ofwat, the regulator, to ensure a consistent supply. “The system is broken. I don’t think they’re taking that seriously enough.”

The post ‘There’s a nagging concern’: the village that may’t depend on operating water | Water appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Boudin derangement syndrome: Since taking office in 2020, the DA has become the locus of a corporate backlash. (Courtesy of the Recall Chesa Boudin campaign)

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After just two years in office, Chesa Boudin, the district attorney of San Francisco, gets blamed for every crime in the book—even offenses committed before he took office and beyond the city limits. For his efforts to tackle wage theft, end cash bail, expand the program that diverts nonviolent offenders from prison, and prosecute abusive cops, Boudin has been rewarded with a recall campaign scapegoating him for all of this city’s woes. The vote takes place on June 7, and recent polls suggest it will be an uphill battle for Boudin and progressives.

Loaded with cash from local billionaires, Big Tech, and other corporate interests, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco and an allied group called San Franciscans for Public Safety have poured a whopping $5.1 million into the campaign to recall Boudin. Real estate interests have also kicked in, including more than $600,000 from Shorenstein Realty Services, a major local developer. As the Democratic strategist Cooper Teboe told Forbes, Boudin is “the unfortunate recipient of all of the anger from the investor class and the billionaire class.” The recall’s top funder is the Republican billionaire William Oberndorf, who donated $3.7 million to federal candidates in 2020—mostly to Republicans, including Senators Mitch McConnell and Tom Cotton.

While Boudin is the primary target, this centrist uprising first came to public attention in February when it spearheaded the recall of three school board members (a campaign that was financed heavily by Oberndorf and the billionaire investor Arthur Rock). Next came electoral threats to progressive supervisors who didn’t support the school board recall, revealing a larger political agenda. Then, in late April, corporate interests mounted a gerrymandering effort that could put some supervisor districts in the centrist camp. And now, the furious push to recall Boudin.

“There is a big money effort to roll back progressive politics in San Francisco,” says Tim Redmond, founder and editor of the progressive news site 48 Hills, who has covered politics here since 1986.

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Propelling this movement is a well-financed narrative that has insinuated itself into local media and politics—and a sizable portion of the electorate. This narrative blames San Francisco progressives for complex crises whose causes reach back decades and far beyond the city line. The writer Michael Shellenberger, who’s making an improbable run for the California governor’s office, bizarrely blames the left for the city’s ills in his book San Fransicko, with its bombastic subtitle: Why Progressives Ruin Cities.

At the heart of this reactionary movement is a misdiagnosis of genuine problems. Burgeoning homelessness and drug addiction here are preventable tragedies. Housing costs are among the highest in the nation, with the median single-family home priced at $2 million, far out of reach for most people. The city also hosts the world’s greatest concentration of billionaires, and the Bay Area is home to California’s most glaring inequality, with the top 10 percent of earners raking in 12.2 times what folks in the bottom 10 percent make.

While progressives have often held a majority in the city’s legislature, they haven’t had a mayoral ally since Art Agnos lost to conservative Frank Jordan in 1991; the city’s “strong mayor” charter also adds to centrists’ power when they control the executive branch. Rising homelessness, addiction, and crime are the result of national and regional crises, including woefully insufficient spending on supportive housing for homeless people. Redmond says the current scapegoating is “a total distraction from the fundamental inequalities in the US and in San Francisco.” If anything, progressive policies like the city’s living wage ordinance, universal health care access, rent control, tenants’ rights laws, and taxes on extreme wealth have blunted these crises.

Current Issue

Chasing Chesa, Fomenting Fear

When he was elected in November 2019, Boudin was hailed as a bright new star in a wave of reforming district attorneys that included Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, Rachael Rollins in the Boston area, and Kim Foxx in Cook County, Ill. All have faced criticism, but the backlash in San Francisco has been particularly virulent, prompting pundits to label it “Chesa Boudin Derangement Syndrome.” As the San Francisco Examiner writer Gil Duran described it, “Every crime trend—even those pre-dating his tenure—can somehow be blamed on him. Car burglarized? Blame Boudin. Walgreens and CVS closing hundreds of stores nationwide? Boudin’s fault. National fentanyl epidemic? Thanks, Boudin. Police not making enough arrests? Boudin hurt their morale.” One recent recall campaign ad featured a man who closed his store because of drug dealing—but a reporter revealed that the business had been shuttered before Boudin was elected.

San Francisco has its share of urban problems. But analysis by the San Francisco Chronicle found that “reported crime data does not clearly show a trend toward worsening public safety.” Even as crimes like car break-ins have increased in the city (as they have statewide and beyond), violent crimes are way down. But that hasn’t stopped the fearmongers from fanning a political wildfire.

The typically center-right Chronicle surprised locals with a strong editorial against the recall, arguing, “Crime stats that mirror those of when Boudin took office do not justify a recall. Violent crime is low and has stayed low even as it has surged across the country…. Cities across the country—regardless of their criminal justice approach—have struggled after COVID lockdowns lifted.” The Examiner and the local Democratic Party also reject the recall, as have many former prosecutors and judges.

Blaming the victims: Municipal workers trash an encampment of unhoused people just a few blocks from San Francisco’s City Hall. (Christopher D. Cook)

Scapegoating Homeless People

On a recent afternoon, across the street from a shining new glass tower of condos for sale a few blocks from City Hall, city workers descended on tents arrayed neatly on the sidewalk’s edge. A burly public works employee snatched and tossed a silver tent onto a platform truck, atop other “junk” bound for the dump.

“The man that lives in there is a 65-year-old dude who’s out on a medical appointment,” a fellow tent dweller, an amply tattooed Marine veteran, told me. “It’s our constitutional right to live here, to have a home. You can’t take that away from us,” he urged the workers in an increasingly irate voice. When I asked who’s demanding the tent removals, city workers insisted, “The mayor, London Breed.”

Trashing an elderly homeless man’s shelter and belongings—a violation of city policy, advocates tell me—is brutally familiar in this city, where “there are more anti-homeless laws than in any other city in the state,” says Jennifer Friedenbach, the longtime director of the Coalition on Homelessness. “Homelessness in San Francisco is a popular wedge issue,” she continues. “And politicians—Shellenberger no exception—stoke fear of homeless people to get their name in the paper…. Homeless people, drug dealers, and criminals are all lumped together and scapegoated.”

A Twitter account named “BetterSOMA” (referencing the South of Market area) posts photographs of homeless people shooting up or crumpled on the sidewalk, a humiliating public exposure that could haunt these people’s futures. When I confronted the group about this practice, BetterSOMA and its acolytes came at me like piranhas. As one put it, “It should be humiliating. They should be shamed. If you coddle street addicts, MORE SHOW UP and are lured into depravity.” Another insisted, “They are drug addicts. Their dignity went out the window before the photos pal.”

The pandemic has only intensified the street crises, Friedenbach says. “People have been out there for two years—their [precarity] has gotten much worse, their drug use much worse.” Meanwhile, Friedenbach sees a growing “promotion of tried-and-failed strategies” such as criminalization and forcing homeless mentally ill people into institutions through conservatorship. The forces behind the recall campaign, she adds, “are complaining about homelessness and then fighting against the solutions,” citing Mayor Breed’s opposition to voter-approved measures to expand funding for homeless services and shelters.

As the writer Gray Brechin, founder of the Living New Deal, puts it, “The question isn’t asked enough: Why are people taking so many drugs? To dull the pain of living in this incredibly cruel society. At the root of it is poverty,” he says, and “a dystopic neoliberal environment that is guaranteed to drive people insane” while living on the streets.

Follow the Money

Fueling this city’s centrist octopus is an engine of big money—largely from Big Tech, real estate, and other corporate interests. And these efforts reach beyond the recalls: As 48 Hills documented, Oberndorf has given at least $300,000 to Neighbors for a Better San Francisco—money spent campaigning against progressive candidates and measures. In 2020, the group and its corporate allies—all aligned with Mayor Breed—spent big to oppose Proposition I, a real estate transfer tax on the wealthiest property owners to help fund emergency aid and affordable housing in the pandemic. (Voters approved the measure by a large margin and rejected several centrist candidates.)

The centrist constellation includes tech-funded groups like GrowSF, AdvanceSF (whose leadership is a who’s who from the Chamber of Commerce), and the YIMBY (“Yes in My Back Yard”) movements pushing a maximal growth agenda that includes “streamlining” environmental reviews to spur more building, principally of market-rate housing. This agenda is part of what the writer Rebecca Solnit calls the “free-market fundamentalism” that has become a local religion. “The constant narrative going on for decades is that if we just build enough buildings, housing will become affordable,” Solnit told me. “But we have more than 40,000 vacant units here,” she notes, citing a city report. “We have a distribution problem, not a supply problem.”

Observing this array of centrist and big money groups, Redmond concludes, “They’re all connected, and the money proves that. Politics takes money, and they’ve got the money.” He adds, “Well-financed efforts at framing the debate have had an effect.”

In April, after many epic late-night hearings, the city’s Redistricting Task Force finalized a new electoral map that could favor centrist district supervisors at the expense of progressive stalwarts like Connie Chan, another target of real estate interests. In an e-mail obtained by 48 Hills, the real estate developer Nick Podell, a board member of Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, crowed, “For the 1st time in the 40 years that I’ve lived in the City, there is a large coordinated centrist/moderate movement to take on Progressive power.” That effort, Podell wrote, is poised to “flip 3 districts with Progressive Supervisors to moderate majorities.” The local Republican leader Richie Greenberg cheered the centrist map, writing, “Connie Chan is TOAST.”

San Francisco is chronically conflicted. A nominally liberal town where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 10-fold, it is also a historical hub of finance capital, extreme wealth accumulation, and corporate profit, which all fuel (and fund) a moderate and sometimes conservative politics, particularly on economic issues. Since the Gold Rush, says Solnit (who has lived here since 1980), San Francisco “has always had a progressive wing and a corporate moderate wing. Because Republicans don’t have traction here, people think of us as this quasi-socialist utopia, but it’s not true…. Now we have millionaires buying elections through recalls.” As the Examiner columnist Lincoln Mitchell explains, the city’s rich and powerful “are not always conservative or right wing, but they have a vision that is distinctly not progressive.” Their “moderate-to-conservative vision,” Mitchell says, “is one where businesses and developers are empowered and given incentives to operate more or less how they like, where fear of crime is fetishized, and where homelessness is understood as a problem not of human suffering but as a quality-of-life issue for the housed.”

Crisis conditions: Two years into the pandemic, precarity, poverty, addiction, and inequality have only gotten worse. (Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Big Tech’s Shadow

The writer and activist Roberto Lovato offers a scathing diagnosis of his native city’s neoliberal tilt, pointing to Silicon Valley’s ethos of “digital Darwinism.” The recalls, Lovato explains, show the cumulative effects of Big Tech’s power: “You’re looking at what Silicon Valley did over all these years, the near-totalitarian control of the body politic of San Francisco.” This “greed machine,” he argues, is manufacturing “a normalization of displacement…. One way to do it is to reengineer the political system.”

“There’s a fascistic cruelty beneath the shiny silicon surface of San Francisco,” Lovato says—one that displaces communities and cultures in the name of relentless growth and profit. “All my friends who grew up here have been displaced. The organic growth of the Mission [District] that created the largest concentration of murals in the world has been displaced by gentrification and tech workers buying $14 burritos…. They use our murals to push us out.”

“Tech has such a libertarian tendency,” Solnit says, “but a lot of it is economically regressive. We don’t have the language to express how many of these folks are Burning Man libertarians while being economic Republicans.” Tech’s predominance here, she adds, has cultural as well as political implications: “Everything is DoorDashed and smartphoned; it’s a much more mediated experience. The desire to avoid human contact has been such a part of the tech culture—the desire to live in one of the most densely urban centers in the country while being hostile to much of that life.”

Even amid this centrist uprising, San Francisco progressives have mustered some positive changes. A voter-approved tax on vacant storefronts took effect in January, and activists are preparing a ballot measure to tax up to 40,000 vacant residential units to pressure landlords to fill them (a similar effort worked well in Vancouver). In March, the city enacted a groundbreaking law enabling tenants to form union-like associations to bargain with landlords. It’s also worth remembering that in 2019, city voters elected Boudin on the platform of criminal justice reform that he’s now implementing. On June 7 and beyond, voters here have a chance to reject this corporate-funded reactionary movement. San Francisco, as always, remains intensely contested terrain.

The post Worry & Loathing in San Francisco: How Chesa Boudin Bought Blamed appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

WALNUT CREEK (CBS SF) – After more than a year, California’s eviction moratorium is ending this week, allowing landlords to remove tenants who are not paying rent during the COVID pandemic.

However, officials say the 11:59 a.m. Thursday expiration will not spark a massive wave of evictions across the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Some protective measures for tenants remain in place.

“A landlord must apply for rent allowance before attempting to evict you in court for failing to pay your rent,” state housing officials said in a press release.

Housing advocates held a caravan and rally in San Francisco over the weekend. They hoped to get the message across that the economic challenges of the pandemic have not gone away and that unemployment is still high.

“Today’s reality in America, today in California is not the time for an end to the eviction moratorium,” said housing attorney Brian Zhang. “People are not ready. They haven’t recovered from the pandemic. “

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“In the midst of a pandemic, evicting people from their homes is absolutely criminal,” added housing attorney Nathalie Hrizi. “It’s not just about their wellbeing. It is also a public health issue. “

State officials said tenants in distress can apply for the Rent Relief Program, which pays eligible tenants and landlords 100% of a tenant’s overdue rent and utilities, dating back to April 1, 2020.

“The program is free and currently has no deadline, but as funding may be limited, renters are encouraged to apply as soon as possible,” officials said.

There are also regulations for landlords.

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• Your landlord can give you a “payment or termination” reminder at any time (this is a message from your landlord that gives you a certain amount of time to pay the outstanding rent you owe or vacate your house) at any time , however, you will not be able to legally terminate without first applying to the CA COVID-19 Tenant Facilitation Program.
• If you receive a “pay or cancel” reminder, it is highly recommended that you seek immediate legal assistance to determine and protect your rights. If your “payment or termination” notice includes a “COVID-19-related financial emergency statement” – and you have been financially affected by the pandemic – you should sign the statement within 15 working days and return it to your landlord for your protection to strengthen.

Other things tenants need to know:

• From November 1, 2021, your landlord can sue you for unpaid rent. Until October 1, 2021, a landlord can only terminate a tenant if he presents a legally valid reason.
• It is illegal for a landlord to file a 30- or 60-day eviction complaint with a tenant without giving a reason. This is commonly referred to as eviction for no reason.
• The reason given must match one of the valid reasons the law allows for an eviction for “just cause”.
• Existing eviction orders from local authorities can remain in effect until they expire, but they cannot postpone rental obligations beyond May 31, 2023.
• For example, landlords who lock out tenants, remove personal belongings, or shut down utility services to evict a tenant instead of going through the required legal process can face fines of between $ 1,000 and $ 2,500. These penalties apply until October 1, 2021.

If you believe you have been illegally displaced or if you need legal advice, you should seek help from an attorney. If you need inexpensive or free legal assistance, visit www.lawhelpca.org for more resources.

The post Money Strapped Tenants Concern Finish Of California’s COVID Eviction Moratorium – CBS San Francisco appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

People who live in the scenic woodlands of Northern California faced a weekend of fear as forest fires threatened to devastate thousands of homes.

The Dixie Fire, which burned much of the gold rush town of Greenville, threatened more than 10,000 buildings in the northern Sierra Nevada. It had engulfed an area larger than the size of New York City.

It was the largest current wildland fire in the country and the third largest in recorded California history, according to the State Department of Fire and Forestry Protection.

Wind-blown flames destroyed dozens of homes and most of downtown Greenville on Wednesday and Thursday, and also badly damaged Canyondam, a hamlet of about three dozen residents. The fire reached Chester, but crews managed to protect homes and businesses there, officials said.

Charlene Mays kept her Chester gas station open as long as possible and urged tired firefighters not to apologize for the ash trail their boots had left on the ground. But when the small town on the northwest shore of Lake Almanor lost power, Mays decided it was time for them to leave.

She ran home to get a box of valuables, including her husband’s class ring and some jewelry. The smoke was so thick it was hard to breathe. Lumps of ash broke when they hit the floor, making a sound like broken glass.

That was two days ago. Since then, Mays has lived in the car park at Lassen College in Susanville. Her husband stayed behind to service some of the water tanks that the firefighters were using. It’s just her, a Miniature Pinscher Chihuahua named Jedidiah and a Pit Bull named Bear.

Her house was still standing on Friday, but her fate was tied to the direction of the wind. She wasn’t alone.

“I have probably 30 of my regular customers here,” she said.

The Dixie Fire, named for the street it began on, now covers an area of ​​1,760 square kilometers and was only 21% contained. No injuries or deaths were reported.

The weather at the fireplace on Saturday was expected to have higher humidity and calmer winds with temperatures in excess of 32 degrees Celsius instead of the 40 miles per hour (64 km / h) gusts recorded at the beginning of the week and three-digit highs.

Still, the fire and its neighboring fires, which were only a few hundred miles apart, posed an ongoing threat.

Heat waves and historic droughts related to climate change have made fighting forest fires in the American West difficult. Scientists say climate change has made the region much warmer and drier over the past 30 years, and the weather will continue to be more extreme and forest fires more frequent and more destructive.

Near the Klamath National Forest, firefighters kept an eye out for small communities evacuated on the trail of the antelope fire, which had previously ignited 30-meter-high flames as it blackened bone-dry grass, scrub and wood. It was only included 20%.

Farther northwest, around 500 homes scattered in and around Shasta-Trinity National Forest remained threatened by the Monument Fire and others by the McFarland Fire, both of which were triggered by thunderstorms last week, firefighters said.

About a two-hour drive south of the Dixie Fire, crews had encircled about a third of the River Fire that broke out near the city of Colfax on Wednesday and destroyed nearly 90 homes and other buildings. Evacuations for thousands of people in the Nevada and Placer counties were lifted Friday. Authorities said three people, including a firefighter, were injured.

Dale Huber went to the fire zone on Friday to check on his brother’s house, which was in ruins.

“It used to be a bunch of cool things, and now it’s just rubbish,” said Huber. “You can’t fix it. We can rip it out and start over or run away. I think he decided to rebuild here. “

Smoke from the fires covered central California and western Nevada, causing air quality to deteriorate to very unhealthy levels. Air quality warnings stretched across the San Joaquin Valley and into the San Francisco Bay Area, where residents were told to keep their windows and doors closed.

California is well on its way to surpassing the last year that had the worst fire season in recent recorded state history. Since the beginning of the year, more than 6,000 fires have destroyed more than 3,260 square kilometers of land – more than three times the losses for the same period in 2020, according to state fire numbers.

California’s raging forest fires were among more than 100 large, active fires that burned in 14 states, mostly in the west, where historic drought conditions have left the land ripe and ripe for ignition.

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The post Weekend of concern looms for Northern Californians in face of fast-moving wildfires appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Some health experts question whether federal officials have been too quick to move too quickly with relaxing mask recommendations to allow people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to remove face coverings from most indoor and outdoor areas. And they suggest that California and local leaders be a little more careful about loosening mask mandates.

Dr. John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus in the Infectious Diseases Department at UC Berkeley School of Public Health, said, “There is good science to support changing our policy. On the other hand, I’m surprised they came up with it so soon. I would have loved to have had another month to see the numbers keep falling. “

If California starts allowing fully vaccinated people to be maskless in stores, then who would check if those without a mask were actually vaccinated? Will supermarkets really be interested in checking vaccination cards at the entrance?

“I can’t see any grocery stores that will confirm you have been vaccinated. It’s just not going to happen, ”said Swartzberg.

The United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents 1.3 million key food and retail workers, also questioned the CDC’s move.

“While we all share a desire to return to normal mask-free conditions, today’s CDC guidelines are confusing and fail to take into account how this will affect key workers who are often exposed to those who are not vaccinated and who refuse to use masks wear, ”said Marc Perrone, the union’s international president said in a statement. “Elementary workers are still forced to play masked police for buyers. … Should they become the vaccination police now?”

However, grocery stores might choose to simply keep a no-mask and no-service policy.

Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, chair of the epidemiology and biostatistics division at UC San Francisco, tweeted that the science used in the CDC’s recommendation was solid. “But who bears the brunt of implementing the policy?”

Some of the people who are less likely to be vaccinated in America are workers who were too busy working or looking after families to get the vaccine. “Are we failing important workers again?” She asked.

Some fear the CDC’s move will backfire and normalize if they don’t wear masks – with no vaccinations required. This could result in injury to people who are more likely not to be vaccinated, e.g. B. Lower-income residents and blacks and Latinos, some of whom would like to be vaccinated but could not do so because of factors such as feeling they could, lost work due to side effects of the vaccine or inability to get the vaccine from a trusted location relate – Reasons given in a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey.

Other experts thought the CDC made a good call and believe the new guidelines will entice people to get vaccinated as long as they can see the benefits of vaccination.

“I know a lot of people say on Twitter that the unvaccinated will just say they’ve been vaxed. Some will, but many will not, they will see the vaccination as something more valuable now and look for it, ”tweeted Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner for the US Food and Drug Administration.

On Friday, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, admits that more details are needed to ensure how indoor relaxing mask requirements work realistically in certain environments where it is not clear who is being vaccinated and who doesn’t.

“This was a first step in our guide. And what we really need to do now is look at each of our individual guides for each of these individual attitudes, for example in a school, daycare, or workplace environment: is this the right thing? “Walensky said” Good Morning America “on ABC’s.

In practice, Walensky also said it made sense for different states and counties to issue different orders from national guidelines.

“Many of these decisions have to be made at the jurisdiction level,” said Walensky.

Swartzberg has criticized state officials for reopening the economy twice too quickly in the past year, followed by a spike. The question is whether lifting mask mandates too quickly will result in California “being burned a third time”. It’s probably not likely, but it can’t be ruled out, he said.

Swartzberg said he preferred the view of Governor Gavin Newsom, who earlier this week proposed two different ideas for easing mask mandates in California. His second idea, mentioned on Wednesday, was to remove the exterior masks mandates next month, but possibly keep the interior masks mandates a little longer.

“Instead of taking giant steps like I took today from the CDC, we should take small steps toward the same goal,” said Swartzberg. “We’ll get there eventually. But I think we’ll get there safer if we’re more careful. “

Infectious Disease Specialist at UC San Francisco, Dr. Monica Gandhi, was among the experts calling on the CDC to move faster to lift mask guidelines and was surprised at how quickly federal officials acted Thursday. She welcomed the news and said science supported the new recommendations.

She said the mask lifting instructions for fully vaccinated people will be an incentive for those who may have put off the shot.

“People need incentives now,” said Gandhi. “I think this will help people on the fence get vaccinated.”

A complicated problem for local governments is that the CDC seemed to make its announcement without giving any indication of what was to come, and the result is that state and local officials are faced with the difficult task of addressing the difficult problem solve who is responsible for determining who is vaccinated and who may be exposed as a result.

LA District officials were surprised by the details of the CDC announcement, and it took nine hours for the governor’s office to issue a statement on the new guidelines, in a tweet on Thursday evening saying it was reviewing the guidelines and further, “all encouraging eligible Californians can get vaccinated as we plan to fully open again on June 15th. “

“We still have millions of people who haven’t been vaccinated – who haven’t even got a dose,” said Barbara Ferrer, LA county director of public health, Thursday. “And every day the numbers may be small, but every day there are people who get infected.”

As a result, it is advisable to take your time to ensure that rules are in place to keep people’s safety as safe as possible.

One of the questions officials need to answer is what this would mean for employees working on a site who for some reason may not be able to be vaccinated. According to Ferrer, the solution shouldn’t be to create a higher risk of virus spreading between unvaccinated people as LA County tries to keep the number of cases down and keep opening stores and expanding capacity.

The goal is to come up with rules “so that everyone can be pretty comfortable that we don’t have a lot of exposures that would be unnecessary,” Ferrer said. She added that, at least in the near future, “it may not be possible to lift all restrictions everywhere”.

On CNN, Dr. Leana Wen, a former health commissioner for Baltimore, said the CDC’s move made it easier for people who never got vaccinated or wanted to wear masks to go into stores without a face covering – which increases the risk for people who can’t be vaccinated, e.g. . B. Children who are too young to be vaccinated or immunocompromised people who are not fully protected by the vaccine.

“We are putting them at risk now, and I think we are taking ourselves even further from achieving herd immunity,” Wen said.

Here are the basics of CDC mask guidance:

• Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities, large and small, without wearing a mask or physically distancing themselves.
• Unvaccinated or partially vaccinated individuals are still asked to wear masks in virtually all indoor and outdoor areas when interacting with people outside their household who may not be vaccinated. (Members of a single household with unvaccinated individuals can be maskless indoors if everyone else is vaccinated.)
• Masks are still required for anyone using public transport, including buses and trains, as well as airports and train stations.
• The rules also apply to hospitals, prisons, facilities for the homeless and other institutional facilities.
• Local and state rules can be stricter and stay in place.
• People who have not been vaccinated should continue to wear masks and get vaccinated immediately.

The post Some concern CDC transferring too quick with new COVID masks steerage appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

After contract negotiations stalled, hundreds of janitors in San Francisco, represented by Service Employees (SEIU) Local 87, went on March 24.

About 3,000 caretakers in the Bay Area were laid off as the pandemic spread last year. Your union is now calling for all laid-off workers to return to work – but with improvements.

They want better ventilation in buildings, protective equipment for workers, a wage increase, health insurance, additional sick days and protection against sexual harassment for a workforce that is predominantly made up of black migrant women.

At least 26 custodian banks died after being infected with the coronavirus. Workers want improved ventilation.

The three-day strike came to an impasse after eight months of contract negotiations with Able Service and ABM Industries, two contractors that provide cleaning services in downtown office buildings.

The cleaning companies have moved to curtail the union to make seniority concessions and refuse to bargain in good faith, union leaders say.

“In my opinion, they did not come to negotiate. They didn’t want to give anything, but they wanted to take everything, ”said caretaker and negotiating team member Marcos Aranda, 30, father of six.

TECH GIANTS

The janitors clean 600 buildings across San Francisco, including engineering offices on Google, Facebook, and Salesforce.

Strikers picketed across town. Some gathered by the gleaming 1,000-foot Salesforce Tower. This monolith, like many office buildings, was largely empty due to remote work.

The strike coincided with tech workers from Twitter and other California companies returning to offices under state health directives as San Francisco headed for reopening.

While the janitors don’t negotiate directly with tech companies, these powerful companies are the ultimate target as they have the power to move the cleaning companies from intransigence to negotiation.

ESSENTIALLY BUT ignored

While other key workers were celebrated during the pandemic, janitors did not receive the same fanfare.

“There were no parades, no boiling in the cellars of buildings, no hammering pots,” said Olga Miranda, President of SEIU Local 87. “These are the quiet workers who go to work with dignity and nobody but their union makes a fuss makes.”

Caretaker wages of $ 22-23 are not enough to live in San Francisco. Look for an apartment in town to rent and the sticker shock will make you dizzy.

According to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator, the living wage for a parent raising a child in San Francisco is $ 56. For two children, it’s $ 68.93.

The strike was over unfair labor practices that revolved around seniority and safety. The cleaning companies are demanding concessions from the union – in particular, the power to use criteria other than seniority to select which workers will be recalled from layoffs.

Seniority determines, for example, who prefers vacation time or who returns to work after being laid off.

“It’s a very slippery slope when you let employers set criteria for who can come back,” said Miranda, running through a series of hypothetical scenarios: “So if companies say good when the person can’t speak English, it’s us.” she doesn’t want to go back. If she’s a woman, we may not want her back. If they are Muslims and have prayed too much because it’s Ramadan, we may not want them back. ”

Overcoming fear

Aranda has been a janitor for 10 years after recovering from low-wage food service jobs. During the pandemic, he continued to work in the janitorial service for Pacific Gas & Electric Company, earning $ 23.30 an hour as a foreman.

He is grateful that he stayed on the payroll even though his building was vacant and other workers struggled to raise money to cover the bills.

Bills are often in Aranda’s head. In preparation for the strike, he took another job at OnTrac, a logistics company on the west coast, where he made $ 17 an hour delivering packages, with an extra dollar as a risk payment.

“There was a lot of fear,” he said, “you know, fear of not knowing what would happen afterwards. Did they want to lock us out? Would I be able to pay my bills? “

In part, he overcame this fear of sitting across from the bosses at the negotiating table, seeing them dig in their heels and rejecting any proposal from the union.

“If we had accepted, I would have felt weak,” he said.

When members argued in the union hall about whether to strike, Miranda said one member was lucky enough to have a job. Another replied, “Who will come to the company from the builder and apologize to your family for not doing enough to look after you? So we can fight while we are six feet above us, or we can mourn six feet below. “

“There are no superheroes. Nobody will fight for your families as much as you will fight for your own, ”adds Miranda. “And that’s why we’re on strike out there.”

KEEP ESCALATING

The union’s membership is diverse – Latino, Black, White, Chinese and Yemeni with an average age of 55 years. They survived the pandemic while the rest of the country huddled at home and worked remotely. Their names filled the number of dead as governors reported weekly on the pandemic rampage.

“There is no normalcy to return to,” admits Miranda, pointing to the move away from floor plans for open offices as an early sign of how the workplace will change.

Additionally, the pandemic may still be with us for some time. President Joe Biden has urged governors across the country to reinstate mandates to wear masks and halt reopening efforts as the country faces another surge in infections.

Despite paying lip service to their victims, key workers barely made any profits during the pandemic. Many refused to disrupt essential services, even if they had the public support to do so. But that’s not the case with SEIU Local 87, a 5,000-member union that tops its weight – and is poised to escalate further from here.

“The biggest fear is not being able to put food on the table or knowing that you will lose the roof over your baby’s head,” said Miranda. “This is scary – scarier than a goddamn pandemic.”

“Strike”
Hundreds of SF caretakers are at STRIKE today.
The caretakers – mainly women, colored people and migrant workers – fight for a fair trade union contract with protection from sexual harassment and security measures!
Boost @Ableserve & @ABM_Industries #JusticeForJanitors pic.twitter.com/KR8bGd0P4A

– Justice for Janitors (@JusticeforJans) March 24, 2021

The post How a Janitors Union in San Francisco Bought Over Its Worry and Struck appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

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