Gov. Gavin Newsom drew the first 15 winners in California’s Vax for the Win program on Friday, June 4, 2021. Photo courtesy of the Governor’s Office. On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom selected the first 15 lucky Californians to be awarded $50,000 for doing their part in getting vaccinated against COVID-19.
The $750,000 awarded in Friday’s randomized drawing is part of California’s new $116.5 million Vax for the Win program — the largest vaccine incentive program in the nation — which includes $50 incentive cards to newly vaccinated residents and cash prize drawings for all who have received at least one dose.
This historic program is designed to motivate Californians to get vaccinated leading up to the state’s reopening on June 15.
"California has made incredible progress in the fight against COVID-19, with the lowest case rates in the entire country and millions more vaccines administered than any other state. But we aren't stopping there, we're doing everything it takes to get Californians vaccinated as we approach June 15 to help us safely reopen and bring the state roaring back,” said Gov. Newsom.
Since Vax for the Win launched, roughly a million vaccine doses have been recorded, including roughly 350,000 Californians newly starting their vaccination process.
In total, California has administered more than 38 million vaccines, ranked No. 8 in the world.
California has administered 15.4 million more doses than any other state and more than 70 percent of the adult population has received at least one dose.
“We are making another push to get more Californians vaccinated against COVID-19,” said Dr. Tomás J. Aragón, CDPH director and state Public Health officer. “With more than 70 percent of adults having already received at least one dose, the Vax for the Win program is the creative approach we need to make that final push for those who remain unvaccinated.”
More than 21 million Californians aged 12 and older are at least partially vaccinated and automatically entered to win in the cash prize drawings.
The second $50,000 drawing will take place on Friday, June 11, when an additional 15 Californians will be selected.
On June 15, when California safely reopens, 10 winners will be selected to receive $1.5 million each — adding up to a total of $15 million in cash prizes.
On top of that, the two million newly-vaccinated Californians who get their dose since Vax for the Win launched will be eligible to receive $50 prepaid and grocery cards.
Winners from Friday’s drawing live throughout the state in the following counties: Mendocino, Los Angeles, Santa Clara, Alameda, San Diego, San Francisco, Orange and San Luis Obispo.
They start being notified directly by the California Department of Public Health within hours of the drawing and over the next four days by telephone, text, email or other contact information associated with the person’s record in the state’s vaccine registry.
To protect their privacy, all winners will have the option to accept their cash prize while remaining anonymous or decline it altogether.
Winners must complete their vaccination in order to claim their prize. If someone under 18 wins, the cash will be put in a savings account for them until they turn 18.
On Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission, in ongoing efforts to hold utilities accountable for safely implementing public safety power shut-off events, determined Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric each failed to comply with CPUC-required guidelines in many of their 2019 power shut-offs and has ordered financial remedies and a number of corrective actions.
In late 2019, those three utilities deenergized power to customers during high wildfire danger weather to reduce the risk of their infrastructure igniting catastrophic wildfires.
In November 2019, the CPUC opened an investigation of those 2019 events to assess whether the utilities prioritized safety and complied with CPUC regulations and requirements when planning and implementing the shut-off, or PSPS, events.
The Thursday decision orders utilities to take a number of actions to improve their power shut-off planning and implementation, including:
— Forgo collection of revenues from customers that are associated with electricity not sold during future PSPS events until it can be demonstrated that utilities have made improvements in identifying, evaluating, weighing, and reporting public harm when determining whether to initiate a shut-off event. — Take corrective actions to improve future compliance with the CPUC’s existing PSPS guidelines. — Improve, among other things, communications with customers dependent on electricity for medical reasons, especially life support, before, during, and after a PSPS event. — Share best practices and lessons learned for initiating, communicating, reporting, and improving all aspects of PSPS events by regularly holding utility working group meetings. — Provide standard emergency management system training for all personnel and contractors involved in PSPS planning. — File annual reports describing progress and status on improving compliance with PSPS guidelines. — Support the CPUC’s Safety and Enforcement Division’s development of a standardized 10-day post-event reporting template. Post-event reporting facilitates learning and improvement across utilities, state, and local public safety agencies and local jurisdictions.
In implementing the late 2019 PSPS events, PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric had, to different degrees, ineffective coordination with public safety partners, inadequate consideration of the access and functional needs communities, and lack of reasonable consideration of the public safety risks caused by PSPS events, the CPUC said.
In the case of PG&E, the utility experienced communication network outages and lack of coordination of appropriate backup power; inadequate notification efforts; inadequate outreach and education to identify additional resources available to the public; lack of outreach regarding community resource centers, or CRCs, and inadequate services provided at CRCs; delays in coordinating with local jurisdictions to identify critical facilities and infrastructure; and difficulty providing GIS shapefiles depicting PSPS information.
Since the 2019 PSPS events, the CPUC has taken a series of ongoing actions to further ensure utilities continue to reduce the scope and duration of PSPS events and prioritize customer safety.
Among those actions:
— In 2019 and throughout 2020 required PG&E implement a series of actions to correct deficiencies in 2019 PSPS events; — In May 2020, adopted refinements and improvements to existing PSPS guidelines and requirements in advance of 2020 wildfire season; — In early 2021, held public meetings for the utilities to report on lessons learned and to hear from impacted communities and access and functional needs communities and required SCE to implement a series of actions to correct deficiencies in 2020 PSPS events; — In May 2021, issued for public comment a proposal that would enhance and update existing guidelines and rules for utility PSPS events in advance of the 2021 wildfire season. Utilities would be required to take a results-based approach to improving notification and mitigating the impacts of PSPS events; and, — In May 2021, issued an administrative law judge decision penalizing PG&E $106 million for violating guidelines during Fall 2019 PSPS events. The decision offsets the penalty by $86 million based on bill credits that were already provided to customers by PG&E shareholders at the governor’s direction, making the net penalty assessed on PG&E $20 million. The $20 million penalty will be paid by shareholders in the form of customer bill credits and a contribution to a backup portable battery program.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — A new state report shows that Lake County’s number of residents has fallen to the lowest level in 14 years, a development that took place at the same time as California’s overall population declined.
The California Department of Finance’s annual demographic report showed the state’s population dipped by 182,083 residents last year, bringing the state’s total number of residents to 39,466,855 people as of Jan. 1, 2021.
The Department of Finance said California’s negative growth rate of -0.46% in 2020 represents the first 12-month decline since state population estimates have been recorded.
The report showed that Lake County’s population declined slightly, by -0.1%, with the most recent population totaling 63,940 as of Jan. 1.
That’s the lowest population for Lake County since January of 2007, based on Department of Finance records.
That -0.1% decline also was reported in the cities of Clearlake and Lakeport. The report said Clearlake’s population totaled 13,993 as of Jan. 1, while Lakeport’s total number of residents was 4,774. The population for the balance of the county totaled 45,173.
In Lake’s neighboring counties, the following numbers were reported:
— Colusa: 1% growth rate; population totals 22,248 residents. — Glenn: 0.3% growth rate; population totals 29,679 residents. — Mendocino: growth declined, -1.2%; population totals 86,669 residents. — Napa: growth declined, -1%; population totals 137,637 residents. — Sonoma: growth declined, -1.5%; population totals 484,207 residents. — Yolo: growth declined, -1.7%; population totals 217,500 residents.
The Department of Finance contributed California’s year-over-year population decrease to three principal factors:
— Continuing declines in natural increase — births minus non-COVID-19 deaths, for a loss of 24,000;
— Continuing declines in foreign immigration, accelerated in recent years by federal policy that resulted in the loss of 100,000; and
— Deaths in 2020 separately associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, with 51,000 Californians dying due to the pandemic.
The report said contributing to the state’s population growth slowing and plateauing in recent years is the slowdown in natural increase, which is a nationwide trend affecting California more than other states.
The COVID-19 pandemic increased California deaths in 2020 by 51,000 — 19% above the average death rate for the three preceding years.
“Excess deaths” — rates above the past three-year average — were observed in 51 of the state’s 58 counties.
Of those 51 counties, 19 reported death rates up to 10% above average, 20 reported deaths between 10 and 20% above average, and 12 reported deaths 20% or more above average.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
To stop the spread of COVID-19 across the globe, it’s important to understand the evolutionary imperative that viruses have to spread their genetic material. Dazeley/Getty Images
Kill every human on the planet.
This is the first assignment I give students in my public health classes, filled with do-gooders passionate about saving the world. Their homework is to play a game called Plague, in which they pretend to be pathogens bent on infecting everyone on the globe before humans can develop a cure or a vaccine.
With COVID-19, thinking like a pathogen leads to an inevitable conclusion: Getting the vaccine out to everyone in the world as quickly as possible is not just an ethical imperative, but also a selfish one.
Viruses use their hosts to replicate their genetic material.
In the interim, SARS-CoV-2 will take advantage of this opening.
In reality, pathogens don’t actually want to kill all of their human hosts, because they would eventually have nowhere to live. Their goal is to pass on their genetic material to the next generation. They will do what they can to answer their evolutionary call.
A virus to-do list
Of course, viruses and bacteria don’t have brains so they don’t “think,” per se. But like all life forms, these particular living creatures are trying to maximize their chances of reproducing and having their offspring survive and reproduce.
As a single virus particle, you have two key items on the to-do list. First, you need a place to propagate. You need to reproduce yourself in large numbers, to increase the chances that one of your kids will do the right thing and provide you with some grandchildren. As a virus you are very good at this bit. No need to visit Tinder and find the perfect match, as you reproduce asexually. Instead you use the cellular machinery of your host – the human you infect – to reproduce yourself.
Second, you need a way to get from your current host to the next host that you will infect, otherwise known as transmission. For that you need both a portal of exit – the way to get out of your current host – and a portal of entry – the way to get into your next host. You need a susceptible host. And you need a way to travel to your next host.
Susceptible hosts? That was easy for SARS-CoV-2 when it first came on the scene. Because it was a novel pathogen, the entire global population was susceptible. No humans had full immunity to this particular virus from previous exposure, because it didn’t exist in human populations before 2019. Now, with each person who gets exposed or vaccinated, the number of susceptible hosts dwindles.
For a portal of exit, SARS-CoV-2 has a few options – mostly exhalation through breathing, but also through pooping and expelling other bodily fluids. For a portal of entry it has inhalation – the new host breathes it in – and to a lesser extent ingestion – the new host consumes it orally.
This means that transmission of this virus is relatively easy, involving an activity that people of all ages do all day: breathing. Other viruses require more specific activities or conditions, such as sexual intercourse or needle-sharing for HIV, or being bitten by a particular species of mosquito for Zika.
A woman at a testing site for asymptomatic COVID-19 in Portsmouth, England, on Feb. 22, 2021.Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images
SARS-CoV-2 is one smart virus
SARS-CoV-2 has had a lot of things playing in its favor, aside from having a global population naïve to it. Several other characteristics make it particularly successful.
First, while it does kill, it can also cause mild or asymptomatic infections in others. When pathogens kill most of their hosts, they are not so successful in spreading, because humans change their behavior in response to the perceived threat of the disease.
Ebola is a perfect example. College students would have been more likely to cancel their spring break plans to Florida in 2020 if they had expected that it might cause them to bleed out of their eyeballs, as happens in some people infected with the Ebola virus.
SARS-CoV-2 also has a long incubation period – the time between its infection of a new host and the start of the host’s symptoms. Yet it can be transmitted during the time before symptoms occur, which allows it to spread unnoticed.
Family members of a COVID-19 victim mourn as they wait outside Maulana Azad Medical College mortuary to collect the body on May 24, 2021, in New Delhi, India.Sanjeev Verma/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
More transmission, more new variants
If you’re thinking like the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen now, you’re furiously searching for a way around current vaccine formulations. The more cases you cause, the more chances you have for new variants that can break through the vaccines. You don’t care whether these cases occur in Montana or Mumbai. This is why no human is safe from the pandemic until transmission is controlled everywhere.
Thinking like a pathogen requires thinking over an evolutionary time scale, which for a virus is very short, sometimes the course of a single human infection. SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses have astonishing powers to adapt to changing conditions.
One of their survival strategies is the built-in mistakes in their reproduction machinery that cause mutations. Occasionally, a mutation occurs that improves the ability of a virus to survive and spread.
This leads to new variants, like those we have seen emerge recently. So far, available vaccines appear effective against the variants. But new variants may reduce vaccine effectiveness, or lead to a need for booster shots. The increased transmissibility of the new variants has already likely made chances of reaching herd immunity through vaccination out of reach.
We watch in horror as the virus ravages India, and to some it may seem like a distant threat. But every new case offers another opportunity for a new variant to emerge and spread worldwide.
Grace Macias, a fieldworker who works on the author’s projects, gets vaccinated in Quito, Ecuador, on May 23, 2021.Grace Macias, CC BY-ND
To outsmart the virus, we need shots in arms everywhere
That is why global access to vaccines is not only a moral imperative but also the only way to outsmart the virus. The U.S. can do a lot right now to ensure global access to vaccines even as we step up vaccination here.
The U.S. has already made substantial commitments to COVAX, a global collaboration to accelerate the development and manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines and guarantee equitable distribution.
The U.S. could channel additional funds now and pressure other countries to do the same. Funding commitments to COVAX may be hollow without a concurrent plan to quickly distribute the vaccine stockpile the U.S. has amassed as we raced to buy up the first available doses.
In addition to vaccination, the U.S. and other well-resourced countries can help increase the availability of testing in all countries. These countries can also provide technical and logistics assistance to improve vaccine rollout efforts and work to coordinate and improve global genomic surveillance so new variants are quickly identified.
If this all seems expensive, think of the crushing economic costs of going back into lockdown. This is no time to be cheap.
To avoid jeopardizing the effectiveness of the millions of shots going into arms in rich countries, we must get shots into the arms of people in all countries.
On Wednesday, Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters) passed Assembly Bill 14, known as the Internet for All Act of 2021, with a 62-7 vote on the Assembly Floor.
AB 14 aims to revolutionize the state’s broadband deployment program under the California Advanced Services Program, and provides new and increased funding to bring California into the technological 21st Century.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the massive gaps in internet connectivity at sufficient speeds for too many Californians, Aguiar-Curry’s office reported.
As more Californians have struggled to conduct distance learning, virtual work, access telehealth services and safeguard small business participation in the virtual marketplace, the need to connect the state at sufficient speeds with adaptable technology has reached crisis proportions, she said.
“Even before the pandemic, which shone a glaring light on Californians’ lack of reliable, affordable internet services, we knew access to the internet is an essential requirement for participating in the promise of today’s online world,” said Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters).
With the passage of AB 14 and SB 4 from the Assembly and Senate on Wednesday, the effort to offer all Californians the access they need to internet-based services like telehealth, the digital economy, and education and job-training is closer to becoming a reality, Aguiar-Curry said.
“The California of today cannot lead our people into the future with the technology of the past. In partnership with Sen. Gonzalez and our many colleagues in the Legislature, we can provide that future for every home and business in our state,” she said.
Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach), a principal coauthor of AB 14, said she looks forward to continuing to work with Aguiar-Curry, the Newsom administration and stakeholders to help fund broadband infrastructure and provide fast internet connectivity to more families across our state.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us how critical it is that families have access to fast internet connectivity to meet the needs of daily life,” said Gonzalez. “The digital divide impacts low income, rural, and urban communities of color the most. That is a huge injustice and that is why we must address the digital divide with urgency, to make sure all Californians have the internet connectivity they need to learn, work and socialize online, especially as we continue to work through the challenges of this global pandemic.”
The Internet for All Act of 2021 prioritizes the deployment of broadband infrastructure in California’s most vulnerable and unserved rural and urban communities by extending the ongoing collection of funds deposited into the California Advanced Services Fund, or CASF, to provide communities with grants necessary to bridge the digital divide.
AB 14 offers a vital pathway to connect California’s workforce to gainful employment, harness the lifesaving technology of telemedicine, democratize distance learning, enable precision agriculture, and sustain economic transactions in the 21st Century E-Marketplace.
The act extends eligibility for grants administered by the California Public Utilities Commission to local and tribal governments, who are willing and able to quickly and efficiently connect households, community anchor institutions (including educational institutions, fairgrounds for emergency response, and health care facilities), small businesses and employers.
Aguiar-Curry’s office said AB 14 is “a measured and meaningful approach” to building a statewide fiber middle-mile network that will provide higher speeds and access to connectivity to all those who are unserved along the path of deployment.
The bill now heads to the state Senate, Aguiar-Curry’s office reported.
Aguiar-Curry represents the Fourth Assembly District, which includes all of Lake and Napa Counties, parts of Colusa, Solano and Sonoma counties, and all of Yolo County except West Sacramento.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lakeport City Council on Tuesday went over updated preparations for the city’s July 4 celebration, approving an application with enhanced safety measures that is the result of months of planning.
The July 4 holiday, a centerpiece of the city’s event calendar, didn’t take place in 2020 due to concerns about bringing thousands of people together during the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, with COVID-19 case numbers declining and California expected to fully reopen on June 15, the city’s staff has worked over the last several months to create a plan for a safer, modified event.
“This has been a tremendous group effort going forward,” City Manager Kevin Ingram told the council.
On April 20, after an initial discussion on the plan, the council directed staff to move forward with the event, which includes COVID-19 mitigation measures.
Since then, COVID-19 guidelines have changed at least a half a dozen times, Ingram said.
One of the directions from the council at its April 20 meeting was to create a larger area for safe and sane fireworks to be used in order to ensure social distancing.
Ingram said the discharge area will be located along Fourth Street at the city’s parking area, where streets will be closed.
“That’s a much larger area than in years past,’ he said.
The fireworks barge will be moved and positioned more to the north of its usual spot offshore of Library Park, which Ingram said will make the fireworks display more visible from the former Natural High School property — where the new lakeside park is being built — as well as from Library Park.
He said the plans also have been reviewed by Lake County Public Health, which did not have immediate comments, other than to direct the city to keep reviewing and monitoring state guidance.
Ingram said the plans include Police Chief Brad Rasmussen’s recommendation to prohibit alcohol use and sales to ensure social distancing. That will be in effect just for this year.
The staff report included maps and signage that will be used for the event, showing that there will be no alcohol allowed. Participants will be asked to self-screen for COVID-19 symptoms and sanitize their hands, and masking and social distancing of 6 feet will be required.
Administrative Services Director-City Clerk Kelly Buendia said staff will continue to watch guidance from both the state and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for guidance on large events.
“We don’t believe this is going to rise to the large event standards that are proposed,” said Buendia. As a result, “It doesn't look like masks are going to be required for an event like this.”
Ingram said the most recent guidance they’ve seen on “mega-events” — which are defined as having 10,000 or more people participating — includes a masking requirement. But in past years, Lakeport’s July 4 event has seen in the range of 5,000 people, but never more than 7,500.
“We don’t anticipate we’re going to come near that mega-event threshold,” he said.
Mayor Kenny Parlet said he appreciated the work staff had put into the plan.
“It may be one of the best Fourth of Julys ever,” Parlet said.
Councilman Michael Green, a proponent of masking throughout the pandemic, suggested that masking and social distancing may not be enforceable for July 4 if this past weekend’s Memorial Day parade is a litmus test.
At the parade, social distancing was good but Green said masking was slim to none. As such, he said they may not want to require masks.
Ingram said that, to the best of staff’s knowledge, the new guidance the state is expected to issue on June 15 would not require masks.
Staff will wait and see what is released officially on June 15, and if masks aren’t required, they can amend the signs planned for the event, Ingram said.
Councilwoman Mireya Turner agreed with Green’s position, noting that enforcing the alcohol rules will keep everyone busy.
Councilwoman Stacey Mattina added, “We’ve followed the state the whole way,” so it makes sense to continue to do so.
Turner moved to approve event Application 2021-016 for the July 4 fireworks display, with Mattina seconding and the council voting 5-0.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
From left to right: The mosaic and geologic maps of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede were assembled incorporating the best available imagery from NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft and NASA’s Galileo spacecraft. Credits: USGS Astrogeology Science Center/Wheaton/NASA/JPL-Caltech. The first of the gas-giant orbiter’s back-to-back flybys will provide a close encounter with the massive moon after over 20 years.
On Monday, June 7, at 10:35 a.m. Pacific Time, NASA’s Juno spacecraft will come within 645 miles of the surface of Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede.
The flyby will be the closest a spacecraft has come to the solar system’s largest natural satellite since NASA’s Galileo spacecraft made its penultimate close approach back on May 20, 2000.
Along with striking imagery, the solar-powered spacecraft’s flyby will yield insights into the moon’s composition, ionosphere, magnetosphere, and ice shell. Juno’s measurements of the radiation environment near the moon will also benefit future missions to the Jovian system.
Ganymede is bigger than the planet Mercury and is the only moon in the solar system with its own magnetosphere — a bubble-shaped region of charged particles surrounding the celestial body.
“Juno carries a suite of sensitive instruments capable of seeing Ganymede in ways never before possible,” said Juno Principal Investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “By flying so close, we will bring the exploration of Ganymede into the 21st century, both complementing future missions with our unique sensors and helping prepare for the next generation of missions to the Jovian system — NASA’s Europa Clipper and ESA’s [European Space Agency’s] JUpiter ICy moons Explorer [JUICE] mission.”
Juno’s science instruments will begin collecting data about three hours before the spacecraft’s closest approach. Along with the Ultraviolet Spectrograph and Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper instruments, Juno’s Microwave Radiometer’s, or MWR, will peer into Ganymede’s water-ice crust, obtaining data on its composition and temperature.
“Ganymede’s ice shell has some light and dark regions, suggesting that some areas may be pure ice while other areas contain dirty ice,” said Bolton. “MWR will provide the first in-depth investigation of how the composition and structure of the ice varies with depth, leading to a better understanding of how the ice shell forms and the ongoing processes that resurface the ice over time.”
The results will complement those from ESA’s forthcoming JUICE mission, which will look at the ice using radar at different wavelengths when it becomes the first spacecraft to orbit a moon other than Earth’s Moon in 2032.
Signals from Juno’s X-band and Ka-band radio wavelengths will be used to perform a radio occultation experiment to probe the moon’s tenuous ionosphere (the outer layer of an atmosphere where gases are excited by solar radiation to form ions, which have an electrical charge).
“As Juno passes behind Ganymede, radio signals will pass through Ganymede’s ionosphere, causing small changes in the frequency that should be picked up by two antennas at the Deep Space Network’s Canberra complex in Australia,” said Dustin Buccino, a signal analysis engineer for the Juno mission at JPL. “If we can measure this change, we might be able to understand the connection between Ganymede’s ionosphere, its intrinsic magnetic field, and Jupiter’s magnetosphere.”
Three cameras, two jobs
Normally, Juno’s Stellar Reference Unit, or SRU, navigation camera is tasked with helping keep the Jupiter orbiter on course, but during the flyby it will do double duty.
Along with its navigation duties, the camera — which is well shielded against radiation that could otherwise adversely affect it — will gather information on the high-energy radiation environment in the region near Ganymede by collecting a special set of images.
“The signatures from penetrating high-energy particles in Jupiter’s extreme radiation environment appear as dots, squiggles, and streaks in the images — like static on a television screen. We extract these radiation-induced noise signatures from SRU images to obtain diagnostic snapshots of the radiation levels encountered by Juno,” said Heidi Becker, Juno’s radiation monitoring lead at JPL.
Meanwhile, the Advanced Stellar Compass camera, built at the Technical University of Denmark, will count very energetic electrons that penetrate its shielding with a measurement every quarter of a second.
Also being enlisted is the JunoCam imager. Conceived to bring the excitement and beauty of Jupiter exploration to the public, the camera has provided an abundance of useful science as well during the mission’s almost five-year tenure at Jupiter.
For the Ganymede flyby, JunoCam will collect images at a resolution equivalent to the best from Voyager and Galileo. The Juno science team will scour the images, comparing them to those from previous missions, looking for changes in surface features that might have occurred over four-plus decades.
Any changes to crater distribution on the surface could help astronomers better understand the current population of objects that impact moons in the outer solar system.
Due to the speed of the flyby, the icy moon will – from JunoCam’s viewpoint – go from being a point of light to a viewable disk then back to a point of light in about 25 minutes. So that’s just enough time for five images.
“Things usually happen pretty quick in the world of flybys, and we have two back-to-back next week. So literally every second counts,” said Juno Mission Manager Matt Johnson of JPL. “On Monday, we are going to race past Ganymede at almost 12 miles per second (19 kilometers per second). Less than 24 hours later we’re performing our 33rd science pass of Jupiter – screaming low over the cloud tops, at about 36 miles per second (58 kilometers per second). It is going to be a wild ride.”
The California Department of Aging announced that California has become the eighth state in the nation to be accepted into the AARP Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities, a commitment to make California more livable for people of all ages and abilities.
The agency said the achievement is a result of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2019 directive to convene a cabinet-level Work Group for Aging, as well as the Master Plan for Aging (Executive Order N-14-19).
Released earlier this year, the Master Plan for Aging outlines five bold goals and twenty-three strategies to build a California for All Ages by 2030.
AB 1118 (Blanca Rubio, Chapter 820, Statutes of 2019) directed the Secretary of California’s Health and Human Services Agency to consider applying on behalf of the state to join the age-friendly network as part of the Master Plan for Aging.
“California has the nation’s largest and most diverse aging population. We must tap into those talents and address the critical needs, so all Californians can have healthy and happy older years — especially those at greater risk of isolation, abuse, or homelessness,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom. “We are committed to creating a California for all ages where everyone has the ability to live and thrive in the community they choose.”
“California has launched a bold ten-year master plan for aging, as we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and build back better. This new plan provides an inclusive and equitable framework for transforming aging in this state for individuals, families, and communities,” said Kim McCoy Wade, Director of the California Department of Aging. “We look forward to working with AARP to forge partnerships that will create change in every community.”
AARP’s network, an affiliate of the World Health Organization’s Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities and Communities Program, is part of an international campaign to help communities prepare for rapidly aging populations and the parallel trend of urbanization.
“By 2030, 10.8 million Californians will be aged 60 or over. That means older adults will make up one quarter of the state’s population, nearly double the number 10 years ago — a growth rate larger than any other age group,” said Nancy McPherson, AARP California state director. “The cost of being unprepared for this shift is unaffordable and untenable. AARP applauds the State of California for acting to improve livability in the state through the Master Plan for Aging and enrolling the state in the AARP Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities. The state now joins arms with communities around the world to implement innovative strategies that improve livability in communities and involve older residents in the process.”
As a member of the AARP Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities, California commits to identifying the challenges of its aging population and identifying policy and programmatic solutions that will improve the quality of life for all ages in the community — in collaboration with residents, communities and partners.
By enrolling in the AARP network, the state will gain access to national and global research, community networks, planning models and best practices to improve livability for all ages and abilities.
“We are thrilled to join this network of communities, giving us the opportunity to learn from others while also contributing to the network through our own best practices and lessons learned,” said California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly. “California’s Master Plan for Aging is our road map to building a California Dream that is inclusive of our older and disabled neighbors.”
“Improving livability, combating ageism, enabling autonomy and supporting healthy aging for all have long been priorities of mine because they are so important to my constituents, and Californians more broadly. I authored AB 1118 because I saw it as being complementary to the Governor’s Master Plan for Aging work, and as an opportunity for California to lead on aging issues by partnering with AARP. I’m hopeful that this partnership, combined with the Master Plan for Aging, will truly help to advance more livable communities that are age and disability-friendly,” said Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio.
People of all ages and abilities benefit from the adoption of policies and programs that make neighborhoods walkable, feature safe transportation options, enable access to key services, provide opportunities to participate in community activities, and support housing that is affordable and adaptable.
Well-designed, age-friendly communities foster economic growth and make for happier, healthier residents of all ages — an important need during the current crisis.
In addition to the state’s enrollment, over 50 California communities, representing over half of the state’s population, are already enrolled in the AARP Network — ranging in size from the Town of Fairfax to Los Angeles County.
Officials said the addition of California will create synergy with the local jurisdictions and build upon and further advance building age friendly communities.
Nationwide, more than 500 communities, one U.S. territory and now eight states have received the Age-Friendly designation from AARP.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Community members are invited to pitch in to help clean up Clear Lake’s shoreline during a special event this month.
The Clear Lake Shoreline Clean-Up Day will take place from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, June 19.
The Lake County Water Resources Department’s AmeriCorps CivicSpark Fellows, in partnership with Lake County Special Districts and the city of Lakeport, are hosting the cleanup.
No pre-registration is required.
Participants are asked to check in with Water Resources staff at tables in Library Park in Lakeport, Redbud Park in Clearlake, or Lucerne Harbor Park in Nice anytime during the four hours of the cleanup on the day of the event.
Gloves, masks and bags will be provided. Social distancing guidelines will be followed.
Contact Connie Warthen at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with any questions or for more information.
Lake County Poet Laureate Georgina Marie Guardado and her canine companion, Micco. Photo by Karen Pavone. LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County’s poet laureate is among 23 nationwide who have been chosen by the Academy of American Poets as 2021 Poets Laureate Fellows.
The academy announced Thursday that Lake County Poet Laureate Georgina Marie Guardado of Lakeport has been selected as a member of this year’s fellows class.
“These 23 Poets Laureate Fellows will lead an extraordinary range of public poetry programs,” said Elizabeth Alexander, poet and president of the Mellon Foundation. “We are delighted to support them as they create their own poems, collaborate with other artists, and center poetry in their engagement with communities across our vast country — from urban to rural counties — while we collectively begin to process and reflect on the exceptional crises of the past year.”
The news came on the same day that the group of past Lake County poets emeriti announced that Guardado has been offered, and has accepted, a second term.
“I am honored and so moved by both the offer to extend my poet laureate role by two more years and by being awarded a Poets Laureate Fellowship by the Academy of American Poets,” Guardado told Lake County News. “The AAP fellowship is the largest financial supporter of poets in the nation and I have been following the academy for years, reading their poems on poets.org and on social media. I feel incredibly pleased to have my efforts and hard work recognized by such a prestigious organization and on a national scale. This will undoubtedly further my literary career as a poet and open so many doors for me. Not to mention, this is an amazing opportunity for poetry and the poetry community of Lake County.”
The academy is awarding a combined total of $1.1 million to the poets selected as fellows this year.
More than $100,000 also will be provided to 14 nonprofit organizations that have agreed to support the fellows’ proposed projects.
Guardado was selected as Lake County poet laureate in April of 2020, at the onset of the pandemic and shelter-in-place order.
She will receive $50,000 from the Academy of American Poets to install poetry boxes, poetry display cases, tiny poetry libraries and poetry murals in all 18 communities in Lake County.
She also plans to expand the project — with the permission and input of local tribal officials and peoples — the six Native American reservations in Lake County.
To complete the project, Guardado said she will engage government leaders, local poets, artists and youth.
“During the pandemic, I have strived to keep the literary momentum going in Lake County and both of these opportunities will allow me to continue doing so with time and financial support,” Guardado said. “For poets in our county of all ages and backgrounds, I hope this offers hope and inspiration that you can do anything you dream of even from a small, rural county as our own.”
Guardado will be able to carry out the project while she serves a second consecutive two-year term as Lake County poet laureate.
“Georgina has done a tremendous job promoting online poetry workshops and events during the pandemic,” said Lake County Poet Laureate Emeritus Carolyn Wing Greenlee. “The poets laureate feel that she deserves the experience of live events, including poet laureate events in California, as communities begin to reunite in the near future.”
The role of a poet laureate is to promote poetry, writing and literacy in the community they represent.
In Lake County, the poet laureate role began in 1998 with the installation of the first Lake County poet laureate, Jim Lyle, by the Board of Supervisors.
The Lake County poet laureate role is a volunteer one, with the selection process taking place every two years and conducted by the poets who previously held the post.
The next Lake County poet laureate search will take place in April of 2024.
In addition to Guardado, the 2021 Poets Laureate Fellows and the communities they serve are Marcus Amaker (Charleston, South Carolina), Semaj Brown (Flint, Michigan), Roscoe Burnems (Richmond, Virginia), Aileen Cassinetto (San Mateo County, California), Leslie Contreras Schwartz (Houston, Texas), Magdalena Gómez (Springfield, Massachusetts), Chasity Gunn (Elgin, Illinois), Kari Gunter-Seymour (Ohio), Luisa A. Igloria (Virginia), Angela Jackson (Illinois), Dasha Kelly Hamilton (Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Wisconsin state), Melissa Kwasny and M.L. Smoker (Montana), Bobby LeFebre (Colorado), Debra Marquart (Iowa), Trapeta B. Mayson (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), Anis Mojgani (Oregon), Chelsea Rathburn (Georgia), Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson (San Antonio, Texas), Lloyd Schwartz (Somerville, Massachusetts), M. Bartley Seigel (Upper Peninsula, Michigan) and Brian Sonia-Wallace (West Hollywood, California).
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
This week, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a proclamation declaring June 2021, as “LGBTQ Pride Month” in the State of California.
A copy of the proclamation can be found below.
PROCLAMATION
As we celebrate and declare June as Pride Month in California, we are reminded of what makes California great – our remarkable capacity to advance together and exist as the most diverse democracy in the world.
We stand together with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community of California as they declare their pride in who they are and whom they love.
The LGBTQ community has worked tirelessly for respect, equality and their very right to exist. Their battles have been fought in the courts, from marriage equality to demanding equal protection under the law.
While there has been remarkable progress towards acceptance and equality in recent years, members of the LGBTQ community in the United States and around the world still face an unacceptable level of discrimination and violence. This includes LGBTQ people who aren’t safe at home and those who do not have a home in which to stay.
We must push back against those who threaten the safety of LGBTQ Californians and challenge our progress. And we must continue to make the case that all human beings share something fundamental in common — all of us want to love and be loved.
Last Pride month, in the throes of a once-in-a-generation pandemic, we celebrated virtually. Now, as we move “beyond the blueprint” this month, we look forward to the opportunity for the community and its allies to gather together in celebration once again.
We are proud to support our LGBTQ community’s right to live their lives out loud. As we celebrate Pride across the state, we must continue to demand equal rights for all to create a California for all.
NOW THEREFORE I, GAVIN NEWSOM, Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim June 2021 as “LGBTQ Pride Month.”
When many people think of a school nurse, they imagine a person who hands out Band-Aids for boo-boos.
But school nurses do so much more. They are school leaders who address the physical, mental and emotional health needs of students.
As the COVID-19 pandemic played out, many school nurses took on even greater responsibilities. These include monitoring and evaluating staff and students for COVID-19 exposure and symptoms, contact tracing and educating students, staff and community partners on vaccine and prevention measures. School nurses are also developing initiatives to deal with the anticipated increase in mental health services that students, families and staff will need in the post-pandemic world.
As a former school nurse and current nurse scientist and professor of nursing, I know that this one-size-fits-all model does not consider the full role and responsibilities of the school nurse.
School nursing is a specialized practice that operates in environments very different from an acute care hospital setting. School nurses work alone, practice independently and are typically the sole health care provider in the building.
As part of our public health system, they play a critical role in disease surveillance, disaster preparedness, wellness and chronic disease prevention interventions, immunizations, mental health screening and asthma education.
Most school nurses will tell you they are unable to carry out many of these functions, often due to huge workloads or poor staffing.
I know from personal experience. From 2009 to 2014, I was the sole school nurse responsible for the health and safety of over 900 public elementary school children. This included special education classrooms for preschoolers and students with nonverbal autism. I now research how school health policies and practices effect the work environment of school nurses, and the challenges and barriers they face.
Research shows how a positive work environment for school nurses increases job satisfaction, reduces turnover and improves academic outcomes for students. A study of school nurses in Massachusetts schools demonstrated that for every dollar invested in school nursing, society would gain US$2.20 as a result of kids’ better health and disease prevention.
A school nurse’s workload depends on a number of significant variables. For example, how many students in the school have chronic illnesses and need medication administered? How many students attend the school? What ages are they? What is the average number of student visits to the health office each school day? Are students spread across multiple buildings? What level of experience and specialized skills does the school nurse have?
The number of students in a school who are dealing with poverty or other health equity issues – including access to quality education, safe housing and health care – also impacts and increases the workload for school nurses.
These evidence-based variables can be used to guide school administrators and school nurses on what constitutes safe staffing. Making sure school nurses have a safe, appropriate workload is critical to ensuring that students have their health needs met at school.
Parents who are concerned about their child’s health at school may want to find out how many students their child’s school nurse cares for. How many students does the school nurse see on a typical day? Is a school nurse in the building every day? Does the school nurse cover more than one building? What happens when there is an emergency, such as a child with a life-threatening allergic reaction? Where are the emergency care plans kept? Is there stock medication available such as epinephrine and albuterol for students with severe allergies or asthma?
I believe school nurses need more manageable workloads in order to provide the safe care needed for better student health and academic outcomes. This leads to better health not just in individuals but in communities that need it most.
