LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lake County Library’s 2020 Summer Reading Program begins May 16 with an entirely-online format designed for reading at home while all of the libraries are closed for in-person services.

The Summer Reading Program is a fun way to challenge yourself to read more over the summer. For students, reading over summer break can prevent summer learning loss and help them start the next school year out on the right page.

The library has programs for pre-K, kids, teens, and adults. Children who can't quite read on their own can still sign up and parents can record the books that you read together.

No matter which program you choose, you will log your reading for points. The only differences between the programs are the prizes you might win, the recommended reading lists, and the activities and games available online.

Once sign-ups start on May 16 you can register on our special Summer Reading website and at any time during the program. Just head to the library website at http://library.lakecountyca.gov and click Summer Reading. Create an account for yourself and your family, register for the program that's right for you, and let the fun begin.

Once you’re signed up you can start reading books and logging your reading online to get points. You get points by logging your reading.

When you log books, each book is worth 40 points. When you log pages, each page read is worth 1 point.

As you get more points you unlock digital badges, games, and activities. At 1,000 points you complete the reading log and the Friends of the Library will donate a book to the library. The book will have your name inside commemorating your achievement and you will be the first person to check it out.

August 29 is the last day to log points on your account.

You can also read eBooks or listen audiobooks to participate. The library offers an array of digital eBooks and audiobooks through Hoopla, Overdrive and Enki, all accessible with your Lake County Library card.

Reading is its own reward, but we also offer prizes to make the program more fun. There will be prize drawings throughout the summer. The more points you have the greater chance you have to win.

There are also missions, which are fun activities that award a digital badge if you complete them. It's a rumor that missions might help you win prizes!

Participating in a summer reading program helps encourage habits that make reading a lifelong habit. Reading over the summer helps children keep their skills up and generates interest in books and literacy.

If you have other questions contact the library at 707-263-8817. Leave a message and the next available employee will reply.

With a library card, patrons can access the library’s array of digital services without the need to visit a local branch. If you need a library card, you can create an online card with the application form on the library website. If you have a question about an existing library account, call 707-263-8817 and leave a message. Library staff will be available by phone during normal operating hours to assist with the digital resources. The Lake County Library continues to offer services during the COVID19 stay at home. If you want to keep up with library news, sign up for free weekly email updates on the library’s homepage.

Jan Cook is a library technician for the Lake County Library.

 

I, like many Americans, miss the pre-pandemic world of hugging family and friends, going to work and having dinner at a restaurant. A protective vaccine for SARS-Cov2 is likely to be the most effective public health tool to get back to that world.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, cautiously estimates that a vaccine could be available in 12 to 18 months.

I am a professor of microbiology and immunology and study how the immune system develops. I think Dr. Fauci’s estimate is an optimistic one, but possible.

Traditional vaccine development is a long and complicated process. Only about 6% of vaccine candidates are eventually approved for public use, and the process takes 10.7 years, on average.

But these are not traditional times. Researchers around the world are innovating the process of vaccine development in real time to develop a vaccine as fast as possible. So how close are we to a vaccine?

A step-by-step process

Vaccines prevent disease by boosting a person’s natural immune response against a microbe that they have not encountered before. There are a number of different types of vaccines in development for SARS-CoV-2 and they fall into three broad categories: traditional killed-virus vaccines, protein-based vaccines and gene-based vaccines. No matter the type, every single vaccine candidate must go through the same vetting process before it can be put into use.

Once researchers have developed a potential candidate, they begin the first step of testing in laboratories, called preclinical studies. Scientists use laboratory animals to examine if the candidate vaccine induces an immune response to the virus and to check whether the vaccine causes any obvious medical problems.

Once a vaccine is proven safe in animals, researchers begin human testing. This is where the federal Food and Drug Administration begins to regulate the process.

Phase 1 studies test for safety and proof-of-concept. Researchers give a small number of human volunteers the vaccine. Then they look for medical problems and see if it induces some sort of immune response.

In Phase 2 studies, researchers give the vaccine to hundreds of volunteers to determine the optimal vaccine composition, dose and vaccination schedule.

The final step before a vaccine is approved by the FDA for broad use is a Phase 3 trial. These involve thousands of volunteers and provide data on how good the vaccine is at preventing infection. These large trials will also uncover rarer side effects or health issues that may not show up in the smaller trials.

If in any of these phases a vaccine candidate appears to be ineffective or cause harm to people, the researchers must start over with a new candidate.

After a vaccine candidate successfully completes these clinical trials, a medical regulatory panel in the FDA looks at the evidence, and if the vaccine is effective and safe, approves it for general use. Experts estimate that the whole process costs between US$1 billion and $5 billion.

But approval is not the only hurdle. As has been demonstrated by the severe lack of coronavirus testing, easy and fast production of a test or vaccine is as critical as having one that works.

Both clinical efficacy and ease of production must be considered when asking how long until a vaccine is ready.

Current promising candidates

As of April 30, 2020, there were eight vaccine candidates currently in Phase 1 (or joint Phase 1/Phase 2) clinical trials and 94 vaccines candidates in preclinical studies.

Three of the eight are traditional vaccines that use inactivated or killed virus. Two of the others are protein-based vaccines that use a modified cold virus to deliver the protein that will stimulate the immune response.

The final three vaccines in Phase 1 or 2 trials, and the only two in the U.S., are gene-based vaccines. To me, these seem like the most promising.

Gene-based vaccines contain a gene or part of a gene from the virus that causes COVID-19, but not the virus itself. When a person is injected with one of these vaccines, their own cells read the injected gene and make a protein that is a part of the coronavirus. This one protein isn’t dangerous by itself, but it should trigger an immune response that would lead to immunity from the coronavirus.

Gene-based vaccines come in DNA form, like the vaccine in Phase 1 clinical trials from Inovio Pharmaceuticals in the U.S., or in RNA form, like the vaccine in a simultaneous Phase 1/Phase 2 trial from the German company BioNTech and the vaccine in Phase 1 trials from the U.S.-based Moderna.

No gene-based vaccines have ever been approved for human use, but DNA vaccines are used on animals, and a few were in clinical trials for the Zika virus.

In the past, researchers have struggled to develop DNA vaccines that produce strong immune responses, but new techniques look promising. RNA vaccines tend to be more effective in animal studies but have also required innovations before human use. It may be that the time of gene-based vaccines has arrived.

Another benefit of gene-based vaccines is that manufacturers would likely be able to produce large amounts much faster than traditional vaccines. DNA and RNA vaccines would also be more shelf–stable than conventional vaccines since they don’t use ingredients like cell components or chicken eggs. This would make distribution, especially to rural areas, easier.

Still a long road to implementation

The three gene-based vaccines and the five other candidates face many challenges before you or I will be vaccinated. The fact that they are in Phase 1 and 2 trials is encouraging, but the very point of clinical trials is to reveal any problems with a vaccine candidate.

And there are a lot of potential problems. The preclinical results in laboratory animals might not translate well to people. The level of immune protection might be low. And people may react adversely when injected with the vaccine.

Any coronavirus vaccine could also produce a dangerous reaction called immune enhancement, where the vaccine actually worsens the symptoms of a coronavirus infection. This is rare, but has happened with past vaccine candidates for dengue fever and other viruses.

So, how long before we have a vaccine against the COVID-19 virus?

No vaccines have made it through Phase 1 or Phase 2 trials yet, and Phase 3 trials generally take between one and four years. If researchers get lucky and one of these first vaccines is both safe and effective, we are still at least a year away from knowing that. At that point manufacturers would need to start producing and distributing the vaccine at a massive scale.

It is unclear what percent of the population would need to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, but in general, you need to immunize between 80% and 95% of the population to have effective herd immunity. Depending on what the virus does in the coming months, that might not be necessary, but if it is, that’s 260-300 million people in the U.S. alone.

Researchers are doing everything they can to develop a vaccine as fast as possible while still making sure it is effective and safe. Manufacturers can help by preparing flexible systems that could be ready to produce whichever candidate gets across the finish line first.

If everything goes well, Fauci’s 12- to 18-month prediction may be right. If so, it will be thanks to the tireless work of scientists, the support of international organizations and manufacturers all innovating and working together to fight this virus.

[Research into coronavirus and other news from science Subscribe to The Conversation’s new science newsletter.]

Marcos E. García-Ojeda, Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Merced

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – It's another quintessential storybook spring day, replete with green growth aplenty.

Grapevines are budding out, oaks and alders are starting their showy spring displays of living art in the form of catkins.

Catkins are the long, dangling male flowers which release pollen into the wind in order to wind-pollinate.

Along with the impressionistic haze of green in every shade imaginable now, are wildflowers in an incredible array of colors that are popping in patches of soil nearly everywhere.

With all of the lush bounty in orchards, valleys and woods, land managers of all ilk are putting elbow-grease into mowing and removing potentially flammable material.

You may have seen some of the “live lawnmowers” around the county in the form of goats or sheep corralled together munching and crunching on grass and shrubs.

These industrious creatures are helpful in reducing fuel loads to a manageable level.

Sheep are known to feed on herbaceous growth, while goats will consume woody material.

Some farmers have found that grazing on large tracts of the landscape is even more advantageous than simply mowing, and usually turns out to be quite cost-effective.

Demand for renting grazing goats is a growing business across California and the West, with homeowners, golf courses, government agencies and even some fire departments such as those in Ventura County making use of the goats' clearing abilities.

Thanks to the goats' voracious appetites they can chomp up to 12 pounds of vegetation per day, all while navigating those hard-to-reach places on hilly terrain.

Goats consume a wider variety of growth than do cattle, which prefer grasses and sedges.

A herd of 170 goats is recorded as consuming 2,000 pounds of green brush in a single day.

The strong animals are able to extend themselves up on their back legs and reach leaves and branches up to 7 feet high.

An added advantage goats present is that unlike us, they do not mind going into stands of poison oak, and they may be good at ridding the land of invasive species.

A disadvantage to running goats is that they are not allowed into areas where rare and endangered plants are known to thrive.

Running a goat-rental business takes some investment and planning strategies. Goat herds require livestock trailers, portable fencing and folks to attend to the goats and oversee them for safe-keeping.

Goats aren't said to solve every problem, but they are definitely a great tool in the kit that includes regular mowing, clearing and where deemed necessary, prescribed burns.

For a list of Lake County agriculture members, some of whom hire out their goats, visit http://www.lakecountyfarmersfinest.org/agricultural_members.html .

Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is a retired educator, potter, freelance writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.”

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Clearlake Animal Control has four dogs waiting to join their new families.

While the shelter has moved most of its dogs into foster, potential adopters can make appointments to meet and adopt available dogs.

The following dogs are ready for adoption or foster.

‘Lady’

“Lady” is a female German Shepherd mix.

She has been spayed.

She is dog No. 3683.

‘Princess’

“Princess” is a female German Shepherd with a black and tan coat.

She has been spayed.

Princess is young and energetic. She previously lived around a smaller dog and has been around the office cat. She will benefit from training and attention.

She is dog No. 3669.

‘Spud’

“Spud” is a male American Staffordshire Terrier with a short brindle and white coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 3733.

‘Tyson’

“Tyson” is a male American Staffordshire Terrier with a short gray and white coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 1863.

Clearlake Animal Control’s shelter is located at 6820 Old Highway 53, off Airport Road.

Hours of operation are noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. The shelter is closed Sundays, Mondays and major holidays; the shelter offers appointments on the days it’s closed to accommodate people.

Call the Clearlake Animal Control shelter at 707-273-9440, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to inquire about adoptions.

Visit Clearlake Animal Control on Facebook or at the city’s website.

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.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – “You’re more creative than you think.”

Creativebug is your go-to resource for high-quality, on-trend arts and crafts instructional videos.

Free with your Lake County Library card you get on-demand access to our full library more than 1,000 art and craft classes for artists and makers of all levels.

With your library card, you’ll enjoy award-winning HD instructional videos on drawing, painting, sewing, knitting, crochet, quilting, baking and more.

Creativebug.com offers classes to appeal to all ages of creative people. All classes are taught by experts, with new classes added daily.

Creativebug delivers expert instruction and inspiration straight to your favorite device so you can learn at your own pace – anytime and anywhere. Benefits include downloadable patterns, templates and recipes, access to Creativebug’s community galleries and forum, and one class each month to keep forever.

Daily Practice videos are 5-10 minute creative exercises and projects designed to keep your creative skills sharp and your creativity inspired even when you only have a few minutes a day.

Join thousands of like-minded creatives taking a few minutes every day to experience the satisfaction and joy of exercising their creative muscles. Check out all the beautiful work by Creativebug members in the gallery and on Instagram #cbdrawaday

Creativebug.com is optimized for mobile and tablet, so it's easy to use and enjoy from all of your favorite devices. The Creativebug app is available via iTunes and Google Play. With the Creativebug App you can download your favorite class and take it on the go!

In the Double Wedding Ring Quilt class, quilter Tara Faughnan, known for her vibrant and harmonious use of color, shares her technique for hand-piecing a double wedding ring quilt block.

Faughnan begins by showing how to create your own arc templates that utilize small scraps of fabric.

She goes on to teach hand-sewing techniques for piecing and shares loads of information along the way about how colors interact. See how this centuries-old block pattern comes together to create a colorful quilt top with a fresh, modern twist.

With a library card, patrons can access the library’s array of digital services without the need to visit a local branch. If you need a library card, you can create an online card with the application form on the library website.

If you have a question about an existing library account, call 707-263-8817 and leave a message. Library staff will be available by phone during normal operating hours to assist with the digital resources.

The Lake County Library continues to offer services during the COVID-19 stay at home. If you want to keep up with library news, sign up for free weekly email updates on the library’s homepage.

Jan Cook is a library technician for the Lake County Library.

 

It has been less than two months since the world scrambled to go into the “Great Lockdown” to slow the spread of COVID-19. Now, many countries are considering their exit strategies. Some have already eased up.

The push is largely economic. There is a lot scientists don’t yet understand about the novel coronavirus, and there is no known cure or vaccine. Many countries are still experiencing a rise in infections. But the lockdowns have played havoc with people’s livelihoods. Entire economies are in meltdown: The International Monetary Fund predicts the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Just as each nation chose a different route into lockdown, each is likely to choose its own exit path. I have launched a research initiative, “Imagining a Digital Economy for All 2030,” with a focus on the post-pandemic global economy. We have been studying the characteristics of 40 countries that help explain how governments and citizens have acted to contain the COVID-19 outbreak and their preparedness to take an economy online. Our analysis offers ways to gauge which countries are best prepared for a safe exit.

It seems clear that the safest idea is to reopen slowly, in phases, while remaining ready to reenter lockdown in case of new outbreaks. By looking at how well a nation managed the first wave of the pandemic, and how ready it is to work remotely by falling back onto the online economy, we now understand how prepared nations are to restart economic activity without triggering fresh rounds of public health disasters.

Public health and technology

Not every country is well equipped to ease itself out of a lockdown safely.

A nation’s ability to manage the outbreak relies on many factors: the willingness of governments to take decisive action; citizen compliance in staying home and social distancing; and capacity for adequate testing for the disease, including “contact tracing” – tracking down the people who have been in contact with those infected. Those characteristics are also key to managing future outbreaks.

In parallel, not every country is ready to shift much of its economic activity online. Around the world, not everyone has affordable, reliable internet service; or the jobs, devices and digital apps that would let them work productively from home; or ways to make payments and get public services online. In some countries – though not all – workers who can’t do their jobs remotely can reduce their in-person contact by using digital transactions, whether it is for carry-out food, e-commerce or receiving bailout checks and unemployment benefits.

Countries such as Germany, New Zealand and South Korea are strong in both disease-fighting and digital-economy preparedness. Their economic activity isn’t as dependent on in-person interactions, and authorities can respond quickly if loosened rules result in a spike in cases. In contrast, the U.S., Italy and Japan face different challenges before they can safely lift lockdowns.

Difficulties ahead for the US

Compared to countries worldwide, the U.S. is more prepared to operate parts of its economy online, but its response to the outbreak indicates there may be difficulties after reopening. States were inconsistent in issuing stay-at-home orders, and citizens’ compliance with the rules has varied widely.

Officials have been unable to test in large numbers, and only four states meet, or are on track to meet, the contact-tracing required to control future outbreaks.

The results are evident in the mortality rates in the U.S. and other, better-prepared countries: On May 5, the key statistic shows the U.S. death rate was more than three times that of Germany, nearly 200 times those in New Zealand and South Korea.

What made the difference?

The countries that more efficiently managed this first outbreak and its consequences capitalized on their public health preparation to get a grip on the infection quickly. Germany has a high volume of infections but low mortality. The country only knows this because it had tested extensively – at a rate of 21 people per 1,000, as compared with 9.8 per 1,000 in the U.S.

New Zealand’s government proved willing to rapidly impose severe restrictions on movement and found the public largely supportive and ready to comply.

South Korea, while among the earliest countries affected, kept its mortality among the lowest in the world through widespread testing and deploying technology for widespread contact tracing. Infected individuals’ interactions were retraced using cellphone location data, surveillance camera footage and credit card records. Websites and apps offer details on infected people’s travel and exposure risks.

These approaches may prove hard for the U.S. to replicate. The country is far from having testing rates like Germany’s. New Zealand has a much less polarized citizenry and far more trust in its national leadership than the U.S. The South Korean technology-intensive approach to contact tracing would be considered too intrusive on individual privacy for the U.S.

Troubles for other nations, too

Italy initially underestimated the severity of its outbreak, but then imposed a strict lockdown with high citizen compliance and widespread testing and tracing. However, we found in our study that Italy is among the least prepared European Union members for a shift to a digital economy. Germany, New Zealand and South Korea all have higher levels of internet access and service, digital payments and public services, and employers ready to handle remote work.

Japan’s situation is particularly challenging because it eased up its restrictions too early and then had to impose an emergency to stem additional outbreaks. It is also relatively unprepared in digital terms because of a host of factors, ranging from peer pressure to come into the office, to security concerns, transactions that require a paper trail, often requiring official corporate seals, missing digital infrastructure and a continued aversion to digital payments.

Each of these countries is a wealthy, developed nation, so the differences are not due to affordability. Our research has found that preparedness requires not just funding but also farsighted, credible and transparent leadership and citizens’ trust in that leadership. The first leads to timely and firm decisions, and the second contributes to citizens’ willingness to cooperate with those decisions.

For instance, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s background as a trained scientist gave her powerful credibility when facing a scientific crisis. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern clearly explained her “go early, go hard” approach to lockdown restrictions, and her citizens agreed. In South Korea, authorities controlled the virus through “decisive and transparent leadership based on data, not emotion.”

As governments seek their own exit pathways, and aim to strengthen areas where they are weak, there’s no way to be completely certain or fully prepared for what might happen next.

In our research, we’ve found one principle that governments might find useful to guide them through the uncertainty. It’s from a former New Zealand prime minister, Helen Clark: “Economies can recover; the dead can’t.”

[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help. Read The Conversation’s newsletter.]

Bhaskar Chakravorti, Dean of Global Business, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Billions of years ago, the Martian surface could have supported microbial life as we know it. But did such life ever actually exist there?

NASA and its Mars 2020 mission hope to find out with the Perseverance rover, which launches to the Red Planet this summer.

Scientists have sought answers to astrobiological questions on Earth, studying regions similar enough to Mars to understand what the Red Planet's microscopic fossil record might look like. One research trip late last year involved fossilized microbes in the Australian Outback.

Earlier this year, seven mission scientists headed to a dry lakebed in Nevada as 150 worked with them remotely for the Rover Operations Activities for Science Team Training, aka the ROASTT.

Rather than bringing a car-sized rover, the seven field team members stood in for it. Wielding cameras and portable spectrometers during simulated operations spread out over a two-week period, they received instructions from the scientists located elsewhere, just as the rover will after it lands on Feb. 18, 2021.

Like all Mars rovers, Perseverance will be run by a distributed team of scientists and engineers — some located in the operations center at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which leads the new mission, and some located at research institutions around the world. They will discuss where to go, which samples to study, and — for the first time — which rocks to collect in metal tubes for eventual return to Earth for deeper study.

The Nevada exercise not only helped team members practice what to look for with Perseverance; it helped them get used to working with one another and with the rover. The field site was also an opportunity for research: Besides simulating a rover, the field team members were studying the field site, providing insights that could help shape the search for past life on Mars.

If a cliffside seemed promising, scientists on conference lines around the globe debated whether the field team should "drive" closer; if a set of rocks appeared ideal for preserving fossils, they would order close-up images from the field team.

A ray-gun-like laser instrument mimicked Perseverance's rock-analyzing SuperCam; another handheld tool shot X-rays like the rover's Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry, or PIXL, will; a ground-penetrating radar was carted around in what looked like a jogger stroller to peer below the surface, mimicking the Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Experiment, or RIMFAX.

The field team also had an important low-tech tool: a cheap broom used to sweep away their footprints, both to preserve the Martian feel of the landscape and to avoid providing the remote scientist a sense of scale in the rock images they were providing.

A patch of Mars in Nevada

Walker Lake is an ideal training ground for spotting ancient microscopic life. The lake once extended much farther than it does today; the parts of it that dried up tens of thousands of years ago are now studded with stromatolites — collections of fossilized microbes and sediment that have hardened into what often look like bulbous, moundlike growths. It remains to be seen whether Jezero Crater, Perseverance's landing site, has anything akin to stromatolites, but it, too, is an ancient lakebed.

Besides helping scientists think about biosignatures, or signs of ancient life, the training also demonstrated how working with Perseverance will take teamwork and careful coordination.

"It's especially important for scientists who are new to Mars rovers," said JPL scientist Raymond Francis, who led the field team. "It's a team effort, and everyone has to learn how their roles fit into the whole mission."

One rover, many decisions

Lisa Mayhew, a geochemist and geomicrobiologist at the University of Colorado Boulder, is one of those newcomers.

To study the relationship between water, rocks and microbial life in extreme environments, she's worked with deep-sea remotely operated vehicles, like the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Jason.

In places such as the Lost City, located at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, she's watched Jason explore craggy mineral towers.

Microbes in and on these towers thrive by metabolizing energy-rich gases, like hydrogen and methane, produced from reactions between water and rock. Some scientists think life on Earth may have originated in such places.

Similarly to a Mars rover, Jason sends back images, and its robotic arms can be deployed to move rocks and take samples. But Mars is much farther away than the ocean floor. Only so many commands can be sent to Perseverance each day, and only so much data can be sent back.

That's why every rover mission has to balance the desire to deepen the team's understanding of one site with the need to sample the geologic diversity available down the road.

The Walker Lake exercise underscored for Mayhew just how many decisions go into managing a Mars rover. "While it's similar in many ways to operating and directing Jason, it's happening on a much larger scale and you're pretty clueless until you're actually planning a rover drive," she said. "You have to learn all the different software tools and understand the distinction between different roles."

At the end of the training, participating scientists said they had a much better idea of how a rover team works. What's more, the scientists had chosen a sample that was rich with biosignatures.

"The next time we do this will be on Mars," said JPL's Ken Williford, one of the mission's deputy project scientists. "We've got to get the right samples. Let's bring them back."

Perseverance is a robotic scientist weighing about 2,260 pounds (1,025 kilograms). The rover's mission will search for signs of past microbial life. It will characterize the planet's climate and geology, collect samples for future return to Earth, and pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.

No matter what day Perseverance launches during its July 17 to Aug. 5 launch period, it will land at Mars' Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission is part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

Charged with returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis lunar exploration plans.

For more information about Perseverance, visit https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ and https://www.nasa.gov/perseverance .

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County’s Public Health officer on Friday evening released an updated health order that aligns the county with the state on the process to reopen after the nearly two-month-long shutdown due to COVID-19.

On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued new orders that direct the state’s “Stage 2” response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Gary Pace said Friday that he issued a new order to align with Newsom’s action.

Pace said that, at the same time, the shelter in place order remains in effect. Previously, Lake County’s order extended through May 17, but Pace’s latest order aligns with the state’s, which has no specific end date.

Lake County’s new health order removes previous discrepancies between state and local orders and makes clarifications specific to Lake County, which Pace said include exemptions for people staying in hotels.

At the same time, because Pace said all confirmed infections in both Lake and Mendocino counties have originated from out-of-county contact with known positive cases, local hotels and vacation rentals will remain closed for nonessential stays.

Newsom’s Stage 2 allows some “low-risk” retail businesses to reopen with phone and online sales and curbside pickup, with the logistics and manufacturing sectors also allowed to resume, along with office-based businesses, personal services such as car washes, pet grooming, tanning facilities and landscape gardening, dine-in restaurants, and outdoor museums and open gallery spaces.

According to the state guidelines, those businesses and establishments must qualify to reopen upon certification that the county meets the California Department of Public Health’s criteria and implement the relevant industry guidelines.

Sector-specific guidance for businesses from the California Department of Public Health and the Department of Industrial Relations’ Cal/OSHA Division is available here.

In Lake County’s case, Pace said restaurants will remain closed for the time being, except for take-out.

Pace said that with the movement toward reopening now happening more rapidly, businesses should not wait to undertake planning efforts.

Resources for business owners, including a reopening plan template, social distancing protocols and business certification forms, are available at the county’s website.

As sectors are authorized to resume business activities, Pace said all reopening businesses must post the social distancing protocol checklist and business certification document provided by the county in a visible location near the entrance to all facilities.

He said there is an opportunity to open local businesses more quickly than the governor’s orders, and plans are being developed to facilitate that. Those proposals will be discussed at the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday.

Since his last shelter in place order modifications, which included allowing people to fish and use nonmotorized boats on the lake, Pace said there has not been a rise in COVID-19 cases, so the county is going forward with opening the lake and other local waterways this weekend to local residents, consistent with state orders.

Pace said boat ramps will be open and quagga mussel program monitors will be in place.

He continued to urge people to follow social distancing practices, wear masks in public and practice good hygiene, and discouraged out-of-area residents from visiting Lake County yet.

Pace also said that people over the age of 65, or those who are otherwise vulnerable to severe complications of COVID-19 infection, need to continue to take precautions.

For more information, or if businesses want Public Health to review their reopening plan reviewed, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

This article has been clarified regarding the county shelter in place order aligning with the state’s.

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.

HO Order C20-5_Fully Executed by LakeCoNews on Scribd

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County Sheriff’s Office said that a Lake County Jail inmate who tested positive for COVID-19 appears to have been an isolated case.

On May 4, the sheriff’s office received testing results that confirmed that one inmate had tested positive after a specimen was collected on April 19, as Lake County News has reported.

It was Lake County’s eighth confirmed case of COVID-19.

The inmate was isolated and has since been tested again, on May 4 and 6. Lt. Corey Paulich said the results of those two latest tests were negative and the inmate is now considered recovered.

Paulich said that, since May 4, the sheriff’s office has been working cooperatively with Lake County Public Health to conduct contact tracing to identify staff and inmates who had close contact with the COVID-19 positive inmate.

Twenty inmates who had close contact have been tested and all had negative results, Paulich said.

“We continue to test jail staff and results that have been received so far have been negative,” Paulich said.

Paulich said that, at this time, it appears the positive case was an isolated one and did not lead to an outbreak or additional cases.

On March 12, the sheriff's office instituted and continues enhanced measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the jail.

Those measures include suspending jail programs and visitation, screening all staff prior to entry to the facility, placing inmates who are in custody for minor offenses on home detention, enhanced medical screening at booking, wearing of face masks by staff, designating bed spaces for isolation and quarantine, and comprehensive regular cleaning and disinfecting.

“We believe this played a significant role in the prevention of additional cases,” said Paulich.

Paulich said the sheriff’s office is working with the jail’s medical provider and Lake County Public Health to develop a plan for ongoing surveillance testing of staff and inmates. Any inmate with relevant symptomology will be tested and isolated until results are received.

He said the sheriff’s office also will be working with the medical provider and Public Health to remove the affected inmates from medical isolation per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations based on “symptom-based strategy.”

To learn more about all the steps being taken to keep everyone in our custody safe and healthy, visit www.lakesheriff.com and explore the Coronavirus 2019 response plan.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Around the nation, older adults make their marks every day as volunteers, employees, employers, parents, grandparents, mentors and advocates.

They offer their time, talents, and experience to the benefit of our communities.

For 57 years, Older Americans Month has been a special time to recognize these contributions.

Led by the Administration for Community Living each May, Older Americans Month highlights ways to help older Americans stay healthy and independent.

This year’s Older Americans Month theme, “Make Your Mark,” highlights older adults’ unique and lasting contributions to their communities.

Towards this goal, Community Care Management’s aging services programs help 286 older adults in Lake and Mendocino counties each month to thrive at their highest level of independence.

What’s more, nine of the agency’s 14 Multipurpose Senior Services and Senior Information & Assistance Program staff members coordinating these services are over the age of 60 themselves.

Older Americans Month Program Director Corinne Jones’ path to serving our community’s older adults is featured in the current edition of her alma mater USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology’s Vitality Magazine.

Community Care continues to make its mark on the lives of older adults, both as employer and service provider.

To learn more about available services, contact Senior Information & Assistance Monday through Friday at 707-468-5132, or visit www.SeniorResourceDirectory.org .

Certain urgent estate planning issues have arisen during the present COVID-19 health crisis.

These issues concern getting diagnosed by a physician, intubation and the use of Internet-based communication – such as Skype and Zoom – instead of in-person meetings.

Let’s discuss how they affect your power of attorney, advance health care directive and living trust.

If you are incapacitated, who will pay your bills and sign contracts on your behalf?

A broadly drafted power of attorney allows your agent to make decisions regarding your financial, legal and property affairs (excluding the trust) on your behalf.

Oftentimes, powers of attorney are drafted to become effective upon incapacity. Determining such incapacity usually involves one or more physician certificates of incapacity. This means an in person physician’s visit.

Nowadays, with social distancing, such consultations are difficult to arrange. Accordingly, if your power of attorney is effective upon incapacity you may wish to make it effective immediately (i.e., upon signing).

Similarly, with one’s living trust, transfer of control from an incapacitated settlor to the designated successor trustee often requires attaching one or more certificates of incapacity to an affidavit of successor trustee.

Appointing someone as a current co-trustee (now) and authorizing each co-trustee to act independently (without the other co-trustee’s involvement) avoids the certificate of incapacity.

Financial assets (other than retirement accounts) are oftentimes better managed inside of a trust; financial institutions are often wary of accepting powers of attorney.

You may consider either transferring bank accounts into your trust – and so avoid any problems with the bank not accepting the power of attorney – or request and complete the bank’s own in-house (propriety) power of attorney form.

With social distancing, the use of the Internet-based communication platforms, such as Zoom and Skype, is the new normal. You may wish to authorize third parties to accept the use of such internet based communications with any agent and/or trustee representing your interests. This would assist urgent health care decisions being made given that the agent is not able to be present to sign documents at the hospital.

Thus, a written, signed and dated authorization by you allowing third parties (hospitals, doctors, banks, etc.) to communicate and accept instructions from your agents by means of Skype and Zoom and, importantly, your agreeing to hold harmless from any liability such third parties, might enable your agents being able to act on your behalf over the Internet.

Existing advance health care directives do not contemplate COVID-19. That is, health care directives may expressly prohibit the use of any artificial means to keep you alive. That might prevent your being intubated – placed on a ventilator – even though that would help you to recover from a severe respiratory illness.

Accordingly, you may want to sign a new advanced health care directive, or at least to sign a written statement, that authorizes intubation in the case of severe respiratory illness; you may also consider placing a time limit on intubation.

Also, you may want to authorize the use of experimental drugs that might assist in the treatment of COVID-19.

Anyone wishing guidance to address any of the issues discussed above should consult an attorney. Attorneys are assisting clients over the phone and Internet.

Dennis A. Fordham, attorney, is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, Calif. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and 707-263-3235.

What astronomy highlights can you see in the sky in May 2020? Venus, Sirius and the Milky Way.

Many of us are staying home these days, and it's normal to feel kind of cooped up, yearning for wide-open spaces and more distant horizons.

If you find yourself feeling like that, this might be a good time to remember that we're IN space, cruising through the solar system on our pale blue dot, with a vast, three-dimensional universe all around us. And we have an outstanding view!

Now, we often tend to look at the sky as a curved dome above our heads - a sort of real-life version of a planetarium dome, covered in a carpet of stars. But remember, in reality, it's anything but flat. The night sky is the deepest, most open expanse of space you could possibly look into.

Here's a look at what you're seeing when gazing at the sky in May: Looking toward the west in the hour after sunset, here are the bright objects you'll most likely be able to see.

The closest of these objects is the planet Venus in our own solar system, at about 35 million miles from Earth. The next closest is the star Sirius. It's the brightest star in our sky, and also one of the most nearby, at about 9 light-years away.

Several other bright stars in the May early evening sky are a couple, to a few dozen, light-years away. Much farther out is the red giant star that forms the shoulder of Orion, Betelgeuse, at around 500 light-years from Earth.

And although you might not be able to see it, the faint band of the outer Milky Way stretches across the sky here. So when you're looking westward in May's early evening sky, think about how you're looking outward through the disk of our galaxy, toward its outer edges, thousands of light-years away.

You'll get a different perspective looking into the sky in the hour before sunrise. Facing south, the nearest objects are the Moon, at about 240,000 miles away, then Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, at hundreds of millions of miles.

The rapidly rotating star Altair and the star Fomalhaut, with its debris disk and orbiting planet, lie much farther away, at 17 and 25 light-years from Earth.

And the May morning sky also has its own very distant red giant star: Antares, at 554 light-years away.

And finally, across the background, visible under very dark skies is the Milky Way. Here, you're looking into the center of the Milky Way galaxy – densely packed with stars and a supermassive black hole, some 27,000 light-years from Earth.

The night sky that begins right above your own roof is really the shore of a deep cosmic ocean. Here's hoping this brings some comfort if you feel like you need a little space.

Preston Dyches works for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.