Page 392 – Good Times

Physician Weighs in on Sun Exposure, Skin Protection this Summer

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July 12, 2021

Physician Weighs in on Sun Exposure, Skin Protection this Summer

Summer is in full swing, and with Covid-19 restrictions loosening more every day, people are once again heading outside for some warm, seasonal fun.

But all outdoor activities come with built-in risk. Too much exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays can cause everything from premature wrinkles to life-threatening skin cancer.

This is why medical professionals are urging people to protect themselves and their loved ones this summer.

“Warm weather is here, and it’s time to pay extra attention,” said Dr. Joyce Orndorff, a family medicine physician and assistant physician in charge of Kaiser Permanente Santa Cruz County. “Skin cancer is real, and it can happen to anyone.”

According to the American Academy of Dermatology, one in five Americans will develop skin cancer in their lifetime. An average of 7,000 Americans die from melanoma, the most severe type, every year. To put it in perspective—that is more than the current population of Corralitos and Pajaro combined.

Orndorff explained that different types of skin cancer are determined by where it starts to develop on the body. Other risks of exposure, including skin thinning, blotchiness and spider veins are cumulative, meaning they build up over time, and can eventually turn precancerous.

Debunking skin myths

Misinformation about skin health and risks regularly circulate. One of the most common (and dangerous) myths, Orndorff said, is that only fair-skinned people are at risk of skin cancer.

“If you look at the stats, OK, you have less of a chance,” she said. “However, it’s only slightly lower. Even if you’ve never sunburned in your life, you can still get skin cancer. The problem is that it’s harder to detect. And that can be especially deadly when it’s something like melanoma.”

Tanning, Orndorff said, is another major issue.

“You hear people say they want to get a ‘base tan’ for the summer… a common perception is that it’s healthy,” she said. “But if pale turns into any shade of pink, tan, gold… that means UV rays have been hitting you, and you have sun damage.”

There are two types of UV rays: UVA and UVB. UVB are shorter rays that can cause sunburn, turning you lobster-red and sensitive. UVA radiation is much more common and penetrates deeper layers of the skin. Recent studies have shown that UVA rays cause the most harm—and yet, they do not turn your skin red.

Orndorff said she’s also heard claims of needing more sun to absorb enough Vitamin D. But the risk of Vitamin D deficiency is very low, she said, “unless you hide in a cave for the rest of your life.”

“Most people will get enough Vitamin D in just their daily routine,” she said.

**FINDING SHADE** A man dons a hat and sunglasses as he relaxes in Watsonville Plaza. —Johanna Miller/The Pajaronian

Best practices

There are many ways people can protect themselves and their families from sun damage. Sunscreen is one of the best tools. The Academy of Dermatology recommends a sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher, broad spectrum and water resistant. SPF 30 will block at least 97% of the sun’s UV rays.

“There are lots of sunscreens out there. Creams, lotions, sprays, sticks… It’s mind boggling,” Orndorff said. “But whatever you’re using, it’s OK. Anything is better than 0%. Whatever you can get your hands on, use it.”

It’s important to use enough; Orndorff recommends a shot glass amount of sunscreen to cover your entire body. Then reapply every couple of hours, especially if you’re sweating or swimming.

Clothes can also help in keeping your skin safe. Rash guards and sleeves work great for kids, instead of having to wrangle them to lather on more sunscreen. And of course, hats, especially wide-brimmed ones.

“Never underestimate hats,” Orndorff said. “I keep one in my car all the time. There are people who say they can’t pull off hats… But no. You can rock a hat. It doesn’t make you look like a mushroom. I promise.”

Lastly, be strategic about where and when you go out into the sun. The Skin Cancer Foundation has reported that the most significant amount of UV rays hit the U.S. in the summer months between 10am and 4pm. Adapt your schedule by going out earlier or later in the day, and be sure to find shade whenever possible.

“We can be smart about our sun safety so we can enjoy being outdoors,” Orndorff said. “Being outside is good for the mind, the body, the soul… So put on that hat, lather up with sunscreen and get out there.”

To learn more about skin cancer and preventative measures, go here.

Monthly Payments to Families With Children to Begin

The New York Times and GT Staff

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July 12, 2021

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Monthly Payments to Families With Children to Begin

By Jason DeParle, The New York Times

WASHINGTON — If all goes as planned, the Treasury Department will begin making a series of monthly payments in coming days to families with children, setting a milestone in social policy and intensifying a debate over whether to make the subsidies a permanent part of the American safety net.

With all but the most affluent families eligible to receive up to $300 a month per child, the United States will join many other rich countries that provide a guaranteed income for children, a goal that has long animated progressives. Experts estimate the payments will cut child poverty by nearly half, an achievement with no precedent.

But the program, created as part of the stimulus bill that Democrats passed over unified Republican opposition in March, expires in a year, and the rollout could help or hinder President Joe Biden’s pledge to extend it.

Immediate challenges loom. The government is uncertain how to get the payments to millions of hard-to-reach families, a problem that could undermine its poverty-fighting goals. Opponents of the effort will be watching for delivery glitches, examples of waste or signs that the money erodes the desire of some parents to work.

While the government has increased many aid programs during the coronavirus pandemic, supporters say the payments from an expanded Child Tax Credit, at a one-year cost of about $105 billion, are unique in their potential to stabilize both poor and middle-class families.

“It’s the most transformative policy coming out of Washington since the days of FDR,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. “America is dramatically behind its industrial peers in investing in our children. We have some of the highest child poverty rates, but even families that are not poor are struggling, as the cost of raising children goes higher and higher.”

Among America’s 74 million children, nearly 9 in 10 will qualify for the new monthly payments — up to $250 a child, or $300 for those under 6 — which are scheduled to start Thursday. Those payments, most of which will be sent to bank accounts through direct deposit, will total half of the year’s subsidy, with the rest to come as a tax refund next year.

Biden has proposed a four-year extension in a broader package he hopes to pass this fall, and congressional Democrats have vowed to make the program permanent. Like much of Biden’s agenda, the program’s fate may depend on whether Democrats can unite around the bigger package and advance it through the evenly divided Senate.

The unconditional payments — what critics call “welfare” — break with a quarter century of policy. Since President Bill Clinton signed a 1996 bill to “end welfare,” aid has gone almost entirely to parents who work. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., recently wrote that the new payments, with “no work required,” would resurrect a “failed welfare system,” and provide “free money” for criminals and addicts.

But compared to past aid debates, opposition has so far been muted. A few conservatives support children’s subsidies, which might boost falling birthrates and allow more parents to raise children full time. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, has proposed a larger child benefit, though he would finance it by cutting other programs.

With Congress requiring payments to start just four months after the bill’s passage, the administration has scrambled to spread the word and assemble payment rosters.

Families that filed recent tax returns or received stimulus checks should get paid automatically. (Single parents with incomes up to $112,500 and married couples with incomes up to $150,000 are eligible for the full benefit.) But analysts say 4 million to 8 million low-income children may be missing from the lists, and drives are underway to get their parents to register online.

“Wherever you run into people — perfect strangers — just go on up and introduce yourself and tell them about the Child Tax Credit,” Vice President Kamala Harris said last month on what the White House called “Child Tax Credit Awareness Day.”

Among the needy, the program is eliciting a mixture of excitement, confusion and disbelief. Fresh EBT, a phone app for people who receive food stamps, found that 90% of its users knew of the benefit, but few understand how it works.

“Half say, ‘I’m really, really ready to get it,’” said Stacy Taylor, the head of policy and partnerships at Propel, the app’s creator. “The others are a mix of ‘I’m worried I haven’t taken the right steps’ or ‘I’m not sure I really believe it’s true.’”

Few places evoke need more than Lake Providence, Louisiana, a hamlet along the Mississippi River where roughly three-quarters of the children are poor, including those of Tammy Wilson, 50, a jobless nursing aide.

The $750 a month she should receive for three children will more than double a monthly income that consists only of food stamps and leaves her relying on a boyfriend. “I think it’s a great idea,” she said. “There’s no jobs here.”

While the money will help with rent, Wilson said, the biggest benefit would be the ability to send her children to activities like camps and school trips.

“Kids get to bullying, talking down on them — saying ‘Oh your mama don’t have money,’” she said. “They feel like it’s their fault.”

But in West Monroe, a 90-minute drive away, Levi Sullivan, another low-income parent, described the program as wasteful and counterproductive. Sullivan, a pipeline worker, has been jobless for more than a year but argued the payments would increase the national debt and reward indolence.

“I’m a Christian believer — I rely on God more than I rely on the government,” he said.

With four children, Sullivan, who has gotten by on unemployment insurance, food stamps and odd jobs, could collect $1,150 a month, but he is so skeptical of the program he went online to defer the payments and collect a lump sum next year. Otherwise, he fears that if he finds work he may have to pay the money back.

“Government assistance is a form of slavery,” he said. “Some people do need it, but then again, there’s some people that all they’re doing is living off the system.”

Progressives have sought a children’s income floor for at least a century. “No one can doubt that an adequate allowance should be granted for a mother who has children to care for,” wrote economist and future Illinois senator Paul H. Douglas in 1925 as children’s benefits spread in Europe.

Four decades later, the Ford Foundation sponsored a conference to promote the idea in the United States. The meeting’s organizer, Eveline M. Burns, lamented the “shocking extent of childhood poverty” but acknowledged strong political opposition to the payments.

While hostility to unconditional cash aid peaked in the 1990s, multiple forces revived interest in children’s subsidies. Brain science showed the lasting impact of the formative years. Stagnant incomes brought worries about child-rearing costs into the middle class. More recently, racial protests have encouraged a broader look at social inequity.

An existing program, the Child Tax Credit, did offer a children’s subsidy of up to $2,000 a child. But since it was only available to families with sufficient earnings, the poorest third of children failed to fully qualify. By removing that earnings requirement and raising the amount, Democrats temporarily converted a tax break into a children’s income guarantee.

Analysts at Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy say the new benefits will cut child poverty by 45%, a reduction about four times greater than ever achieved in a single year.

“Even if it only happens for a year, that’s a big deal,” said Irwin Garfinkel, a professor at the Columbia School of Social Work. “If it becomes permanent, it’s of equal importance to the Social Security Act — it’s that big.”

Opponents warn that by aiding families that do not work, the policy reverses decades of success. Child poverty had fallen to a record low before the pandemic (about 12% in 2019), a drop of more than one-third since 1990s.

“I’m surprised there hasn’t been more pushback from other conservatives,” said Scott Winship of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who argues that unconditional aid can cause the poor long-term harm by reducing the incentive to work and marry.

Getting the money to all eligible children may prove harder than it sounds. Some American children live with parents living in the country illegally who are afraid to seek the aid. Others may live with relatives in unstable or shifting care.

Dozens of groups are trying to promote the program, including the Children’s Defense Fund, United Way and Common Sense Media, but many eligible families have already failed to collect stimulus checks, underscoring how difficult they are to reach. The legislation contained little money that could be used for outreach, leaving many groups trying to raise private donations to support their efforts.

The Rev. Starsky Wilson, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, praised the Biden administration for creating an online enrollment portal but warned, “we really need to be knocking on doors.”

Gene Sperling, the White House official overseeing the payments, said that even with some families hard to reach, deep cuts in poverty were assured.

“While we want to do everything possible to reach any missing children, the most dramatic impact on child poverty will happen automatically,” because the program will reach about 26 million children whose families are known but earned too little to fully benefit from the previous credit. “That will be huge.”

By delivering monthly payments, the program seeks to address the income swings that poor families frequently suffer. One unknown is how families will spend the money, with critics predicting waste and supporters saying parents know their children’s needs.

When Fresh EBT asked users about their spending plans, the answers differed from those about the stimulus checks. “We saw more responses specifically related to kids — school clothes, school supplies, a toddler bed,” Taylor said. “It tells me the framing of the benefit matters.”

There is evidence for that theory. When Britain renamed its “family allowance” a “child benefit” in the 1970s and paid mothers instead of fathers, families spent less on tobacco and men’s clothing and more on children’s clothing, pocket money and toys.

“Calling something a child benefit frames the way families spend the money,” said Jane Waldfogel, a Columbia professor who studied the British program.

More Power Lines or Rooftop Solar Panels: The Fight Over Energy’s Future

The New York Times and GT Staff

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July 12, 2021

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More Power Lines or Rooftop Solar Panels: The Fight Over Energy’s Future

By Ivan Penn and Clifford Krauss, The New York Times

The nation is facing once-in-a-generation choices about how energy ought to be delivered to homes, businesses and electric cars — decisions that could shape the course of climate change and determine how the United States copes with wildfires, heat waves and other extreme weather linked to global warming.

On one side, large electric utilities and President Joe Biden want to build thousands of miles of power lines to move electricity created by distant wind turbines and solar farms to cities and suburbs. On the other, some environmental organizations and community groups are pushing for greater investment in rooftop solar panels, batteries and local wind turbines.

There is an intense policy struggle taking place in Washington and state capitals about the choices that lawmakers, energy businesses and individuals make in the next few years, which could lock in an energy system that lasts for decades. The divide between those who want more power lines and those calling for a more decentralized energy system has split the renewable energy industry and the environmental movement. And it has created partnerships of convenience between fossil fuel companies and local groups fighting power lines.

At stake is how quickly the country can move to cleaner energy and how much electricity rates will increase.

Biden has secured $73 billion for thousands of miles of new power lines in an infrastructure proposal he and senators from both parties agreed to in June. That deal includes the creation of a Grid Development Authority to speed up approvals for transmission lines.

Most energy experts agree that the United States must improve its aging electric grids, especially after millions of Texans spent days freezing this winter when the state’s electricity system faltered.

“The choices we make today will set us on a path that, if history is a barometer, could last for 50 to 100 years,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, managing director of the Climate Policy Lab at Tufts University.

The option supported by Biden and some large energy companies would replace coal and natural gas power plants with large wind and solar farms hundreds of miles from cities, requiring lots of new power lines. Such integration would strengthen the control that the utility industry and Wall Street have over the grid.

“You’ve got to have a big national plan to make sure the power gets from where it is generated to where the need is,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in an interview.

But many of Biden’s liberal allies argue that solar panels, batteries and other local energy sources should be emphasized because they would be more resilient and could be built more quickly.

“We need to build the electricity transmission and distribution system for the grid of the future and not that of the past,” said Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center, a nonprofit based in Chicago. “Solar energy plus storage is as transformative to the electric sector as wireless services were to the telecommunications sector.”

In all probability, there will be a mix of solutions that includes more transmission lines and rooftop solar panels. What combination emerges will depend on deals made in Congress but also skirmishes playing out across the country.

Granholm said the administration supports rooftop solar and microgrids, systems that allow towns or neighborhoods to generate and use their own electricity. Biden has proposed a federal investment tax credit for local energy storage projects, for example. But she added that decentralized approaches would not be sufficient to achieve the president’s goal of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 2035.

As millions of California homes went dark during a heat wave last summer, help came from an unusual source: batteries installed at homes, businesses and municipal buildings.

Those batteries kicked in up to 6% of the state grid’s power supply during the crisis, helping to make up for idled natural gas and nuclear power plants. Rooftop solar panels generated an additional 4% of the state’s electricity.

This outcome — homeowners and businesses helping the grid — would have been unthinkable a decade ago. For more than a century, electricity has flowed one way: from power plants to people.

California showed that homes and businesses do not have to be passive consumers. They can become mini power plants, potentially earning as much from supplying energy as they pay for electricity they draw from the grid.

Home and business batteries, which can be as small as a large television and as big as a computer server room, are charged from the grid or rooftop solar panels. They release energy after the sun has gone down or during blackouts, which have become more common in recent years.

Some environmentalists argue that greater use of rooftop solar and batteries is becoming more essential because of climate change.

After its gear ignited several large wildfires, Pacific Gas & Electric began shutting off power on hot and windy days to prevent fires. The company emerged from bankruptcy last year after amassing $30 billion in liabilities for wildfires caused by its equipment, including transmission lines.

Elizabeth Ellenburg, an 87-year-old cancer survivor in Napa, California, bought solar panels and a battery from Sunrun in 2019 to keep her refrigerator, oxygen equipment and appliances running during PG&E’s power shut-offs, a plan that she said has worked well.

“Usually, when PG&E goes out, it’s not 24 hours; it’s days,” said Ellenburg, a retired nurse. “I need to have the ability to use medical equipment. To live in my own home, I needed power other than the power company.”

The company said it is working to improve its equipment. “Our focus is to make both our distribution and transmission system more resilient and fireproof,” said Sumeet Singh, PG&E’s chief risk officer.

But spending on fire prevention by California utilities has raised electricity rates, and consumer groups said building more power lines will drive them even higher.

Average residential electricity rates nationally have increased by about 14% over the last decade even though average household energy use rose just over 1%.

Regulators generally allow utilities to charge customers the cost of investments plus a profit margin, typically about 10.5%, giving companies an incentive to build power plants and lines.

“Obviously, we applaud the administration’s commitment to renewable energy, but bigger isn’t always better,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the California Solar and Storage Association, an organization that lobbies for the rooftop solar industry. “Smarter is looking toward microgrids, including solar on rooftops. Clearly, the utilities are stuck in the 20th century; they want to build the Transcontinental Railroad of the electric grid.”

A 2019 report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a research arm of the Energy Department, found that greater use of rooftop solar can reduce the need for new transmission lines, displace expensive power plants and save the energy that is lost when electricity is moved long distances. The study also found that rooftop systems can put pressure on utilities to improve or expand neighborhood wires and equipment.

But the utility industry argues that new transmission lines are needed to get to 100% clean energy and power electric cars and trucks. Those high costs will be offset by the money saved from switching from fossil fuels to cheaper solar panels and wind turbines, said Emily Sanford Fisher, senior vice president for clean energy at the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities.

“Just because we’re spending money on more things doesn’t mean we’re not getting benefits on others,” Fisher said. “I think the problem isn’t that we’re going to build too much transmission, it’s that we’re not going to have enough.”

In February, Texas was paralyzed for more than four days by a deep freeze that shut down power plants and disabled natural gas pipelines. People used cars and grills and even burned furniture to keep warm; at least 150 died.

One reason for the failure was that the state has kept the grid managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas largely disconnected from the rest of the country to avoid federal oversight. That prevented the state from importing power and makes Texas a case for the interconnected power system that Biden wants.

Consider Marfa, an artsy town in the Chihuahuan Desert. Residents struggled to stay warm as the ground was blanketed with snow and freezing rain. Yet 75 miles to the west, the lights were on in Van Horn, Texas. That town is served by El Paso Electric, a utility attached to the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, a grid that ties together 14 states, two Canadian provinces and a Mexican state.

A more connected national grid could help places struck by disasters draw energy from elsewhere, said Ralph Cavanagh, an official at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

Biden agrees. He even called for new power lines during his presidential campaign.

That might have helped him win the support of electric utilities, which typically give bigger campaign contributions to Republicans. During the 2020 election, the industry’s political action committees and its executives gave him $1.4 million, compared with about $1 million to Donald Trump, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

In Washington, developers of large solar and wind projects are pushing for a more connected grid, while utilities want more federal funding for new transmission lines. Advocates for rooftop solar panels and batteries are lobbying Congress for more federal incentives.

Separately, there are pitched battles going on in state capitals over how much utilities must pay homeowners for the electricity generated by rooftop solar panels. Utilities in California, Florida and elsewhere want lawmakers to reduce those rates. Homeowners with solar panels and renewable energy groups are fighting those efforts.

Despite Biden’s support, the utility industry could struggle to add power lines.

Many Americans resist transmission lines for aesthetic and environmental reasons. Powerful economic interests are also at play. In Maine, for instance, a campaign is underway to stop a 145-mile line that will bring hydroelectric power from Quebec to Massachusetts.

New England has phased out coal but still uses natural gas. Lawmakers are hoping to change that with the help of the $1 billion line, called the New England Clean Energy Connect.

This spring, workers cleared trees and installed steel poles in the forests of western Maine. First proposed a decade ago, the project was supposed to cut through New Hampshire, until the state rejected it. Federal and state regulators have signed off on the Maine route, which is sponsored by Central Maine Power and HydroQuebec.

But the project is mired in lawsuits, and Maine residents could block it through a November ballot measure.

Environmental groups and a political action committee funded by Calpine and Vistra, which operate gas power plants, are both fighting the line. Opponents say it will jeopardize migrations of grouse, mink and moose and remove tree cover that cools rivers, endangering brook trout.

“This transmission line would have grave impacts on Maine’s environment and wildlife habitat,” said Sandra Howard, a leader of the campaign against the line.

Biden administration officials said they are sensitive to such concerns and want many power lines to be built along highways, rail tracks and other existing rights of way to minimize conflicts.

But Biden does not have a lot of time. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere set a record in May, and some scientists believe recent heat waves were made worse by climate change.

“Transmission projects take upward of 10 years from conception to completion,” said Douglas D. Giuffre, a power expert at IHS Markit. “So if we’re looking at decarbonization of the power sector by 2035, then this all needs to happen very rapidly.”

World’s Reported Covid Death Toll Passes 4 Million

The New York Times and GT Staff

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July 9, 2021

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World’s Reported Covid Death Toll Passes 4 Million

By Daniel E. Slotnik, The New York Times

The world’s known coronavirus death toll passed 4 million Thursday, a loss roughly equivalent to the population of Los Angeles, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

It took nine months for the virus to claim 1 million lives, and the pace has quickened since then. The second million were lost in 3 1/2 months, the third in three months, and the fourth in about 2 1/2 months. The number of daily reported deaths has declined recently.

Those are officially reported figures, which are widely believed to undercount pandemic-related deaths.

“The numbers may not tell the complete story, and yet they’re still really staggering numbers globally,” said Jennifer B. Nuzzo, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Nuzzo said the number of excess deaths reported around the world suggested that “lower-income countries have been much harder hit than their official numbers would suggest.”

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, called 4 million dead a tragic milestone on Wednesday, and said the toll was continuing to mount largely because of dangerous versions of the virus and inequities in the distribution of vaccines.

“Compounded by fast-moving variants and shocking inequity in vaccination, far too many countries in every region of the world are seeing sharp spikes in cases and hospitalizations,” Tedros said at a news conference.

The official death toll numbers tell only part of the horrifying pandemic story. In many places, people have died without family to comfort them because of rules to prevent the spread of the virus. And many countries were completely overrun.

The dead overwhelmed cremation grounds in India in May, where at least 400,000 confirmed deaths have been reported and the actual number is likely higher. That was also the case in funeral homes in the United States, which surpassed 600,000 known deaths last month.

Latin America Ravaged

The virus has hammered Latin America since the start of the pandemic, and some of those nations have been grappling with their deadliest outbreaks to date.

As of Tuesday, seven of the 10 countries with the highest death rates relative to their populations over the past week were in South America, according to data from Johns Hopkins, and the virus has been a destabilizing force in many countries in the region.

Government health data in Colombia show that more than 500 people died from the virus each day in June. The country has also gone through weeks of explosive protests over poverty made worse by the pandemic that were sometimes met with a violent police response.

A wave of cases in Peru cost many people their livelihoods, and thousands of impoverished people occupied empty stretches of land south of Lima. In Paraguay, which as of Tuesday had the highest number of COVID-19 deaths per capita of any country during the previous week, social networks often resemble obituary pages.

Brazil, which recently passed 500,000 official deaths, had the highest number of new cases and deaths of any country in the past week. A recent study found that COVID-19 had led to a significant decrease in life expectancy in Brazil.

Vaccines Make a Difference

Several vaccines have proved effective against the coronavirus, including the highly contagious Delta variant, and death rates have dropped sharply in many parts of the world where large numbers of people have been vaccinated, like the United States and much of Europe.

But the virus is still running rampant in regions with lower rates of vaccination, like parts of Asia, Africa and South America. Some places with relatively high vaccination rates, like England, are also seeing spikes in cases, though fewer of those cases have been leading to hospitalizations and deaths.

Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, who works on coronavirus response for the WHO, said that there were “more than two dozen countries that have epidemic curves that are almost vertical.”

“The virus is showing us right now that it’s thriving,” she said.

Wealthy countries and international organizations have pledged billions of dollars to COVAX, a global vaccine-sharing initiative, and nations like the United States have promised to supply hundreds of millions of doses. But those numbers pale in comparison with the 11 billion vaccine doses that experts estimate will be needed to rein in the virus around the world.

To date, just under 3.3 billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide, according to vaccination data from local governments compiled by the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. Nearly all have been of vaccines that require more than one dose to be fully effective.

Country-to-country differences in progress are stark, with some already inoculating most of their adult citizens while others have yet to report administering a single dose.

Couple Opening Ballroom Studio as Dance Community Emerges from Lockdown

Drew Penner

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July 9, 2021

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Couple Opening Ballroom Studio as Dance Community Emerges from Lockdown

Scotts Valley is signed up to a new future of dance, with a ballroom franchise set to open a location within weeks.

From salsa to cumbia, swing, Viennese waltz and tango, the owners of the new Arthur Murray location are thrilled to teach local residents new steps during the post-pandemic thaw.

“We’ve been cooped up in 2020,” said Richard Myers, who is opening the ballroom on Mt. Hermon Road with his wife Marianne. “For the people who haven’t done ‘dancing’ before, it’s attractive for them.”

The pair has run the Arthur Murray location in Fremont for the last eight years, while facing off against other couples in a variety of competitions across the country. But for Marianne, it isn’t about bringing home a trophy.

“I just love being able to spread the love of dancing,” she said. “For a lot of people, they want to look for something that’s a stress release; then they find something that’s beyond stress-relief.”

Richard agrees.

“You don’t have to be a world champion,” he said, leading his partner of 19 years.

“—to enjoy it,” Marianne said, as if completing a turn.

When Marianne was a child, dance was the only hobby that stuck. She learned ballet, jazz and hip-hop, and taught throughout her teenage years. But at 17 she figured it was probably time to get a “real job,” and settled on customer service or admin work as a possibility.

She applied for an administrative job at the Arthur Murray location in Hayward. But it turned out the owner needed a new dance teacher more than a desk jockey.

“I was actually trying to get out of dancing,” she said. “I somehow got sucked back in by fate.”

The only thing was, she didn’t know the ballroom styles taught by Arthur Murray.

“It’s like learning a new language,” she said. “It’s all movement, but a different skill set.”

While Marianne was picking up the vocabulary and grammar of physical flow, Richard—who she’d known since high school—was progressing up the corporate ladder.

Despite being promoted to lead teller at a bank, Richard says something wasn’t quite right.

“I gained so much weight,” he said. “All you do is stand there and eat fast food.”

In contrast, when they’d meet up for meals, he couldn’t help but notice how Marianne was positively glowing.

“She’s always upbeat, always excited—to be able to dance and to be able to help people,” he said. “I saw it as being free, in a way.”

It only took three months before Richard ditched his career in banking and threw himself into dance full bore. Within five years he was managing at the Arthur Murray Hayward location.

“It’s quite rewarding to teach,” he said. “Ballroom dancing is a community. Some people come in it for short term. Some people come in it for a lifestyle change.”

They were given the opportunity to expand into Fremont in 2014, and have been building up their team since then. Now they want to give their instructors similar opportunities, as they expand westward.

But finding the right home in the area wasn’t a cinch. They say they’ve been working toward this for three years.

“I’ve always known that Santa Cruz County is big in dancing,” Richard said. “Our hope is we can serve the community.”

They almost set up shop at another space in 2019, but that fell through at the last minute. When they found the Scotts Valley location, things clicked into place.

“It just felt like home,” Marianne said.

Added Richard: “It’s the first location where we both had the same vision.”

The big news follows a crushing year for the ballroom community as a result of the pandemic—after all, at its core, dancing is about bodies moving in close proximity.

At first, the Myers did what they could to accommodate emerging social-distancing guidelines. One instructor even used measuring sticks to ensure students were keeping their distance. But when the lockdowns went into place last year, in-person dancing totally stopped.

On the business end, the Myers went from planning a new location to scrambling to keep their first afloat.

“It was scary,” Marianne said, adding they were forced to start experimenting with new approaches. “We were on Zoom calls with all of our students.”

It was difficult to balance the realities of a virus bent on conquering the world with the human need for connection, she said, reflecting on the debate around what should be considered an “essential” business in California.

“A lot of students said they wish we were ‘essential,’ because, to them, we are,” Marianne said. “We may not be like doctors, but they felt like we help with the mental health part—that they couldn’t tap into.”

It made her think about their eldest student, a 95-year-old named Frank.

“He was the first person to say, ‘Call me when you’re open, I want to come in,’” she said.

Richard estimates they lost about 60-70% of their student body.

“A lot of students that took a break are starting to come back now,” he said, adding there are lots of fresh faces, too. “We’re seeing a lot of people say, ‘Hey I should try this before another pandemic happens.’”

CDC Issues New School Guidance, with Emphasis on Full Reopening

The New York Times and GT Staff

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July 9, 2021

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CDC Issues New School Guidance, with Emphasis on Full Reopening

By Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Emily Anthes and Sarah Mervosh, The New York Times

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidance Friday urging schools to fully reopen in the fall, even if they cannot take all of the steps the agency recommends to curb the spread of the coronavirus — a major turn in a public health crisis in which childhood education has emerged as a political flashpoint.

The agency also called on school districts to use local health data to guide decisions about when to tighten or relax prevention measures like mask wearing and physical distancing. Officials said they were confident this is the correct approach, even with the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant, and the fact that children younger than 12 are not yet eligible for vaccination.

The guidance is a sharp departure from the CDC’s past recommendations for schools, bluntly acknowledging that many students have suffered during long months of virtual learning and that a uniform approach is not useful when virus caseloads and vaccination rates vary so greatly from city to city and state to state.

The issue of school closures has been an extremely contentious and divisive topic since the outset of the pandemic, and advising school districts has been a fraught exercise for the CDC. Virtual learning has been burdensome not only for students but also their parents, many of whom had to stay home to provide child care, and reopening schools is an important step on the economy’s path to recovery.

“This a big moment,” said Dr. Richard Besser, a former acting director of the CDC. “It’s also a recognition that there are real costs to keeping children at home, to keeping them out of school, that school is so important in terms of children’s socialization and development and it provides other supports as well” — including to working parents.

The new guidance continues to recommend that students be spaced at least 3 feet apart, but with a new caveat: If maintaining such spacing would prevent schools from fully reopening, they could rely on a combination of other strategies like indoor masking, testing and enhanced ventilation. The guidance recommends masks for all unvaccinated students, teachers or staff members.

It also strongly urges schools to promote vaccination, which it called “one of the most critical strategies to help schools safely resume full operations.” Studies suggest that vaccines remain effective against the Delta variant.

In previous recommendations, issued in March and reaffirmed in May, the agency said that all schools for students from kindergarten through 12th grade should continue to require masks through the end of the academic year. The agency also said that most students could be spaced 3 feet apart in classrooms — instead of 6 feet, which it had recommended earlier in the pandemic — as long as everyone was wearing a mask.

“We know that in-person learning is really important for school, for children, for their educational, social and emotional well-being, and so we really want to get kids back in the classroom,” said Erin Sauber-Schatz, a captain in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps who helped lead the CDC task force that wrote the guidance.

“Physical distancing is still a recommended strategy,” she added, but she emphasized that if schools do not have sufficient space to keep all students 3 feet apart, “that should not keep children out of the classroom in the fall.”

The guidance relies heavily on the concept of “layered” prevention, or using multiple strategies at once. In addition to masking and social distancing, those strategies may include regular screening testing, improving ventilation, promoting hand washing, and contact tracing combined with isolation or quarantine.

The recommendations call on local officials to closely monitor the pandemic in their areas, and suggest that if districts want to remove prevention strategies in schools based on local conditions, they should remove one at a time, monitoring for any increases in COVID-19.

Sauber-Schatz said the guidance, which the CDC began drafting in May after the Food and Drug Administration authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccines for children ages 12 and older, had “really been written to be flexible.”

Reactions among experts were mixed.

Jennifer Nuzzo, a public health researcher at Johns Hopkins University, said that while leaving decisions on school safety protocols to local officials might sound good in theory, it could prove “paralyzing” by putting prevention strategies up for negotiation and debate.

“I really hoped they could issue very clear guidelines specifying what level of distance is required,” she said, “and not sort of like a meditative journey on the relative benefits of distance.”

Others, including some who have been highly critical of the CDC’s past school guidance, praised the new guidelines.

“For the first time, I really think they hit it on the nose,” said Dr. Benjamin Linas, an infectious disease specialist at Boston University. “I think it’s science-based and right on the mark.”

Linas said he anticipated pushback to the recommendation that unvaccinated children wear masks, but that it still made sense.

“I don’t want to send my 11-year-old to school without a mask yet, because Delta is out there,” he said, referring to the highly transmissible variant that now causes the majority of cases in the United States. “And even if she’s not going to get severe COVID from Delta, I’m not ready to take that risk.”

Emily Oster, the Brown University economist and author of parenting books who waded last year into the contentious debate over school reopenings, using data to argue that children should return to school in person, said that she was generally pleased with the CDC’s framework, which she said gave districts a road map to reopen without being too prescriptive.

Though she had pushed for even more relaxed guidance — doing away with the 3-foot rule altogether, for example — she said the new recommendations gave districts important flexibility.

“This is, in some ways, the most positive I’ve been about their advice,” Oster said.

Though there are far fewer cases overall than during the winter peak, including in children, they have increasingly made up a greater proportion of cases as the pandemic has gone on and, recently, as more adults have been vaccinated.

Children have made up 14% of all cases to date, up from around 7% this time last year, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, though serious illness and death among them remain rare.

Around 2% or less of all coronavirus cases in children result in hospitalization, and even fewer — 0.03% of cases or less — result in death, according to the association’s research. Young children are also less likely to transmit the virus to others than are teens and adults.

Still, scientists are concerned about a mysterious inflammatory syndrome that can emerge in children several weeks after they contract the coronavirus, including in those who did not have COVID-19 symptoms at the time of their infection. Some children may also experience lingering, long-term symptoms after being infected, a condition often known as long COVID.

There are also questions about what role the more contagious Delta variant may play as children and teachers return to the classroom this fall. Sauber-Schatz said that the prevention strategies that have worked for COVID-19 all along also work for the Delta variant, so for now the CDC is “keeping a close eye on it” and will adjust its school guidance if necessary.

Last summer, when former President Donald Trump was still in office, the White House tried behind the scenes to pressure the CDC into playing down the risk of sending children back to school. The Trump White House also tried to circumvent the CDC and find alternate data showing that the pandemic was weakening, The New York Times reported in September.

In May, the agency created some confusion, including among parents and educators, when it abruptly changed its guidance on mask-wearing and announced that vaccinated people could go without masks in most indoor and outdoor settings.

The agency then clarified its advice for schools and recommended universal use of masks and physical distancing in the classroom through the end of the school year.

The new guidelines still rely on quarantine as a prevention strategy for unvaccinated students when they are exposed to the virus, which Oster criticized as a significant hindrance for students and parents, even as research has consistently suggested that transmission in schools is low.

“It’s really disruptive,” Oster said of quarantine requirements.

In the previous guidelines, physical separation was contentious, and the new version may not resolve the debate. While the CDC recommends that students be permitted to sit just 3 feet apart, it continues to call for teachers and other staff members to remain at least 6 feet away from students regardless of their vaccination status — and if they are unvaccinated, 6 feet away from one another.

Sauber-Schatz said those recommendations were rooted in science.

“For the studies that have been done looking at the difference between 3 feet and 6 feet, those were all between students in the classroom, not between teachers and students,” she said. “We have the science and the evidence to make that recommendation, that three feet is permissible between students in the classroom. We don’t have that level of evidence for the staff.”

Faultline Brewing Joins Scotts Valley Hangar Development

Drew Penner

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July 8, 2021

1

Faultline Brewing Joins Scotts Valley Hangar Development

With Covid-19 travel restrictions easing, borders opening and the relaxation of mask mandates at popular destinations, people are once again turning their attention to what used to be a familiar gateway for many Americans—the airport.

For those who remain wary of venturing out into the wild blue yonder as coronavirus variants proliferate—or for those looking for a place to dream up future vacations—there will soon be a fresh air travel-themed space offering a unique food-and-beverage journey.

Faultline Brewing Company, the Sunnyvale-based microbrewery, is opening a Scotts Valley location at The Hangar at Skypark development, which will also play host to a Home by Zinnia’s boutique, and a parlor from The Penny Ice Creamery.

“This used to be an airfield,” acknowledged Faultline Brewing Company co-owner Sam Ghadiri, who says they’re planning menu items and décor to keep the focus on the heritage. “You want to make sure you give the appropriate nod to the past.”

The brewpub will occupy about 5,000 square feet of the roughly 12,000-square-foot building, including a mezzanine—allowing for an open-concept second-floor that can be rented out for special functions. The outdoor patio offers an additional 4,000 square feet of dining or performance space, says Corbett Wright, of CW Land Consultants, Inc., who built the structure alongside Rob Stuart of Timberworks, Inc.

“We copied the original architecture of the original hangar building that was located near the airfield,” he said, noting their arching interior rises to 35 feet at its apex. “That kind of construction lends itself to high, open space.”

And for those cautious about indoor dining after a year-plus of coronavirus restrictions, the restaurant will include roll-up doors, to allow plenty of air to flow, Wright said. Even on rainy days, he added, the state-of-the-art temperature control system will cycle the interior atmosphere every seven to nine minutes.

Ghadiri, who purchased a home in Aptos with his wife in January, says the business could open as soon as December. And when it does, he wants to ensure Scotts Valley residents are treated to a gourmet experience.

“There’s a lot of pride that goes into our food,” he said. “We cut our own croutons—it’s that level of care.”

Ghadiri, a lawyer by trade who got into the restaurant world by way of a pizzeria, had only owned the Sunnyvale location for three months before Covid-19 arrived and they had to close down. Silicon Valley became a ghost town.

Located within striking distance of Google, Apple and Texas Instruments HQ buildings—and colloquially known amongst the tech crowd as “Building F”—when work-from-home became the modus operandi, the future of Faultline was thrown into jeopardy.

Ghadiri was afraid of the financial consequences. But he was more terrified of his 60-person workforce evaporating.

“I knew we were going to lose money staying open,” he said, remembering what went through his head during those early days. “If we close for six months, what are they going to do?”

Ghadiri says they had to operate at a loss for about six months while they built up their takeout business from a trickle into a steady stream of income.

“I was just shooting for break-even; it’s weird to say,” he said, remembering the Christmas lockdown. “You just have to keep going, because eventually there’s going to be light at the end of the tunnel—and now we’re seeing it.”

Early this year, as their numbers started improving and vaccines were being distributed among health care workers and the elderly, Faultline saw an opening.

“I thought right now was the perfect opportunity to expand, right before everything gets back to normal,” he said, referencing the strategic planning that goes into opening a new location. “If I wait until September or December, I’m going to be left out in the cold.”

Ghadiri began to cast around Santa Cruz County with business partner Joe Jean, but kept coming up empty—Ghadiri says he visited at least 10 potential sites.

They finally got close on an Aptos location, but then their broker told them about Wright’s Hangar project in Scotts Valley. Suddenly, things fell into place.

“I fell in love,” Ghadiri said of the concept. “I could see the vision.”

His own plans, with brewmaster Peter Catizone at the helm, include hefeweizen, Kölsch, and Dunkelweizen—in addition to the required hazy IPAs and similar fare.

He also wants to take advantage of the space to have one-of-a-kind brunches, invite local bands to play, and bring in DJs to add to the vibe.

“You play all this stuff by feel and see what’s going to work,” he said. “I want to engage the community, and sometimes that takes a little bit of trial-and-error.”

Boys Pump Track Clinic Planned for Sunday at Ramsay Park

GT Staff

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July 8, 2021

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Boys Pump Track Clinic Planned for Sunday at Ramsay Park

After the success of the all-girls pump track event earlier this year, Bike Santa Cruz County is once again teaming up with the City of Watsonville and other local organizations for a youth pump track clinic this Sunday at Ramsay Park.

The clinic is open to boys ages 6-14. Participants will learn about bike riding and safety, as well as basic pump track forms before taking turns on the new paved track, which was built by the Santa Cruz Mountains Trails Stewardship.

The clinic begins at 9am and will run until 12:45pm. Participants are asked to bring a bike and a helmet. Pads optional. Organizers will have a limited amount of bikes and gear to share if needed.

There are more spots for this week’s event, and organizers say they do accept most walk-ins.

Organizers also say they plan to hold a mixed clinic for all riders sometime in the Fall.

In addition, the Watsonville Criterium bike race through the Brewington Ave. neighborhood returns on July 17, including a free kids race.

For information go here.

Quilt Donation Program for Fire Victims Wrapping Up

Johanna Miller

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July 8, 2021

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Quilt Donation Program for Fire Victims Wrapping Up

On June 29 firefighters from fire departments throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains were blanketed in surprise when three women showed up with a number of free, handmade quilts.

Almost 80 firefighters from the Boulder Creek, Felton, Zayante and Ben Lomond fire protection districts received the gifts, which were donated through an effort of the Pajaro Valley Quilt Association (PVQA) and other local quilters.

Barbara Lockwood, one such quilter who had to evacuate her home during last year’s CZU Lightning Complex fires, said the donation was to show their appreciation for the fire departments’ hard work battling the blazes.

“We wanted to honor these firefighters who have done so much for the community, in keeping us safe then … and all they’ve done since,” Lockwood said. “We are just so thankful.”

Since October 2020, the group of quilters has joined forces every month to donate hundreds of quilts to victims of the fires through the CZU Lightning Fire Quilt Project. PVQA’s Helen Klee and Lori Camner spearheaded a nationwide call for quilt guilds to gather donations to families and individuals whose homes and lives suffered damage from the disaster.

A website was launched, and organizers began accepting quilts from as far away as Florida, Maine and parts of Canada. Lockwood and PVQA joined a number of Facebook groups, sent out email blasts and forms for people to donate and request quilts.

Then, with assistance from the County of Santa Cruz’s Office of Emergency Services, they organized giveaways at local grange halls and other locations.

“We had tables of quilts, hundreds, laid out for people to choose from,” Lockwood said. “We would ask people what kind of quilt they wanted, what color or design … People were overwhelmed with emotion. It was just a very tangible gift … something they could say, ‘This is mine, just for me.’”

*Dennis Torio, a retired Big Basin Ranger receives a quilt from Lori Camner of Pajaro Valley Quilt Association. —photo courtesy of Barbara Lockwood*

About 1,000 quilts have been gifted across the county. The giveaways have seen close to 400 families receive quilts (totaling about 700 quilts). Additional quilts were gifted to employees at Camp Hammer, a camp for individuals with developmental disabilities that was destroyed in the fires, as well as the Alzheimer’s Association.

“A handmade quilt is a very personal gift,” Lockwood said. “Quilters put a lot of time and love into them … sometimes they are made from $200 worth of supplies. It can take weeks to put one together.”

Organizers of the project are planning to cap it in early September. They have more quilts to give out, and are still getting occasional requests from people who weren’t aware of the project.

“Just this week … there was a disabled man in Boulder Creek who reached out,” Lockwood said. “I interviewed him, sent him photos for him to choose, and set up a time to deliver it to him. We do want to finish the program soon, but we don’t want to leave anyone out. We still have quilts.”

Anyone interested in receiving a quilt or supporting the CZU Lightning Complex Fire Quilt Project should visit czulightningfirequilts.com.

City Council Moves Ohlone Parkway Housing Project Forward

Tony Nuñez

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July 8, 2021

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City Council Moves Ohlone Parkway Housing Project Forward

Highlighting the city’s housing woes and the environmental checks and balances at the county level, the Watsonville City Council on Tuesday approved changes to plans for a large housing development on Ohlone Parkway.

Hillcrest Estates, previously known as Sunshine Vista, will have slightly fewer homes—falling from 150 to 144—than when it first received City Council approval in 2018.

Developers will also no longer have to remove all of the 35,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil at the 13-acre lot that served as a junkyard for roughly 60 years. They instead plan to bury much of the soil in a cement-sealed pit on the edge of the property.

The altered soil remediation plan, project manager John Fry, of CDM Crocker Fry, said, was needed to help the proposed development pencil out. And the project’s environmental consultant said he did not expect the plan to hit any speed bumps during County Environmental Health’s review, or the mandatory 30-day public review, which began June 25.

If the soil remediation plan does require a major correction, however, the project could return to the City Council at a future date.

The City Council approved the changes by a 4-3 vote. Mayor Jimmy Dutra and City Council members Rebecca J. Garcia and Aurelio Gonzalez voted “no.”

Gonzalez literally pounded the table after putting forth a motion to deny the approval. He said that the developer had failed several times to move the project forward over the course of three years and that they would continue to do so going forward.

He and Garcia also voiced concerns about the soil remediation plan, with the former saying that he wanted the developer to follow through on their original proposal to haul away the contaminated dirt.

“It’s not good,” Gonzalez said. “Disadvantaged communities are always taken advantage of.”

The motion to deny approval failed 4-3, with Dutra, Garcia and Gonzalez on the short end of the vote.

The project will construct five single-family units, 60 duplex-style townhouse units and 76 row-style townhouse units. The updated plans also included six “common areas” such as a bocce ball court, playfield and outlook area that Fry said would be shared with the nearby neighbors off Ohlone Parkway.

The homes, Fry said, will likely cost between $665,000-800,000, though final costs are still to be determined—that does not include the 29 homes that will be sold through the city’s affordable pricing standards.

The project will head to the Planning Commission next week seeking approval on a development agreement.

Watsonville Wetlands Watch (WWW) in a letter to the city before Tuesday’s meeting said the new proposed soil remediation plan is “unacceptable” and that it could “result in long-term environmental contamination to the wildlife and waters of Watsonville Slough System as well as the neighboring community.”

In a response, Fry said the plan will use “state-of-the-art technology supported by ‘best practices’ incorporating the highest professional and scientific standards.”

About a half-dozen people echoed WWW’s concerns during Tuesday’s meeting. They also said the proposed roundabout at Ohlone Parkway and Loma Vista Drive and entrance to the development through Loma Vista would negatively impact the surrounding neighborhood.

“Do deadlines matter more than the health and safety of your very own constituents?” asked Noriko Akiyama-Ragsac, contesting that the city should have waited for county health’s approval on the proposed soil remediation plan before bringing the item forward.

The project has made little progress since first receiving approval.

The property was listed on Loopnet—an online marketplace for commercial property—in 2019 as original developer Lisa Li worked to find investors after significantly surpassing its initial $60 million budget, she told this publication.

Since then, Fry joined as project manager, and it received a two-year extension last August.

It will be built in five phases. The first phase, including grading, is set to begin sometime this summer, according to developers.

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