Staying home, washing hands regularly still remain critical

The City of Berkeley’s Health Officer and other Health Officers around the region and state recommend that everyone cover their noses and mouths with cloth when leaving home for essential visits to doctor’s offices, supermarkets or pharmacies.

A bandana, fabric mask, neck gaiter or other cloth barrier helps prevent those who have mild or no COVID-19 symptoms from unknowingly spreading it to others. To protect yourself from others, use physical distance.

Do not use surgical masks or N-95s. Preserve the limited supply of medical grade masks such as an N-95 for health care workers or first-responders, who cannot use physical distance to protect themselves, especially from people at their most symptomatic, infectious periods. -more-

Each week, on Wednesday at noon, no matter what your time zone, step outside your door or open your window and make the hills (and the flats) come alive with music. Props or costumes appreciated.

April 1, Noon http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bobbymcferrin/dontworrybehappy.html

There are also some YouTube tutorials for learning this 3 chord song on a uke.

Take a photo or video and please link it to facebook.com/AnothrBullwinkelShow along with your location or neighborhood. A list of upcoming songs through April are at AnotherBullwinkelShow.com.

Have fun and stay away from each other while singing! -more-

Health officers in several Bay Area counties and cities on Tuesday extended a shelter-in-place order through May 3 to try to limit the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the region.

The previous order, issued earlier this month, was set to expire on April 7. The new order will go into effect at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday and covers six counties -- Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara -- as well as the city of Berkeley.

The county health officers said the order is a complement to the indefinite stay-at-home statewide order issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom on March 19.

The extended order reiterates that all non-essential businesses will remain closed and also clarifies some of the restrictions on public life in the Bay Area. -more-

The Shelter in Place order has been extended to May 3. The peak is still weeks away. Per Mayor Jesse Arreguin's town hall Saturday, Berkeley was only at 19 identified infected persons. We know that will increase.

It is impossible to turn on the television without seeing a story about homemade masks or masks now being made out of sports jersey materials. Nurses, doctors, the entire team need the N95 masks and a full set of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). The homemade masks, masks from sports jerseys do not give the protection that is needed for members of the health care team who are in close contact with COVID-19. A best guess would be that these well-meaning efforts offer little to almost no protection for the working conditions of doctors and nurses, but for your trip to the grocery with social distancing a DIY mask will add some extra protection even if the only effect is to make you conscious of keeping your hands off your face.

Consider this: When a person infected with measles coughs or sneezes, the virus propelled into the air is infectious for up to two hours. Measles carries a fatality rate of 0.2%. The winter flu is 0.1% fatal. The best information available states COVID-19 is airborne for three hours and when those droplets fall from the air or come off the hands of an infected person on plastic and stainless steel the droplets are infectious for days. The true fatality rate of COVID-19 is still unknown given the inconsistency and inadequacy of testing, but it is many times higher than flu and measles. -more-

Today marks the second week of the COVID-19 Shelter in Place Order.

While it is still too early to tell, I remain hopeful that the Bay Area's early physical distancing measures will result in a flattened infection curve. The Bay Area is fortunate to have a group of dedicated public health leaders working together.

I am providing a number of updates on the extension of the order, information on how to apply for the City’s COVID-19 rental, arts, and small business relief funds, and excerpts from my virtual town hall Q&A: -more-

The latest developments around the region related to the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, as of Tuesday morning include: -more-

At 8:00pm, it starts. First, the slide of terrace doors opening and the sound of balcony windows being unlatched. Lingering silence is broken as people lean out from above and applaud. Regardless of the neighborhood , the French people clap every evening at this time. Some households play music. Noise-making accoutrements that I don’t have in my home punctuate the patter: cow bells, groggers of sorts, and improbably, kazoos. This is all to appreciate healthcare workers battling COVID-19. I am an American living in the southern French city of Montpellier, and during the pandemic, my favorite activity is to jog during this daily event. Montpellieris a small city­—the population of Orlando—but has the density between that of Boston and Newark. Narrow streets radiate from the medieval center and meander through myriad neighborhoods. So I can jog a short distance but feel that I have covered much ground. -more-

There was a time when my closet was inauthentic.

I’d always been an admirer of the glitz and glamour of the fashion world. But as I became older and more cognizant of the ugly processes that lay behind the beauty the garments offered, owning them became untenable. With factory workers coerced into substandard work conditions, erratic shifts, and unlivable wages, the human cost of fashion is unjustifiable. Clothing is meant to be an empowering exercise in self-expression; how then was it ethical to empower myself at the expense of workers? Instead of focusing on appearance or price, I wanted my clothes’ origins to reflect my humanitarian values. To me, authenticity in fashion means embodying a piece that you believe in, not only in its outward appearance but also its inward significance. As I rediscovered my wardrobe, I identified three key action-items we should all consider when picking out the next piece to decorate our closet. -more-

The University of California at Berkeley said Monday that its Innovative Genomics Institute is creating a pop-up novel coronavirus diagnostic lab with the capacity to process more than 1,000 patient samples per day. -more-

The lengthy commentary by Cody R. McGillivray scolding us all for sheltering in place probably awakens in a certain ratio among us a sense of something familiar. Isn't there some lunacy in letting the economy fall apart while going stir-crazy indoors if we're lucky enough to have a door to close?

Only if you're unconcerned about being an asymptomatic carrier. You may elect to take your chances with exposure since you're feeling well, or if you like the sense of adventure. But the person who picks up the shopping basket behind you may not want to risk their family, their neighbors, or themselves. -more-

The latest developments around the region related to the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, as of Sunday afternoon include: -more-

Yesterday United States District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles issued a nationwide temporary restraining order requiring that the Trump administration "make every effort to promptly and safely release" from custody thousands of class members in the Flores v. Barr case. LINK TO RESTRAINING ORDER. Class members in the Flores case include all minors detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement in family detention centers and all unaccompanied minors detained by the HHS's Office of Refugee Resettlement. There are over 5,000 children in detention. The order requires prompt release under Paragraph 14 of the Flores Settlement which sets out an order of preference for release including parents, relatives, group homes, and other responsible unrelated adults. -more-

While California is just beginning to deal with the Covid-19 virus pandemic, the biggest healthcare crisis in our history, most politicians seem to exist in a parallel universe. They seem to think that they are doing their job by sending out email blasts with pictures of their smiling faces parroting CDC pronouncements.

Meanwhile, heartless state senators, representatives, and well-financed YIMBY operatives are looking at the tsunami of pain and suffering we are witnessing as just another “opportunity” to promote their extremist, legislative agenda that wrests control of planning and zoning away from local governments. But this time, the consequences for us all are likely to be much worse.

We cannot allow predatory, unconscionable political maneuvering

We have a protected legal right to engage in robust public participation in our political process. But how can we exercise that right when all public gatherings are forbidden, when all public hearings are closed, when even face to face conversations are verboten? The well-intended but meager attempts by local and state government to videotape their meetings and use social media to interact with the public are absurdly inadequate to replace a fully attended public process, while the entire state’s population is under mandatory “shelter in place” order, schools are closed, most businesses are closed, and most people cannot go to work. -more-

How did he know it would come to this? Thanks, Kathleen, for sending this prophetic link. -more-

Berkeley is appealing to the community for donations of protective supplies that can be used by public safety workers and others during the novel corona virus emergency. -more-

The latest developments around the region related to the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, as of Saturday morning include: -more-

What’s new this week? Not much. The president of the United States of America is still stone crazy, a fact which is probably known to at least a couple of members of the crowd of sycophants who surround him, but they’re too cowardly to do anything about it.

Watching the string of campaign appearances disguised as press conferences which Trump has made this week, I’d hazard a guess that Mike Pence is not nuts, though he’s a coward and not terribly bright. When Trump went off the rails with his promotion of chloroquine and other untested remedies and his later rejection of the need for long-term social distancing, Pence did make a modest attempt to correct the record later on, but too little too late. Nevertheless, there have been a number of calls for the Vice President to exercise his powers under the 25^th Amendment to remove Trump from office as unfit to serve, unless and until the legislative bodies overrule him.

But that’s too much to hope for. It’s highly likely that Trump will be in power until January. Is there any way to limit the damage he can do, the number of deaths he can cause, between now and then? -more-