Appliance Repair in San Joaquin, CA

(Stockton, CA) - San Joaquin County Health Care Services Director Greg Diederich told the Board of Supervisors yesterday that COVID-19 case rates, hospitalizations, and ICU admissions are on the decline allowing the lifting of additional statewide mandates. He noted that COVID-19 case rates are dramatically decreasing from 22.3 to 5 cases per 100,000 since March 2, 2022.

San Joaquin County COVID-19 latest statistics as of March 21, 2022:

To view weekly updates of the County’s COVID-19 statistics, visit: http://www.sjcphs.org/Disease/Epidemiology.aspx

Mr. Diederich told the Board that the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) informed COVID testing vendors who have made claims against a Federal COVID fund for uninsured that beginning March 22, HRSA will stop accepting claims for testing and treatments due to a lack of sufficient funds. On April 5, HRSA will stop accepting claims for COVID tests provided to uninsured individuals. Moving forward, people without insurance will be charged a $100 fee at most testing sites, with a few exceptions. Please see the COVID testing page at SJReady.org for updated information.

Mr. Diederich said that while there are still many testing and vaccination events occurring throughout the County, many sites will be closing or reducing hours in the coming weeks. He said residents can receive free at-home COVID-19 tests at www.COVIDtests.gov. Residents are also encouraged to check www.MyTurn.ca.gov for information about testing and vaccine locations and hours of operation. They can also visit this link to learn about COVID-19 treatments available in the community.

Mr. Diederich also overviewed the recent state guidance regarding state COVID-19 mandates including the following:

Mr. Diederich announced that a nationwide Test to Treat Initiative will launch this week. Through this program, at-risk people who test positive for COVID-19 can visit participating local pharmacy-based clinics, federallyqualified community health centers and long-term care facilities to be assessed by a health care provider. At this assessment, the provider can prescribe antiviral medications which may eventually be provided at certain testing sites. For more information regarding available COVID-19 treatments, visit www.aspr.hhs.gov.

Diederich noted, “The goal of this program is to quickly identify COVID-19 positive individuals that might be at higher risk for severe disease and then immediately prescribing the appropriate oral anti-viral treatment to prevent decomposition and hospitalization. This program ensures that if people who are at high risk for developing severe disease test positive, they can get treatment quickly and easily.”

Supervisor Chuck Winn, Chair of the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors stated, “We’ve been living through this COVID-19 crisis for two years now. County residents and businesses have sacrificed everything since the pandemic began and we greatly appreciate their perseverance and courage in addressing the unending challenges. It's time to let schools, businesses and residents to get back to a normal life. It's time to embrace our family and friends. It's time to be grateful for what we have, yet not forget our losses and the obstacles we have overcome. It's time to remember today is the beginning of a new tomorrow.”

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Home values in California rose dramatically over the past two decades while household incomes have not kept pace — a gap having a profound impact on the state's Latinos, which make up almost 4 in 10 residents.

While household incomes rose by about 23 percent from 2000 to 2019, median home values increased by roughly 180 percent, according to a new report by the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley.

San Joaquin County, where Latinos make up over 40 percent of residents, saw a significant drop in affordable homes for middle-income families: In 2010, 91 percent of homes sold were affordable to middle-income families. The number has dropped to 58 percent, with similar trends in other counties, including Alameda, Santa Clara and Riverside.

“These areas that used to be affordable to working-class families, middle-income households, are increasingly becoming out of reach,” David Garcia, a policy director at Terner Center who co-wrote the report, told NBC News. “I think what a lot of people don’t always realize is that these [people] are essential parts of our workforce. These are people who are gainfully employed, and pay a percentage of their income towards their rent to stay in these residences.”

For Christian Arana, 33, finding affordable housing in an already competitive market was a tense experience.

For almost three months, Arana sought a home within Los Angeles County but was continually being priced out by other offers.

“I would see a place on a Saturday, and then by Monday, I would find out that they had offers of $100,000 over asking. I didn’t have that kind of money,” Arana, the vice president of policy for the San Francisco-based Latino Community Foundation, said.

Garcia said the high prices are resulting in more Californians dedicating a hefty portion of their income to rent, while cutting back on expenses in areas such as food and education.

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The reliance on high rent limits future chances of homeownership and wealth-building. About 39 percent of middle-income renters are spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing; 10 percent are severely cost-burdened, according to the report.

“They [Latinos] rent at higher shares than some other groups. And this is a challenge because it makes it difficult to save up for a down payment or to pay a mortgage because homeownership costs have risen so much," Garcia said. "Continuing to pay so much of income towards rent makes it difficult to transition to homeownership, too."

In another recent report by the University of California, Los Angeles, researchers found that low-income Latinos and Asian households were among the lowest demographic groups to apply for rental relief assistance. Latinos ranked the second-lowest in both applications for rent relief and aid received.

In 2019, almost 40 percent of California households were burdened with rent or homeowner costs, according to the Terner Center report. A record 5.2 million households in the state face housing cost burdens.

Renters experienced these burdens at substantially higher levels than homeowners — at 53.1 percent compared to 29.6 percent of owner households.

"I don’t think there’s one silver bullet to solve this crisis. It’s going to take really a spectrum of policy tools to adequately address this, and it won’t happen overnight," Garcia said. "It took decades to get to this point, and it’s going to take several years, several legislative sessions to come up with the ideas and policies to take us out of this hole."

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The California Inland Port is a project that enjoys bipartisan support — something rare in these hyperpartisan times. It is a global model for supply chain efficiency, clean logistics and economic development. This project would mean cleaner air, less greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), reduced traffic, and 100,000 new jobs in the San Joaquin Valley.

The project is a paradigm shift for how we move cargo in California. The equivalent of more than 1.1 million container boxes are moved annually through the San Joaquin Valley, to and from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. That is more than all the cargo that moves through the Port of Miami.

Approximately half of that is inbound cargo, mostly consumer goods; the other half is outbound cargo, mostly agricultural products. About 40 percent of the cargo moving north ends up in the Bay Area through distribution centers located in the northern part of the Valley.

Today, all of this cargo moves via diesel-powered trucks. Consumer goods arrive at the ports in containers which are unloaded, then moved north. Agricultural exports move to the ports via truck, where they are containerized for export.

As we painfully discovered over the past two years, tremendous port congestion has disastrous consequences for our supply chain and the ability to get essential goods to the American people. Working in tandem with the Southern California ports, Inland Port proponents envision cargo being moved in containers to and from trade ports in the San Joaquin Valley and Sacramento, thereby reducing congestion at the coastal ports; and inbound cargo would then move to its final destination via trucks.

This can be done by incorporating rail, electric and hydrogen-powered trucks, and other evolving fuel technologies with the existing truck force that relies on traditional fuels. Having a diverse approach would greatly reduce Valley air pollution as well as GHGs. The analysis from the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District shows that the project could reduce nitrogen dioxide pollution by 84 percent and GHGs by 93 percent. That is welcome news for Valley residents, industry, and agriculture.

The California Inland Port is envisioned not just as a comprehensive north-south goods movement system, but also as an economic game-changer for the San Joaquin Valley. Four major trade ports would house multi-modal goods movement facilities and serve as private sector investment magnets with distribution facilities, e-commerce operations, durable and non-durable goods manufacturing, workforce training centers, research facilities, and retail operations to serve the tens of thousands of workers at each port.

Concentrating all of this industrial and distribution activity in a few sites, and ensuring efficient design throughout, will reduce the need to build fragmented industrial sites adjacent to centers of population.

The system also envisions six to eight satellite ports, smaller facilities to help consolidate goods movement and enhance economic competitiveness in virtually every county in the Valley.

Total projected investment in the system is forecast at about $15 billion, with about 1 percent of that in catalyst infrastructure funding by the public sector, and the rest of it coming from the private sector.

There are still many phases and hurdles this project must overcome before it becomes a reality for the Central Valley. So, why are we writing this now? Given the severe national supply chain issues we are facing, the critical need to improve our air quality and reduce emissions, and the urgent need to expand economic opportunity for Valley residents, we support fast-tracking construction of the backbone of the system.

We envision this as a system that would include two initial trade ports, one in the north and the other in the center of the Valley, to become operational in 2024, with the rest of the system to be built-out over the ensuing years.

Seldom do we see a project with so many benefits for the Valley, the state and the nation. We should approach it with a sense of urgency.

The fight about how to legalize sports betting in California continued this week, as one mayor is taking heat from tribes and a board of supervisors threw its support behind a tribal initiative.

Eight months before voters will at least decide whether to allow sports wagering at brick-and-mortar locations, politicians and other groups up and down California continue to weigh in. Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer supports an online proposal that would allow for statewide digital wagering, even though a proposed initiative for that has not qualified for the ballot yet — which led to the tribes calling him out in a set of mailers this week.

Three different groups filed proposals last year that would allow for statewide mobile wagering. And while it’s not clear which proposal Dyer is aligning with, Fresno residents have been getting mailers sent by the tribes that, according to the San Joaquin Valley Sun, include the following:

“Mayor Dyer endorsed a ballot measure sponsored by out-of-state online gambling corporations that would turn virtually every cell phone, tablet and laptop into a gambling device.”

“Mayor Dyer: Please protect our kids! Reject the Corporate Online Gambling Proposition.”

Ads say tribes are caretakers of gaming

The sentiments in the mailer reflect those in a television advertisement put out by a group called Californians for Tribal Sovereignty and Safe Gaming, which is backed by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians and the Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians, encouraging Californians to support tribal gaming, but not commercial gaming.

Fresno, the fifth most populous city in California, is located near the foot of the Sierras in the San Joaquin Valley and is home to two card rooms.

Farther north, the board of supervisors in Solano County, which borders Sacramento County (home of the state capital), voted this week to support the tribal retail initiative. The Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, which owns the Cache Creek Casino in Brooks, has a reservation in Solano County.

It's going to be a scorcher this summer https://t.co/ZGlsl3DgWp

— Victor Rocha (@VictorRocha1) April 6, 2022

According to the Daily Republic, Supervisor Erin Hannigan told her peers that she felt it was important to support the initiative, as it would be good not only for the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, but for non-gaming tribes and surrounding communities in the state as well.

The question of legal sports betting has already become a divisive topic in California. The tribes, through their television ads, are trying to sell Californians on the idea that they have been the caretakers of gaming in the state for decades, and only they should be trusted to move forward with an expansion of gaming. The only wagering initiative already on the ballot is backed by the tribes and would allow for betting at brick-and-mortar tribal casinos and four racetracks. It would also allow the tribes to begin offering certain ball or dice games, including craps and roulette.

Who supports tribes and who doesn’t?

Commercial operators, meanwhile, are trying to qualify an initiative that would allow for statewide mobile wagering. A group of seven operators, led by BetMGM, DraftKings, and FanDuel, are circulating a petition that would leave it to voters to decide if digital wagering tethered to tribal casinos should be legalized.

The deadline to collect signatures is approaching, and the political committee running the campaign has consistently said it will make the deadline with the required number of signatures. According to a spokesman, the committee is seeing “strong support for our measure and the benefits it would provide California.” The group released its own advertisements across multiple digital platforms late last month:

The initiative is put forward by the commercial operators as “complementary” to the tribal referendum, and both could pass. Operators say they have been trying for months to bridge the gap between their business interests and the tribes’ goals.

In the past few months, various groups have taken sides, with a coalition of card-room cities and a group of veterans’ organizations sharing their opposition to the tribes’ retail-only initiative, and the NAACP in early March announcing its support of the tribes’ referendum.

Furthermore, columnist George Boardman of The Union in Nevada County wrote this week that a retail-only wagering situation isn’t in the best interest of consumers, but that “the argument is not about the morality of sports betting, but rather who gets to collect your bets.”

Jill has covered everything from steeplechase to the NFL and then some during a more than 30-year career in sports journalism. The highlight of her career was covering Oakland Raiders during the Charles Woodson/Jon Gruden era, including the infamous “Snow Bowl” and the Raiders’ 2003 trip to Super Bowl XXXVII. Her specialty these days is covering sports betting legislation across the country. You can reach Jill at jill@bettercollective.com

A new chapter in the Ukrainian refugee crisis is playing out along California’s southern border.

As Russia continues its brutal invasion of Ukraine, more than 2,000 Ukrainians have made their way to the Mexican side of the border in the last 10 days in the hope of gaining entry into the United States, my colleague Miriam Jordan reported in today’s newspaper, and many of them have flooded into Tijuana.

The immigrants sometimes wait days to be allowed entry into California. The surge has created confusion and a backlog, and has drawn volunteers from across the state who are trying to provide shelter, food and other assistance.

“The system at the border is incredibly inefficient,” Olya Krasnykh, who took time off from her real estate development job in San Mateo to help, told Miriam. “I don’t know how long we can sustain the volunteer-run effort.”

The war in Ukraine, entering its seventh week, continues its murderous course. Russia is scrambling for more soldiers after facing logistics problems and devastating casualties, as a litany of horrors keeps unfolding across Ukraine.

Since the invasion began, roughly 4.3 million Ukrainians have fled their country, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency. Many have escaped to Poland, Romania or other nearby European nations.

President Biden announced last month that the United States would accept 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, but details about the program have not been released, prompting some refugees to seek entry more quickly. As Miriam wrote, Ukrainians who can afford the journey are traveling to Mexico, a country they can enter without a visa, to try to seek asylum in the United States, a country they cannot.

That has led to a stream of Ukrainians entering California in recent days. A church in the San Diego area has been converted into a place to sleep for new arrivals with nowhere else to go.

It’s likely that many of the new arrivals will eventually join relatives in the New York region, which is home to more Ukrainian immigrants than anywhere else in the nation. Some, however, may stay in California.

Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego are also among the nation’s biggest Ukrainian population centers, according to the Migration Policy Institute. And the Sacramento area has the highest concentration relative to its size: One in every 125 residents is of Ukrainian descent.

One Ukrainian refugee who is now staying in San Diego told KQED about her path to the United States: She flew to Germany with her two young daughters, then to Mexico City and then to Tijuana. A family friend crossed over from San Diego to pick them up and drive them back into California.

Once at the passport control booth on U.S. soil, the woman, whom KQED identified only as Maryna, told Customs and Border Protection officers that her family was seeking asylum. Though she was relieved to have made it into the country, she still thought about what she left behind.

“At night, I couldn’t sleep because of the emotions,” because her family was far away, she told the news outlet. “Yes, everything is pretty, everything is great here, but I can’t enjoy it or relax.”

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Today’s tip comes from Carol Stanley:

“For me there is no more magical place in California than Big Sur where the Santa Lucia Mountains meet the Pacific. I find the beauty is so extraordinary that it presses on my heart until I almost can’t breathe. It casts a spell and my voice becomes a whisper, as though I am in a library because I want to do nothing to disturb the magic.

Whether you are camping or staying at the Post Ranch or Ventana, Big Sur captures you in its big, wild arms. Then there’s Nepenthe, a wonderful place to eat and enjoy a spectacular view, or Esalen to learn and expand. Carmel is near, as is San Simeon. But there are no resorts in Big Sur, no golf courses or tennis courts — it’s where you learn the most valuable lesson of doing nothing.

Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We’ll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter.

Tell us

What’s the best part of spring in California? Email us at CAToday@nytimes.com and your submission may be included in a future newsletter.

And before you go, some good news

When the pandemic struck in 2020, entire industries were decimated overnight, leaving workers to survive on unemployment benefits.

But for some, the Covid-19 crisis presented an opportunity to change course and rethink their path. The New York Times wrote about six people who transformed their careers over the past two years.

One of them, Liz Martinez, started training to be a dental assistant last year after the Sephora she worked at in San Francisco closed.

Martinez had assumed that working in a dentist’s office would be drastically different from her work as a beauty adviser. But she found surprising commonalities: She practices the technical skills until they feel seamless, and she connects with clients and tries to ease their day.

As a dental assistant, “you have no choice but to be really good at it,” she said. “It’s nice not being nervous.”

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back on Monday. Enjoy your weekend. — Soumya

P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Dip for tortilla chips (5 letters).