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SACRAMENTO – The California Department of Public Health is continuing to monitor respiratory disease activity statewide, including instances of enterovirus D68 infection.
Officials said outpatient reports of respiratory illness are low and within normal levels for this time of year.
The proportion of respiratory specimens testing positive for enterovirus/rhinovirus is 20 percent, which also is a normal level for this time of year and decreased from 25 to 30 percent levels in recent weeks.
As of Thursday, CDPH has identified enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) infection in a total of 32 patients.
The positive specimens came from the following counties: Alameda (5), Contra Costa (1), Los Angeles (4), Orange (3), Riverside (2), San Diego (8), San Francisco (3), Santa Clara (1), Santa Cruz (1), Solano (1), Ventura (1), and the cities of Long Beach (1) and Berkeley (1).
All 32 patients had onset of symptoms in 2014 through late September, CDPH reported.
Testing takes ones to two weeks, and specimens from early October are in process.
CDPH's test results suggest that EV-D68 has been circulating widely.
CDPH will continue to monitor the circulation of EV-D68 and other viruses. The purpose of CDPH’s surveillance is to monitor the presence of the virus in California.
This condition is not reportable in California and CDPH does not track the actual number of persons who have suspected or confirmed EV-D68 infection in California.
EV-D68 causes respiratory illness and the virus likely spreads from person to person when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or touches contaminated surfaces.
Symptoms of EV-D68 include fever (although fever may not be present), runny nose, sneezing, cough, and body and muscle aches. Some children have more serious illness with breathing difficulty and wheezing, particularly children with a history of asthma. EV-D68 can rarely cause neurologic illness.
Parents should seek medical attention immediately for children who are having any breathing difficulty (wheezing, difficulty speaking or eating, belly pulling in with breaths, blueness around the lips), particularly if the child suffers from asthma.
There is no specific treatment for persons with EV-D68, nor is there a vaccine to prevent it. However, everyone 6 months of age and older should receive influenza vaccine every year to protect themselves against that important cause of respiratory disease.
Health care providers should consider EV-D68 as a possible cause of acute, unexplained severe respiratory illness, even if the patient does not have fever, and consider laboratory testing of respiratory specimens for enteroviruses when the cause of respiratory illness in severely ill patients is unclear.
In addition, health care providers should contact their local health departments to report cases of acute flaccid paralysis with spinal cord involvement and test these patients for possible enterovirus infection.
The best way to prevent transmission of enteroviruses is to:
– Wash hands often with soap and water for 20 seconds, especially after changing diapers.
– Avoid touching eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands.
– Avoid kissing, hugging, and sharing cups or eating utensils with people who are sick.
– Disinfect frequently touched surfaces, such as toys and doorknobs, especially if someone is sick.
Additional information about EV-D68 can be found on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Enterovirus D68 page, http://www.cdc.gov/non-polio-enterovirus/about/ev-d68.html .
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – Community members are urged to come out and enjoy the annual showing of EcoArts: Lake County Sculpture Walk before it closes Oct. 13.
The exhibit can be seen at the Middletown Trailside Nature Preserve, 21435 Dry Creek Cutoff, located about 1.5 miles from downtown Middletown. The exhibit is free and open daily, dawn to dusk.
The work of this year's eco artists also can be seen at the Life Gallery in Middletown, 21037 Calistoga Road. The gallery is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Both exhibits close Oct. 13.
“It has been inspirational to see the high quality fine art work created by a local group of dedicated conscious minded artists in the current exhibit” said Aimee Reed, co-chair of the Life Gallery. “Since first opening in spring of this year, we’ve been pleased to see great turnouts to the gallery’s art openings, live performances and workshops.”
EcoArts: Lake County Sculpture Walk features art work “in dialogue with nature,” with an eco-conscious message.
Visitors will find a variety of concepts and themes expressed in natural or repurposed materials in the artwork at both locations.
For more information visit www.EcoArtsofLakeCounty.org .
Cal Fire officials said Friday that they have lifted a temporary safety stand down on the agency's fleet of 22 Grumman S-2T airtankers following a fatal crash on Tuesday.
The crash, which occurred near Yosemite National Park, claimed the life of 62-year-old Geoffrey “Craig” Hunt of San Jose, a 13-year veteran pilot of DynCorp International, which is under contract with Cal Fire.
Hunt, who was working on the Dog Rock Fire, was based at Cal Fire's Hollister Air Attack Base. He was piloting Tanker 81 Tuesday afternoon when the crash occurred over steep terrain.
Cal Fire Director Chief Ken Pimlott had said earlier this week that the stand down went into place shortly after the Tuesday crash in order to evaluate the fleet and its pilots.
On Friday the National Transportation Safety Board notified Cal Fire that it investigation into the Tanker 81 accident has found no structural failures or aging aircraft issues involved in the crash.
Immediately following this finding, Cal Fire lifted the safety stand down of the Cal Fire S-2T airtanker fleet, according to the Friday report.
Airbase personnel returned to routine daily safety inspections and were permitted to resume normal flight activities on Friday, Cal Fire said.
“This has been a difficult week for the Department,” said Pimlott. “Words can’t express my sorrow for the Hunt family, but I am incredibly thankful of the work our pilots, employees and fire service partners have done following this tragic accident.”
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NORTH COAST, Calif. – A Mendocino County Superior Court judge has imposed a six-figure damages award against a Santa Cruz man who trespassed on his neighbors' Covelo property to grow marijuana.
Judge Jeanine Nadel issued a decision on Oct. 6 awarding plaintiffs Maria and Ernesto Salazar a total of $242,000 in damages against defendant Ross Matejcek.
Matejcek also has been ordered to remove encroachments and restore an excavated hillside.
“California law provides a property owner that has suffered a trespass such as this one with a wide range of damages claims and other remedies for the same conduct of the trespasser which do not necessarily overlap,” said Brian Momsen of Carter, Momsen & Knight PC, attorneys for the Salazars. “Trespass marijuana grows are a major issue in this community, not only on public lands, but also on private property, and we are happy that the court views these violations as a serious matter.”
The Salazars sued Matejcek for trespassing on their property, taking land, water and 225 trees to facilitate his marijuana grow.
The Salazars have owned their 10-acre parcel improved with a cabin in the Chicken Ridge area of Covelo since 1982, which they used as a vacation spot for their family.
In 2007, Matejcek purchased a 20-acre parcel immediately downhill from the Salazars after unsuccessfully trying to buy the Salazar property.
Matejcek constructed a road which required the excavation of a hillside and the removal of approximately 225 trees on the Salazars' property.
The court found that Matejcek took water from an uphill source on the Salazar property to fill large tanks and a pool he placed on the Salazar property, and ran lines from these holding areas further downhill to his marijuana garden and a large retention pond on his own property.
The court's ruling awarded the Salazars $202,500 for the removal of the trees, $39,600 for the reasonable rental value for the use of their property and water, and ordered Matejcek to restore the roadway to its original grade, remove gates, fencing and irrigation lines.
Momsen said the court awarded the Salazars treble damages in regard to their claim for timber trespass, finding that Matejcek's conduct was willful and malicious.
In the decision, Nadel found that Matejcek “ … never obtained a formal survey of his parcel when he purchased it, and instead, made what this Court considers a halfhearted attempt to locate the boundary lines with some local friends. He commenced construction of the road, fencing, and culverts which required the removal of trees without clear certainty of the boundary lines and without ever contacting the Plaintiffs despite knowing who they were and where they could be reached ... Defendant's total disregard for his neighbors gives rise to something more than a casual or an involuntary trespass.”
Maria Salazar said she had called Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman repeatedly from 2010 until this year to report this damage and the stealing of the water, but a deputy was not sent to the scene.
“Even after we received and informed the sheriff of the results of a survey a few months after we discovered the trespass, clearly showing that the road and water tanks were on our side of the property line, no one came,” she said.
Later, the Salazars reported Matejcek's conduct to the Mendocino County Building and Planning Department, the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Department of Fish and Game, which cited Matejcek for his conduct performed without permits on his own property.
However, those agencies did not do anything about the damage to the Salazars' property. “Paying $15,000 for survey work and being in litigation for the last several years was our only remedy,” Maria Salazar said.
Salazar added, “While we are happy with the court's ruling, we still have to collect and enforce this judgment and wish that there was a simpler process for landowners that have suffered this type of violation and humiliation other than going to trial in civil court.”
After 10-month voyage across more than 400 million miles of empty space, NASA's MAVEN spacecraft reached Mars on Sept. 21.
Less than eight hours later, the data started to flow.
“Our Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) obtained these false-color images of Mars on Sept. 22,” said Nick Schneider who leads the instrument team at the University of Colorado. “They trace the distribution of hydrogen and oxygen in the Martian atmosphere.”
MAVEN is on a mission to investigate a planetary mystery.
Billions of years ago, Mars was blanketed by an atmosphere massive enough to warm the planet and allow liquid water to flow on its surface. Life could have thrived in such an environment.
Today, however, only a tiny fraction of that ancient air remains, leaving Mars a desiccated wasteland.
What happened to the atmosphere of Mars?
MAVEN will attempt to answer the question by studying the upper atmosphere, where gaseous material could be lost to space.
Schneider explained what the IUVS saw in its first look: “The oxygen gas is held close to the planet by Mars' gravity, while lighter hydrogen gas expands to higher altitudes and extends past the edges of the image. These gases come from the breakdown of water and carbon dioxide in Mars' atmosphere.”
Among researchers, a popular candidate for atmospheric loss is space weather: Eons of solar storms and the relentless buffeting of solar wind might have stripped away much of the Martian atmosphere.
The IUVS might be able to see this process in action, especially in the aftermath of a CME strike.
A CME, or coronal mass ejection, is a billion-ton cloud of ionized gas blasted away from the sun in the aftermath of a solar flare.
When CMEs hit Earth, they rattle our planet's magnetic field, causing Northern Lights and, in extreme cases, power blackouts.
Unlike Earth, Mars has no global magnetic field to protect it. For the most part, the Martian atmosphere is unshielded. That's why gusts of solar wind and CME strikes could strip material away.
“MAVEN's primary science goal is to see how the atmosphere responds to solar forcing,” said Bruce Jakosky, the Principal Investigator for MAVEN. “So on the one hand, a CME might strip the outermost layers of the atmosphere. On the other, it might also energize the atmosphere below and repopulate the extended atmosphere with a lot of new material.”
Either way, he said, “we expect to see something.”
The instrument is also capable of observing Martian auroras.
Here on Earth, auroras ring the magnetic poles, north and south. Mars, however, has a different magnetic structure. There is no coherent global magnetic field.
Instead, Mars has a patchwork of magnetic umbrellas that sprout out of the surface in hundreds of places all around the planet. If Martian auroras occur, they would appear in the canopies of those umbrellas.
“We are on the edges of our seats, hoping for our first detection,” says Schneider.
Having just reached Mars, MAVEN is still in its commissioning phase. Instruments are being checked out, the spacecraft's orbit is being adjusted. The fact that data are already arriving at Earth is an impressive achievement.
This is just the beginning. IUVS is only one of three instrument suites on MAVEN. The Neutral Gas and Ion Spectrometer from the Goddard Space Flight Center and the Particles and Fields Package from UC Berkeley will soon be making their own revelations about Mars.
Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The National Weather Service on Thursday issued an urgent fire weather message for Lake County and other parts of Northern California, warning of high temperatures this weekend.
The fire weather watch is in effect from 11 p.m. Saturday through 3 a.m. Monday.
The National Weather Service said a fire weather watch means that critical fire weather conditions are forecast to occur.
Forecasters said the worst fire weather conditions are expected to occur across the western portion of the Sacramento Valley and adjacent foothills.
Lake County's southern two-thirds are included in the alert, as well as the eastern portion of the Mendocino National Forest.
Forecasters are predicting low relative humidity, which could mean poor to moderate moisture recovery levels in vegetation. That, in turn, raises the potential for fire danger.
High pressure is expected to build over the county. The forecast also calls for the potential for light north and northwest winds, with daytime highs in the high 80s and nighttime lows into the 50s.
There is some encouraging news in the forecast beginning next week.
The National Weather Service is predicting chances of rain and cooler temperatures starting on Tuesday and continuing through Thursday.
Email Elizabeth Larson at