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Modifications are required to keep Californians safe and limit the spread of COVID-19.
Subject to approval by county public health departments, all retail stores can reopen for in-store shopping under previously issued guidelines.
Under the new guidance, places of worship can hold religious services and funerals that limit attendance to 25 percent of a building’s capacity – or up to 100 attendees, whichever is lower – upon approval by the county department of public health.
While the vast majority of large gatherings remain prohibited under the state’s stay-at-home order, the Department of Public Health has released guidelines for in-person protests and events designed for political expression. The guidance limits attendance to 25 percent of an area’s maximum occupancy – or up to 100 attendees.
“Together, our actions have helped bend the curve and reduce infections in our state. As sectors continue to open with changes that aim to lower risk, remember that COVID-19 is still present in our communities,” said Dr. Sonia Angell, State Public Health officer and director of the California Department of Public Health. “As more of us may be leaving our homes, keeping physical distance, wearing face coverings in public, and washing your hands frequently are more important than ever to help protect yourself and those around you.”
The new guidance for religious services and cultural ceremonies encourages organizations to continue online services and activities, including to protect individuals who are most at risk for more severe COVID-19, including older adults and people with specific medical conditions.
To reopen for religious services and funerals, places of worship must:
– Establish and implement a COVID-19 prevention plan for every location, train staff on the plan, and regularly evaluate workplaces for compliance.
– Train employees and volunteers on COVID-19, including how to prevent it from spreading and which underlying health conditions may make individuals more susceptible to contracting the virus.
– Implement cleaning and disinfecting protocols.
– Set physical distancing guidelines.
– Recommend that staff and guests wear cloth face coverings, and screen staff for temperature and symptoms at the beginning of their shifts.
– Set parameters around or consider eliminating singing and group recitations. These activities dramatically increase the risk of COVID-19 transmission. For this reason, congregants engaging in singing, particularly in the choir, and group recitation should wear face coverings at all times and when possible, these activities should be conducted outside with greater than 6-foot distancing.
The existing guidance for retailers, previously allowed for counties approved to advance in the reopening process, now applies statewide. Retail can now open for in-store shopping statewide.
The guidelines help reduce the risk for workers and customers. Retail does not include personal services such as hair salons, nail salons and barbershops.
In 21 days, the Department of Public Health, in consultation with local departments of public health, will review and assess the impact of the religious services guidelines and provide further direction as part of a phased-in restoration of activities.
This 21-day interval accounts for seven days for religious communities to prepare and reopen in addition to a 14-day incubation period of COVID-19.
With states reopening – or planning to reopen – in the coming weeks and months, you may be worried about what returning to work will mean for you and your family, particularly if it means increased exposure to COVID-19.
As a professor specializing in employment law, I don’t have a lot of reassurance to offer. Employment law is a patchwork at the best of times – let alone during a global pandemic – and legal protections may not cover your situation. Like so many of the challenges people are facing right now, you may be mostly on your own, negotiating the least bad of many bad options.
Here is a basic overview of what your options are under some common scenarios.
I’ve been called back to the office, but I don’t like the idea of being in an enclosed space for nine hours a day.
If you have a medical condition that makes you especially vulnerable to the coronavirus, you may be entitled to a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. That means your employer needs to engage in a dialogue with you to figure out if there is a way to limit your exposure – such as remote work, a temporary reassignment or a modified shift.
Otherwise, your options are more limited.
Unionized workers can ask their union for assistance. If the office opening is in violation of a state stay-at-home order, you might be able to file a complaint with a state workplace health and safety agency. Or you could try negotiating some sort of temporary or intermittent remote work arrangement with your employer.
Everyone else has little choice but to head back to the office. To make matters worse, the Department of Labor has issued guidance suggesting that if you refuse to return to work due to general coronavirus-related apprehension – as opposed to a specific safety hazard – you may not be eligible for extended unemployment insurance.
I believe I’m being asked to work in unsafe conditions.
Under federal workplace safety law, the first thing you are expected to do is talk to your employer about the unsafe condition. Be specific about the condition that concerns you and the fact that you are worried about your safety.
If you are unionized, conveying your concern to the union will enable it to address the problem on behalf of everyone. Even if you’re not unionized, banding together with other employees to advocate for safer working conditions is protected under the National Labor Relations Act.
If your employer does not address your safety concerns, you can complain to the state workplace safety agency or the local branch of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The agency should send an inspector to examine the situation.
In the meantime, you should refuse to work only if you have no “reasonable alternative” and the unsafe condition would pose a “real danger of death or serious injury.”
I have to go to work but have children at home and no child care options.
If you work for a company with fewer than 500 employees, you may be eligible for up to 12 weeks of paid leave under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. But if you’ve been using this leave throughout the pandemic, you may be in a dicey situation in the summer as child care centers remain shuttered and summer camps are canceled.
Beyond those 12 weeks of leave, companies are not required to make accommodations for employee child care issues. If the leave runs out – or you work for a large company not covered by the leave law – you may be eligible for expanded unemployment insurance under the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.
I live with a family member who is in a vulnerable population, and I don’t want to expose the person to the virus.
If you need to care for the family member – and work for a company with fewer than 500 employees – you may be eligible for leave under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. Your employer might request documentation that a health care provider advised the family member to self-quarantine.
Otherwise, you may be out of luck – and may not even get unemployment insurance if you refuse to work. That may mean doing your best to limit your exposure at work and transmission at home.
I think I just got sick from exposure to the coronavirus at work.
You should be eligible for two weeks of paid sick leave under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act if you work for a company with fewer than 500 employees. If you are still sick after that, you may be eligible for Family and Medical Leave. You’ll also want to check your company’s sick leave policy. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration advises companies to adopt flexible sick leave policies that actively encourage sick workers to stay home.
You might be eligible to file for workers’ compensation, which covers medical costs and provides some wage replacement for workers who are injured because of work. State law varies a lot when it comes to workers’ compensation, including whether infectious diseases like COVID-19 count as a workplace injury. Your claim will also depend on whether you can show that you contracted the coronavirus at work – as opposed to exposure from other places. Some states are issuing presumptions that certain kinds of frontline workers – like health care workers and first responders – contracted the virus at work.
I was injured by a customer who got violent after being asked to wear a mask.
Some retail workers are reporting being violently assaulted by customers when enforcing new social distancing rules, such as wearing a mask. It’s not clear how common this is, but even prior to the pandemic, workplace violence was a major cause of workplace injury, affecting an average of 1.7 million workers per year.
Injuries as a result of violent customers would generally be covered by workers’ compensation.
Of course, it’s better to avoid being injured in the first place, so frontline workers should consider asking management about the plan for responding if a customer’s behavior starts to escalate.
[The Conversation’s newsletter explains what’s going on with the coronavirus pandemic. Subscribe now.]
Elizabeth C. Tippett, Associate Professor, School of Law, University of Oregon
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The newest cases bring Lake County’s COVID-19 case total to 14.
Dr. Gary Pace said the two latest cases were detected through a recent testing site.
Pace said given recent increases in community activity and broader availability of testing, new infections are probable right now. Just last week, four new cases were reported in Lake County.
He said an impromptu testing site was created last Friday to follow up on some contacts from a previous case and results began returning over the weekend.
The two newly confirmed cases were among 40 tests received so far from that recent testing site. Pace said the results from 55 tests are still pending.
The two individuals newly confirmed to have the virus are stable and isolating at home, and further contact tracing has begun, Pace said.
“I am very pleased to report the previous cases are all doing well, and the person who was recently in the hospital has been released to their home in good condition,” Pace said in a Monday statement.
Pace said the county continues to try to strike a balance between allowing more activity and protecting people from the transmission of the virus.
“Over the next 10 to 14 days, we will monitor the effects increased social mixing and out-of-town visitors have on the infection rate in Lake County,” he said.
If someone believes they may have been exposed, Pace said drive-thru testing is available at different locations around the county, open daily during the week.
People in need of testing can go to the Verily website and get screened and make an appointment.
Frequently asked questions on drive-thru testing are available here.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.” – John Muir, 1901
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – This is my first article and I wanted to highlight some of the healing properties of nature.
Up until a few months ago, I had no idea Tuleyome was a thing. I am glad I found it.
I recently retired from the fire service and the military with post-traumatic stress disorder and was really struggling with getting through daily life and simple tasks involving memory.
I have been working with various therapists from Veteran’s Affairs and civilian side and they all had similar advice. “Get outside” was something that they all would say.
The thing about PTSD is it creates a lot of anxiety. For me, I really withdrew and became a professional at making excuses to avoid social situations and just shut myself in. Tuleyome makes it easy to get outside by offering several guided hikes and ways to volunteer.
There are a lot of recent studies that show that nature has healing properties for mental health. The sense of “awe” from a beautiful sunset or sunrise, looking from a hillside down at the valley below, seeing Elk interact with each other or birds in flight.
That’s all it takes to create a sense of well-being and according to the U.C. Berkeley study conducted in 2014.
In the Berkeley study, 72 veterans and 52 at-risk teens were taken separately on a white-water rafting trip on the south fork of the American River.
The research pointed out several things that bolster the case for getting out into nature.
First, one study found that a week after river-rafting, study cohorts reported an average 29-percent reduction in PTSD symptoms, a 21 percent decrease in general stress, a 10 percent improvement in social relationships, a 9 percent improvement in life satisfaction and an 8 percent increase in happiness.
Studies also have shown so much success that bills have been brought to Congress on the issue. Most recently, Accelerating Veterans Recovery Outdoors Act, H.R. 2435, would form a task force on the use of public lands to provide medical treatment and therapy to veterans through outdoor recreation.
The first step and the hardest is to ask for help. Here are some places that can help:
– https://www.veteranscrisisline.net/ . Call 1-800-273-8255 and Press 1 Text 838255
– https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline , SAMHSA’s National Helpline, 1-800-662-HELP (4357)
The next step, equally as hard for me, is to put a foot forward and actually get outside. Tuleyome has great staff and a board with a vast knowledge of trails at all ability levels.
Visit Tuleyome’s trails page to find something for you.
I hope this helps someone that is struggling or inspires people to check in with themselves and get out into nature.
Contact Tuleyome at
Daryl Sager is a columnist for Tuleyome, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit conservation organization based in Woodland. For more information go to www.tuleyome.org .
In the years following the bitter Civil War, a former Union general took a holiday originated by former Confederates and helped spread it across the entire country.
The holiday was Memorial Day, an annual commemoration was born in the former Confederate States in 1866 and adopted by the United States in 1868. It is a holiday in which the nation honors its military dead.
Gen. John A. Logan, who headed the largest Union veterans’ fraternity at that time, the Grand Army of the Republic, is usually credited as being the originator of the holiday.
Yet when General Logan established the holiday, he acknowledged its genesis among the Union’s former enemies, saying, “It was not too late for the Union men of the nation to follow the example of the people of the South.”
I’m a scholar who has written – with co-author Daniel Bellware – a history of Memorial Day. Cities and towns across America have for more than a century claimed to be the holiday’s birthplace, but we have sifted through the myths and half-truths and uncovered the authentic story of how this holiday came into being.
Generous acts bore fruit
During 1866, the first year of this annual observance in the South, a feature of the holiday emerged that made awareness, admiration and eventually imitation of it spread quickly to the North.
During the inaugural Memorial Day observances which were conceived in Columbus, Georgia, many Southern participants – especially women – decorated graves of Confederate soldiers as well as, unexpectedly, those of their former enemies who fought for the Union.
Shortly after those first Memorial Day observances all across the South, newspaper coverage in the North was highly favorable to the ex-Confederates.
“The action of the ladies on this occasion, in burying whatever animosities or ill-feeling may have been engendered in the late war towards those who fought against them, is worthy of all praise and commendation,” wrote one paper.
On May 9, 1866, the Cleveland Daily Leader lauded the Southern women during their first Memorial Day.
“The act was as beautiful as it was unselfish, and will be appreciated in the North.”
The New York Commercial Advertiser, recognizing the magnanimous deeds of the women of Columbus, Georgia, echoed the sentiment. “Let this incident, touching and beautiful as it is, impart to our Washington authorities a lesson in conciliation.”
Power of a poem
To be sure, this sentiment was not unanimous. There were many in both parts of the U.S. who had no interest in conciliation.
But as a result of one of these news reports, Francis Miles Finch, a Northern judge, academic and poet, wrote a poem titled “The Blue and the Gray.” Finch’s poem quickly became part of the American literary canon. He explained what inspired him to write it:
“It struck me that the South was holding out a friendly hand, and that it was our duty, not only as conquerors, but as men and their fellow citizens of the nation, to grasp it.”
Finch’s poem seemed to extend a full pardon to the South: “They banish our anger forever when they laurel the graves of our dead” was one of the lines.
Almost immediately, the poem circulated across America in books, magazines and newspapers. By the end of the 19th century, school children everywhere were required to memorize Finch’s poem. The ubiquitous publication of Finch’s rhyme meant that by the end of 1867, the southern Memorial Day holiday was a familiar phenomenon throughout the entire, and recently reunited, country.
General Logan was aware of the forgiving sentiments of people like Finch. When Logan’s order establishing Memorial Day was published in various newspapers in May 1868, Finch’s poem was sometimes appended to the order.
‘The blue and the grey’
It was not long before Northerners decided that they would not only adopt the Southern custom of Memorial Day, but also the Southern custom of “burying the hatchet.” A group of Union veterans explained their intentions in a letter to the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph on May 28, 1869:
“Wishing to bury forever the harsh feelings engendered by the war, Post 19 has decided not to pass by the graves of the Confederates sleeping in our lines, but divide each year between the blue and the grey the first floral offerings of a common country. We have no powerless foes. Post 19 thinks of the Southern dead only as brave men.”
Other reports of reciprocal magnanimity circulated in the North, including the gesture of a 10-year-old who made a wreath of flowers and sent it to the overseer of the holiday, Colonel Leaming, in Lafayette, Indiana, with the following note attached, published in The New Hampshire Patriot on July 15, 1868:
“Will you please put this wreath upon some rebel soldier’s grave? My dear papa is buried at Andersonville, (Georgia) and perhaps some little girl will be kind enough to put a few flowers upon his grave.”
President Abraham Lincoln’s wish that there be “malice toward none” and “charity for all” was visible in the magnanimous actions of participants on both sides, who extended an olive branch during the Memorial Day observances in those first three years.
Although not known by many today, the early evolution of the Memorial Day holiday was a manifestation of Lincoln’s hope for reconciliation between North and South.
This is an updated version of an article originally published on May 25, 2018.
Richard Gardiner, Associate Professor of History Education, Columbus State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Shelter guests will be given an opportunity to work at the center's kitchen and Meals on Wheels Thrift Store.
These volunteer positions could eventually turn into paid employment opportunities thanks to Senior Center Executive Director Jonathan Crooks and Hope Harbor Manager Gary Deas.
"This is a great opportunity to help our shelter guests get on a successful path to employment while helping to feed area seniors who rely on MealsOn Wheels for their food needs," said Deas.
Employment is a big need for Hope Harbor's current occupants, many of whom cannot qualify for permanent housing because they have no source of income.
Over the last months three of the shelter's guests have found employment, nine permanent housing and 10 have moved on to other programs that better meet their needs.
Hope Harbor has been working with Lakeport Senior Center already, during the duration of the COVID-19 shelter in place order to fill the pantry for the shelter's meals.
Hope Harbor will continue to provide a safe place for Lake County's unsheltered neighbors to be until the shelter in place order is lifted.
To make a contribution or donation to Hope Harbor you can call 707-533-0522 or visit www.hopeharborlakecounty.com . You can donate to the Lakeport Senior Center by calling 707-263-4218 or visit www.lcseniors.com .