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On Friday, the California Department of Public Health gave an update on the situation with COVID-19, the disease caused by novel coronavirus, reporting that the statewide number of cases had risen to 69.
The number of cases on Friday was an increase of nine over the previous day.
California’s first COVID-19 death was reported earlier this week in Placer County. Officials there said the person who died was elderly, with underlying health conditions. That was just one of Placer County’s two COVID-19 cases.
Of the 69 COVID-19 cases reported Friday in California, the California Department of Public Health said 24 are cases of positive tests related to federal repatriation flights.
Of the other 45 cases, 22 are travel-related, 12 are person-to-person, nine are community transmission and two are under investigation, CDPH said.
There are more than 9,900 people who returned to the U.S. through San Francisco and Los Angeles airports who are self-monitoring. CDPH said 49 health jurisdictions are involved in self-monitoring.
CDPH’s state laboratory in Richmond and 14 other public health department laboratories now have tests for the virus that causes COVID-19.
The governor this week declared a state of emergency and announced that 24 million more Californians are now eligible for free medically necessary COVID-19 testing.
Health officials continue to urge Californians to use a variety of precautions, including handwashing, avoiding touching eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands, avoiding close contact with people who are sick, and staying away from work, school or other people if you become sick with respiratory symptoms like fever and cough.
The number of cases on Friday was an increase of nine over the previous day.
California’s first COVID-19 death was reported earlier this week in Placer County. Officials there said the person who died was elderly, with underlying health conditions. That was just one of Placer County’s two COVID-19 cases.
Of the 69 COVID-19 cases reported Friday in California, the California Department of Public Health said 24 are cases of positive tests related to federal repatriation flights.
Of the other 45 cases, 22 are travel-related, 12 are person-to-person, nine are community transmission and two are under investigation, CDPH said.
There are more than 9,900 people who returned to the U.S. through San Francisco and Los Angeles airports who are self-monitoring. CDPH said 49 health jurisdictions are involved in self-monitoring.
CDPH’s state laboratory in Richmond and 14 other public health department laboratories now have tests for the virus that causes COVID-19.
The governor this week declared a state of emergency and announced that 24 million more Californians are now eligible for free medically necessary COVID-19 testing.
Health officials continue to urge Californians to use a variety of precautions, including handwashing, avoiding touching eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands, avoiding close contact with people who are sick, and staying away from work, school or other people if you become sick with respiratory symptoms like fever and cough.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – On Sunday, it’s time to reset the clocks.
Daylight Saving Time begins at 2 a.m. Sunday, March 8.
At that time, clocks will “spring forward” one hour as California goes from Pacific Standard Time to Pacific Daylight Time.
Daylight Saving Time continues in California despite the fact that in 2018 a majority of voters supported a proposition to end it.
Both the California Legislature and Congress must take action before the practice – in effect since 1966 – can be changed, and so far legislative efforts have stalled.
In the meantime, fire and emergency officials urge people to use Daylight Saving Time as a reminder to change batteries in smoke and carbon monoxide detectors as well as in NOAA weather radios.
Daylight Saving Time this year will end on Sunday, Nov. 1.
Email Elizabeth Larson atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
Daylight Saving Time begins at 2 a.m. Sunday, March 8.
At that time, clocks will “spring forward” one hour as California goes from Pacific Standard Time to Pacific Daylight Time.
Daylight Saving Time continues in California despite the fact that in 2018 a majority of voters supported a proposition to end it.
Both the California Legislature and Congress must take action before the practice – in effect since 1966 – can be changed, and so far legislative efforts have stalled.
In the meantime, fire and emergency officials urge people to use Daylight Saving Time as a reminder to change batteries in smoke and carbon monoxide detectors as well as in NOAA weather radios.
Daylight Saving Time this year will end on Sunday, Nov. 1.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
NASA’s next Mars rover has a new name – Perseverance.
Alexander Mather, a 13-year-old student from Virginia, submitted the winning name and explains why he chose the name of NASA’s next robotic scientist to visit the Red Planet.
The name was announced Thursday by Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, during a celebration at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia.
Zurbuchen was at the school to congratulate seventh-grader Alexander Mather, who submitted the winning entry to the agency’s "Name the Rover" essay contest, which received 28,000 entries from K-12 students from every U.S. state and territory.
"Alex’s entry captured the spirit of exploration,” said Zurbuchen. “Like every exploration mission before, our rover is going to face challenges, and it’s going to make amazing discoveries. It’s already surmounted many obstacles to get us to the point where we are today – processing for launch. Alex and his classmates are the Artemis Generation, and they’re going to be taking the next steps into space that lead to Mars. That inspiring work will always require perseverance. We can’t wait to see that nameplate on Mars.”
Perseverance is the latest in a long line of Red Planet rovers to be named by school-age children, from Sojourner in 1997 to the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on Mars in 2004, to Curiosity, which has been exploring Mars since 2012. In each case, the name was selected following a nationwide contest.
The contest that resulted in Alex's winning entry of Perseverance began Aug. 28, 2019. Nearly 4,700 volunteer judges – educators, professionals and space enthusiasts from around the country – reviewed submissions to help narrow the pool down to 155 semifinalists.
Once that group was whittled down to nine finalists, the public had five days to weigh in on their favorites, logging more than 770,000 votes online, with the results submitted to NASA for consideration.
The nine finalists also talked with a panel of experts, including Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division; NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins; rover driver Nick Wiltsie at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California; and Clara Ma, who, as a sixth-grade student in 2009, named Curiosity.
Up until two years ago, Mather was more interested in video games than space. That all changed in the summer of 2018 when he visited Space Camp in Alabama.
From his first glimpse of a Saturn V – the rocket that launched the Apollo astronauts to the Moon half a century ago – Mather became a bona fide space enthusiast, checking NASA.gov daily, consuming astronaut autobiographies and even 3D-printing flyable model rockets.
When the call went out for students to propose a name for NASA's new Mars rover, Mather knew he wanted to contribute.
"This was a chance to help the agency that put humans on the Moon and will soon do it again," said Mather. "This Mars rover will help pave the way for human presence there and I wanted to try and help in any way I could. Refusal of the challenge was not an option."
Along with forever being associated with the mission, Mather will also receive an invitation to travel with his family to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to witness the rover begin its journey when it launches this summer.
While Mather has received NASA’s grand prize in this competition, NASA also is acknowledging the valuable contributions of the semifinalists whose entries were among the top ones considered.
"They came so far, and their expressive submissions helped make this naming contest the biggest and best in NASA history," said Glaze, who also attended the event Thursday. "So, we decided to send them a little farther – 314 million miles farther. All 155 semifinalists’ proposed rover names and essays have been stenciled onto a silicon chip with lines of text smaller than one-thousandth the width of a human hair and will be flown to Mars aboard the rover.”
NASA's Perseverance rover is a robotic scientist weighing just under 2,300 pounds (1,043 kilograms). Managed for the agency by JPL, the rover’s astrobiology mission includes searching for signs of past microbial life.
It also will characterize the planet's climate and geology, and collect samples of Martian rocks and dust for a future Mars Sample Return mission to Earth, while paving the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.
"When word went out during the naming event here at JPL, I took a moment to look around the auditorium,” said John McNamee, project manager of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission at JPL. “I saw all these dedicated men and women who for years have invested the full measure of their intellect and stamina into the most technologically advanced rover mission in history – and I saw a lot of smiling faces and high-fives. Perseverance? You bet, that is a worthy name that we can be proud of as the first leg of a sample return campaign.”
Perseverance currently is undergoing final assembly and checkout at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It’s targeted to land on Mars’ Jezero Crater a little after 3:40 p.m. EST (12:40 p.m. PST) Feb. 18, 2021.
The rover naming contest partnership was part of a Space Act Agreement in educational and public outreach efforts between NASA, Battelle of Columbus, Ohio, and Future Engineers of Burbank, California. Amazon Web Services is an additional prize provider for the Mars 2020 naming contest and will provide Alex and his family a trip to see the launch.
Mars 2020 is part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with landing the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis program.
For more information about the mission, go to https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ .
Follow the Perseverance Mars rover’s official accounts and get answers to your questions about the mission at https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere and https://facebook.com/NASAPersevere .
For more about NASA's Moon to Mars plans, visit https://www.nasa.gov/topics/moon-to-mars .
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – More than a year after a Santa Clarita man was found shot to death in his van along Highway 20, the California Highway Patrol said its investigators are continuing their work to solve the murder.
On Thursday, the CHP’s Clear Lake Area office issued a brief update on its continuing investigation into the homicide of 41-year-old Patrick Michael Weber.
Weber was found dead in the driver’s seat of his sprinter van in the area of Highway 20 and Walker Ridge Road east of Clearlake Oaks on the morning of Feb. 21, 2019.
The CHP said its officers responded to the area of Highway 20 at milepost marker 41 on a reported fatal traffic collision.
A passing motorist reported seeing the van crashed off the south edge of the highway. The CHP said the van had been traveling eastbound when it went off the road.
The CHP said Weber had been in the vehicle when it crashed because he had seat belt marks on his body.
“As the investigation progressed, the officers on the scene became suspicious of the circumstances surrounding the collision and requested CHP’s investigation unit respond,” the CHP said in its Thursday update.
On the same day as Weber was found, an autopsy – conducted as soon as possible at the request of the CHP – concluded that Weber had died of a gunshot wound, leading to investigators’ determination that Weber’s death was a homicide.
Investigating officers found a large amount of marijuana in the van. The California Department of Cannabis Control told the CHP that Weber was not legally licensed to transport marijuana.
In a February 2019 interview, Weber’s wife told Lake County News that he was involved in the cannabis industry. He had gone on a trim run through Northern California, leaving a few days before.
The CHP said an in-depth investigation into Weber’s murder has ensued, spanning California and into nearby states.
In June, the CHP released surveillance pictures of a person of interest they wanted to talk to, as Lake County News has reported. Investigators have not disclosed if they spoke to the man.
The CHP said its investigators continue to actively and aggressively investigate Weber’s homicide as additional information and leads are developed.
The agency also thanked the public as well as the numerous allied law enforcement agencies throughout California for the assistance they have provided during the investigation.
Anyone with information about the case should contact the CHP’s Ukiah Communications Center at 707-467-4000, 24 hours a day.
Email Elizabeth Larson atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
On Thursday, the CHP’s Clear Lake Area office issued a brief update on its continuing investigation into the homicide of 41-year-old Patrick Michael Weber.
Weber was found dead in the driver’s seat of his sprinter van in the area of Highway 20 and Walker Ridge Road east of Clearlake Oaks on the morning of Feb. 21, 2019.
The CHP said its officers responded to the area of Highway 20 at milepost marker 41 on a reported fatal traffic collision.
A passing motorist reported seeing the van crashed off the south edge of the highway. The CHP said the van had been traveling eastbound when it went off the road.
The CHP said Weber had been in the vehicle when it crashed because he had seat belt marks on his body.
“As the investigation progressed, the officers on the scene became suspicious of the circumstances surrounding the collision and requested CHP’s investigation unit respond,” the CHP said in its Thursday update.
On the same day as Weber was found, an autopsy – conducted as soon as possible at the request of the CHP – concluded that Weber had died of a gunshot wound, leading to investigators’ determination that Weber’s death was a homicide.
Investigating officers found a large amount of marijuana in the van. The California Department of Cannabis Control told the CHP that Weber was not legally licensed to transport marijuana.
In a February 2019 interview, Weber’s wife told Lake County News that he was involved in the cannabis industry. He had gone on a trim run through Northern California, leaving a few days before.
The CHP said an in-depth investigation into Weber’s murder has ensued, spanning California and into nearby states.
In June, the CHP released surveillance pictures of a person of interest they wanted to talk to, as Lake County News has reported. Investigators have not disclosed if they spoke to the man.
The CHP said its investigators continue to actively and aggressively investigate Weber’s homicide as additional information and leads are developed.
The agency also thanked the public as well as the numerous allied law enforcement agencies throughout California for the assistance they have provided during the investigation.
Anyone with information about the case should contact the CHP’s Ukiah Communications Center at 707-467-4000, 24 hours a day.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The work to complete Lake County’s count of ballots from Tuesday’s presidential primary is underway, with the interim registrar of voters reporting that thousands of ballots remain to be counted.
Interim Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley also reported that she doesn’t yet have a preliminary vote count in the Lake County Superior Court judicial race.
“The votes have not been tabulated yet,” Fridley said of the judicial race.
That race is unusual in that both candidates, incumbent J. David Markham and challenger Lisa Proffitt-O’Brien, are write-ins.
Fridley said Thursday that she had an overall preliminary count of ballots for the primary remaining to be tallied that she had to report to the Secretary of State’s Office by noon.
In that initial preliminary estimate, she reported that 9,945 ballots are not counted, a number she guaranteed will grow.
That number isn’t just vote-by-mail – or absentee – ballots that are still coming in, but also includes provisional and conditional ballots voted at the polls at the Registrar of Voters Office in the courthouse in Lakeport, Fridley said.
Having thousands of ballots still to count after election night is common. Although the Registrar of Voters Office issues preliminary counts, the election results aren’t final and certified until after the monthlong canvass.
Over the past decade, more voters in Lake County have turned to absentee voting. While many absentee ballots are mailed or delivered to the Registrar of Voters Office ahead of the election or on election day, it can be days after the election before all of them arrive in the mail.
Fridley said she received 366 ballots in the mail on Wednesday, had another whole tray that had arrived on Thursday and hadn’t yet been counted, plus more are expected to arrive on Friday, the last day ballots can arrive by mail and be counted under state elections law. Ballots had to have been postmarked by Tuesday.
New equipment, new processes
This is the first major election during which the Registrar of Voters Office has used the new voting equipment it purchased last year from Hart InterCivic. The equipment was first used in May’s special election for the Lakeport Fire Protection District’s fire tax measure.
Fridley said the new equipment requires additional steps, including adjudicating the scanning system.
Ballots are scanned into a scanner, and then that information is placed on a flash drive and loaded into a different machine, the tabulation unit. Fridley said the new protocols they have to follow require that the two machines cannot talk to each other.
In counting and reviewing ballots, Fridley said elections staff has to look for undervotes – places where the voters didn’t fill in the rectangle next to a name or didn’t vote in a category.
In the judicial race, “We did go through the ballots on election night. That’s one of the steps,” she said.
The Superior Court race had no candidates’ names printed on the ballot. Instead, voters had to write in the name of one of the two qualified candidates for their vote to count and check the box next to the name.
Fridley said that if the voter marked the box, elections staff made sure the candidate whose name was written in was qualified and then moved on. However, state election code allows for the vote to be counted even if the box next to the name is not checked.
Fridley said each of the ballots with a write-in candidate needed to be reviewed. “That’s why it took longer election night,” she said.
She said the write-in judicial race slowed down the adjudication process on election night. “We had to be very careful.”
Fridley added, “We don’t count all the writes-ins on election night. You’d never get results out.”
As it was, she issued the last report on the preliminary count just before 2:30 a.m. Wednesday and then had to fax it to the Secretary of State’s Office, which had trouble reading the report until she emailed it. Fridley said she didn’t leave the office to go home until just before 5 a.m. that day.
Fridley said she will issue an update soon on how many ballots remain to be counted.
California counties have until April 3 to complete and certify their vote count as part of the official canvass, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
Email Elizabeth Larson atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
Interim Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley also reported that she doesn’t yet have a preliminary vote count in the Lake County Superior Court judicial race.
“The votes have not been tabulated yet,” Fridley said of the judicial race.
That race is unusual in that both candidates, incumbent J. David Markham and challenger Lisa Proffitt-O’Brien, are write-ins.
Fridley said Thursday that she had an overall preliminary count of ballots for the primary remaining to be tallied that she had to report to the Secretary of State’s Office by noon.
In that initial preliminary estimate, she reported that 9,945 ballots are not counted, a number she guaranteed will grow.
That number isn’t just vote-by-mail – or absentee – ballots that are still coming in, but also includes provisional and conditional ballots voted at the polls at the Registrar of Voters Office in the courthouse in Lakeport, Fridley said.
Having thousands of ballots still to count after election night is common. Although the Registrar of Voters Office issues preliminary counts, the election results aren’t final and certified until after the monthlong canvass.
Over the past decade, more voters in Lake County have turned to absentee voting. While many absentee ballots are mailed or delivered to the Registrar of Voters Office ahead of the election or on election day, it can be days after the election before all of them arrive in the mail.
Fridley said she received 366 ballots in the mail on Wednesday, had another whole tray that had arrived on Thursday and hadn’t yet been counted, plus more are expected to arrive on Friday, the last day ballots can arrive by mail and be counted under state elections law. Ballots had to have been postmarked by Tuesday.
New equipment, new processes
This is the first major election during which the Registrar of Voters Office has used the new voting equipment it purchased last year from Hart InterCivic. The equipment was first used in May’s special election for the Lakeport Fire Protection District’s fire tax measure.
Fridley said the new equipment requires additional steps, including adjudicating the scanning system.
Ballots are scanned into a scanner, and then that information is placed on a flash drive and loaded into a different machine, the tabulation unit. Fridley said the new protocols they have to follow require that the two machines cannot talk to each other.
In counting and reviewing ballots, Fridley said elections staff has to look for undervotes – places where the voters didn’t fill in the rectangle next to a name or didn’t vote in a category.
In the judicial race, “We did go through the ballots on election night. That’s one of the steps,” she said.
The Superior Court race had no candidates’ names printed on the ballot. Instead, voters had to write in the name of one of the two qualified candidates for their vote to count and check the box next to the name.
Fridley said that if the voter marked the box, elections staff made sure the candidate whose name was written in was qualified and then moved on. However, state election code allows for the vote to be counted even if the box next to the name is not checked.
Fridley said each of the ballots with a write-in candidate needed to be reviewed. “That’s why it took longer election night,” she said.
She said the write-in judicial race slowed down the adjudication process on election night. “We had to be very careful.”
Fridley added, “We don’t count all the writes-ins on election night. You’d never get results out.”
As it was, she issued the last report on the preliminary count just before 2:30 a.m. Wednesday and then had to fax it to the Secretary of State’s Office, which had trouble reading the report until she emailed it. Fridley said she didn’t leave the office to go home until just before 5 a.m. that day.
Fridley said she will issue an update soon on how many ballots remain to be counted.
California counties have until April 3 to complete and certify their vote count as part of the official canvass, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Hope Rising reported that it is leading the process for the first community health needs assessment for Lake County that includes community member input and nineteen agencies to determine the next three-year health priorities.
Every hospital, or collaboration of health organizations, is federally required by the Affordable Care Act to complete a community health needs assessment, or CHNA, every three years.
Hope Rising Lake County, convening 19 agencies, hospitals, health agencies, community-based organizations, county of Lake government and community members, worked with Conduent Healthy Communities Institute to conduct the 2019 CHNA.
Multiple data sources are researched, and community members are consulted to reach reasonable conclusions.
The results are a transparent and collaborative approach to understanding the needs, vulnerable populations, and unmet health needs or gaps in services in order to find means of addressing the most pressing issues.
Hope Rising hosted focus groups and key informant interviews with tribal leaders, tribal members, youth, seniors, neighbors experiencing homelessness and multiple county collaboratives and coalitions.
More than twice the amount of community input surveys was received to inform the 2019 CHNA than compared to previous years.
Findings from the 2019 CHNA will be used by Hope Rising, as well as all Lake County health care agencies, to identify, develop, and target strategies for the next three years to connect residents with services to improve health outcomes and the quality of life of residents in Lake County.
Following a prioritization toolkit, participants scored identified health problems to create a significant health needs list.
From that list, the four prioritized areas selected are homelessness and housing, substance misuse, cancer screening and prevention, and community engagement and outreach.
Hope Rising is continuing the groundbreaking work of the collective with SafeRx Lake County addressing Substance Misuse; Hope Center addressing Housing and Homelessness; and all four priorities collectively through multi-pronged initiatives that include over fourteen agencies in the Hope Rising collaborative.
“Collectively, our combined resources can spread wider and reach deeper into the areas where meaningful change can occur,” said Allison Panella, Hope Rising executive director. “Our goals are simple. Meet each person, where they are with the resources they need.”
The county health needs assessments can be found at the following websites:
– Hope Rising Lake County;
– Sutter Lakeside Hospital;
– Adventist Health Clear Lake Hospital.
Hope Rising serves as a neutral convener to bring together leaders in our county to identify issues, develop innovative solutions, and implement agreed-upon actions with accountability and measurable outcomes. Hope Rising acts to raise, manage and disburse funds.
Additionally, Hope Rising provides facilitation and project management support to drive the work forward and keep projects on track, ensuring active engagement of stakeholders and a focus on outcomes.
Learn more about Hope Rising at http://www.hoperisinglc.org/ .
Every hospital, or collaboration of health organizations, is federally required by the Affordable Care Act to complete a community health needs assessment, or CHNA, every three years.
Hope Rising Lake County, convening 19 agencies, hospitals, health agencies, community-based organizations, county of Lake government and community members, worked with Conduent Healthy Communities Institute to conduct the 2019 CHNA.
Multiple data sources are researched, and community members are consulted to reach reasonable conclusions.
The results are a transparent and collaborative approach to understanding the needs, vulnerable populations, and unmet health needs or gaps in services in order to find means of addressing the most pressing issues.
Hope Rising hosted focus groups and key informant interviews with tribal leaders, tribal members, youth, seniors, neighbors experiencing homelessness and multiple county collaboratives and coalitions.
More than twice the amount of community input surveys was received to inform the 2019 CHNA than compared to previous years.
Findings from the 2019 CHNA will be used by Hope Rising, as well as all Lake County health care agencies, to identify, develop, and target strategies for the next three years to connect residents with services to improve health outcomes and the quality of life of residents in Lake County.
Following a prioritization toolkit, participants scored identified health problems to create a significant health needs list.
From that list, the four prioritized areas selected are homelessness and housing, substance misuse, cancer screening and prevention, and community engagement and outreach.
Hope Rising is continuing the groundbreaking work of the collective with SafeRx Lake County addressing Substance Misuse; Hope Center addressing Housing and Homelessness; and all four priorities collectively through multi-pronged initiatives that include over fourteen agencies in the Hope Rising collaborative.
“Collectively, our combined resources can spread wider and reach deeper into the areas where meaningful change can occur,” said Allison Panella, Hope Rising executive director. “Our goals are simple. Meet each person, where they are with the resources they need.”
The county health needs assessments can be found at the following websites:
– Hope Rising Lake County;
– Sutter Lakeside Hospital;
– Adventist Health Clear Lake Hospital.
Hope Rising serves as a neutral convener to bring together leaders in our county to identify issues, develop innovative solutions, and implement agreed-upon actions with accountability and measurable outcomes. Hope Rising acts to raise, manage and disburse funds.
Additionally, Hope Rising provides facilitation and project management support to drive the work forward and keep projects on track, ensuring active engagement of stakeholders and a focus on outcomes.
Learn more about Hope Rising at http://www.hoperisinglc.org/ .