Month: March 2020

By Edward Harris

Three San Diego Lifeguards have tested positive for COVID-19.

Up until March 26th, employees for the San Diego Lifeguard Service and San Diego Fire Dept. were quarantined if they were showing symptoms or if they had been exposed to someone who had tested positive.

The City of San Diego and Fire Chief Colin Stowell have made a unilateral decision to end this practice.

Editordude: Realizing that many OBceans and San Diegans do not have access to up-to-date news from San Diego, below is an effort to keep abreast of city and county news relating to the COVID-19 crisis. (Most of this is right from the SD Union-Tribune with some editing for brevity and clarity.)

• A third San Diego County resident has died of COVID-19, an 87-year-old woman;
• a new cluster of infected people has been identified at an assisted-living community in Rancho San Diego; four employees of La Vida Real, a senior living community had tested positive for the disease; this cluster is the fifth in the county, including a cluster of five people who tested positive at the Veterans Affairs office in Mission Valley, which was confirmed Wednesday.
• the county had reported 341 cases of infected residents, an increase of 64 in one day, announced Thursday.
• Three San Diego Lifeguards have tested positive; ”

by Ernie McCray

Had a fright
in my sleep
the other night,
dreaming one of those dreams
where you’re
fighting for your life
but you can’t move
or scream
and suddenly you
spring to
an up position in your bed,
saying to yourself,
in relief,
“Oh, thank goodness
that was a dream.”

By Judi Curry

In this very contemptuous time that we are living in, where many people are in violent disagreement with their neighbors, it is so refreshing to know that those disagreements can be put aside and “neighbor helping neighbor” shines through the clouds.

There are many people struggling right now to make ends meet; to put food on the table; to purchase prescription drugs, etc. Many of those people are “Senior Citizens” – referred to by that horrible word, “elderly” in today’s society. Being a “senior” does not make us elderly, but that is another story.

A group of “restaurateurs”, bakers, interested people have started an organization entitled, “Stayhomesd.com” – a “grocery assistance program for the elderly.” (Damn!). Their aim is specifically for those residents that are 65 and older, but if there are others with compromised situations something may be able to be worked out for them.

*** County Supervisors Okay Moratorium on Residential, Commercial Evictions
*** Prospective Jurors Dismissed Thru May 22
*** San Diego Schools: Online Classes and Grading
*** 500 San Diego Area Restaurants Offer Take-Out
*** Order Foods From Local Farms
*** Homeless Advocates and Public Health Experts Warn San Diego About Policies Against People Living in Vehicles
*** California Fishing Industry Hard Hit by Coronavirus
*** UCSD Begins Testing of Experimental Drug to Fight Coronavirus
*** San Diego Company to Build More Ventilators
*** Want a Good Laugh? Hotels Now Live-Streaming So We Can Pretend We’re On Vacation
*** ‘Now’s not the time’: Joshua Tree National Park closed to campers and cars, but crowds keep coming

There’s a lot of pressure on OB and SoCal surfers right now to stop surfing during this coronavirus shut-down. As local cases and deaths mount, government has had to respond to the ignoring of pleas from the Governor on down to the mayor to get off the beach. The front page of the San Diego Union-Tribune for today, Wednesday, March 25, showed SDPD officers stopping a surfer from going down the stairs at Sunset Cliffs. The City of San Diego was forced to shut beach and coastal parking lots because many didn’t take the warning seriously at the beach and in the ocean.

One of the largest surf websites, Surfline, issued this statement:

by Ernie McCray

This COVID-19 thing
is so far beyond
anything I’ve ever seen,
disease-wise,
and I’ve
been around a
health scare or two,
born to a mother
who, because she
had lost a lung to TB,
raised me
to practically seek cover
when someone coughs
or happens to sneeze,
to not, for goodness sake,
ever eat off somebody’s plate
or take a sip of their soda or shake…

By Jim Miller

We’ve seen this before: crisis as opportunity. Whether it be the ways the right-wing and corporate America took advantage of 9/11 to shape economic policy and the political landscape in their favor, the shameless opportunism in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, or the host of other ways that American society has been transformed for the worse by the power elite over the last few decades.

Here we go again.

As Naomi Klein commented last week :

Look, we know this script. In 2008, the last time we had a global financial meltdown, the same kinds of bad ideas for no-strings-attached corporate bailouts carried the day, and regular people around the world paid the price. And even that was entirely predictable.

By Phil Diehl and David Hernandez / San Diego Union-Tribune / March 22, 2020

In response to crowds seen in public across San Diego over the weekend, the city on Sunday closed parking lots at city parks and beaches in an effort to discourage gatherings and encourage social distancing under a statewide stay-at-home order.

“Public health officials are clear that gatherings of any size can lead to the spread of COVID-19, which is why they continue to be prohibited everywhere, including at beaches and parks,” San Diego Fire-Rescue Chief Colin Stowell said. “Local and state rules limiting groups have been in effect for days, so this should not be a surprise to anyone.”

Lifeguard Division Chief James Gartland said people can still walk, run or ride a bike, so long as they abide by social distancing rules, which call on people to stay 6 feet away from others.

By La Mesa Reader

This morning, with my bicycle in the back, I drove up to my favorite place to bike to take a much needed break from being cooped up inside during this Coronavirus Shut-Down. As I approached the gate to Lake Murray, immediately I could see the gate was closed and a small sign announced something I’m sure about having to close the park as it wasn’t essential.

Now I know Lake Murray isn’t in Ocean Beach or Point Loma and I know I don’t live out at the coast. But I read the OBRag almost daily and thought its readers might be interested in these thoughts. I’m sure there’s plenty of parks in OB and Point Loma.

Finding the gate closed and locked kind of pissed me off – I need my exercise as an older person – and I have to mightily disagree with the notion and government policy of closing parks during the shut-down.

It’s the very first day of Spring 2020 in Ocean Beach.

One would never know it. Empty streets. Plenty of parking on Newport. Shops closed. No one on the beach under “blue” skies. The Pier Parking lot looking nearly empty.

This is our new reality.

Luckily for us, some OB Ragsters ventured out to record what they saw – and didn’t see.