Month: June 2020

Here are the daily charts produced by the San Diego Union-Tribune on San Diego County’s latest COVID-19 numbers. These figures are good as of June 29, 2020.

In the first graph, notice the “Daily positivity rate” of an astounding 7.21%. Also notice the upward-moving curve of daily positive cases.

Well, we did it, San Diegans. We just hit a record high of nearly 500 new positive COVID-19 cases (498) and of the 6,908 tests reported today, Monday, 7 percent were positive.

And we have returned to the days of (some) of the restrictions. County officials have just ordered all bars, breweries and wineries in San Diego to close by midnight Tuesday. Other reopenings are being “paused” through at least August 1.

This all places a grim outlook for the upcoming July 4th weekend. County Supervisor Greg Cox said, “We simply cannot celebrate July 4 as we have in the past.”

Supervisor Nathan Fletcher added that if cases continue to rise at this alarming rate, San Diego County could return to near total lockdown. Fletcher said:

“It’s certainly a possibility, but the worst-case scenario for our region. We cannot do this alone. We can’t stop (the spread of the illness), but we want to slow it. It’s better if we can take incremental steps to dial things back.”

This weekend will certainly be a challenge. Especially for those folks who rallied to impeach Governor Newsom the other day.

The next OB Planning Board meeting is Wednesday, July 1, 2020 at 6pm

This meeting will be held via Cisco Webex. You can register for the meeting here. Please allow a few days for your registration to be accepted. Once you are accepted a link will be sent to your email that will access the meeting.

If you would like to speak during non agenda public comment or during one of the Action items, please email obplanningboard@gmail.com

There are two projects to be reviewed; 4775 Pescadero and 4614 Cape May.

By Colleen O’Connor

Unless Biden is clueless, one of these two female Senators will be his pick to be the Vice-Presidential nominee; Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren.

Neither one is needed to carry their respective state. California and Massachusetts are reliably Democratic. Forget the need to campaign in either state, except for cash, down ticket teams and some press.

Both of these women bring something to the campaign that Biden lacks. Plans, experience, enthusiasm, heritage, and a big cheer from multi-generations of all women (Republican and Democrat) heretofore left out of the highest ranks of U.S. politics.

Both of these women also make no secret of their desire to be selected for a ticket that just might win.

Then, the debate starts. Choose. Harris or Warren? Why? We need both.

By Jim Miller

It’s the summer of the black veil, and a good number of us are none-too-happy about it. While many understand it as a reasonable public health mandate that serves to protect others, and, in fact, makes it possible for us to be more in the world during a pandemic with less fear of doing potential harm, others see it as an instrument of oppression. Of course, the obvious explanation for this response is the facile politicization of masks in the service of Trumpism, but could there be something deeper going on as well?

If we go back to the 1917 flu pandemic, we know that anti-mask politics in the service of “freedom” were evident then even as many more people died than have at present, so there is a precedent for the current derangement. But perhaps, at another level, the fear of the mask speaks to a profound American aversion to any sort of emblem of isolation.

The leaders of the Orange County Democratic Party are pressuring to drop actor John Wayne’s name, statue and other likenesses from the county’s airport because of his racist and bigoted comments.

It’s part of a national movement to remove white supremacist symbols and names from American institutions, monuments, businesses, nonprofits, sports leagues and teams. And now airports.

Orange County officials passed an emergency resolution condemning Wayne’s “racist and bigoted statements” made in a 1971 interview. They are also calling on the Orange County Board of Supervisors to drop his name, statue and other likenesses from the international airport, whose name is simply John Wayne Airport. They want to restore the airport to its original name, Orange County Airport.

Now seems like an excellent moment to do the same here in San Diego and stop calling our airport after Charles Lindbergh – a known anti-Semite and white supremacist,

Tracking coronavirus in San Diego County and across California

[Some of the following charts and graphs are by Los Angeles Times staff, and were updated June 26, 9:20 a.m. Pacific; others are from the New York Times]

San Diego County

Confirmed cases: 11,961
None yet today
+335 yesterday

Deaths: 352
None yet today
+5 yesterday

What we know

• Over the past two weeks, San Diego County has recorded 2,963 new cases, failing one of the governor’s performance metrics.
• In that time, it has reported 44 deaths.

Here are self-describing charts and graphs for San Diego County and for the State of California.

By Judi Curry

Within the past few weeks, Sunset Cliffs has become a more dangerous place to live than ever before. Dangerous because of the noise and air pollution; dangerous because of possibility of more accidents, both “cliff-wise” and automobile wise; more dangerous because our first responders will not be able to fulfill their job because of the additional traffic on the road. Yes, I am angry; upset, tired and irritated.

Let’s start with the new 4 way stop signs on the corner of Pt. Loma Avenue and Sunset Cliffs Blvd.

I counted 29 cars stopped at the corner going north after the sunset yesterday. Prior to that I watched people speed up once they passed the stop sign, going south to watch the sunset. I watched people on motor scooters and bikes ignore the signs completely and just go through them while cars were making turns onto the same road as the riders.

I watched – and hoped – that there was not an emergency because if there was there would be no way that our first responders would have been able to respond because there was no place for the lines of cars to go. They could not have pulled over; chaos would have reigned. But just because there were no accidents yesterday,

Late June 2020 finds San Diego County surrounded by regions that are suffering spikes in the numbers of COVID-19 cases.

From Orange County to Imperial County to the Tijuana border – the numbers are all going up. What does all this portend for our secluded paradise?

Let’s check out some of these other regions.

There are troubling signs that hospitalizations may be starting to rise again in Los Angeles County. Tuesday, June 23, LA County had a 28% increase in daily coronavirus hospitalizations since mid-June with 2,259 people hospitalized. Some of the rise could be caused by more widespread testing, but officials said the jump in the case numbers is also caused by granter transmission of COVID in recent weeks.

L.A. County’s public health director, Barbara Ferrer, stated this week: “The numbers do tell us that we’re seeing an increase in community transmission.” Nearly two weeks ago, only 5.8% of coronavirus tests were coming back positive over the previous week in L.A. County. But on Monday, June 22, that number had risen to 8.4%.

CBD for Pain: 2020 Study of 1,453 U.S. CBD Consumers

By Dwight K. Blake / American Marijuana / Last updated on June 25, 2020

Should you consider CBD for pain relief? Studies upon studies on CBD’s effectiveness against pain relief has been put on the tables. Even though most of them came up with positive results, there still are a few studies that concluded otherwise, claiming that studies still ARE NOT enough.

Does CBD work well for easing chronic, arthritis, and other kinds of pain?

In this study, AmericanMarijuana look at 1,453 Americans that use CBD for pain relief to see how well it performed compared to opioid. Specifically, we’ll look at its effectiveness, advantages, potential downsides, and practitioner’s perception towards the application of CBD for pain relief.

Just before our world changed with the pandemic, a group had formed in Ocean Beach to organize block-by-block volunteers to help keep paradise clean. It’s the Ocean Beach Street Stewards – and they’re still around and still are searching for volunteers to be OB street stewards.

Here’s what they say on their facebook page:
Ocean Beach Street Stewards

As OB Street Stewards we strive to keep our little portion of this magical neighborhood clean! If you sign up, we just ask that you take a walk around your block around once a week and clean up trash you might see in the street, around sidewalk, thrown into bushes, etc.