Category: Health

By Richard Riehl / The Riehl World / December 4, 2020

Today I agreed to donate my brain to medical science. (I’ll pause here to allow regular readers of my published opinion pieces to stop laughing.)

Twenty-two years ago, after an afternoon of heavy yard work, I reached for a cold beer and sat down to rest. As I brought the bottle up to my mouth I couldn’t keep my hand from shaking. I had to hold on with both hands to keep from spilling. That had never happened to me before. I refused to believe it was because of the onset of old age, chalking it up to the after-effects of unusually hard work on a hot day.

But at my next doctor’s appointment, when I was asked to hold a tongue depressor in front of me, I couldn’t hold it steady. I explained my older brother had been diagnosed with Essential Tremor, having undergone deep brain surgery to reduce the symptoms. The doctor told me this neurodegenerative disease is inheritable. He added ET to my medical record.

Today – December 7th – is Pearl Harbor Day – it was 79 years ago today that the US fleet was attacked in Hawaii – an attack which pushed the country into World War II. It’s difficult for us to even remember the day; there’s hardly any veterans of the day still alive, there was absolutely no mention of Pearl Harbor in today’s San Diego Union-Tribune.

But the day is symbolic of a time when our nation mobilized to combat a common enemy. Our forebears had the courage and strength during the war years to give all, to make many sacrifices at a time when it was needed.

Today, we’ve faced with another common enemy – the coronavirus.

As large corporations like Walmart, Amazon, and Kroger and other major retailers reap record-breaking profits during the pandemic, the money does not trickle down to their front-line workers. And those workers are demanding hazard pay and upgrade safety procedures during the busy holiday shopping season.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), which represents 900,000 ry employees at chains such as Kroger, Safeway and Giant, urged retailers to do more to protect workers from the virus that has sickened more than 12.3 million Americans earlier this week. At least 131 grocery workers have died of covid-19,

What does the new curfew Gov. Gavin Newsom issued Thursday for counties in the purple tier — including San Diego — mean for San Diegans? And what does the new level of enforcement mean?

Basically, the new curfew will take effect at 10 pm on Saturday, November 21, and all nonessential work and gatherings must stop from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Right now, the curfew will remain in effect for a month, until 5 am on Dec. 21. It could be revised or extended.

Also on Thursday, San Diego County officials announced that law enforcement will step up COVID-19 compliance education and citations. Sheriff Bill Gore said four two-deputy teams will begin making “a full-time commitment” of the county’s 18 cities and unincorporated areas, ensuring compliance with public health orders. Several cities have already confirmed they will send officers to assist deputies in their duties, Gore said.

While residents are urged to be home by 10 p.m., there are still things they can do at night, including:

Starting this Saturday, November 21, most Californians will be under a curfew from 10 pm to 5 am outside the home, unless activity is essential. It will apply to those counties in the strictest tier – the Purple Tier. San Diego County is in the Purple, so the curfew will apply to San Diegans.

California is right now in the highest daily case count ever, even higher than last summer’s surge. The coronaviris is spreading so fast that health officials say the next few days and weeks are critical to stop the current surge. There have been more than 10,000 new daily cases on four days since last Thursday.

The curfew restrictions will be similar to those imposed state-wide in mid-March, a part from the limited nigh hours.

From LA Times

Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced a mandatory overnight stay-at-home order that will be instituted throughout most of California to combat a surge in new coronavirus cases, a measure that comes just days after the governor enacted a dramatic rollback of reopening in much of the state.

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer has emerged as Gov. Newsom’s chief critic and was the first one out of the gate to come down on Newsom’s screw-up of attending an indoor party with people from more than three households. Faulconer tweeted:

“His kids can learn in person. But yours can’t. He can celebrate birthday parties. But you can’t. He can dine on a $350 meal at one California’s fanciest restaurants during the worst recession in generations. But you definitely can’t. Can you believe this? I can’t.”

Faulconer’s tweet came out the same day as the news of Gavin’s party. This means he’s taking the gov on and has added fuel to the speculations that he is running for the office next time around.

Reposted from KPBS as a public service.

San Diego County health officials reported another huge jump in COVID-19 cases — 833 — but no additional deaths Monday, marking an alarming surge in the disease’s spread less than two weeks before Thanksgiving.

The county’s three largest daily case counts since the pandemic began have all come in the past three days. The 833 cases reported Monday are the second most the county has announced in a day, following a record high of 1,087 reported Sunday and a then-record 736 on Saturday.

On Wednesday, a then-record 661 cases were reported in the county — surpassing the 652 cases reported Aug. 7. Another 620 cases were reported Thursday.

The following is reposted as a public service.

By Paul Sisson / San Diego Union-Tribune / Nov. 12, 2020
[9:34 AM, Nov. 13, 2020: This story was updated to explain that the county’s new tier map does not remove the countywide purple restrictions in areas not colored purple.]

As COVID-19 continued to threaten nationwide hospital capacity, San Diego County reported a single-day coronavirus case record Thursday.

The record actually occurred on Tuesday when the county health department was notified of 661 new positive cases, though nobody heard the news until Thursday because there was no county COVID-19 report Wednesday in observance of Veterans Day. But a day late did not change the math. Tuesday’s total bested the previous single-day record of 652 set on Aug. 7.

The state is taking aim at non-essential travel amid an uptick in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations across the country.

By Courtney Teague / Patch Staff / Nov 13, 2020 8:53 am PT|Updated Nov 13, 2020 9:12 am PT

Gov. Gavin Newsom and state public health officials issued a travel advisory Friday morning, November 13, asking anyone arriving in the Golden State after recreational travel to self-quarantine for 14 days. This comes after California just reported a “sobering threshold” of 1 million coronavirus cases.

This advisory includes Californians returning home after traveling outside of their home state and visitors from elsewhere who are arriving in California. Travelers are asked to interact only with their immediate household. The advisory does not apply to those who are traveling for work, school, medical care, health, safety and security, and economic services and supply chains, state officials said in the advisory.

Surging caseloads in nearly every state have pushed the daily COVID-19 tally to a record 104,004 new infections Wednesday, November 4.

Eighteen — including Kansas, Tennessee, Virginia, Oklahoma, Montana, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio, Nebraska, Minnesota, Indiana, Wisconsin and West Virginia — reported record numbers of patients hospitalized with COVID.

The new numbers have pushed the total number of coronavirus deaths reported since February past 233,000, according to data tracked by The Washington Post.

As the national record daily tally is shocking, the County of San Diego COVID-19 case rate rose to 7.4 pushing the county closer to the most restrictive purple tier, according to the California Department of Public Health.

By Richard Riehl / October 28, 2020

Donald Trump says his use of social media, countering what he calls fake news, made him president. This morning, as I watched the DOW sink by more than 900 points (so much for his recovering economy), I came upon President Tweet’s latest rant:

Covid, Covid, Covid is the unified chant of the Fake News Lamestream Media. They will talk about nothing else until November 4th, when the election will be (hopefully!) over. Then the talk will be how low the death rate is, plenty of hospital rooms, and many tests of young people.

Today’s CDC Covid 19 report suggests talk after Election Day will be mostly about what a failure he has been in fighting the spread of the virus. Here are the numbers for the last seven days [from Oct.28]: