FEMA trailer park

As you may have guessed the City Council meeting is very COVID-19 heavy. But the one item that might be of interest to a lot of people is in the Council Referral section. From the Council Referral:

The City Manager has requested 4 FEMA trailers, at no cost, from the City of Oakland who doesn’t need their entire allocation from the State. These trailers would be used to meet the isolation needs of homeless individuals during the COVID-19 crisis. When the crisis is over, Alameda can determine how to use the trailers.

…

Also direct staff to develop an overnight safe parking site for homeless individuals and families living in cars, vans or small trucks. Extensive guidelines, based on Alameda County and Union City’s guidelines were recently developed for a potential safe parking site at the College of Alameda parking lot and can be used at a city-owned site. The site would include portable restroom and shower facilities, trash receptacles and possibly a mobile laundry facility.

 

Mask making

I’ve been making masks all weekend in order to prepare for the advisory that we wear masks in public.  Fortunately, I had a pretty extensive stockpile of fabric, because I’m a hoarder, and ended up repuposing #1 daughter’s old curtains into masks for the family.

This is the DIY I used for my masks.

Fill out your census

There’s a few of us out there with plenty of time on our hands so why not make sure you use a few slivers of it to fill out your census form.

It’s super quick and easy.

If you’re curious, here’s the full list of every state’s response rate as of April 1. Too long to fit comfortably in the article! pic.twitter.com/D71nBbkrPT

— David Montgomery (@dhmontgomery) April 1, 2020

 

The property taxman still cometh

Small good news for property owners that may have been affected by COVID-19. Even though the delinquent property tax date is April 10, if you have suffered a financial set back because of COVID-19 you can file for a penalty cancellation.  Now it doesn’t get you out of paying property taxes in general, but you won’t need to pay the additional fine which could make a difference.

From the press release:

The taxpayers will need to submit the appeal form and to sign a statement, under penalties of perjury, to represent that they were unable to pay on time for reasons related to the impacts of the corona virus from “reasonable cause and circumstances beyond the taxpayer’s control” under current state law. Valid reasons to seek penalty cancellation, which may change if state law changes, may include illness, recent effects from under- or unemployment, and business losses (including loss of rental income).

So that means that the mom n’ pop landlords whose tenants were unable to pay their full rent or rent at all can get a reprieve if the lack of payment makes it difficult for them to pay their full property taxes.

School’s out forever

Looks like our kids will not be going back to school for this school year, from the Chronicle:

California schools will be unable to reopen this year given current safety concerns and ongoing social distancing, the state superintendent told county officials Tuesday.

…

“Due to the current safety concerns and needs for ongoing social distancing it currently appears that our students will not be able to return to school campuses before the end of the school year,” Thurmond said. “This is in no way to suggest that school is over for the year, but rather we should put all efforts into strengthening our delivery of education through distance learning.”

The memo was the guidance local districts had been waiting for to make the hard call to close schools for the year, education officials said.

Thumbs up Bay Area

Good news from the Bay Area front, from Politico:

After 14 days — the outermost period at which symptoms are believed to emerge post-infection — doctors at area hospitals are now reporting fewer cases than they expected to see at this point, and officials credit the lockdown with stemming the tide of patients they feared would flood into emergency rooms.

…

Stephen Parodi, a infectious disease doctor and associate executive director with The Permanente Medical Group in Northern California, said that Kaiser Permanente is “seeing a leveling off of Covid-19 cases in our hospitals” across Northern California, where it serves 4.5 million members. Kaiser has also seen calls related to colds and coughs drop by more than half since social distancing took effect, a key indicator that precedes hospitalization, he said.

And more:

Waiting it out

A bit of good news came out on Friday, Abbott received authorization from the FDA to release a five-minute COVID-19 test.

There’s a division of Abbott in Alameda, they recently took over the VF Outdoor campus.

From Tech Crunch:

The new Abbott ID NOW COVID-19 test uses the Abbott ID NOW diagnostics platform, which is essentially a lab-in-a-box that is roughly the size of a small kitchen appliance. Its size and that it can produce either a positive result in just five minutes or a negative one in under 15 mean that it could be a very useful means to extend coronavirus testing beyond its current availability to more places including clinics and doctor’s offices, and cut down on wait times both in terms of getting tested and receiving a diagnosis.

Unmasked

Are we all wearing masks when we go grocery shopping? I know at first I side-eyed people who were wearing masks and gloves to shop but now I have fully joined in with the ultra-paranoid mask and glove wearing masses.

This is not to say that masks are a magic bullet but it is a way to help slow the spread if one must go out in public.

 

This (via @lymanstoneky) seems extremely correct to me — western governments should be addressing PPE shortages by instructing citizens on how to improvise homemade masks while ramping up industrial production, not pretending to believe masks don’t work. https://t.co/5NCCewbb4D

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 27, 2020

 

May Day

It looks like, for public school students at least, there will be no going physically back to school until May 1.   From the school superintendent’s note from yesterday:

1. Our suspension of in-class instruction will now extend until May 1.
2. Spring break will proceed as calendared next week (March 30 to April 3).
3. We are sharing with you a high-level schedule for remote learning, so you can start to plan your student’s days starting April 6.
4. Our distance learning opportunity plan represents our best and most family-centered thinking, one based on a clear and principled commitment to equity, access, and sustained learning.

People who need people

I am a self-described introvert and even I’m feeling the effects of the isolation from people.  I guess it’s because even when I must go grocery shopping (an anxiety laden experience) I’m weaving in and out of aisles to maintain the 6 ft distance from other shoppers.  Since the real lock down, I’ve only been to the market once at opening (not on a senior only day) and it was uncomfortably busy.

While I think that most will become accustomed and really good at using video conferencing products like Zoom, the lack of human contact will not necessarily be a good thing for our community.  People will want to get and out and see other human beings.  So for those that are predicting that telecommuting will become the new normal, I think what this period of sheltering-in-place will actually do is show us that we can’t conduct all of our lives through a screen and think that is enough.  We’ll need that human contact of shaking hands and feeling the presence of more than just the family members we’re self-isolating with.  And for people who are self-isolating alone, the need will be even greater for those human connections.