Evictions in Mendocino County get a temporary ban for those who cannot pay their rent due to the coronavirus. The Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an Executive Order a couple weeks ago prohibiting a landlord from evicting tenants for 30 days after a proclamation or declaration of emergency and renting to someone else for more money. Now the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed an Urgency Ordinance for a temporary prohibition on evictions during the pandemic. There’s a time limit on the ordinance, but it can be extended. The same ordinance also helps those who own their home so they don’t go into foreclosure. You will eventually have to pay though, but there’s no language on possible interest, late fees, and penalties. The ordinance only applies to unincorporated areas of Mendocino County.
The Lake County Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace has some new thoughts on preparation for COVID-19’s eventual entry into Lake County. There are still no confirmed cases in the County, but Dr. Pace says it will probably be here in the coming weeks, or it already is. Dr. Pace is asking for more to be done to prevent a massive outbreak because of the county’s limited healthcare system. The Record Bee reports Dr. Pace saying he’s not sure there will be more restriction, but there needs to be more sacrifice of personal needs for the good of the community. He’s assigned someone in his office to start to research supply chains and a way to get more tests to the area.
A couple of families in Ukiah have lost their home after a fire breaks out. The fire Wednesday night before midnight looks to have started in a furnace closet in the apartment building. Ukiah Valley Fire on the scene and Mendocino Deputies and police officers from Ukiah went door to door to evacuate residents. The fire had spread to the attic of the building after the fire started in the second story apartment. The five other families living in the building were able to stay.
An update for the Board of Supervisors in Mendocino County by the Public Health Officer on the Shelter-in-Place Order. Dr. Noemi Doohan and the Deputy Health Officer Jen Banks delivered information to the board with the Sheriff Matt Kendall and Lt. Shannon Barney, the head of the county’s Emergency Operations Center. County CEO Carmel Angelo is the incident manager for the emergency event and Dr. Jim Flaherty, a recently appointed deputy health officer. Doohan stressing how serious the situation is and there are some in the community not following the shelter in place order. She says the Bay Area had an explosion of cases and there are more and more cases closer to the region. She says there’s been no peak in cases here or problems with equipment in hospitals locally, but if we don’t take serious efforts of social distancing and shelter in place, seriously, it’ll happen. Supervisor McCowan chimed in saying if we don’t take it seriously, 30,000 to 40,000 people could contract the virus in Mendocino County and 3,000 would need hospitalization. The numbers were confirmed by Dr. Doohan.
The new Deputy Health Officer Dr. James Flaherty gave an update yesterday… no change in the numbers.
Testing Numbers – Updated Daily by 8pm
- Total Tests Taken: 170
- Total Positives: 2
- Total Negatives: 131
- Total Pending: 37
No decisions will be made on a possible Hemp Cultivation Pilot Program until after the coronavirus pandemic. The program for temporary cultivation and to see if it’s compatible with cannabis cultivation and there’s no cross-pollination. It would also look to have hemp only grown from female cloned plants, male hemp plants would not be allowed and that cultivation sites have to be no less than 10 acres and located in a zoning district. There’s a ban on hemp now until next February even though Hemp is legal at the state and federal level. No date for a vote was given at Tuesday’s meeting with some supervisors saying there were more pressing issues to consider at this time.
Humboldt County has seen a spike in confirmed COVID-19 cases. Right now there are 12 cases after just having five on Tuesday. Some of the new cases were in a group who had traveled. So a case popped up in a household contact. The Humboldt County Health Officer reminding that travel increases the risk and says it’s everyone’s responsibility to cancel non-essential travel and to heed the shelter in place orders. The new cases are in isolation and an investigation underway to see who else may have been in contact with the confirmed cases.
Because of the statewide shelter in place order, the US Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region is closing recreation facilities at the statewide National Forests. The closures for developed recreation facilities until at least April 30th to try to promote social distancing and not allow groups of people to come together at the recreation sites. So they’re closed to the public but the trail system is open with hiking and walking outdoors allowed. But adhering to social distancing. Forest Service asking the public to be cautious and ask yourself if your personal participation in outdoor recreation poses an unnecessary risk to others.
Police in Fort Bragg observing a moment of silence for the sixth anniversary of one of their deputies killed in the line of duty. Yesterday the department stopped their duties to remember fellow deputy, Ricky DelFiorentino who was killed just before noon on March 26th 2014, ambushed by a man on a crime spree from Oregon to Fort Bragg. The Interim Police Chief John Naulty also on the scene of the incident and heard the gunfire and stopped the suspect, shooting him to death. DelFiorentino’s death was the first of a Mendocino County deputy since April 1995, when Deputy Bob Davis died in Covelo during a shootout. Former Sheriff Tom Allman said there were only five fatal shootings of deputies in the county since 1850.
Mayors in Southern and Northern Calif. are warning their residents to pay attention to the shelter in place orders. There are more than 3,000 cases in Calif, the 4th highest behind New York, New Jersey and Washington. The mayor of San Francisco warning people to stay inside or the city could see a surge like New York City. She says if people continue hanging out in groups and interacting, the spread of the virus could increase and there won’t be enough hospital beds, ICU units or ventilators to support those who will need them. The Mayor of New York has had the same warning for his residents. The Calif. Health and Human Services Agency says the number of Calif. cases is doubling every three to four days comparable to New York.
Several million N95 masks are being delivered to healthcare workers in Calif. and New York. 39 million masks are being delivered to the 2 states, but not beyond. The Service Employees International Union says they want the masks to be widely distributed, but there are not enough, hospitals in Arizona didn’t respond to an offer of 2 million masks though. The union’s members work across Calif. They say they found there were more suppliers too who could produce 20 million more masks a week and millions of face shields. Those buying the masks include the State of Calif., Greater New York Hospital Association, Dignity Health, Kaiser Permanente, Stanford Health Care, Sutter Health, Los Angeles County, Riverside County and Santa Clara County.
Retired state workers and transferred workers are being utilized to process the more than one million unemployment claims that have come in after massive job losses related to the pandemic. Some of the first cases hit Calif after cruise ships with sick people docked and others traveled from the place where it all started, Wuhan, China. But thankfully the numbers have yet to explode like in New York. They are growing quickly here though, and about 30% of the country’s unemployment claims are in Calif. Thousands of businesses are also closed. The governor reported more than a million people filed for unemployment since March 13th. The unemployment dept. says they’re working as fast as they can to handle the claims. The governor has also said there will soon be hotel rooms set up to help with patient loads.
Two men on a cruise ship that had coronavirus aboard have died. The men were on the Grand Princess, the ship that went from San Francisco to Hawaii in February. Federal officials say less than half of the passengers aboard were ever tested for the virus. They were both in their 60’s. One of them taken from the ship to a hospital March 9th, after the ship docked in Oakland. The ship stayed there a few days as passengers disembarked and were taken to quarantine. The other man was one of those taken to Travis Air Force Base, then after he got symptoms he was taken to a hospital. One of them died last Saturday, the other on Monday. There were 3,500 passengers and crew from 54 countries aboard the ship. The ship infected after a man from Northern California got sick on a previous voyage on the same ship. Only 1,100 of the 2,400 passengers were tested, some declined tests. 103 of the tests were positive and 699 were negative, the rest are still pending.
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