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RECENT PODS:

• Inside Golden State Politics (Bill Boyarsky and Sherry Jeffe): Can currently economically troubled journalism keep up with challenge of covering the complexities of modern society and politics. (2021-03-25)
• Look West Podcast (Assembly Democratic Caucus): Assemblymember Dr. Joaquin Arambula speaks with health experts Tania Pacheco-Werner, PhD, and Joe Prado about COVID-19 vaccine distribution efficiency and equity (2021-03-23)
• SacTown Talks (Jarheet Blonien): Senator Steve Bradford (D-Gardena) (2021-03-22)
• Nooner Conversations (Scott Lay): Lobbyist and legislative process law professor Chris Micheli (2021-03-19) - recorded February 23, first technical and then shoulder problems; hope to add the intro once Quicktime is fixed (Big Sur update broke it) - Simplecast | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Podcasts | YouTube
• Capitol Weekly Podcast (John Howard and Tim Foster): Political consultant Garry South on the recall effot (2021-03-19)
• California State of Mind (CapRadio): California Considers World’s First Guidelines on Microplastics in Drinking Water (2021-03-19)

CLASSIFIEDS BELOW:

• Exclusive Downtown Penthouse Near Capitol Building
• Associate Position at CleanSweep Campaigns, San Francisco
• Capitol Seminars Zoom workshop - April 1
• McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific - MPA/MPP
• McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific - Masters of Science in Law

DISTRICT UPDATES:

MONEY MATTERS:

• AD79 (East San Diego): State Affiliated Cops Independent Expenditure Committee (aka SAC PAC IEC) reports $10,500 for social media ads to support Leticia Munguia (D)

The Nooner for Friday, March 26, 2021, presented by SYASL Partners

• COVID-19
• -data dive
  -vaccines
  -variants
  -tiers for fears
• Housing
• Homeless
• Missing shipping
• Cakeday and new classifieds

It's finally here, that Friday you've been waiting for. Like many of you, I'm pretty exhausted after the week. If I come across this afternoon before sending This Week in Nooner, I'll included later today.

Meanwhile, I am up early to iron my shorts with a forecast high of 74 at Nooner Intergalactic Homequarters with the possibility of 80 by Sunday. If I had an iron, I would be breaking it out for my shorts.

There are no NCAA basketball games and my bracket was broken last weekend, so a long walk after writing is fully appropriate. Of course, the warmer weather means that I won't be wearing my Oregon Ducks sweatshirt as my friend Matt Rexroad (and many others) root for USC on Sunday.

Of course, Nooner friend state senator Jim Battin will be part of our quack attack! I may just find one of those hedge my capital-area bracket and we'll be rooting for the Ducks tomorrow. Yeah, I'm just trying to be above my year of '72 in rankings of the pool. Yup, I'm right there with Jim for the Beavers tomorrow and the Ducks on Sunday. Sorry, Matt Rexroad, but the Nooner Global HQ will be a Quack Attack on Sunday.

Whether or not, the games provide for my weekly with my mom in Portland Sunday afternoon.

COVID-19, several policy topics, cakeday, and new classifieds after the jump...

COVID-19: California reported an additional 258 deaths yesterday for a total of 57,930 since the pandemic began. 

-data dive: California's 7-day positivity rate is now 2.0%, a slight uptick but still far below the 7.1% peak amidst mass testing on December 30.

-vaccines: Remember that in many cases, vaccines are being reserved for second doses (of Moderna and Pfizer). The following data, from the daily CDPH press release, may be delayed by reporting.

• vaccine doses administered in California: 15,979,099 (7-day change: +2,597,053)
• vaccine doses delivered to administering entities in California: 20,244,790 (7-day change: +3,031,640)

• eligibility: From the daily CDPH press release: "With supply of vaccines expected to significantly increase in the coming weeks, the state is expanding vaccine eligibility to more Californians. Starting April 1, individuals aged 50+ will be eligible to make an appointment, and individuals 16+ will be eligible to make an appointment to be vaccinated starting on April 15."

-variants: 

• LA: From yesterday's daily press release:
  

  Among 73 specimens analyzed at the Public Health Laboratory this past week, 25 cases, or 34% of the specimens analyzed, were the California variant of concern, identified as B.1.427 or 429,  and 21 cases, or 29% of the specimens analyzed, were the U.K. variant of concern, B.1.1.7. This means 63% of the variants sequenced this past week are variants of concern with the probability of increased transmissibility and more severe disease. Los Angeles County has yet to identify cases of the South African variant or the Brazilian variant of concern, the P.1 variant.

-tiers for fears: As a reminder, any county must remain at a tier for three weeks before progressing to a less-restrictive tier, even if the metrics continue to improve. Lots of the changes yesterday, and here's where the counties stand.

• 8 counties in the Purple (widespread) Tier (6.3% of population): Fresno, Glenn, Inyo, Kings, Madera, Merced, San Joaquin, and Yuba

• 39 counties in the Red (substantial) Tier (83.2% of population): Alameda, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, Contra Costa, Del Norte, El Dorado, Humboldt, Imperial, Kern, Lake, Los Angeles, Mendocino, Modoc, Mono, Monterey, Napa, Nevada, Orange, Placer, Riverside, Sacramento, San Benito, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Siskiyou, Solano, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tehama, Tulare, Tuolumne, and Ventura

• 9 counties in Orange (moderate) Tier (10.5% of population): Lassen, Marin, Mariposa, Plumas, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Trinity, and Yolo

• 2 counties in Yellow (minimal) Tier (0.0% of population): Alpine and Sierra.

• SacTown: Sacramento County is likely a month away from proceeding to the orange tier. CapRadio reports:

... Sacramento County is still at least a month away from meeting the threshold to move out of the more-restrictive red tier, according to public health officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye.

"The good thing is our numbers continue to go down steadily," Kasirye said Thursday. "So, my best guess estimate is that probably sometime late April we will meet the criteria for the orange tier."

She says based on the state’s ever-changing blueprint for reopening, the county could make the move after California administers 4 million vaccine doses to residents living in areas hardest hit by the pandemic. That’s when the threshold for COVID-19 case rates would change, allowing counties to move more easily to a less-restrictive tier.

Sacramento County is currently seeing an average of 7.4 new cases per 100,000 residents. Currently, counties need to be under 4 cases to meet orange tier requirements but that will drop to 6 cases when the state administers 4 million doses in hard-hit areas.

HOUSING: The LAT's Steve Lopez writes that the sweep can be pointed at the failure of Los Angeles's leaders:

We all know by now that with roughly 60,000 unsheltered people in Los Angeles County, there are no quick or easy answers. That’s because at the macro level, we’ve built an economy, a housing market and a society that guarantee extremes of wealth and poverty, winners and losers, palaces and pup tents.

But a public park on the edge of downtown Los Angeles never should have been allowed to become an encampment — or a political flashpoint over the conflicting rights and interests of the housed and the unhoused.

It happened because of an epic failure of leadership. And, on a smaller scale, dozens of similar dramas are playing out across the region.

HOMELESS: In the LAT, a team reports:

A homeless encampment that took over a large swath of Echo Park for more than a year appeared on the brink of extinction Thursday as city officials fenced off the area and police prepared to remove the relatively few remaining campers, some of whom insisted on their right to live in the park.

Scores of Los Angeles police officers surrounded the park Thursday evening, and about a dozen homeless people remained inside the fence.

Los Angeles Times reporter James Queally was briefly detained by police as he was covering a protest near the park. After inquiries by Times editors and the news organization’s attorney, Queally was released.

Hopefully the cops used a Russian accent when arresting Queally.

Numerous protesters were also detained by police.

City officials have offered homeless people who had been staying in the park a room in one of several downtown hotels, which most accepted. Some, however, chafed at the rules imposed at the hotels and said they preferred the freedom of being outdoors.

The rules for such hotels statewide include a curfew and prohibition of alcohol and drugs.

Just after 9 p.m. Thursday, law enforcement officers circled the park, shining flashlights inside the fenced-in area, saying over a bullhorn that the park would soon close.

By 10:45 p.m., park rangers and police officers with flashlights were going from tent to tent, attempting to count the campers.

“Park rangers here. Anyone home? We have services and transitional housing. Please meet us at the front gate,” one ranger said, peering into a tent. A police helicopter circled overhead, and an officer said over a megaphone that anyone still in the closed park would be subject to arrest.

Fewer than five unhoused people remained. Valerie Zeller, a homeless woman who got married in the park last weekend, was one of the final holdouts. She rode a bicycle around the park, passing a hand-painted banner that read, “Healing Happening Here.”

Earlier in the day, one homeless park resident, Ayman Ahmed, said that when police announced Wednesday night that campers could stay another day, “we thought it was a victory.” But in the light of day, he wondered:

“Was it a victory? Twenty-four hours with a perimeter all around us?”

The LAT's Steve Lopez writes that the sweep can be pointed at the failure of Los Angeles's leaders:

We all know by now that with roughly 60,000 unsheltered people in Los Angeles County, there are no quick or easy answers. That’s because at the macro level, we’ve built an economy, a housing market and a society that guarantee extremes of wealth and poverty, winners and losers, palaces and pup tents.

But a public park on the edge of downtown Los Angeles never should have been allowed to become an encampment — or a political flashpoint over the conflicting rights and interests of the housed and the unhoused.

It happened because of an epic failure of leadership. And, on a smaller scale, dozens of similar dramas are playing out across the region.

Meanwhile, during a walk yesterday, I saw that folks who have been sheltering under the W-X in Sacramento have mostly moved to very large encampments along W Street. I'm sure there are other spots, but that was my walking path. I don't have a solution. We have folks refusing to accept a vaccine on one end and those experiencing homelessness on the other end. Both are free government benefits in most cases, but lots of folks who refuse it regardless of ideology.

MISSING SHIPPING: Things aren't looking great for breaking the ship-jam in the Suez Canal. As of this writing, the Ever Given owned by Taiwan-based Evergreen, is still stuck on it's ends mostly perpendicularly in the Suez Canal. They are literally talking about lifting containers by helicopter one-by-one to reduce the weight of the 50,000-ton megacontainer. While this is not the usual traffic that arrives at the west coast of the United States, it will certainly affect prices imported here.

NPR reports:

Mr Reynolds told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the Maersk Ohio, a US-flagged container ship that is 292m long and weighs 50,000 tonnes, was "stacked up" alongside dozens of others vessels near Port Suez.

"I think you can imagine there was a queue of ships waiting to go through to begin with, and now that queue has just grown exponentially," he said. "Standing outside, as you look, everywhere around you is ships."

He said there was still a lot of work to be done on board his ship, and that he and his fellow crewmembers had not yet had a chance to communicate with the other vessels.

"It's just a long waiting game. There's not a lot to see... We are ships sitting at anchor, just waiting as if you were in a traffic jam on the M5," he added, referring to a British motorway.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56538653We have progressed from slow pantry items and toilet paper in the pandemic to lots of other items now stuck between the north coast of Egypt and southern east of Israel.

cakeday and classifieds after the jump...

Thank you to these Nooner supporters who have gone above and beyond (join them for a month with support of $250+)!

Thank you to these Nooner supporters!

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CAKEDAY: Happy birthday to Nicette Short!