News
West County Health Centers Respond to the Coronavirus Pandemic
The emerging situation and efforts to contain and mitigate the spread of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) has affected many people in our area, including patients, families, and local businesses. As a part of our West County Health Centers family, we would like you to know that we are available to support the health of you and your family.
Visit our website for updated information and available resources at West County Health Centers including: Hours and Services, Appointments, and Prescriptions. https://www.wchealth.org/news/coronavirus-covid-19-resources/
If you are feeling concerned about the coronavirus (aka COVID-19), you’re not alone. Click here for information provided by our behavioral health staff to help cope with this potentially stressful situation: anxiety management tips and resources.
West County Health Centers is dedicated to keeping our providers, support staff and patients informed and safe. By providing you with the latest information, we hope to keep you informed. COVID-19 pandemic is an evolving situation and we are coordinating our efforts closely with the Sonoma County Department of Health Services & So Co Emergency and the CDC.
Please see the following updates related to the COVID-19 pandemic:
Access to care:
As part of a collective effort to curb the spread to the COVID-19 virus and limit the exposure to our most vulnerable community members. West County Health Centers will be moving to the use of video and telephone visits as our primary method for patient care for medical and behavioral health needs. Wellness and Behavioral Health group visits will also be offered using secure video technology. We are in full support of purposeful and broad adoption of social isolation and limitation of gatherings during this critical time of early community spread.
- Patients should contact their primary care site to schedule appointments and will be given instructions on how to set up a telephone or video visit.
- We will continue to have options for in-person office visits on a limited basis.
Testing:
We are currently offering COVID-19 testing based on the following criteria and per the recommendations of the CDC and the Sonoma County Department of Health Services:
- Patients who are symptomatic with temperature of 101 or above, and cough, shortness of breath, or sore throat without a known source of those symptoms (such as influenza).
- Fever with recent travel or exposure to a person with concern for COVID-19.
- Testing is offered by appointment – interested persons should contact their primary care site for triage and to schedule an appointment for testing.
We are in full support of rapid expansion of testing to better understand the community spread of COVID-19 and to allow for more informed decisions for community needs, employment, and personal exposure. At this time, due to a limitation in the number of swabs required for testing, and under the direction of Sonoma County Department of Health Services, we are not able expand testing beyond symptomatic patients. We anticipate this will be available soon.
Staff support:
- All staff have been through COVID-19 training and certification for triage, how to test, effective use of personal protection equipment, and patient exposure protocols.
- We are working with each of our staff to understand their particular needs and to support ongoing participation in full employment, including offering telecommuting capacity.
- Wellness and resilience training and support is part of what we do really well and will continue to offer these services in person and remotely.
Care through the lens of social equity:
COVID-19 will affect populations and communities differently and will disproportionately affect patients with chronic illness, advanced age, mental illness, immune compromise, in addition to patients with social and economic barriers such as homelessness, poverty, social isolation, transportation insecurity, food insecurity, among others. We are committed to providing effective, compassionate care to all our community members and will be providing targeted outreach to patients with increased vulnerability.
We need your help. If you are able, please make a donation. We appreciate support for our work, particularly with vulnerable populations.
Community Collaboration:
We are passionate about community collaboration and collective action and rely on our community partners to create a dynamic and effective response to this and many of our most pressing healthcare needs. We are actively working with our local communities to leverage deep assets, provide effective communication, find creative solutions for pressing barriers to care, and offer support for our most vulnerable communities. In the future, we look forward to exploring innovative solutions and welcome new partnerships to support our mission.
We hope this information is helpful to you. For more than 45 years, West County Health Centers has maintained its commitment to providing high quality healthcare services to working families, children and teens, seniors, homeless persons and others in need. In good health & with gratitude!
Dr. Jason Cunningham
CEO
P.S. Please make a donation TODAY to West County Health Centers– any amount will be appreciated and helps us to continue providing care for people in need in our community.
Please make a tax-deductible gift online by clicking here:
http://www.wchealth.org/help/donations/ .
Checks, made payable to West County Health Centers, may be mailed to P.O. Box 1449, Guerneville, CA 95446.
“Shelter In Place” Order For Six SF Bay Area Counties Includes Marin
The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
Six Bay Area counties are expected to announce a “shelter in place” order for all residents on Monday, directing everyone to stay inside their homes and away from others as much as possible for the next three weeks as public health officials desperately try to curb the rapid spread of coronavirus across the region.
County authorities were expected to announce the move at 1 p.m. and gave a draft of the order to media outlets to prepare. The Chronicle is reporting the story after a television station published the news early.
The directive begins at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday and involves San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa and Alameda counties — a combined population of more than 6.7 million. It is to stay in place until at least April 7.
Attendee at LGBTQ Dance Fundraiser in Miami Tests Positive for Coronavirus
An attendee at a fundraising dance party in Miami for the National LGBTQ Task Force has tested positive for the coronavirus, the organization informed participants last night in a letter shared with the Washington Blade.
The organization — best known for its annual “Creating Change” conference — informed attendees of the event Sunday night about the attendee who tested positive for coronavirus via a letter from Rea Carey, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force.
“I was informed that one of our Winter Party Festival guests tested positive for COVID-19 in the week following our event,” Carey said in a news statement Monday. “We are grateful to them for alerting us, particularly given that they were not experiencing symptoms during WPF and had traveled elsewhere, but wanted to make sure we were aware of this development.”
The Winter Party, which took place this year March 4 to 10, is a week-long celebration of beach parties and nightclub dancing in Miami. According to the Task Force, the official number of attendees at the event was 5,500 people.
It’s unknown how the attendee was infected. The Task Force as of Monday morning had yet to report other cases of attendees testing positive for coronavirus.
Carey said in the letter “there are many places people could have been exposed before and after Winter Party as this virus has developed.”
But coronavirus infection among event attendees doesn’t appear to be isolated to one individual, based on an account of one participant at the event.
The attendee, who spoke to the Blade on condition of anonymity, said Monday he had direct exposure to one friend who subsequently tested positive for the coronavirus.
“Within my group of friends, 10 or so of us have flu-like symptoms,” the attendee said. “I’ve chatted with acquaintances who in most cases say that they have many sick friends within their groups as well.”
The attendee added he’s part of a group chat with roughly 80 members and an estimated 20 of them say they have flu-like symptoms.
“Most of us are not eligible for testing so are self quarantined and recovering at home,” the attendee said.
Based on social media posts, the attendee said there could be up to three confirmed cases of Winter Party attendees who tested positive for coronavirus.
Carey insisted in a news statement the Winter Party was still held amid concerns about the spread of the coronavirus based on “official guidance available at the time.” Precuations undertaken at the event, Carey said, included comprehensive signage with CDC information about practicing good hygiene and making alcohol-based hand sanitizer available throughout the Festival.
“Information and circumstances have changed rapidly since WPF,” Carey said. “We continue to encourage all WPF guests to monitor their health, practice social distancing, wash hands with soap, use hand sanitizer and contact their doctor if they think they are exhibiting symptoms. If one tests positive for COVID-19, we urge them to contact those they were in direct contact with so all can take steps to monitor their health and speak with their doctors.”
The Washington Blade has placed a request for comment with the Task Force about whether there are additional reports of infections.
In the aftermath of the Winter Party, Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber said during a news conference Sunday the beach would be closing from 5th Street to 15th Street, and there would be an 11 p.m. curfew in the entertainment district, according to a local report from NBC Miami.
“We can’t have the kinds of crowds we’ve had, the kinds of gatherings,” Gelber was quoted as saying. “I walked down Ocean Drive yesterday and what I saw was incredibly disturbing, it wasn’t just the typical large gatherings of people, but it was young people who believe they’re invincible and probably don’t really think of this in any way as a health crisis.”
The Task Force’s decision to move forward with the Winter Party last week was met with anger on social media Monday in the aftermath of the report over coronavirus infections and warnings all public events should be cancelled.
California Gov Closes Bars, Nightclubs, Not Restaurants
The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced all “bars, nightclubs, wineries, brewpubs and the like” must close temporarily due to the threat of coronavirus. “We are directing that all bars, nightclubs, wineries, brewpubs and the like be closed in the state of California,” Newsom announced Sunday afternoon, calling them “nonessential” businesses during the COVID-19 crisis.
“We have absolute expectation this will be socialized in real-time today,” he said. The directive does not apply to restaurants, which are still considered essential, as Newsom said some individuals cannot safely prepare food in their homes. “We don’t believe this is necessary at this moment,” he said. However, all restaurants will be required to halve their occupancy in order to achieve appropriate social distancing.
State Department Releases Annual Human Rights Report
The State Department’s annual human rights report that was released on Wednesday notes violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity was commonplace around the world in 2019.
The report notes authorities in Chechnya continued “a campaign of violence against individuals perceived to be members of the LGBTI community.”
It specifically cites the Russian LGBT Network — an advocacy group based in the Russian city of St. Petersburg — that indicates Chechen authorities “illegally detained and tortured at least” 40 people during a period that ended in January 2019. The report also notes two of them “died in custody from torture.”
The report notes Iran and Saudi Arabia are among the handful of countries in which homosexuality remains punishable by death. It also highlights a provision of Brunei’s penal code that sought to impose the death penalty for anyone found guilty of consensual same-sex sexual relations.
The State Department sharply criticized the penal code. The Bruneian government last May placed a moratorium on the death penalty in the country.
Uganda, Jamaica and Guyana are among the dozens of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain illegal. The report notes Gabon in 2019 criminalized homosexuality among adults.
The report notes anti-LGBTQ violence remains widespread in Brazil and in many other countries. It also highlights the case of Camila Díaz Córdova, a transgender woman who was murdered in El Salvador in January 2019.
Three Salvadoran police officers have been charged with Díaz’s murder, but the report does not note she was killed after the U.S. deported her. The report also includes Díaz’s birth name.
The report notes Cuban authorities last May 11 arrested several activists who participated in an unsanctioned LGBTQ rights march in Havana. The report also references this reporter’s detention at the Cuban capital’s José Martí International Airport three days before the event when he tried to enter the country.
Angola decriminalized homosexuality in 2019
The report notes lawmakers in Angola in 2019 approved a new penal code that decriminalizes consensual same-sex sexual relations in the country.
Botswana’s High Court last June issued a ruling that legalized homosexuality in the African nation. The report notes the Batswana government appealed the landmark ruling.
“As our founding documents remind us, nothing is more fundamental to our national identity than our belief in the rights and dignity of every single human being,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters on Wednesday at the State Department. “It’s in our Declaration of Independence.”
“On this issue, all Americans have common cause with freedom-loving peoples all around the world,” he added.
Pompeo in his remarks also referenced the Commission on Unalienable Rights, which stresses “natural law and natural rights.”
Activists have sharply criticized the commission, in part, because Pompeo named Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard Law School professor who is known for her vocal opposition to marriage rights for same-sex couples, as its chair.
The Council for Global Equality is among the organizations that sued the State Department in federal court last week. They allege the State Department last year violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act that requires “when the Executive Branch establishes or uses non-federal bodies for the purpose of seeking advice and generating policy, it does so in a transparent way that allows for meaningful public participation” when it created the commission.
“Secretary Pompeo often argues that the modern proliferation of human rights claims cheapens the currency of human rights,” said Council for Global Equality Chair Mark Bromley in a press release that announced the lawsuit. “But it is this illegal commission, with its warped use of religious freedom and natural law to deny rights, that cheapens the very notion of religious freedom and our country’s proud tradition of standing up for the rights of those who are most vulnerable.”
The Trump administration last year announced Richard Grenell, the openly gay U.S. ambassador to Germany who is also acting director of national intelligence, would lead a campaign that encourages all countries to legalize homosexuality.
The U.S. Embassy in Germany last July hosted Harvey Milk Foundation President Stuart Milk and other LGBTQ activists from around the world. Grenell and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Kelly Knight Craft last Dec. 18 held an event alongside a U.N. Security Council meeting that highlighted efforts to decriminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations around the world.
OutRight Action International is among the LGBTQ advocacy groups that have expressed skepticism over the initiative. The Trump administration’s anti-LGBTQ rights record in the U.S. and its overall foreign policy continues to spark widespread outrage among activists and their supporters.
LA Pride Festival Postponed amid Growing Coronavirus Concerns
Los Angeles’ annual gay pride celebration has joined a growing list of events across the country that have been postponed, canceled or suspended amid fears of the coronavirus pandemic. The LA Pride Festival and Parade, now in its 50th year, will be pushed back to a yet unknown date from its traditional mid-June kickoff, organizers announced Thursday.
Due to the concerns of COVID-19, CSW will postpone all events related to the 50th Anniversary of LA Pride that were scheduled for June 2020. Organizers are assessing the situation. More information to be provided around the postponement as details become available.1,1913:54 PM – Mar 12, 2020Twitter Ads info and privacy580 people are talking about this
The decision came after the city of West Hollywood, the gay enclave where the march takes place, implemented a series of cancellations for all city-sponsored and funded events prior to June 30, and advised others to do the same. Estevan Montemayor, board president of Christopher Street West, the nonprofit that organizes LA Pride, said the decision to postpone the event was made in the interest of public safety.
“This postponement is going to give us a little more time to work with our city officials to make sure that first and foremost everyone is safe and healthy,” he told NBC News. “That is the priority for everyone.”
Los Angeles’ annual pride festival traces its roots to 1970, making it one of the first such events in the country. Since its debut, it has been held in June in honor of the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York, widely thought of as the event that helped spark the modern-day gay rights movement. The hugely anticipated event — which draws hundreds of thousands of people from across the country — reportedly generated nearly $75 million in economic output last year.
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Montemayor said Christopher Street West is still working with city officials to confirm a new date, but he emphasized that the event would not be canceled.
“We hosted the world’s first legally permitted Pride parade on Hollywood Boulevard on June 28, 1970,” he said. “That is a significant milestone. We are going to make sure we commemorate it.”
Across the country in New York City, the site of the iconic Stonewall uprising, organizers of the annual NYC Pride march announced on Friday that they are closely monitoring the coronavirus situation but currently have no plans to postpone this year’s June event, which attracts millions of people from around the world every year.
LA Pride, however, is not without company when it comes to canceled or postponed events. Amid growing COVID-19 fears, a number of professional sports leagues, including the NBA, NHL and MLB have paused or suspended their seasons; a slew of conferences, including South By Southwest and the Electronic Entertainment Expo have been canceled; and music festivals such as Coachella and Stagecoach have been postponed until the fall.
States and cities across the country have also tried to minimize the spread of the virus by limiting large crowds. Washington state, for example, has banned gatherings of more than 250 people in several counties, and New York has prohibited most gatherings of more than 500 people. Maryland, Michigan, Ohio and Oregon have closed schools statewide.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists event cancellations as one measure that may slow the virus, which has claimed over 40 lives in the U.S. and 5,000 across the globe. The CDC is urging those in higher risk populations, including older adults and those with serious chronic medical conditions, to avoid large crowds whenever possible.
As for Montemayor, he said the LGBTQ community is particularly poised to handle the uncertainty spawned by this current pandemic, which on Friday was officially declared a national emergency by President Donald Trump.
“Our community has always been incredibly resilient, especially in the face of uncertain times,”he said. “We’ve faced this before — we always have. We’ll come together, we’ll beat it, we’ll overcome it, and we’ll all rise up very shortly to convene and celebrate this big, bold, beautiful community.”
S. Carolina Law Banning LGBTQ Sex Ed is Unconstitutional, Judge Rules
A U.S. district judge in South Carolina overturned a decades-old state law Wednesday that prohibited discussion of LGBTQ issues in public school sex education classes. According to the ruling, the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The decision was prompted by a lawsuit filed just two weeks earlier by student members of the Gender and Sexuality Alliance at the School of the Arts in Charleston County, as well as several legal and LGBTQ advocacy groups.
The law, passed in 1988, made it illegal for public school teachers to discuss “alternate sexual lifestyles from heterosexual relationships” except in the context of sexually transmitted diseases. Teachers who disobeyed the law — whether by including LGBTQ issues in their curriculum, answering a student’s question or allowing classroom discussion — could be imprisoned.
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Julie Wilensky, a senior attorney for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which helped file the suit, said the law was clearly discriminatory and unconstitutional.
“There’s no comparable restriction in the law on health education about different sex relationships,” Wilensky told NBC News. “After 32 years, students in South Carolina will no longer be harmed by this outdated law.”
South Carolina Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman was named as the defendant in the lawsuit, but the case was settled in a consent decree, meaning the resolution was mutually agreed upon. In a statement, Spearman said the court’s decision “moves South Carolina forward.”
“The balance of protecting freedoms and preventing discrimination will be upheld in any guidance we send to schools on this issue,” she added.
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South Carolina was one of a handful of states left with a so-called no promo homo law on the books, after similar laws were repealed in Arizona last year and in Utah in 2017. Advocates say that their success in the Palmetto State can be repeated in the remaining states with anti-LGBTQ curriculum laws: Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.
“Today makes me hopeful that states that have similar laws will realize that singling out LGBTQ students for unequal treatment in the classroom can’t pass muster under the Constitution,” Wilensky said.
At the weekly Wednesday meeting of the Gender and Sexuality Alliance, the mood was celebratory. Tenth grader Eli Bundy, the club’s president, said they were shocked by how quickly the court had decided in their favor, and excited that the state Department of Education had not opposed it.
“It makes me really proud and happy to live in South Carolina,” Bundy, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, said.
For Bundy and their LGBTQ peers, the decision doesn’t just mean more inclusive sex education, but hope for a more inclusive school culture, as well. The lawsuit recounted the experience of one middle school student in Greenville, who had a Clorox wipe thrown at him and was kicked in the chest before being called “diseased” and told that the stairway to hell was “rainbow-colored.” These kinds of incidents, Bundy hopes, will be less likely in a school environment where LGBTQ identities and issues are more normalized.
“When teachers have to say that they can’t talk about queer relationships, it really just sends a message that it’s not acceptable,” they said. “Now that that doesn’t exist anymore, my hope is that for school communities across the state, including our school specifically, the environment and the climate for LGBTQ students will be more accepting.”
In this regard, South Carolina’s public schools have room for improvement, according to a 2017 National School Climate Survey from LGBTQ advocacy group GLSEN. The survey found that 88 percent of LGBTQ students in South Carolina regularly heard homophobic slurs or remarks, and 76 percent said they’d been verbally harassed because of their sexual orientation. LGBTQ youth in general, many surveys have shown, are already significantly more likely to be bullied or have suicidal thoughts than their heterosexual peers.
Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, executive director of the Campaign for Southern Equality, which also helped file the lawsuit, told NBC News that the decision bodes well for LGBTQ rights in the South as a whole.
“I think the decision is very reflective of where people in the South are,” Beach-Ferrara said. “The politics of the state or the laws of the state are catching up to where people already are in their beliefs and attitudes.”
Still, she said, there’s a long way to go in ensuring legal equality for LGBTQ Southerners. At the same time as its “no promo homo” law is being overturned, South Carolina’s state Legislature is considering two bills that would curtail the rights of transgender people in the state.
“The political reality is we are still contending with some political forces in the state that target LGBTQ folks,” she said. “But we see today’s legal victory as a clear indication of what South Carolina is ready for.”
Beach-Ferrara said the decision itself is a beacon for LGBTQ youth across the South, hopeful for similar victories over their states’ anti-LGBTQ laws.
“There’s a kid in Mississippi who will hear this news today and know that even if the courts or the Legislature of Mississippi haven’t come to the same conclusion yet, a federal court in the South has,” she said. “And that’s powerful.”
A First for Sonoma: Pride Banners
In the midst of all this chaos, some good news. The historic town square in Sonoma will be adorned with Pride banners.
For the first time in our history Pride banners will fly proudly around our town square to honor and recognize June’s Pride month in celebration of Equality, Diversity & Inclusiveness!
Truly overwhelmed and thankful for the support from The City of Sonoma’s Design Review and Historic Preservation Commission and the 21 local businesses that stepped up and sponsored a banner. And to Matthew Scott Long for the fabulous design! I only wish there were more posts to hang banners from as I have had to turn down others at this time.
Salvadoran Police Face Trial for Murder of Trans Woman Deported from U.S.
Three police officers in El Salvador will be tried for the murder of a transgender woman who was deported from the United States two years ago after failing to prove her life was at risk in the violent Central American country.
The unidentified police officers face prison sentences of up to 30 years. They all deny the charges.
Camila Diaz, a 29-year-old sex worker who fled from El Salvador following repeated threats on her life from a gang, was killed in early February after she was kidnapped and beaten.
Judge Sidney Blanco said in court proceeding on Wednesday that sufficient evidence existed to implicate the police officers for the crime of aggravated homicide.
El Salvador’s attorney general’s office has said that on Jan. 31 the accused officers arrested Diaz for supposedly creating a public nuisance and then forced her into a police vehicle.
Once in the vehicle, she was severely beaten and then thrown out onto a highway, according to prosecutors.
Diaz died of her injuries in hospital three days later.
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She had turned herself over to U.S. immigration agents in August 2017 in a bid to apply for asylum protections, arguing that she had received death threats from members of Barrio 18, one of El Salvador’s most violent street gangs.
But she was deported in November 2017 after her asylum request was rejected, and she returned to sex work in San Salvador.
Violence against transgender women in El Salvador has been a problem for years.
More than 600 transgender women were murdered between 1993 and 2020, according to one human rights group.