ICE is still arresting and detaining immigrants during this global pandemic. Homeraids have become even more of a risk now that agents know people are self quarantining and social distancing inside. But there are still actions we can take to keep ourselves and our neighbors safe. We teamed up with United We Dream to create a tipsheet on what to document if ICE shows up at your door, and how you can engage your neighbors for support. Knowing your rights and filming might not stop the enforcement in the moment, but it can help you fight your case down the line.
DOCUMENTING DURING COVID-19We partnered up with United We Dream again to create “Real or Rumor: How to Verify Online Reports of ICE Raids” to help our communities build #PowerNotParanoia! Available in English, Spanish, Arabic and French.We created a graphic with advocates at Make the Road NY to ensure that our guidance on how to film immigration enforcements reaches those who need it most. Available in English and Spanish. In the U.S., and around the world, police are gaining and abusing new powers under emergency law. See our tips on how to safely and effectively film the police (available in English, Spanish and Arabic).Our new 5-part series has practical guidance on how to Prepare, Capture, Maintain, Share & Communicate human rights documentation during full or partial internet shutdowns due to repressive governments or natural disasters.
Two days ago, an emergency-room doctor called Frank Gabrin died in his husband’s arms due to complications from coronavirus – just a week after showing symptoms.
Gabrin, 60, who worked at hospitals in New Jersey and New York, had been on the frontlines for two weeks as the number of COVID-19 cases rapidly increased.
According to Gabrin’s husband, Arnold Vargas, shortages of personal protective equipment had meant he was forced to reuse face masks and hospital gowns between treating patients.
“He was a person who just wanted to help people,” Vargas told Chris Cuomo, who also tested positive for COVID-19 this week, during an emotional interview on CNN’s ‘Cuomo Prime Time’.
Gabrin died suddenly on Tuesday after waking up with chest pains and unable to breathe.
“He had a lot of coughing and two days ago he was very sick,” Vargas said through tears.
On Tuesday, Gabrin woke up saying, “Baby, I can’t breathe,” Vargas said.
He had first shown symptoms about a week previously, but had not been tested for the virus.
Dr. Frank Gabrin had been treating coronavirus patients on the front lines. He died in his husband’s arms just days after showing symptoms.
The global death toll from the crisis currently stands at more than 50,000 people, with Spain accounting for a fifth of those who have died from the disease.
Lyons said: “He didn’t expect this to happen as it was coming up. He really didn’t. He was working hard, we were talking every day.
“I was saying, ‘How is it going?’ He said, ‘It’s busy, but it’s manageable.’
“And it went from manageable to unmanageable overnight. I think that’s what happened, and even then he looked for ways to make it work, even when he knew [his immune system] was compromised.”
A two-time cancer survivor, Vargas said his husband told him: “I can handle this. I survived cancer and this is just the coronavirus.”
After holding his husband while he died, Vargas is now showing symptoms of coronavirus himself.
“It’s a big thing we’re asking [health care workers] to face,” Lyons said.
“It’s like asking soldiers to go to the front line and giving them nothing to do their job.”
To keep local journalism alive, the owners of this newspaper and three other community newspapers in Sonoma County are transferring their ownership to a new nonprofit created to help the papers compete in a 21st century news market defined by online competition and a flood of information that is often free.
Adding to these concerns is this month’s shelter-in-place order triggered by the COVID-19 virus, which is expected to last for weeks and has triggered a flood of ad cancellations at media companies statewide.
To meet these challenges, Sonoma West Times & News, The Healdsburg Tribune, The Windsor Times and the Cloverdale Reveille will be acquired by the Sonoma County Local News Initiative, a new nonprofit dedicated to providing fact-based journalism in the four communities.
“Advertising and subscriptions no longer bring in enough income to support newspapers,” said Dick Bugarske, president of the new nonprofit. “Our nonprofit will be able to add donations, grants and memberships to the income stream. We urge everyone to contribute and help our newspapers thrive.”
During the transition, expected to be completed this year, the newspapers will continue to operate as usual. Nothing changes for readers, subscribers or advertisers. Only one thing is new: Now the newspapers will also be funded by tax-deductible donations, grants and memberships.
Current owners and the nonprofit are weighing a digital future.
“Community support will determine the future of local news as a printed newspaper,” Bugarske said.
As soon as the four newspapers are stabilized, the nonprofit also intends to expand local journalism in other ways, such as community events, grants, scholarships and special journalism projects.
For eight months Rollie Atkinson and Sarah Bradbury, publishers of the four papers, have been working with a team of community leaders. Out of this study and analysis came the decision to create a new nonprofit organization dedicated to sustaining the papers, encouraging more civic engagement and increasing media literacy.
The nonprofit incorporated on Jan. 24 and was planning a formal launch for May.
With the arrival of COVID-19, it is launching immediately.
A growing number of U.S. community newspapers are changing from for-profit to nonprofit as they try to survive in a world where their decades-old business model of selling ads to pay the bills no longer works. One recent example is the Salt Lake Tribune, the major paper in Salt Lake City, Utah. It announced in November that it had received Internal Revenue Service approval to become the nation’s first traditional newspaper to go fully nonprofit.
“With this new nonprofit, we are proud to join forward-thinking colleagues across the country that are creating sustainable business models for local news,” said Atkinson. He and Bradbury are majority owners of Healdsburg-based Sonoma West Publishers, the parent company of the four newspapers.
The papers are historic institutions in their communities. The Healdsburg Tribune began in 1865, the Cloverdale Reveille in 1879, the Sonoma West Times & News in Sebastopol in 1889, and the Windsor Times in 1987.
Atkinson and Bradbury do not stand to profit from the sales of assets under the proposed structure.
“There are communities today facing this COVID-19 public health crisis without a newspaper that is dedicated to their information needs and well-being. We refuse to let that happen here. We are needed now and when the next crisis hits our community; and we will be needed on all the good days ahead that will surely come,” said Atkinson.
The new model will test the strength of the community’s commitment to local news, observers said.
“We’re convinced these four communities value their papers and will contribute what it takes to keep them alive, just as our members have long supported us,” said Nancy Dobbs, president emerita of Northern California Public Media, the North Bay’s public media nonprofit and home of KRCB radio and television.
Dobbs is a member of a founding board of directors that will steer the Sonoma County Local News Initiative through the transition.
The nonprofit hopes to raise $1 million in its initial fundraising drive, to buy the assets of Sonoma West Publishers, establish reserves and put the papers on solid financial footing. The amount it pays to acquire the papers cannot exceed their market value, which will be established by an independent appraisal.
Atkinson and Bradbury will continue to run the newspapers until the nonprofit takes ownership. At that time the nonprofit’s board of directors will make staffing decisions for the publications.
“The nonprofit allows us to continue to encourage community involvement and informed engagement in our small towns,” said founding board member Marie Gewirtz. “It preserves ethical, truthful reporting on local issues that affect the quality of daily life in our communities.”
Members of the founding nonprofit board are:
• President Dick Bugarske, retired Healdsburg High School principal
• Secretary Rick Theis, founder, Leadership Institute for Ecology and the Economy
• Treasurer Mary Fricker, retired Press Democrat business reporter
• Nancy Dobbs, retired president/CEO of KRCB Northern California Public Media
• Marie Gewirtz, founder, wine and food marketing & public relations firm
• Holly Hoods, executive director, curator, Healdsburg Museum
• Rick Massell, retired El Molino High School math, science, and technology teacher
The advisors to the board are:
• Kathryn Hecht, founder, executive director, Alexander Valley Film Society
• Mary Luttrell, Certified Management Consultant, Emeritus
• Sarah Bradbury, co-owner Sonoma West Publishers
• Rollie Atkinson, co-owner Sonoma West Publishers
162,000 LGB and 9,000 transgender elderly people in California at high risk for COVID-19 illness, according to a recent UCLA study.
An estimated 162,300 LGB and 9,000 transgender people age 65 and older live in California and are at high risk for serious illness from COVID-19, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.
The California Department of Public Health has associated high risk with people age 65 and older and those with compromised immune systems or serious chronic medical conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and lung disease. Using data from the California Health Interview Survey, researchers found that 53,100 LGB people and 3,000 transgender people in California age 65 and older have fair or poor health.
“Social and economic vulnerabilities can also contribute to an increased risk of serious illness related to COVID-19,” said lead author Ilan H. Meyer, Distinguished Senior Scholar of Public Policy at the Williams Institute. “In addition to age and health, California’s public health measures should consider these factors, as many elderly LGB and transgender people in the state live alone and in poverty and may need special assistance.”
KEY FINDINGS
162,300 LGB people (93,300 men and 69,000 women) and 9,000 transgender people age 65 and older live in California
53,100 LGB people (4,000 men and 19,000 women) and 3,000 transgender people age 65 and older in the state have fair or poor health
Asthma: 27,000 LGB people (12,800 men and 14,200 women) and 2,000 transgender people age 65 and older have asthma
Diabetes: 43,300 LGB people (30,300 men and 13,000 women) and 1,000 transgender people age 65 and older people have diabetes
Heart Disease: 34,400 LGB people, including 18,900 men and 15,500 women, and 2,000 transgender people age 65 and older have heart disease
64,600 LGB people age 65 and older (44,100 men and 20,500 women) and 3,000 transgender people in California live alone
40,700 gay/bisexual men, 23,000 lesbian/bisexual women, and 6,000 transgender people age 65 and older live below 200% of the federal poverty level
Professor Gita Ramjee, a highly acclaimed scientist who dedicated her life to fighting and preventing HIV, has sadly died of coronavirus.
Ramjee, 64, was a South African researcher internationally renowned for her work expanding disadvantaged women’s access to HIV treatment.
On March 31 she tragically passed away from coronavirus complications, having just returned from a symposium in the UK. She was working on trials for a gel that could potentially reduce HIV infection.
“The passing of professor Ramjee comes as a huge blow to the entirety of the healthcare sector and the global fight against HIV/AIDS,” the deputy president of South Africa, David Mabuza, said in a statement.
“In her, we have indeed lost a champion in the fight against the HIV epidemic, ironically at the hands of this global pandemic.
“In her honour, we should heed the call to flatten the curve by strengthening our responses to this global pandemic as well as continue the fight to achieve zero new HIV infections.”
Deeply saddened by the loss of an #HIVprevention pioneer, Gita Ramjee. She was a tireless champion of science, research, women’s reproductive health and rights — and may we all build on her legacy and make her calling, her dream a reality
Ramjee held an honorary professorship at the the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as well as the University of Washington and the University of Cape Town.
In 2018 she was awarded the Outstanding Female Scientist award from the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership in recognition of her work on HIV prevention, notably the field of microbicide research.
The international scientific community are now paying tribute, with the head of UNAids Winnie Byanyima describing her death as “a huge loss” at a time when the world needed her most.
“Gita was a vibrant person, a real fighter,” her colleague, professor Gavin Churchyard, told the BBC. “If she sets her mind on something, nobody better stand in her way.
“That will be my lasting memory of her – how she fought with everything to advance access to healthcare for women in disadvantaged communities.”
Many other scientists and researchers took to Twitter to share their grief at her passing.
A gay rights leader in Uganda says 20 members of the local LGBT community have been detained after police raided their shelter and accused them of violating coronavirus-related social distancing measures.
“It is evident that they were arrested because of their homosexuality,” Frank Mugisha [photo] said Wednesday, expressing concern for their safety as “some of them are on AIDS medication.” Gay sex is criminalized in Uganda.
Mugisha said the 20 were among 23 people accused of violating the president’s orders during a police raid on Sunday. Three were freed because of ill health, he said. Mugisha said the house in Kyengera, a town near Kampala, is a known shelter for LGBT people seeking community as well as treatment for AIDS.
Multiple people who had been at the party later posted on social media confirming that they, or someone they knew who had also attended, had been diagnosed.
Over the weekend, a second person has died after contracting the virus at the festival.
Ron Rich, 65, who lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was a musician and formerly a high school band director.
He was also a prominent figure in the local LGBT+ community, volunteering for Outshine Film Festival, Lambda Legal and the National LGBTQ Task Force.
The National LGBTQ Task Force wrote on Facebook on Tuesday, March 31, that it was “mourning the passing of a loyal volunteer, Ron Rich, who succumbed to COVID-19 over the weekend”.
It continued: “Ron was a familiar face to the guests who attended the Task Force Gala, Winter Party Festival and our Fort Lauderdale house parties over the past five years as his big smile and warmth had him mostly serving on our hospitality team… He will be missed.
“We extend our condolences to his family and friends.”
His friends took to social media to express their grief after his death.
Onre Soto wrote: “I’m heartbroken by the news I got last night… My best friend Ron Rich passing Saturday night.
He was truly honest [and] sincere… We [are] all grieving for his family. I will miss you forever, until we meet again.”
Another friend, Theo Vernon, wrote: “I am devastated this morning. My good friend Ron Rich has passed away due to the COVID-19 virus.
“I student taught at Grissom under him and worked with him my first year teaching at Grissom high school in 1985. He was an amazing mentor, musician and we became great friends.”
Israel Carreras passed away last week after attend the Winter Party.
Israel Carreras, 40, who had no prior health conditions, was the first person to pass away after contracting coronavirus at the Winter Party.
Carreras’ partner, Franco Conquista, told WSVN: “He started to feel sick after the event. We went together.
“I went to his place, taking care of him for two days, and I also had it. He couldn’t breathe, so he wanted to go to the hospital, and then, he was at the hospital for four or five days.
“Then, they put him to sleep because he was really agitated, and then, he never woke up again.”
Conquista added that he was currently at home in isolation, grieving his partner, and called for others to stay at home.
He said: “This poor boy was only 40 years old. It can kill anybody, so just stay home and think of other people.”
Amid the coronavirus crisis, state health officials responsible for gathering data on COVID-19 are declining to collect and report whether or not patients identify as LGBTQ — a practice that angers LGBTQ advocates who say those answers could yield important information to combat the disease.
The lack of data, advocates say, will essentially blind the public to the coronavirus’ impact on LGBTQ people — a population that may be particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 — as the epidemic continues to rise and health officials warn the death toll in the United States will hit its peak in the coming weeks.
An estimated 100,000 to 240,000 Americans may die as a result of the coronavirus epidemic, U.S. government health advisers said this week.
The deputy director of the National LGBT Cancer Network, who goes by the name Scout and has a Ph.D. in sociomedical sciences from Columbia University, said the lack of data on the coronavirus’ impact on LGBTQ people reflects the absence of LGBTQ data collection in medical surveys writ large.
“The common phenomenon of not collecting LGBTQ health surveillance data hurts us in so many ways. Now it will hurt us by masking the impact of COVID-19 on our communities,” Scout said. “Considering an estimated 3.3 million of us use tobacco products, and therefore have a higher risk of negative outcomes if we get coronavirus, not collecting LGBTQ+ status in health surveillance data is horrible. We will mourn our losses but never be able to measure them.”
The Blade reached out to several states where the confirmed cases of coronavirus infection are at their highest and as of this week surpassed 5,000 cases, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Additionally, the Blade sought LGBTQ demographic information on the COVID-19 impact from jurisdictions local to the D.C. region and states that have had greater incident rates of COVID-19 cases.
The only jurisdiction to report having collected data on whether COVID-19 patients identify as LGBTQ was D.C,, where the department of health affirmed Tuesday to the Blade that process was underway.
“DC Health is collecting information about LGBTQ+ status of coronavirus patients,” said Alison Reeves, a D.C. Department of Health spokesperson. “However, that data is incomplete and will not be made public at this time.”
Harper Jean Tobin, director of policy for the National Center for Transgender Equality, said any reporting on COVID-19’s impact on LGBTQ people would likely be an undercount “due to the fast spread of the virus and the extraordinary shortcomings in the United States’ response to the pandemic.”
“Unfortunately, many of our pre-existing public health surveillance systems did not yet incorporate basic demographic data about LGBTQ people, and many health care institutions haven’t yet implemented this data collection in their patient record systems either,” Tobin said. “That’s inexcusable, but it’s also not likely we’ll be able to correct those deficiencies in the middle of a fast-moving global pandemic.”
Jurisdictions other than D.C. either didn’t respond to the Blade’s request to comment, or affirmed they didn’t collect data on whether coronavirus patients identify as LGBTQ.
In Michigan, where Detroit has become a new epicenter for the coronavirus epidemic, a spokesperson for the state department of health confirmed LGBTQ status of patients isn’t asked by health officials.
“That’s not something captured in the Michigan Disease Surveillance System where cases are reported, so we wouldn’t be able to determine that information,” said Lynn Sutfin, a spokesperson for Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services didn’t respond to a follow-up email inquiry on why LGBTQ status isn’t collected in the state medical data system.
In New York, a spokesperson said the NY Department of Health is “not tracking COVID-19 cases by sexuality,” then when asked why that was the case referred the Blade to recent remarks from Gov. Andrew Cuomo on COVID-19.
“This virus does not discriminate,” Cuomo said. “It doesn’t discriminate by age. It doesn’t discriminate by party. It affects all Americans, and what you’re seeing in New York is going to spread across this country.”
Privacy issues around asking COVID-19 patients whether they identify as LGBTQ were cited by one state contacted by the Blade about LGBTQ demographics on the epidemic.
In Washington State — where the coronavirus spread early on the during the epidemic, but has since stabilized compared to other states — the state department of health affirmed it doesn’t collect data on whether coronavirus patients identify as LGBTQ.
Danielle Koenig, a Washington State Department of Health spokesperson, said, “We don’t have sexual orientation information on patients.” When asked why that was the case, Koenig replied, “We don’t publish more specific demographic data to protect patient privacy.”
Tobin sought to assuage concerns about privacy issues on collecting LGBTQ information in health surveys by saying state officials could keep it confidential and that information could be used to augment health care.
“Providers and our leaders need to make sure that everyone who needs help is getting it, and discrimination won’t be tolerated,” Tobin said. “Though it may take much longer than it should, we need to ensure going forward that LGBTQ-inclusive demographic data is included in all our health surveillance and electronic health record systems, that this information is voluntary and confidential, and that it’s used to improve access and quality of care.”
The departments of health for New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia didn’t respond to the Blade’s request to comment, and the California Department of Health referred the Blade to a page on its website showing the information state officials record for COVID-19. (It doesn’t include whether patients identify as LGBTQ.)
Emphasizing changing forms to include LGBTQ questions amid a pandemic may not be realistic, Tobin cited several examples for why they would have been useful, including finding out whether LGBTQ people have particular health vulnerabilities and the right way to tailor public health messages.
“The health care system runs on data,” Tobin said. “Collecting information in patient records helps promote honest communication between patients and staff to make sure their health needs and concerns are addressed. It helps us determine whether certain populations are seeking or receiving specific services at different rates, or having different outcomes.”
The lack of data collection on whether coronavirus patients identify as LGBTQ appears to be the result of a general practice as well as the official CDC form specific for COVID-19 data collection, which doesn’t include questions seeking to identify whether a patient is LGBTQ.
The CDC form seeks to obtain information on patients who tested positive for COVID-19 based on age, sex and ethnicity, but no where does it ask their sexual orientation.
For the query on sex, the form allows states to record the patient’s answer as “male,” “female,” “none,” or “other.” Although those options provide some flexibility to patients who are non-binary, it doesn’t explicitly seek to ascertain whether a COVID-19 patient is transgender.
The Centers for Disease Control didn’t respond to multiple requests from the Blade on whether it has information on COVID-19’s impact on LGBTQ people, nor why its data collection survey doesn’t ask patients if they identify as LGBTQ.
Tobin said she’s optimistic about seeing more LGBTQ demographic data in health surveys in the future, but recognized the current reality.
“For now, we know that the virus doesn’t care about gender, but that having physical vulnerabilities, a high-risk job, no paid leave, smoking, lacking safe housing, or living in an institutional setting (such as a shelter, jail, or nursing home) all put you at greater risk,” Tobin said. “Trans people, on average, are more likely to experience each one of these risk factors.”
States and the CDC aren’t collecting data on whether COVID-19 patients identify as LGBTQ despite a recent joint letter declaring LGBTQ people would be vulnerable to the epidemic.
More than 150 advocates warned LGBTQ people would be disproportionately affected by the coronavirus because they smoke and suffer from cancer at higher rates; have high reported rates of discrimination in the health care system; and are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS.
(However, Dr. Susan Henn, chief medical officer for the D.C.-based Whitman-Walker Health, has told the Blade for people with well-managed HIV, the increased risk would only be “very slight.”)
The letter takes note ensuring “surveillance efforts capture sexual orientation and gender identity as part of routine demographics” would be a crucial goal to achieve in serving LGBTQ people during the COVID-19 epidemic.
Dr. Scott Nass, president of GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality and a Palm Springs, Calif.-based family physician, said LGBTQ advocates will continue to beat the drum for LGBTQ inclusion in health surveys despite states declining to do that during the coronavirus crisis.
“GLMA has long advocated for data collection inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity as central to ensuring the health and well-being of LGBTQ people,” Nass said. “Given the potential risk factors for LGBTQ individuals, inclusive data collection at federal and state levels may reveal important and life-saving data about the coronavirus and LGBTQ people and that’s exactly why GLMA, the National LGBTQ Cancer Network and more than 150 organizations called for data inclusion in our open letter on COVID-19 and LGBTQ communities.”
The Department of Health & Human Services added a question on sexual orientation to the National Health Interview Survey, the principal source of information on the health of the U.S. population. Although the administration was sluggish to add questions on transgender status, the Obama administration eventually allowed states to ask both sexual orientation and gender identity questions on the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, or BRFSS, if they so choose.
Scout said allowing states to include the LGBTQ questions on health surveys “has actually proven unexpectedly strong as political winds shifted” and now around 35 states made the inquiry on BRFSS, but “that’s still not full U.S. data.”
“Collecting SOGI data on electronic health records is rare as hens teeth,” Scout said. “This leaves us with all of our health issues masked for anything that is reliant on real time or end stage disease reporting (save HIV which has a separate system). Thus, in a time like today, we will only be able to measure which LGBTQ people had COVID years after the fact through self-report of people who have survived and happen to live in a state that collects SOGI on their BRFSS, and then only if BRFSS coordinators decide to add a COVID question.”
An asylum seeker from Ghana who said he was attacked by a mob led by his father because of his sexuality has shown a valid fear of persecution, a U.S. appeals case said in a case argued by two law students.
The petitioner, a gay man in his late 20s from Accra, said he had a secret relationship with a friend from his Muslim school days when his father found out in 2016 and flew into a rage. He said he was beaten, doused with kerosene and threatened with being beheaded before escaping, naked and bleeding.
He later made his way to the U.S., where immigration judges rejected his case, in part because it involved only a single attack. The initial judge suggested he could avoid further prosecution back home if he kept his sexuality a secret, according to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.
Same-sex male relationships are misdemeanors in Ghana and can bring up to three years in prison, the ruling said. The Associated Press is not naming the petitioner at the request of his lawyer, Adrian Roe of Pittsburgh, who fears for his client’s safety if he is deported and hopes to have his name redacted from court records.
“(He) was threatened with death by fire or decapitation while being assaulted, doused with fuel and exposed to a cutlass. All that was left for the mob to do was to cut off his head or set him on fire,” U.S. Circuit Judge L. Felipe Restrepo wrote in directing the immigration court to reconsider the claim.
The case was argued last year by then-students Paige Beddow and Scott A. Cain of the Immigration Law Clinic at West Virginia University College of Law. Justice Department lawyers in Washington, who opposed the asylum bid, did not immediately return a message left Tuesday with the press office.
“The government was arguing that one (attack) does not create a significant incident, or does not constitute past persecution. And the court said that one incident can be enough,” Roe said.
Sonoma County residents and businesses must continue to follow a shelter-at-home order through at least May 3, with new provisions that allow rebuilding efforts from wildfires to continue but otherwise bar all but the most essential construction work while shutting down short-term vacation rentals and strengthening social distancing requirements on businesses allowed to remain open.
The new, extended order, issued late Tuesday by the county’s health officer, Dr. Sundari Mase, came in the wake of an announcement that schools statewide were unlikely to reopen classrooms this instructional year, forestalling a return to campus for nearly 70,000 local K-12 students.
The move also comes amid a new breakdown of Sonoma County cases on Tuesday showing that two children are among the 85 people who have tested positive for the coronavirus, which can cause a serious respiratory disease. Information on the children’s condition, including whether they had been hospitalized, was not immediately available.
The breakdown Tuesday night showed 17 local virus patients in hospital care, 61 not hospitalized, and the care of an additional seven unknown. Only one death, a man in his 60s, has been reported.
The extended order to stay home aligns Sonoma County with at least seven other Bay Area counties — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Mateo and Solano — that moved to extend their orders this week. Napa County had yet to announce its plans late Tuesday while the statewide order handed down by Gov. Gavin Newsom has no set end date.
