Assembly sets staff limit + Former assemblyman passes away + COVID-19 surges among Latinos
Good morning and welcome back from the holiday weekend!
ASSEMBLY ON NEW COVID-19 LIMIT
The Assembly Rules Committee is limiting the number of staff allowed in Assembly offices after an employee tested positive for COVID-19.
“As has been our policy, only essential staff needed to support Members and Assembly operations should be in the office. Until further notice, under no circumstances should more than one essential staff be in the office each day. All other staff who can work remotely should do so,” the committee said in a Thursday evening email.
The employee last was in the Capitol on June 26 and wore a face covering at all times, according to the email.
The Assembly Rules Committee is calling on both staff and members to practice self-screening before coming to work, including taking temperature and checking for symptoms of COVID-19, such as coughing, fever or shortness of breath.
A FORMER ASSEMBLYMAN PASSES AWAY
Lobbyist and former Republican Assemblyman Bill Duplissea died on July 1, following a brief battle with cancer, according to a statement from Kabateck Strategies.
Duplissea, whose district included San Mateo County, served in the Assembly from 1986 to 1988, where he served as caucus secretary and vice chairman on the Assembly Committee on Transportation, according to his profile (captured on the Wayback Machine) on his lobbying firm website.
Duplissea also served as administrative director of the state’s Division of Workers’ Compensation under Gov. Pete Wilson.
Duplissea also played both college and professional football.
“Duplissea touched the lives of hundreds of legislative colleagues, including members of the California State Legislature and those serving in Congress. His legacy, passion, and loyalty will forever be remembered in the hearts and minds of all who knew him,” according to the statement from Kabateck Strategies.
COVID-19 SURGES IN LATINO COMMUNITIES
Via Nadia Lopez, Kim Bojórquez, Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks, Rosalio Ahumada and Tony Bizjak...
Gov. Gavin Newsom calls them the unsung heroes of the California economy in dangerous times. They are the workers, many of them Latino, who can’t afford to shelter in place. They harvest crops, work shoulder to shoulder in factories, prep food in restaurant kitchens and put roofs on houses.
Yet until recently, few local public health officers and experts in California focused on another fact about that group: Latinos of working age are getting sick and dying from the coronavirus in disproportionately high numbers.
Now, the alarm bell has sounded. After virus testing sites branched out to more diverse communities in recent weeks, the grim severity of the situation is clear.
“We have failed our under-served communities,” said David Lubarsky, chief executive officer for UC Davis Health, speaking of the overall response to date to the pandemic. UC Davis partnered with Sacramento County and community groups such as La Familia on recent testing in more neighborhoods of color that helped highlight the issue.
As California scrambles to respond, there’s the question of whether officials should have noticed the surge in cases among Latinos sooner and acted more assertively. But there’s a more pressing issue now.
Can the state and its disparate counties muster the data, strategies and community connections to take the fast and focused steps needed to identify and snuff out COVID-19 clusters in under-served communities?
The governor led off his daily video press briefing Thursday by acknowledging the problem.
“The most impacted community in the state of California is the Latinx community,” Newsom told The Sacramento Bee in a private interview. “These are the heroes of the front lines, the essential workers that we relied on at the beginning of this pandemic to keep us fed and to take care of our most acute needs.”
“We could not afford to neglect 39 percent of our population,” he said.
His office has deployed Spanish-language public service announcements, billboards, TV and radio ads, and social media outreach. Newsom has conducted interviews on Spanish-media news outlets. The state’s emergency preparedness campaign, Listos California, is connecting diverse and vulnerable populations to COVID-19 resources, including in areas where there are large farm worker populations.
“We’ve been trying to think proactively about messaging that is really important for families, and especially the immigrant community,” said Maricela Rodriguez, director of civic engagement and strategic partnerships for the governor’s office.
The governor’s office anticipates spending $1.7 million in the next two-plus weeks on outreach to Spanish-speaking audiences through TV and radio. Newsom showed a Spanish-language video at his Thursday press conference, with what has become the current core message in the fight against the virus that has now afflicted roughly 250,000 people in California and killed more than 6,200:.
“A little piece of cloth shows that you care about others. Please wear a mask.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Someone please explain to me the Republican obsession with calling my husband “Mr. Lorena Gonzalez”...I just don’t get it. @nathanfletcher isn’t emasculated, he’s proud that I’m a strong woman. I guess it’s supposed to be an insult.... but it just seems so misogynistic. And dumb.”
- Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, via Twitter
Best of the Bee:
Californians are still free to attend their house of worship. But they’re not supposed to sing or chant. Citing the risk of spreading the coronavirus, updated COVID-19 guidelines issued Wednesday by the state Department of Public Health say “places of worship must therefore discontinue singing and chanting activities,” via Dale Kasler.
As California enters another dangerous fire season, the COVID-19 pandemic has depleted the ranks of inmate fire crews that are a key component of the state’s efforts to battle out-of-control wildfires, via Ryan Sabalow and Jason Pohl.
Sacramento County’s jails are a public health “tinderbox” that could further threaten the community in the middle of a worsening pandemic say county public defenders who are demanding the state’s high court force a hearing on the early release of inmates there, via Darrell Smith.