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Our 166th Year
T H U R S DAY, S E P T E M B E R 16 , 2 0 21
Newsom defeats recall in landslide victory By MADISON HIRNEISEN NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
NEWS-PRESS FILE PHOTO
“We said yes to science. We said yes to vaccines. We said yes to ending this pandemic,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said after surviving Tuesday’s recall election by a wide margin.
The recall effort aimed at ousting Gov. Gavin Newsom saw a swift defeat after preliminary results showed that 63.9% of the state’s ballots counted Tuesday favored keeping the governor in office. According to the latest tally from the Secretary of State’s Office, 9,176,526 ballots were cast in the election as of Wednesday, representing a 41% turnout statewide. Of the ballots counted thus far, more than 5.8 million voters voted “no” on the recall effort, and more than 3.2 million voted “yes.” The total number of ballots cast is likely to increase in the coming week as counties continue to report mail-in ballots postmarked on Tuesday and tally provisional
ballots cast in person. According to the secretary of state’s website, the results of the election will be certified on Oct. 22. In Santa Barbara County, the elections office reported that 105,213 ballots were counted as of Tuesday night. Of these, more than 97,800 ballots were cast by mail, and nearly 7,400 were cast in person. According to Joseph Holland, the county’s registrar of voters, more than 41,000 ballots have yet to be counted in the county, bringing the total number of ballots cast to more than 146,000. He said the elections office expects that number to increase as mail-in ballots postmarked on Tuesday will be delivered to the county’s Election Division this week. Mr. Holland said voter turnout in this election is currently
hovering around 61-62%. He noted that during the 2003 recall election that removed Gov. Gray Davis from office, voter turnout was at 66%, and the county had about 192,000 registered voters at this time. In this year’s recall, more than 238,000 ballots were sent out to registered voters. “It was a very very robust turnout,” Mr. Holland said of this year’s recall election. According to the county’s preliminary results, 65% of voters voted “no” on the ballot, and 35% voted yes. Of the residents who voted for a replacement candidate on the ballot, 44.5% voted for the leading Republican candidate Larry Elder, 10.3% voted for Democrat Kevin Paffrath and 7% voted for former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer. These candidates were among 46 candidates vying
for the governorship. On election night, Mr. Holland said about a dozen skeptical community members showed up after polls closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday, asking to observe how the ballots were being counted. Mr. Holland said he was happy to show the community members how the process works, and he invites anyone interested in learning about the procedures to come and observe how the remaining ballots are counted over the next few days. “We brought them all in. We gave them a tour, we explained everything going on, showed all the security features and showed the process,” Mr. Holland said. “And by the time they left, they were all just amazed at the complexity of the process and the Please see RECALL on A4
Don’t move too fast
SpaceX makes history
COURTESY PHOTO
“We may have lost the battle, but we’re going to win the war,” Larry Elder, the leading Republican gubernatorial candidate, said after votes were counted.
SB Unified begins COVID-19 testing
First all-civilian crew orbits Earth
Surveillance begins after delays
By DAVE MASON NEWS-PRESS MANAGING EDITOR
The cheers at Cape Canaveral kept growing louder as history was made Wednesday evening with SpaceX’s launch of the first all-civilian crew into Earth’s orbit. It meant nothing less than the start of a new era, a milestone achieved in minutes. After 60 or so years of space travel. At 5:04 p.m. Pacific time, the four members of the Inspiration4 crew were lifted in their Dragon capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket as spectators cheered loudly in Florida, where the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions made history. On Wednesday, it was SpaceX’s turn. “Everything continues to be good. It looks like a smooth ride for the crew,” an announcer said at the launch site. The crowd cheered. Soon the SpaceX craft was a dynamic blurb of light, streaking across the sky, the stuff of sci-fi made real. The four-member crew was in orbit, a hundred miles higher than the International Space Station for a better view. They gave each other fist bumps in their cabin. Everything seemed to go according to plan. The first stage did its re-entry and landed successfully on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, testifying to the reusability of Falcon 9 rockets. The mission is SpaceX’s first private flight. NASA isn’t involved, and that’s the stuff of sci-fi made real. Sci-fi novelists such as Robert Heinlein predicted that one day, the private sector would handle space operations above Earth and beyond. The Inspiration4 crew will spend three days orbiting Earth in a mission designed to raise $200 million for St. Jude Children’s Medical Research Please see SPACEX on A5
By ANNELISE HANSHAW NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
KENNETH SONG/NEWS-PRESS
A sign in Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone encourages people to enjoy life at a more casual pace.
Pfizer works toward vaccine approval for ages 5-11
Company expected to submit its vaccine to FDA this month By MADISON HIRNEISEN NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Pfizer is expected to submit its coronavirus vaccine to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use in children ages 5-11 by the end of this month, paving the way for potential approval by the end of October. During an interview with CBS News earlier this week, former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who also serves on Pfizer’s board of directors, said the company expects to finish its clinical trials in young children before the end of September. He said the results will be filed “very quickly” with the FDA, with hopes that the vaccine could be approved for children in October. “In a best-case scenario, given
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the timeline they’ve just laid out, you could potentially have a vaccine available to children aged 5 to 11 by Halloween,” Dr. Gottlieb told CBS. “If everything goes well, the Pfizer data package is in order, and the FDA ultimately makes a positive determination. I have confidence in Pfizer in terms of the data that they’ve collected. But this is really up to the Food and Drug Administration to make an objective determination.” The push for FDA approval for this age group comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting an increase in the number of children being hospitalized for COVID-19. Please see VACCINE on A4
KENNETH SONG/NEWS-PRESS FILE PHOTO
A Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine shot is administered to a medical worker in December at the Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria. Pfizer is expected to submit a vaccine for ages 5-11 to the FDA by the end of this month.
The Santa Barbara Unified School District began COVID-19 surveillance testing this week after nationwide shortages delayed the arrival of test kits. The district discussed the testing during its board meeting Tuesday. Staff tested 129 elementary-age students and detected one COVID-19 case. Since the school year began Aug. 16, 38 students and 14 staff members have contracted the virus. A total of 13 student and 3 staff cases were recorded between Sept. 9 and Tuesday’s meeting. Dr. Frann Wageneck, assistant superintendent of student services, is not aware of a confirmed on-campus transmission but is monitoring a classroom that had multiple cases. “We reported that to Public Health, and so we’re watching that. But we still don’t know if it was circumstantial or if there were transmissions,” she told the board. Parents have to opt their students into the district’s COVID-19 testing through an online permission form. As of Tuesday evening, 64% had opted in. The testing is mandatory, though parental permission is legally required. The remaining 36% are families who may be unaware of the form, experiencing technical difficulties or are trying to resist testing. “Our principals are having conversations with families who have concerns about the testing, answering their questions. There’s a lot of information out there, as we know, a lot of misinformation,” Dr. Wageneck Please see TESTING on A5
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