COMMUNITY NEWS
SBA Opens Restaurant Aid Window
Masks Not Needed for Some; Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Cleared By Jondi Gumz
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ith 15,617 recovered COVID-19 cases and 240,000 vaccinations, the pandemic outlook in Santa Cruz County is improving, but a slight uptick in cases means the move into the less restrictive Yellow Tier will be postponed. The county, one of 41 in the Orange Tier, reports 204 deaths, only 147 active cases, and 131,000 negative test results. The move to the Yellow Tier expected on April 28 did not happen. The reason is the county’s adjusted case rate went up from 1.4 cases per day per 100,000 people to 2.1 cases per day, and it has to be below 2 to qualify. Test positivity was .8 percent, below the 2 percent the Yellow Tier requires. Until the numbers are reviewed next Tuesday, gyms, saunas, dance and yoga studios, wineries, breweries and bowling alleys must operate at 25 percent capacity. Live-audience events staged outdoors are capped at 33 percent capacity.
The Aptos Chamber of Commerce announced on its website that it won’t organize the 4th of July parade or the party at Aptos Village Park this year, but the Brookdale Lodge has already restarted live music outdoors. Coming in June and July: Outdoor musicals presented by Cabrillo Stage in Aptos. To help food businesses struggling with shutdowns and capacity limits, the U.S. Small Business Administration announced registration for the Restaurant Revitalization Fund begins Friday, April 30, at tinyurl.com/dine-vital-award/ with applications open online at 9 a.m. Monday, May 3. (Full URL: https://restaurants.sba.gov/requests /borrower/login/?next=/%3Futm_medium%3Demail %26utm_source%3Dgovdelivery) The online application will remain
open until the $28.6 billion allocated by Congress and approved by the president is gone. This will provide restaurants with funding equal to their pandemic-related revenue loss up to $10 million per business and no more than $5 million per physical location. Funds must be used for allowable expenses by March 11, 2023. Although new COVID cases are way down, the local economy hasn’t recovered due to regulatory restrictions -- unemployment in March was 8.1 percent and more than 5,000 jobs in the hospitality sector had yet to return. To help restaurants, hard hit by the rules, the Capitola City Council agreed to extend permission for temporary outdoor dining through Sept. 7. Most restaurants in Capitola Village had invested in outdoor dining as a survival tactic when indoor seating was prohibited. J&J Vaccine Cleared n April 23, federal regulators ended the 10-day pause on the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, begun after 6.8 million doses to investigate after six women under age 50 had blood clots in the brain and one died. A new warning on the label will warn about this uncommon, but potentially deadly, effect. Dr. Gail Newel, Santa Cruz County health officer, agreed with eight health officers in the Bay Area agreed that the risk of developing the rare clotting disorder is extremely low. They issued a press release comparing the risk of dying from COVID-19 if you have a confirmed case as 1 in 56 to the risk of injury from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as 7 cases per million doses among women between 18 and 49 and 2 cases per million doses overall. Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine has two advantages over the others – one shot is needed instead of two and it can be refrigerated, not requiring extremely cold storage. Johnson & Johnson supplied only 4 percent of the California’s vaccines, and Santa Cruz County responded to the pause by substituting the two-shot vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. Vaccine Reward: No Mask Outdoors n April 27, the federal Centers for Disease Control issued new guide-
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lines on wearing masks to prevent COVID spread, saying fully vaccinated people can skip the mask outdoors — unless they’re in a big crowd. President Joe Biden remarked on the change, saying it’s a new reason to get vaccinated. He told the Associated Press, “If you’re vaccinated, you can do more things.” A week ago, Pajaro Valley schools welcomed back to school all students who wanted in-person instruction on campus — a huge change after the pandemic shuttered schools a year ago. Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, superintendent of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, and her fellow superintendents sent an April 21 letter to parents, noting “a report published by the CDC found inperson instruction does not pose a major risk of COVID-19 to children as long as they continue to wear face coverings and maintain adequate physical distance between themselves and others.” The Santa Cruz County Office of Education is teaming up with Salud Para La Gente, Safeway, Dignity Health, Dominican Hospital and county Public Health to provide vaccine clinics for students age 16-18. Clinics this week have Pfizer vaccine, enough for 1,800 students. If vaccine for students age 12 to 15 gets approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Santa Cruz County Office of Education will work on vaccine clinics for them. The vaccine is free and voluntary. Parental consent is required, with families being notified via email. The superintendents’ letter states: “We are committed to ensure that all families and students have access to vaccination regardless of income level, ZIP code, immigration status and /or whether have health insurance or not.” They expressed optimism that the pandemic would continue to subside as more people get vaccinated and encouraged families to keep wearing masks, physical distancing and following quarantine and isolation protocols if exposed or infected to prevent the virus from spreading. (The letter also provided eight resources, in wake of the guilty verdict for Derek Chauvin, who is white, in the murder of George Floyd, who was black, for conversations about race.) “COVID Update” page 10
