Award Nominations Is May 21 • Student Debt Canceled Want to Get a Peek Inside Education?

COMMUNITY NEWS Want to Get a Peek Inside Education?

Editor’s Note: Dr. Faris Sabbah, Santa Cruz County superintendent of schools, is seeking participants for the “Inside Education” series for 2021, which starts in September.

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Iam extending a personal invitation to you to participate in the Class 14 “Inside Education” series of workshops designed to better acquaint community leaders with public education in Santa Cruz County.

Join us alongside the Santa Cruz County Office of Education, the ten local school districts, Cabrillo College, and other professionals and community leaders for a first-hand, interactive look at the schools in Santa Cruz County.

Meet with leaders in the field of education, visit schools and get to know more about the current challenges of educating students. Our program will provide you with an in-depth look at schools from preschool to higher education.

Sessions will be devoted to numerous themes, and you will have the unique opportunity to observe and participate in a variety of school programs and events.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, this series may begin virtually.

A selection of elective events may include: Mock Trial, Science Fair, School Attendance Review Board/Truancy, School Performances, Art Shows, Outdoor Science Education Camp, After-school Programs, Student Support Programs, Career/Academic Counseling, Job Shadowing, and the Career Technical Education Partnership’s career pathways programs, such as • Agriculture and Natural Resources • Arts, Media and Entertainment • Building and Construction

Dr. Faris Sabbah

Trades • Hospitality, Tourism, and Recreation, and Health Careers.

By participating in this September through May, once-a-month, half-day series of events, you will be afforded a unique opportunity to learn about the intricacies of public education in Santa Cruz County.

The SCCOE and the school districts want to partner with you to ensure strong community communication and collaboration in serving all of our students. I hope this brief summary of our program has piqued your interest. n

To learn more or to register, contact Les Forster at lforster@santacruzcoe.org or call (831) 246-0988.

“COVID-19 Update” from page 7

“There’s an appointment at old city hall (in Watsonville) now,” said Santa Cruz County spokesman Jason Hoppin. “Take it.”

Hall announced an agreement with the Santa Cruz County Office of Education and Dominican Hospital to partner on a vaccine clinic for students, targeting those at risk in South County, offering 1,700 county doses, in two or three weeks at a location to be determined.

Priority

Santa Cruz County health officials have prioritized equity, allocating 60 percent of its doses for the greater Watsonville area and its Latinx community, which has seen the most cases.

To reach them, the county has worked with ag employers and set up access codes so vaccines reach the 7,000 year-round farm workers.

“We’ve done 5,000, we have 2,000 to go,” Hall said. “It’s working.”

This week, the county began using geosensing, part of MyTurn, to see if people requesting appointments are in the priority group.

Ghilarducci said 95076, the Watsonville ZIP code, has received the most vaccine.

He cited these milestones: 72,000 county residents fully protected, 50,000 with one shot in the two-shot series, about half of the eligible population.

Among those 65 and up, 86 percent have had one shot and 65 percent are fully vaccinated.

Among those 16 and up, 52 percent have had one shot, and 32 percent are fully vaccinated.

Asked about herd immunity, Ghilarducci said it’s “somewhere between 60 percent and 70 percent. We’re going to start getting to that threshold in mid-May” – unless a variant emerges that is resistant or “if we see more vaccine hesitancy.”

Asked if the vaccine would wear off after six months, Ghilarducci said manufacturers evaluated the vaccine at the six-month point, finding it effective, but didn’t draw further conclusions.

“We haven’t had enough time to know how long it lasts,” he said.

Hall suggested taking a photo of the vaccine card from the first appointment, emailing it to yourself for safekeeping, and bringing it to the second appointment. It may help you get into a future sporting event, she said.

With the state’s shift to MyTurn, more vaccines are going directly to health providers instead of county Public Health.

Salud Para La Gente is eligible for 5,000 vaccines a week, and likely will partner with the county to use the fairgrounds at a clinic, Hall said.

The Santa Cruz County Office of Education has created a campaign in Spanish to encourage educators, childcare workers and farmworkers get the vaccine. The information phone line is 831-466-5906.

Economic Aid

Santa Cruz County government expects to receive $53 million in federal COVID relief, which will end furloughs for county employees enacted to close the budget gap.

Cabrillo College in Aptos is getting $16 million in federal COVID relief, part of the $1.9 trillion package signed by President Biden.

U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Palo Alto) who represents parts of Santa Cruz County, scheduled a webinar April 15 to explain how restaurants, food trucks, food carts, caterers, tasting rooms, brewpubs and bars can get federal aid. Julie Clowes, director of the Small Business Administration for Northern California, was to join her and answer questions.

The aid package includes $25 billion for restaurants with grants to be awarded by the federal Small Business Administration, $7.25 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program forgivable loans for small business and nonprofits applying through a bank, $15 billion in targeted Economic Injury Disaster Loan advance grants through the SBA, and $16 billion in grants to shuttered entertainment venues, also through SBA.

From mid-November to mid-March, the pandemic kept restaurants, gyms and movie theaters from opening indoors, eliminating thousands of jobs and sending unemployment up to 8.4 percent.

Shortage?

Shipments of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine had been expected to be extremely tight due to violations at a manufacturing plant in Baltimore run by its contractor, Emergent BioSolutions, and 13 to 15 million doses discarded due to contamination issues, according to The New York Times. Emergent has been cited before, according to the Associated Press.

California, Texas, Florida and Virginia were expecting their weekly Johnson & Johnson delivery to shrink — in California, from 572,000 to 67,600, according to the New York Times.

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.

The timing is potentially frustrating as more Californians get access to www. myturn.ca.gov, the app to sign up for vaccination.

It may mean looking for appointments that do not exist. Alternatively, the other vaccine manufacturers, Pfizer and Moderna, may step up production and make up the shortfall.

COVID-19 has claimed the lives of 59,000 Californians.

Deaths in Santa Cruz County have leveled off at 202, with 51 percent of deaths at nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Locally, 79 percent of those who died were age 70 or older and 77 percent had other health conditions.

A year after the pandemic began, with 23 million vaccine does administered and case rates plummeting, 22 counties are in the Red Tier and 33 in the Orange Tier.

On Wednesday, Santa Cruz County reported only four people hospitalized with COVID, none in intensive care, only 158 active cases, and more than 127,000 negative tests. n •••

County COVID Deaths: 202

As of April 14

Age

90 and up: 55 • 80 to 89: 62 • 70 to 79: 43 60 to 69: 27 • 50 to 59: 5 • 40 to 49: 6 30 to 39: 4

Race/Ethnicity

White: 113 • Latinx: 72 • Asian: 15 Black: 1 • Amer. Indian/Alaskan Native: 1 Underlying Conditions Yes: 156 • No: 46 Gender Male: 99 • Female: 103

Skilled Nursing/Residential Care Santa Cruz Post Acute: 20 Watsonville Post Acute: 18 Pacific Coast Manor: 14 Hearts & Hands Post Acute: 8 Sunshine Villa: 7 • Aegis: 4 Maple House 1: 4 • Valley Convalescent: 4 Watsonville Nursing Center: 4

Montecito Manor: 3 • De Un Amor: 2

Dominican Oaks: 2 • Driftwood: 2

Hanover House: 2 • Maple House II: 2

Rachelle’s Home 1: 2 • La Posada: 1

Paradise Villa: 1 • Rachelle’s Home II: 1 Valley Haven: 1 • Westwind: 1 Total: 103 Not at a facility: 99 COVID Cases by Town Aptos: 772 • Ben Lomond: 113

Boulder Creek: 143 • Capitola: 442 Felton: 148 • Freedom: 955

Santa Cruz: 3,756 • Scotts Valley: 423 Soquel: 345 • Watsonville: 7,864 Unincorporated: 248 Under investigation: 257 Total: 15,466

Source: Santa Cruz County Public Health •••

Editor’s Note: Would you like to share your family’s COVID-19 story? Email Jondi Gumz at info@cyber-times.com or call 831-688-7549 x17.

For details on what can open in the Orange Tier, see https://covid19.ca.gov/safer-economy.