Good morning, Bay Area. It’s Wednesday, Jan. 6, and some restaurants are protesting against the ban on outdoor dining. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.
Speeding up vaccinations
Public health experts are growing concerned that emerging vaccination delays may mean it will take longer to reach immunity levels necessary to control the pandemic, especially as cases are still surging and ICUs are in full crisis mode.
Officials and experts attribute the slower-than-anticipated vaccination to many factors: sporadic supply complicating planning, staff shortages, difficulty getting consent in long-term care homes and vaccine refusal in some health care workers, especially in Southern California.
Catherine Ho delves into each factor and what might change in January.
• Deadly outbreak at Kaiser San Jose grows to 60 infections while county studies if new variant is involved.
• New Tahoe rules: Airbnb is imposing a new requirement on guests before booking stays in California during pandemic.
• The effect of CO2 monitors and indoor ventilation on curbing COVID spread.
‘Outdoor dining allows us to scrape by’
Protests against dining bans are gaining steam in the Bay Area, with several local restaurants publicly speaking out against the ongoing restrictions — arguing there’s no reason why outdoor restaurants should be banned when outdoor gyms and indoor retail are still allowed.
Some health experts have rationalized that the outdoor dining ban is a way to discourage gatherings between members of different households —and sitting across from each other maskless for long periods makes the setting dangerous, even if it’s outdoors. But restaurant owners who are protesting against the shutdown of outside dining believe it has backfired — sending more people inside.
Read more from Janelle Bitker.
• Concord’s Mel’s Diner and other recent Bay Area restaurant closures.
• Newsom to seek multibillion-dollar aid package for California businesses.
A different climate
In 2020, Californians endured the hottest August, September and October since 1895. Rising temperatures combined with less rain and high winds have worsened the chance of extreme fire weather.
“People and the ecosystem are being impacted day after day and month after month,” says Stanford University scientist Noah Diffenbaugh. “We’re experiencing that here in California. We’re clearly now in a different climate than when our water resources and infrastructure were designed.”
Reporter Mallory Moench puts the state’s climate crisis into perspective.
More Bay Area climate change coverage: Sign up for the MicroClimates newsletter.
Around the Bay
• Georgia update: With U.S. Senate control the prize, Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock was declared the winner in one race, and Jon Ossoff narrowly led GOP Sen. David Perdue in the other. Check latest numbers with our tracker.
• From Phil Matier: BART pauses delivery of new cars — they’re spending more time in the shop than old ones.
• Big prices, big declines: San Francisco’s rental housing market saw the most dramatic changes among all U.S. cities last year during the coronavirus pandemic, new data shows.
• Religious assembly protest: Name of mysterious donor to Newsom recall effort revealed — but not much else.
• Pushback against partial cleanup plan: Richmond sued over plan to develop polluted site.
• “San Francisco at its worst”: Report by advocacy group blasts S.F. schools renaming process.
• Unionized home-delivery drivers not affected: Safeway parent outsources grocery deliveries to gig companies — but not in the Bay Area.
• Moved to March: Grammy Awards postponed as COVID-19 rages in Los Angeles.
Chronicle Podcasts
The fire had been burning for at least six minutes at a popular trailhead near the town of Clearlake when Mike Thompson pulled up in his SUV.
It was 7:30 a.m. on July 2, 2015, and Thompson, an investigator for the state’s Cal Fire agency, was worried. The season was in full swing. Conditions were dangerous.
Thompson suspected serial arson in a devastating string of blazes in Lake County. He and his fellow investigators identified a suspect: Damin Pashilk, a former inmate firefighter. But arsonists are hard to catch. The evidence burns away.
Lizzie Johnson tells the story of the chase and interviews both Thompson and Pashilk on a recent Fifth & Mission podcast special.
Bay Briefing is written by Taylor Kate Brown, Anna Buchmann and Kellie Hwang and sent to readers’ email inboxes on weekday mornings. Sign up for the newsletter here, and contact the writers at taylor.brown@sfchronicle.com, anna.buchmann@sfchronicle.com, and kellie.hwang@sfchronicle.com.
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Bay Briefing: What’s behind California’s slow start to vaccinations - San Francisco Chronicle
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