CapRadio

Before the pandemic, Nancy Klein would spend up to seven hours a day at a nursing home in Riverside County, caring for her 53-year-old son, who was left unable to speak and move his limbs after a massive brain hemorrhage. She would suction his tracheotomy tube and massage his neck, arms and legs. 

But Klein has watched her son deteriorate in the past year. He was hospitalized with pneumonia in May as pandemic rules largely locked down most of California’s nursing homes.

Increasingly exasperated that most public schools remain closed even as coronavirus cases plummet nearly a year into the pandemic, California parents are taking to the streets. They’re protesting in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. They’re trying to recall school board members in San Francisco and San Ramon. They’re mounting billboards along freeways in Sonoma County and Sacramento demanding that the government #OpenSchoolsNow.

The campaign to recall Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has seized on the frustrations. Republicans hoping to replace him are staging campaign events outside shuttered schools and highlighting that California lags the rest of the nation when it comes to getting kids back in the classroom. Newsom’s political future may hinge, in part, on how much longer millions of children remain stuck on Zoom.

“At a certain point, they would send us a form letter saying: We have determined that she is all better, it’s no longer necessary, so we are not covering it anymore,” says Bailey, 59, who lives in Los Angeles. “And believe me, she was not all better. In one case, she was worse.”

As health care giant Blue Shield of California gets set to take over the state’s distribution network for COVID-19 vaccines, public health officials say the state is on track to begin administering 3 million weekly doses.

Meeting that goal will depend on two things: vaccine supply and Blue Shield’s handling of distribution logistics. But the latter is already facing some scrutiny from county health officials who are speaking out about delays in the system. 

Two women with smarts, deep curiosity and a no-nonsense rapport as hosts. Some of the Golden State’s most connected reporters and influential guests. Thirty minutes of serious-fun news. Stir it all together and you get CapRadio’s newest show on politics and policy: California State of Mind.

Updated at 3:46 p.m.

Millions of low-income and undocumented Californians will get $600 relief payments after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a sweeping stimulus package to aid those hit hardest by the pandemic, including small businesses. 

Do the Californians who have been vaccinated to ward off COVID-19 reflect the state’s racial and ethnic diversity? It’s too soon to tell. County data provided by state officials is incomplete.

Yet the existing data does give us a snapshot of who has been vaccinated first: White people have received the largest percentage of doses in nearly all counties. Included are those — such as Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Fresno, Madera, Monterey, San Joaquin and Kern counties — with large Latino populations.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced new guidelines to loosen coronavirus restrictions on youth sports. 

Starting next Friday, all outdoor sports can resume in counties — including those in the most restrictive purple and red tiers — where COVID-19 rates are at or below 14 cases per 100,000 people. 

The number of COVID-19 tests processed in California has dropped by more than 30% in recent weeks.

Public health experts say the decline in testing makes sense — and is actually a good sign. The number of positive cases have steadily declined since the surge over the holidays, and test positivity rates are also way down.

“It is very reasonable that with fewer people who are sick, having symptoms, [and] being exposed, that fewer people are going to get tested,” said Sara Bosse, public health director in Madera County.

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What will it take to finally halt the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S.? To answer that question we've created a simulation of a mock disease we're calling SIMVID-19.

When you click "Run Simulation" above, you are witnessing how a disease can spread through a population and how increased levels of vaccination can stop it in its tracks.