Despite promises that all adults in California will be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine by April 15, chronic vaccine shortages still prevail in many counties, including Sonoma County. With more adults eligible for the vaccine, demand is expected to increase sharply and exacerbate the supply unless more shipments arrive soon.
Read MoreEarlier this year, Tik Tok announced in a press release that the company will be releasing two new features to their content creation app in order to promote kindness and decrease cyberbullying throughout their platform.
Read More
Sonoma and Contra Costa counties were the last in the Bay Area to move out of the California tier system’s purple tier. Now in the red tier, Sonoma County businesses can allow more customers indoors and resume close to normal operations.
The counties moved into the red tier officially on March 14 and some businesses were immediately ready for the looser restrictions.
It has been some time since Sonoma County restaurants have been able to host customers indoors. Aiden Vaziri and Esther Mobley at the San Francisco Chronicle said, “...Sonoma County restaurants can open for indoor dining for the first time in six months.” Restaurants may now open at 25% indoor capacity or 100 people, whichever is less.
Restaurants can expand service, but breweries and distilleries that do not serve food can only reopen with reservations. Bars that do not serve food must stay closed.
According to Vaziri and Mobley, not all restaurants are rushing to open indoor dining. Many restaurants have created outdoor dining areas to accommodate the purple tier restrictions and are reluctant to open indoor dining while employees are still unvaccinated.
Sonoma State University student Abe Lopez Ibarra, who works at a local Dutch Bros Coffee, said the pandemic has been, “...a lot of trial and error…”, which has included closing the shop’s patio, finding new ways to hand out items to customers without contact and eliminating pre-shift meetings. Ibarra kept a positive attitude and said, “It's been very stressful at times but with the crew we have, we like to stay as positive as possible in times like these.”
Restaurants are not the only businesses allowed to open indoors. Gyms, movie theaters and museums are allowed to resume business as well. While gyms can only open to 10% indoor capacity, Johnson wrote that museums, theaters, aquariums and zoos can open at 25% capacity.
While restaurants and similar shops have been quite restricted, retail and grocery stores have had more flexibility when it comes to capacity. In the red tier, retail stores and malls can increase their indoor capacity to 50% while they previously had to be at 25% capacity. Grocery stores can increase capacity from 50% to full capacity.
Another change that Johnson mentioned is that schools can resume in-person instruction for kindergarten through grade 12 with some modifications, a relief for working parents with younger children.
The Press Democrat created a page on their website to make finding statistics on COVID-19 easier. The page is titled Coronavirus Numbers and breaks down COVID-19 statistics by county, state and the United States as a whole. According to the Coronavirus Numbers webpage, 185,177 vaccines have been administered in Sonoma County as of March 15.
The California Blueprint for a Safer Economy website states that tier requirements are set to adjust again when the state reaches four million vaccines administered. Updated information on tier requirements can be found on the California Blueprint for a Safer Economy website along with vaccination and testing information.
Starting on April 15, Californians who are 16 years or older can receive a COVID-19 vaccine and California residents 50 or older will all be eligible to receive a vaccine on April 1.
Read MoreAs the COVID-19 pandemic continues and vaccine eligibility expands to include more demographics, multiple pharmaceutical companies have begun vaccine trials for children. Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech have each started testing vaccine doses with children, and Johnson & Johnson has authorized its own vaccine trials as well.
Read MoreIn President Biden’s first prime-time television address last Thursday, he declared for all American adults to be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccination by May 1 this year.
Read MoreLess than one year after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, three different vaccines against the disease have been approved for distribution to the American public. While over 150 other varieties of the COVID-19 vaccine remain in development, the three that have advanced successfully through clinical trials are two mRNA vaccines and one viral vector vaccine, from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson companies, respectively.
Read MoreSonoma County is one of two counties in the Bay Area remaining in the most severe tier of California’s COVID-19 case tracking system, the purple tier. In order to advance to the next tier, the two counties needed maintain the metrics of the red tier for two weeks straight.
Read MoreLast Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a new set of recommendations for fully vaccinated individuals moving forward into the pandemic. In a press release, the CDC outlined changes in activities that vaccinated people may participate in, hoping to create the first step of many toward returning to normalcy.
Read MoreAmericans have watched frontline workers and elderly folks get vaccinated for months, and now California is offering two opportunities for its citizens to get vaccinated through means unrelated to their age or employment.
Read MoreLast Tuesday, a Sonoma County resident checked into an unidentified local pharmacy and presented the UK variant of COVID-19 in their test sample.
According to the CDC, the UK variant is a mutation and has thus created a different strain of COVID-19 that is far more contagious with the ability to spread quicker and easier than other strains. The CDC also states that the, “...variant may be associated with an increased risk of death compared with other variants.”
Read MoreAs more shots are administered to individuals across the nation, the CDC is able to maintain an updated list of vaccine side effects by utilizing a new smartphone tool that checks-in with vaccine recipients through text messages and web surveys.
Read MoreAs the COVID-19 vaccine continues to be distributed worldwide, Sonoma County is coming across some setbacks with their rollout because they are running out of dosages. Vaccine appointments are getting canceled because of the shortage in supply. This mainly includes appointments for school employees, as they are the group next in line.
Read MoreThe Rec Center has a lot going on at the moment with the opening of the outdoor workout space as well as a new partnership for students with the workout app called F45.
Read MoreGolf legend and 15-time major champion Tiger Woods had gotten into a rollover car crash last Tuesday around 7:00 a.m. in Palos Verdes. Woods’s future on the course is now uncertain due to a severe leg injury he obtained during the crash.
Read MoreIn addition to the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, a third single-dose vaccine has now been approved by the FDA. Johnson & Johnson, the corporation that is best known for creating Tylenol, has produced a vaccine with new advantages.
Read MoreWhen Sonoma State University turned to remote learning at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals in the school’s community started to experience struggles with their mental health in response to the life-altering restrictions of virtual learning, lock-downs, social isolation and so much more.
Read MoreStarting in early Sept. Scientists discovered a new variant of Covid-19 in California that showed signs of being deadlier and more infectious than other variants of the virus.
Read MoreSonoma State University is putting on Town Hall events this month on the impacts of Covid-19 and how it has affected people. These Town Hall’s will be held on zoom and will be available for staff and faculty only.
Read MoreDuring Spring semester, the School of Extended and International Education (SEIE) along with the Sonoma State University Alumni Association (SSUAA) will be hosting 12 virtual “Pop-up” Self Care events every Friday from Feb. 12 to May 7 at 12 p.m. These virtual sessions will take place on Zoom and are presented by Dr. Andy Wallace, professor, chair of the philosophy department and a program coordinator/instructor for the SEIE.
Read MoreSonoma State University's No. 1 source for news on campus and events.
Nichols Hall 323, 1801 East Cotati Ave
Rohnert Park, CA 94928
Telephone: 707-664-2776
Advertising:
sonomastatestar@gmail.com
Corrections, News Tips, Business: star@sonoma.edu
News
Opinion
Arts & Entertainment
Student Life
