With COVID-19 On The Rise, County Plans For Vaccine Roll-Outs

San Diego County health officials reported 1,052 new COVID-19 infections and eight additional deaths on Thursday. San Diego surpassed 75,000 cases for the region on Wednesday. In total there have been 996 deaths in San Diego county from the virus. A total of 10 new community outbreaks were confirmed Wednesday. Over the previous seven days, 76 community outbreaks were confirmed. A community outbreak is defined as three or more COVID-19 cases in a setting and in people of different households over the past 14 days. San Diego County supervisors voted on wednesday to provide another 20 million dollars in relief for small businesses hurt by COVID-19 pandemic. One business that could use that relief is Bivouac Ciderworks in North Park. Owner Lara Worm, says she's following the public health order to shutter indoor business operations - one of the criteria for receiving funds.. But, she says understands why other businesses don't feel like that's an option. LW: It gets exhausting and it really gets demoralizing. So I think at this last round of shutdowns, shutting indoor dining again, I think people are just fed up and they're really scared that this is their last hope. County supervisors say they hope the $20 million in relief will help small businesses stay afloat until the middle of next year when a vaccine might be available. Meanwhile...Local hospitalizations reached a record high this week. San Diego-based staffing agency Aya Healthcare is helping US hospitals get the extra nurses they need. April Hansen leads Aya's workforce solutions and clinical services. She says they're seeing the highest volume of requests since the pandemic began. They're balancing all of the normal ailments that bring people into hospitals and they have the complexity of covid on top of that, caring for patients that are suffering with covid-19 right now is very time and labor intensive. She says hospitals are mostly seeking ICU nurses and requests for travel nurses are inching up again. At least one local hospital expressed concern that the high national demand for travel nurses will limit availability. It’s Friday, November 27th. This is San Diego News Matters from KPBS News. I’m Anica Colbert. Stay with me for more of the local news you need to start your day. Imperial County was among the hardest-hit in the state early in the pandemic. Now, a surge in cases is putting the rural region to the test again. inewsource reporter Jennifer Bowman has more. Imperial County officials are calling it the second wave. The region's positivity rate for COVID-19 tests has doubled in the past month. But this time, leaders say they're ready. They've added beds and staff at the county's two hospitals and reopened a temporary care facility. Adolphe Edward heads the El Centro Regional Medical Center... EDWARD: "We are very well prepared for the second wave because of the first wave and the lessons we learned from it." (00:06) Imperial County transferred hundreds of patients earlier this year, including to neighboring San Diego County, but officials say the additional capacity should prevent that from happening again. For KPBS, I'm inewsource reporter Jennifer Bowman. That was Inewsource investigative reporter Jennifer Bowman. inewsource is an independently funded, nonprofit partner of KPBS. The Centers For Disease Control And Prevention has a message for anyone planning a holiday trip to Mexico: don't go. From the Fronteras Desk in Hermosillo, KJZZ's Kendal Blust reports. BLUST: The CDC has issued a red level 4 advisory stating that "travelers should avoid all travel to Mexico." Ignoring the warning could increase chances of contracting and spreading the coronavirus, the advisory says. And people who become infected with COVID-19 while traveling could be required to isolate or prevented from returning to the United States as scheduled. Those who must travel should be tested prior to, during and after the trip and carefully follow safety protocols including mask-wearing, social distancing and hand washing. There have been more than 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly 103,000 deaths in Mexico. The end of the year, starting around Thanksgiving, is typically the busiest time of year for grocery retailers. CapRadio's Sarah Mizes-Tan has more on how workers are faring during this period. Grocery industry spokespeople say this holiday season could be the busiest retail season they've had in years. Jacques Loveall, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union in Sacramento says grocery store workers are a high risk group. LOVEALL: This is kind of a sobering figure, statistically our members are ten times as likely to contract COVID or ten times as likely to succumb to COVID. Supermarket workers are in a pretty dangerous position. He says overall, out of his union's 35 thousand members, 400 have contracted the virus and 2 have died as a result of COVID. But he has seen the number of employees contracting the virus pick up in the last few weeks. There's been a series of promising announcements from COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers. One company Pfizer has already requested emergency use authorization, and if granted, vaccines could roll out as early as December 12. But how will vaccines get to San Diego and who will be first to receive them KPBS Health Reporter Tarryn Mento spoke to the architects of San Diego County's vaccine rollout plan – that’s Health and Human Services Agency Director Nick Macchione (mash-ee-OWN) and Public Health Officer Dr. Wilma Wooten. Here’s that interview done over Zoom. That's a part of Health Reporter Tarryn Mento's lengthy interview with Director Macchione and Dr. Wooten. Coming up on the podcast... Some long-planned water projects in the Colorado River basin have hit big roadblocks this year. "All the other times we thought it might go away, it never did." (0:05) The environmentalists who oppose the dams and pipelines are celebrating... cautiously. That story is next, just after the break. 2020 has been a tough year for some of the Colorado River basin's most controversial water projects. Proposals to divert water in New Mexico, Nevada and Utah have run up against significant legal, financial and political roadblocks. Now, It's still unclear whether they are really gone or just waiting in the wings. KUNC's Luke Runyon reports. TRACK: Laura Paskus is an environmental journalist in New Mexico. For years, she's been following the twists and turns of a long-proposed project in the state's southwest corner, called the Gila River Diversion. PASKUS3: "The most recent kind of plan was to build this diversion in the Cliff-Gila Valley. And provide water to irrigators..." TRACK: … like farmers and ranchers. It was initially proposed in 2004. And it came with a commitment of federal funds to cover some of the cost. Paskus says that kept the effort alive for more than a decade. PASKUS4: "But there was never a really solid plan of how it would be built, how it would be paid for." TRACK: And that's why the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission finally called it quits in June - AFTER seventeen million dollars had been spent on engineering plans and consultants over the years. SIWIK17: "It was a big surprise." TRACK: That's Allyson Siwik. She directs the Gila Conservation Coalition, one of the environmental groups opposed to the project. SIWIK: "Because all the other times we thought it might go away, it never did." TRACK: She says the total cost of the diversion project would have made the water it eventually provided unaffordable to those who wanted it. SIWIK16: "It was time. You just couldn't keep spending money on this, especially when the economics, the financials just didn't pencil out." TRACK: A similar drama played out in Nevada earlier this year. For decades water providers in Las Vegas have been pursuing a plan to pump groundwater from northern Nevada, and pipe it 300 miles to the fast-growing metro area in the Mojave Desert. ROERINK13: "15, 20 years ago, you were hearing folks down in Vegas scream bloody murder that, 'if we don't get this water, you know the world is going to explode. TRACK: Kyle Roerink runs the Great Basin Water Network. The group formed specifically to oppose the so-called Las Vegas pipeline. ROERINK:"Children are gonna be starving and dying of dehydration .... and those were just scare tactics." TRACK: The Southern Nevada Water Authority, the agency pushing for the pipeline, hit legal hurdles this past spring. Just as the coronavirus pandemic was taking hold, a judge denied some water rights associated with it. A month later the authority chose not to appeal and tabled the pipeline all together. ROERINK12: "So that was almost a de facto white flag surrender." TRACK: Instead Roerink says, the water authority recommitted to aggressive conservation programs to keep water use in check while continuing to add new customers. That's something environmental advocates are hoping to replicate in southern Utah with the Lake Powell Pipeline. Zach Frankel is with the Utah Rivers Council. FRANKEL1: "The state of Utah is proposing to divert Colorado River water down the Lake Powell pipeline simply to use more of its water rights out of the Colorado River." TRACK: But political pressure from other users on the river is slowing it down. In September every other state that relies on the river besides Utah teamed up to say the project has too many unresolved issues to move forward. FRANKEL3: "We were pleasantly surprised to see six states come together to oppose the advancement of the Lake Powell pipeline. It's a very strong letter because it openly threatens litigation." TRACK: But just because one iteration of a project is sidelined, it doesn't mean it's gone forever. In New Mexico, journalist Laura Paskus says the water rights that are foundational to the project there are still held by the state and could be used to justify another diversion down the line. And climate change looms large over all of them... PASKUS11: "I think we're at least getting the idea now that these old style projects are just not going to work for so many reasons." TRACK: She says, the lesson here is that many of these proposals rely on 20th century ideas about our relationship to water in the arid West. And that plans will have to change as the region warms. That was KUNC’s Luke Runyon. This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Colorado River, produced in partnership with KUNC in northern Colorado, with support from the Walton Family Foundation. That’s it for the podcast today, thanks for listening and have a great day.