California Shifts To SMARTER Strategy For Living With COVID-19
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced the state’s plans for the next phase of the coronavirus pandemic, with an emphasis on prevention and quick reactions to outbreaks over mandates. The new strategy is summed up with a new acronym: SMARTER, which stands for Shots, Masks, Awareness, Readiness, Testing, Education and Rx, the abbreviation for prescriptions and a reference to improving treatments for COVID-19.
“This disease is not going away,” Newsom told The Associated Press in advance of his formal announcement. “It’s not the end of the quote, unquote, war.” There will be no definitive turn of the switch, Newsom said, and there will be no immediate lifting of the dozens of remaining executive emergency orders that have been in place since March 2020.
As we enter this next stage, California’s health secretary, Dr. Mark Ghaly, said one of the goals is to avoid business closures and other far-reaching mandates. However, he said the state’s requirement that schoolchildren be vaccinated against coronavirus by fall remains in effect.
Today on AirTalk, Larry talks about the new plan and where California goes from here with Jackie Fortiér, health reporter for KPCC & LAist and Dr. Dean Blumberg, professor of medicine and chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at UC Davis Children’s Hospital.
With files from the Associated Press
COVID-19 AMA: Why The F.D.A. Delayed Review Of Vaccines For Kids Under 5, BA.2 Omicron Subvariant Appears More Severe, And More
In our continuing series looking at the latest medical research and news on COVID-19, Larry Mantle speaks with Dr. Dean Blumberg, professor of medicine and chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at UC Davis Children’s Hospital.
Topics today include:
- WSJ: Lower Omicron efficacy delayed F.D.A. review on Pfizer shot in kids under 5
- Lab studies point to signs of severity with the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron
- Orange County hospitalizations dip below 400 patients for the first time since December
As California unveils its endemic strategy, here's what other western states are doing:
- Washington State to drop mask mandate, including for schools, next month
- New Mexico to end indoor mask mandate immediately
- U.S. ramping up vaccination assistance to 11 African countries
On Land And Beneath The Sea, This UC Riverside Professor Is Discovering Links To The Past To Inspire Future Generations Of Black Archeologists
Archeology and the discovery of artifacts is, in essence, history you can touch. It’s concrete, undeniable proof of something that happened at some point or someone who was somewhere at a certain time and place in history. And that’s the part of their work that Ayana Omilade Flewellen says they find the most fascinating. The anthropology professor at UC Riverside is part of a group of less than one percent of Black archeologists in that research community, according to a recent interview they did with the Pasadena Star News, and their research lives at the intersection of race, Black and African diaspora history, Black feminism, dress and adornment, and terrestrial and maritime archeology. Their curiosity and work have led them from plantations in the American south to the sunken wreckage of ships from the transatlantic slave trade off the coast of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. But they are also working to engage and inspire a new generation of Black archeologists through their work with the international nonprofit they co-founded, the Society of Black Archeologists. They told the Star News that in a field that they think a lot of people see right now as one mostly for old White men, “...in the future I see, it’s a practice that roots how humanity existed in the past and connects it to what we’re experiencing today.”
Today on AirTalk, Professor Ayana Omilade Flewellen joins us to talk about their personal journey as an archeologist, the work they’re doing to increase diversity in the field of archeology and inspire and train the next generation of Black archeologists and why it’s more important now than ever before to understand the connections between our past and how it informs our present.
FilmWeek: ‘Uncharted,’ ‘Kimi,’ ‘The Long Walk’ And More
Larry Mantle and KPCC film critics Amy Nicholson and Peter Rainer review this weekend’s new movie releases on streaming and on demand platforms. Plus, an interview with director Rebecca Hall about her debut feature film “Passing.”
The Personal Connection Yet Universal Story Of Rebecca Hall’s Critically Acclaimed ‘Passing’
Rebecca Hall is known for her acting career, but she recently made her feature directorial debut with the film “Passing.” She also wrote the screenplay, which is adapted from Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel of the same name. It tells the story of two light-skinned Black women and childhood friends living very different adult lives as one lives in a community in Harlem and the other passes as white. Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga star in the film. Our own John Horn talked with Hall about her own family’s history with the phenomenon of “Passing” and why telling this story was so important to her. “Passing” is rated PG-13. It’s available on Netflix.