Dear Friends,

You may decide that the next two weeks are an ideal time to learn more about the coronavirus.  Face it, we are all stuck with this virus and its impact for a while (read:  months!).  You can choose to ignore, to do basic coping, or dig in and learn some more.

I chose to dig in and learn some more.  Johns Hopkins University, home of the world famous School of Public Health, has been a pioneer in online education in public health for decades.  They have created some high quality, very accessible online courses on the coronavirus which are designed for lay people.  

Yes, that's you, the non-public health expert who is nonetheless smart enough to take an online course on this super important topic. For sure, you can take this course if you have no intention of becoming a Contact Tracer for the Yolo County Health Department.  You can take this course to learn more about CV to help you and your family understand how and why to protect yourselves.  

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Upper Crust’s apple pies will be among the choices available at the Davis Farmers Market on Dec. 23. (Courtesy photo)

(From press release) The Davis Farmers Market will offer additional vendors for its Wednesday, Dec. 23 market, with last-minute shopping for holiday meals and gifts.

That market will have regular Wednesday hours ­– 3 to 6 p.m. – in Central Park, 301 C St., Davis. As is tradition for the Wednesday market between Christmas and New Year’s Day, the Dec. 30 market will be closed. The Saturday markets on Dec. 26 and Jan. 2 will be open with regular hours – 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The Davis Farmers is filled with farm-fresh products like citrus and pomegranates, poinsettias, nuts and nut butters, juices and veggies. There’s also table décor, meats, cheeses, olive oil, nuts, dried fruits, honey and wine. Several bakeries will have fresh-baked items like pies, breads, stuffing mixes and cookies.

There is no Gift Basket Central this year. However, there are pre-packaged gift bags of market merchandise, and baskets shoppers may buy to create their own collections from market goods such as honey, jams, nuts, wine, oils, lotions, soaps, salts, masks, Kettlepop, coffee beans and bakery treats.

Year-round, rain or shine, the Davis Farmers Market is open from 3 to 6 p.m. on Wednesdays, and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays. For more information, visit https://davisfarmersmarket.org or visit it on Facebook or Instagram.

Pastor William H. Lamar
Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church
1518 M Street NW
Washington DC 20005
Rev. Dr. Ianther M. Mills
Asbury United Methodist Church
926 11th Street
Washington DC 20001

Dear Pastor Lamar and Rev. Dr. Mills,

The Celebration of Abraham is an interfaith group in Davis California. We write to offer our condolences and express our outrage over the December 12th, violent attacks on your congregations. As people of faith, we believe that the religious freedom and free speech rights of your congregations were trampled on by the perpetrators of these attacks. The obvious racism of the actions violates the universal tenet embedded in all our faiths that the dignity of each individual is sacred. Your public statements of hope and healing reminds us that we can get through this and build a better, more loving future.

We will keep you and your congregants in our prayers and hearts.

Sincerely,

Helen Roland Cramer, Chair
Celebration of Abraham

By Wendy Weitzel

Artists need their work to be seen and heard. But a statewide arts advocate says the arts industry is being overlooked in the pandemic.

Julie Baker, executive director of California Arts Advocates and for the statewide nonprofit Californians for the Arts, told some 25 participants at a Dec. 9 Arts Alliance Davis video meeting that their organizations need to demonstrate how essential they are.

“We want to be seen. We want to be part of the solution,” Baker said from her Nevada City base. “We’re an industry. We’re not a cause. We can support California socially and emotionally. We know that’s what the arts can bring.”

California Arts Advocates is the only statewide group that works to protect arts funding for the whole arts community. Baker said arts are 8 percent of the state’s economy, yet artists are often not seen as essential – or even recognized as workers. Two-thirds of artists are self-employed and don’t qualify for traditional unemployment. Some are truly starving artists.

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Dear Folks:

Below is the agenda item for the Board of Supervisors (BOS) meeting related to COVID-19.  The meeting starts at 9 a.m. Tuesday, December 15th.  (tomorrow).

The URL for the meeting is here: https://www.yolocounty.org/general-government/board-of-supervisors/board-meetings/board-of-supervisors-meeting-agendas-minutes

Please note:  When it comes to pandemics, "the buck stops" with the Supervisors.  

Please consider attending this meeting online tomorrow and see what your local government is doing to keep you safe.  There will be a presentation by the Yolo County Health Officer, Dr. Aimee Sisson, MD, MPH.

Regards,

John

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Dear Friends:

Sometimes it seems like it!  I do a lot of regular walking in both Davis and in the Bay Area and since "Winter" hit, it appears that there are far fewer walkers outside than before.

Maybe people are not really wimpy, maybe it is that they are confused by the requirements of the Health Order from our Yolo County Health Officer, Dr. Aimee Sisson, MD, MPH.

So, I wanted to make sure it was ok to go out walking because in general following the Health Order is a good idea!   With that in mind, I went to the Yolo County Dashboard this morning and clicked on:

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Dear Folks:

Quick but very exciting note from the news in the Bay Area.  

In Santa Clara County, East San Jose has had a lot of cases of coronavirus during this pandemic.  This is a heavily Latino population (muy buena gente!) who live in crowded settings due to EXTREMELY expensive housing, do a lot of front-line work, etc.  This population has greater exposure and greater incidence of coronavirus.

So, the Santa Clara County Director of Testing and Tracing, Dr. Fenstersheib (MD, MPH), reached into his bag of tricks and has directed his staff to go door to door in East San Jose and provide residents with test kits which they return to the Public Health Outreach Worker on the spot.  Results come back quickly.

This door to door direct service is a new thing in the US, but Public Health Departments in Mexico have been doing this kind of outreach for years via health department employees (often nurses) who provide vaccinations door to door in many parts of Mexico.  This results in a much higher pediatric vaccination rate than in the US.

Bravo to Santa Clara County for borrowing this public health methodology from Mexico and applying it here in the US.  It is very promising!

Regards,

John

PS  CBS News coverage of this new program: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/12/10/santa-clara-county-to-send-teams-door-to-door-to-administer-covid-tests/

Dear Folks,

Good evening!  I am trying to prepare for the Yolo County Health Council meeting which starts at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning so I hit the Yolo County Coronavirus Dashboards: https://www.yolocounty.org/health-human-services/adults/communicable-disease-investigation-and-control/novel-coronavirus-2019/dashboard-and-documents to see what I could find on contact tracing.

Why look up contact tracing?  According to this UC Davis Health piece on Coronavirus (https://www.yolocounty.org/health-human-services/adults/communicable-disease-investigation-and-control/novel-coronavirus-2019/dashboard-and-documents) I should be VERY interested in this activity because: "Contact tracing is crucial part of good public health."

OK, so what did I find about contact tracing in Yolo County on the Yolo Dashboards?  Um……Zilch.  Nada.  Bupkis.  Oh, my!

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