Coachella Valley coronavirus news and info | Sunday evening, May 3

By
Casey Dolan
-
(?: Sharon Calcagno)

Cactus Hugs has been tracking local stories about the coronavirus.   For a rundown of all of our updates, click here. Stay safe, stay at a good social distance.

Thank you for your continued support of Cactus Hugs. For ways to keep this website going (and free!), click here.

As of 3 pm Sunday, Riverside County officials have confirmed:

  • 4,180 people have tested positive for COVID-19.  16 people have tested positive in the last 24 hours.  
  • 161 people are confirmed to have died in the county from the coronavirus. There were no people reported dead in the last 24 hours.
  • There are currently 211 confirmed cases hospitalized, with 78 of them in the ICU.
  • There have been 1,971 official recovered cases in the county.
  • The county has conducted 53,333 tests.

As of 3 pm Saturday, San Bernardino County has confirmed 2,182 cases of COVID-19.  There have been 97 deaths in San Bernardino County.

As of 3 pm Sunday, there have been 54,752 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in California.  There have been 2,212 confirmed deaths in the state.

The numbers are increasing everyday.  They are not just numbers.  They are people.  The individual stories are heartbreaking:

The nation’s nursing homes have seen 20,000 coronavirus deaths and counting.  They are already pushing back against a potential flood of lawsuits with a sweeping lobbying effort to get states to grant them emergency protection from claims of inadequate care. “As our care providers make these difficult decisions, they need to know they will not be prosecuted or persecuted,” read a letter sent this month from several major hospital and nursing home groups to Gov. Gavin Newsom. He has yet to make a decision on the issue.

The coronavirus is still spreading in the United States, because efforts to contain it have been incomplete at best, public health experts warned on Sunday. “We’re looking at the prospect that this may be a persistent spread,” said Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration said, Coronavirus case counts continue to rise in 20 states, including Illinois, Texas and Maryland, even as some states are beginning to relax restrictions.

The federal government will begin shipping this week “tens of thousands” of courses of remdesivir, a drug that has showed promising results treating people with coronavirus, shortening the duration of the illness.   The US Department of Health and Human Services has not yet said how and where the drugs will be distributed.

The University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine are attempting to train scent detection dogs to tell the difference between lab samples from COVID-19 positive patients and COVID-19 negative patients.  According to the University, dogs have 300 million smell receptors which uniquely positions the animals to aid in disease detection. By comparison, humans have only six million smell receptors.  Cynthia Otto, the head of the study says dogs are able to detect low amounts of organic compounds associated with diseases like ovarian cancer, bacterial infections, and nasal tumors. “The potential impact of these dogs and their capacity to detect COVID-19 could be substantial,” she said.

The California Highway Patrol issued far less speeding tickets between March 19 and April 19 than in 2019.  According to the Desert Sun, there were 376 speeding citations in or near the Coachella Valley this year, down down 75% from the 1,527 issued the previous year.

And though while it may be tempting to speed up a bit on the emptier than normal roads, the CHP asks that you don’t:

A group of about 75 people left home to gather in a crowd, close together, many without masks, to protest the the state’s health order in Rancho Cucamonga on Sunday:

How do Inland Empire colleges like Cal State San Bernardino, UC Riverside, and Redlands University plan on handling the fall semester?  The Press Enterprise has a rundown of where those and other colleges stand as of now.

The coronavirus has led to the cancellation of 29 county fairs, including the state’s two largest, in Orange and San Diego Counties. At least 23 other fairs scheduled during August, September and October (including the LA County Fair) are waiting to see if restrictions on large gatherings will be lifted in time for their events to proceed.

The San Diego Tourism Authority has laid out plans to reopen Legoland, Seaworld, and other attractions once California enters into Phase 3 of easing stay at home orders.  Among the protocols: all employees are subjected to wellness checks, employees and visitors  must wear masks, lowered attendance, and making narrow pathways once-way.

If you are a senior (or you know a senior) who is need of food, there are options:

Donald Trump will take part in a virtual town hall called “America Together: Returning to Work” which will air from 4 – 7 pm Sunday night on, you guessed it:

Meanwhile, former President George W. Bush released a video asking Americans to unite during the pandemic:

A local massage therapist and esthetician showed KESQ her invention, The Plexi-Face – an acrylic guard that sits over a person’s head, that she believes will protect her clients once her business is allowed to reopen.

Finally, we just can’t catch a break these days:

That’s all for this evening. Stay safe. Stay smart. Stay home.

Thank you for your continued support of Cactus Hugs.

Important information:

Congressman Raul Ruiz has posted a list of local resources and information.

The Washington Post offers plenty of ways that you can help during the coronavirus pandemic.

If you see someone price gouging, there is now a number for that.

The New York Times has an interactive map where you can track every coronavirus case in the United States.

The Washington Post is out with a guide to what you should know about the coronavirus.

Here is a memo by the Department of Homeland security identifying critical infrastructure workers.

The United Way of the Desert has assembled a nice list of information and resources available during the coronavirus here.

These are scary and anxious times.  Be safe and kind to each other out there and, please, remember to wash your hands.

Anything we missed? Let us know about it.

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