Coachella Valley coronavirus news and info | Wednesday, May 6

By
Casey Dolan
-
(?: Liza Rios)

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 4 pm Tuesday, Riverside County officials have confirmed:

  • 4,454 people have tested positive for COVID-19.  100 people have tested positive in the last 24 hours.  
  • 184 people are confirmed to have died in the county from the coronavirus. There were 3 new people reported dead in the last 24 hours.
  • There are currently 215 confirmed cases hospitalized, with 75 of them in the ICU.
  • There have been 1,997 official recovered cases in the county.
  • The county has conducted 58,878 tests.

As of 3 pm Tuesday, San Bernardino County has confirmed 2,329 cases of COVID-19.  There have been 101 deaths in San Bernardino County.

As of 10 pm Tuesday, there have been 58,724 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in California.  There have been 2,379 confirmed deaths in the state.

There has been a lot of debate about and misinformation posted regarding the reported numbers.  The Financial Times has been tracking total reported deaths in 2020 vs previous years in a handful of countries.  While, typically, year-to-year numbers of deaths would be about the same, they are not this year. And it’s not even close. One example: In the United Kingdom, there were 43,000 more deaths than normal in March and April, yet only 22,000 COVID-19 deaths reported.  Other countries have also seen a much larger number of deaths than usual:

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

Children are falling ill with perplexing inflammatory syndrome thought to be linked to the coronavirus. While the number of cases remains small, officials are on high alert because of severity. “Not in my lifetime have I seen anything remotely similar to what’s going on right now,” a doctor with Boston’s Children’s Hospital told the Washington Post.

After days of signaling they would vote to rescind their own health officials’ orders, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously after 11 hours of hearings to do nothing until at least Friday.  The board was considering lifting the orders on orders that directed schools to close, allowed golf courses to reopen, restricted short-term vacation rentals, and mandated the use of face coverings and social distancing in public places.  The vote to punt the vote means that the county will now wait until after Gov. Gavin Newsom releases details on how local governments figure into the state’s reopening plan, which is expected on Thursday.

After testing 4,160 people in San Francisco’s Mission District for COVID-19 and antibodies last week, officials found that while Latinos made up 44% of those tested, they accounted for more than 99% of the positive COVID-19.  They also found that 90% of those who tested positive were unable to work from home and more than half of those tested who tested positive — 53% — had no symptoms of the illness.

Two additional testing sites are now running in the Coachella Valley, joining the fairgrounds in Indio.  They are located at the Mecca Boys and Girls Club and Lozano Community Center in Desert Hot Springs.  Anyone can be tested, but you must first make an appointment either online or by calling (888) 634-1123. Testing is open for everyone regardless of insurance or immigration status.

It’s National Nurses Day today and they have a message for you:

A day after Vice President Mike Pence told reporters the White House was looking to wind down its coronavirus task force, President Donald Trump said the team has done a “fantastic job.”  He also tweeted that the task force would continue “indefinitely,” but with a focus on the economy and not necessarily on public health:

A study projects that California’s tourism industry is on track to lose more than $72 billion in visitor spending this year. The study also found the pandemic will affect 613,000 California jobs by the end of May, more than half the tourism industry’s workforce.

The private sector in the United States lost 20.2 million jobs in April, according to ADP’s private jobs report — the worst monthly job loss in the report’s history.  “Job losses of this scale are unprecedented. The total number of job losses for the month of April alone was more than double the total jobs lost during the Great Recession,” Ahu Yildirmaz, co-head of the ADP Research Institute said.

Caltrans has allowed food trucks to set up at rest stops during the pandemic in a move aimed to feed truckers and help small businesses.  As the Press Enterprise notes, most of the permits pulled have been for areas up north in the state, but, Jitterz, a Moreno Valley coffee drive-thru and Tacos El Javi have permits to operate at Whitewater rest area just west of Palm Springs.

La Quinta has awarded 37 businesses zero-percent interest loans totaling $335,000 as part of its  “COVID-19 Small Business Economic Relief Program.” The city received nearly 100 applications, but only about half were eligible for the program.  Beginning today, the city has changed some of the requirements, allowing home-based businesses and those with over 25 employees to apply.  You can apply here.

Finneas –  the musician, producer, and brother to Billie Eilish – has an idea for what this fall’s Coachella festival might look like:

Finally, local author Maggie Downs captured this photo that caught our eye:

That’s all for this morning. 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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