COVID-19: Bill Gates Speaks Truth | San Diego Has Fewer Than 200 New Cases, Lowest Since June 22nd | Must Streams | Kids Are Little COVID Vectors | Fiesta Island Pics

Ficus at Fiesta Island (Taken 8.11.2020)

Today was a pretty good day. I now see all the blowback on Biden announcing Kamala Harris as his running mate, but I'm pretty happy about it. I think it's a big deal for women, for people of color, particularly bi-racial people who don't see much representation in this world. Neither Biden nor Harris are without faults, and I would be voting blue no matter who, but I'm encouraged with this ticket. 
Anyway, we spent most of the day chillin' around the house but we did go to Fiesta Island for 'golden hour' with Ficus, who hasn't gotten much time outside the yard this quarantine. Mostly that's because she's a big scaredy cat and is always kinda limited on where she'll go, but the water was nice to splash around in, even if her hip is a little pained now. 
Other than that, I don't know why my volume of email seems to be increasing every day but it's nearly two in the morning and I just finished getting through everything. I'm gonna checkout and catch up on Housewives and veg out. Hoping to make it to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park on Wednesday for World Elephant Day and Zuli's birthday. Lots of stuff and today's stats after the jump.   

• Watchlist:
• The Peanut Butter Falcon - Hulu: This is an amazing buddy movie. I've never really liked Shia LaBeouf but this movie gave me all the feels and has so much charm while also a lot of fun and funny moments. I generally don't rewatch movies, but I will probably make an exception for this one. Also don't want to spoil it, just go in blind if you haven't seen this one. 
• Blackish Special Episode "Please Baby Please" - Hulu: Kenya Burris said that this episode about Trump was filmed in 2017 but ABC didn't air it then. It's powerful and potent and should be viewed far and wide. 
• Work It - Netflix: When I was watching this one with Nova, I almost turned it off. Another movie about a white girl who has to get into her 'dream school'. In this case, it's Duke. How come writers can't deviate from this formula. When it's a black or brown person, they're just happy to get into school but the white girl, when she realizes that her padded resume isn't enough to get her into her school becomes determined to make the championship dance squad at her school. When she fails spectacularly, she makes her black dancer best friend join her quest and summons a black choreographer who took about 3 minutes of refusing before relenting to help them, losing his job along the way. If you have a tween, this movie has it's entertainment value, but it took me awhile to get there because I was so irritated. I didn't know the main character is a singer/dancer in real life. 
• Anne Edmunds: What's Wrong With You? - Amazon Prime: Worth watching her bit on the phrase "You do you". 
• San Diego County Media Briefing (Tues & Thurs this week, due to County Budget Hearings on Monday and Wednesday) 
• Great Plates has been expanded 
• Will include more restaurants
• More people will be served, including adults with disabilities
• Majority of State backlog has been mostly resolved and numbers added to County statistics
• Enforcement continues to be frustrating. 
• Overwhelming amount of businesses are compliant, but there are "bad faith actors" doing blatant, willful, egregious violations. 
• County needs Cities to use their enforcement tools. County only has 3 tools: they can talk to the entity to ask for voluntarily compliance, County can draft and serve Cease and Desist, and County can draft and serve a public health closure notice. Can also issue citations, but requires law enforcement from that specific location to issue and Cities are defying. 
• County met with Mayor Faulconer and SDPD police chief to get more enforcement. 
• SDPD went to Boulevard Gym to issue citation today.  
• Inmates at correctional facilities have been removed from State data for counties
• San Diego is now meeting the metric for cases per 100k population. When we come off the State's monitoring list, the only sector that can reopen is schools.
• Until then, County is accepting waiver applications to submit to state
• Once we're off the State monitoring list for 3 days, then we have to have stable stats for 14 days, then on the 15th day, grades 7-12 can open. 
• State has authority for additional openings 
• Egregious violations are $1000 per day
• County would like to see swifter compliance measures
• New testing site at San Ysidro Pedestrian Plaza opens Wednesday
• California COVID-19 Stats:
• 12,500 New Cases/574,411 Total Cases (2.2% increase)
• 109 New Deaths/ 10,468 Total Deaths (1.1% increase)
• 6.1% 14-day test positivity rate
• COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO COVID-19 STATS:
• State Data:
• 5,468 New Cases (Last 14 Days)/32,977 Total Cases
• 61 Deaths (Last 14 Days)/594 Total Deaths
• 162.2 cases/100k population 
• 10.4% Test Positivity (Last 14 Days)
• County Data:
• 182* New Cases/33,157 Total Cases *First time under 200 since June 22
• 8 New Daily Deaths/602 Total Deaths
• 101.2 cases (105.3 State Reporting)/100k population 
• 3% Daily Test Positivity/4.8% Test Positivity (14-day average)
• Case Investigation is 97%
• 6 New/29 Community Outbreaks (7-day)/67 Active Outbreaks
• COVID-19 Reading
• Bill Gates on Covid: Most US Tests Are ‘Completely Garbage’: The techie-turned-philanthropist on vaccines, Trump, and why social media is “a poisoned chalice.” - Wired (8.7.2020)
• Schools/Kids:
• More Than 97,000 Children Test Positive for COVID in 2 Weeks - NBC San Diego (8.11.2020)
• ‘Months, Not Weeks,’ Until Students Can Return To San Diego Unified Schools - City News Service/KPBS (8.10.2020)
• Hospitalization Rates and Characteristics of Children Aged <18 Years Hospitalized with Laboratory-Confirmed COVID-19 — COVID-NET, 14 States, March 1–July 25, 2020 - CDC (8.7.2020)
• After buying some crappy spandex masksWearing a neck gaiter may be worse than no mask at all, researchers find - Washington Post (8.11.2020)
• Winter is Coming: Why America’s Window of Opportunity to Beat Back Covid-19 is Closing - STAT News (8.10.2020)
  “We should be aiming for no transmission before we open the schools and we put kids in harm’s way — kids and teachers and their caregivers. And so, if that means no gym, no movie theaters, so be it,” said Caroline Buckee, associate director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “We seem to be choosing leisure activities now over children’s safety in a month’s time. And I cannot understand that tradeoff.”
• Exclusive: Over 900 Health Workers Have Died of COVID-19. And the Toll Is Rising. KHN and The Guardian unveil an interactive database documenting front-line health care worker deaths. The majority of them are people of color — and nurses face the highest toll. - Kaiser Health News (8.11.2020)