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Name Drop San Diego: Ellen Ochoa May 16, 2020

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Ellen Ochoa is a local and graduate of San Diego State University who became an astronaut and director of the Johnson Space Center. On this episode, she talks about her early days with NASA, how she lived and worked in space, where NASA is headed next and more.

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UCSD begins testing its students for COVID-19 | Gary Robbins May 16, 2020

Show notes

UC San Diego says it got off to a solid start during its first week of mass testing students for the novel coronavirus, with more than 300 undergraduates volunteering for the program by late Thursday. The figure could rise to around 500 — the goal for the week — when Friday’s figures are calculated.

The university hopes to test up to 5,000 of its residential students during a three-week period. The so-called “Return to Learn” project is part of an effort to largely open the campus to in-person classes during the fall quarter, which begins in September.

UCSD is the first major research university in the U.S. to begin mass testing students for a virus that has killed nearly 90,000 people nationwide. Students must volunteer for the self-administered tests, which generally take less than 10 minutes to complete. Results are typically available with 24 hours.

Campus officials are using social media and word-of-mouth campaigns to recruit students for the program, which might be offered to all of UCSD’s 65,000 students, faculty and staff if it proves to be successful.

Can he do that? Pandemic raises questions about limits to Newsom's power | Greg Moran May 15, 2020

Show notes

It was another Wednesday in California’s long lockdown spring, and late in the day Gov. Gavin Newsom signed off on Executive Order N-54-20.

The four pages of text began with seven “whereas” clauses laying out the reasons and purpose for what followed: a dozen densely worded paragraphs, suspending timelines and waiving requirements embedded in obscure corners of state regulations, from the Vehicle Code to the Public Resources Code.

The April 22 order was one of more than three dozen such orders Newsom has churned out since March 3, when he declared a state of emergency because of the coronavirus pandemic that has since killed 2,546 residents and sickened tens of thousands more.

With the Legislature not in Sacramento since mid-March, Newsom has effectively been a one-man government, and the executive orders have largely been the vehicle he has used. The Assembly returned on May 4 and the Senate is due back Monday which will likely bring governance back to something resembling what it was before the pandemic with more input from legislators.

Two hate incidents bring back memories of "Klantee" | Karen Pearlman May 13, 2020

Show notes

For years the East County city of Santee has tried to fix its image.

Racial incidents have occurred in the community, earning it the nickname “Klantee”

Local leaders have been trying to prove that these monikers aren’t representative of the community, but two recent incidents have made that more difficult. A man went shopping in a Santee Vons wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood, and another person wore a mask adorned with a swastika.

During this pandemic, racial and anti-Semitic actions are particularly troubling because economic downturns and other disasters have preceded systematic targeting of minorities in the past.

Who is organizing anti-shutdown protests in San Diego? | Joshua Emerson Smith May 12, 2020

Show notes

A group calling itself We Have Rights has recently started organizing large back-to-work protests throughout California, calling on state and local leaders to end social-distancing orders aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.

The group, which popped up in just the last two weeks, has a professional-looking website and growing social media presence, which provide details for upcoming events, instructions for dealing with the media, highly produced Instagram videos, as well as T-shirts and other branded merchandise for sale.

The campaign — which turned out hundreds of anti-lockdown protesters from San Diego to Sacramento starting May 1 and continuing through this weekend — also has had a charismatic front woman with something of a controversial past: 38-year-old Vivienne Nicole Reign.

Reign, who has been living with her husband in a $3 million home in Newport Beach, according to legal documents, is currently embroiled in legal challenges concerning several neuropathy treatment clinics she owns and operates with a chiropractor. The defendants have maintained their innocence, denying claims brought by former clients of medical negligence, financial elder abuse and fraud.

How the Otay Mesa Detention Center became a COVID hotspot | Kate Morrissey May 12, 2020

Show notes

Immigration and Customs Enforcement over the past week has released 65 more detainees from Otay Mesa Detention Center who are medically vulnerable to COVID-19, a government attorney said during a court hearing Friday.

There are still more inside. Under court order in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, ICE identified a list of 131 people total in its custody at the facility who are medically vulnerable.

The agency had released two detainees by its first check-in with U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw on Monday. Sabraw had ordered ICE to review cases at the facility — which has the biggest outbreak in San Diego County as well as in immigration detention nationwide — and release as many of the medical vulnerable as possible.

Some of those who haven’t yet been released are waiting for medical clearance because they either have already tested positive for the novel coronavirus or they are waiting for results. Two still need sponsors to live with in order to be released.

Name Drop San Diego — Jon Foreman May 09, 2020

Show notes

Jon Foreman is a musician, writer, surfer, philanthropist and San Diego local. In this episode, he talks about the early days of Switchfoot, how he stays creative, his favorite surf spots and more.

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What it's like to be tested for COVID-19 | Gary Warth May 08, 2020

Show notes

Publicly funded testing for COVID-19 in San Diego County had been reserved for people who had been referred to a testing site by a medical provider. That changed Tuesday when new state-fund testing sites opened in Escondido, Grossmont College in El Cajon and at a closed Sears in Chula Vista.

Expanding tests to people without symptoms will be a way for the county to better track the spread of the virus, and the new sites together have a capacity of performing almost 800 tests daily.

The state contracted with Optum, which is part of UnitedHealth Group, to find 80 locations in California for the sites, and Optum has contracted with labs to get results from samples collected. The wait for results usually is 48 to 72 hours.

Cruise ships plan to set sail in the fall. Should they? | Lori Weisberg May 07, 2020

Show notes

In recent weeks, mammoth ocean liners have been moving in and out of San Diego’s downtown harbor, a welcome sign, in normal times, of a thriving cruise industry pumping tens of millions of dollars into the local economy.

But these are not ordinary times.

Far from signaling prosperity, the three Celebrity and Disney ships that are intermittently parked alongside San Diego’s waterfront are grim reminders of a global industry abruptly idled by the coronavirus, sickening people on land — and at sea. Instead of readying the ships docked here for future voyages to the Mexican Riviera and Panama Canal, the cruise lines are grappling with how to return hundreds of crew members still on board to their home countries in the Philippines and India. A few of the crew remain infected with the COVID-19 illness.

Where the Port of San Diego had forecast about 104 cruise calls accounting for 338,000 passengers through the end of its current cruise season this month, those numbers have now plunged by 30 percent since cruising was closed for business March 14 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The economic hit is estimated to be more than $50 million.

While the CDC’s extended “no sail order” isn’t due to expire until the end of July — well ahead of the scheduled fall start of San Diego’s new cruise season — no one really knows for sure when cruising, in whatever revamped form it takes, will resume. Major cruise lines last week began canceling many summer and fall sailings but not in San Diego.

Long before the coronavirus crash, port officials here had been anticipating a robust 135 cruise calls, accounting for close to half a million passengers, for the 2020-21 cruise season.

Are San Diego’s retail stores actually reopening Friday? | Brittany Meiling May 06, 2020

Show notes

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Monday announcement about the reopening of some retail businesses by Friday had both shoppers and shop owners anticipating a swift change in San Diego County.

But concerns are rising as to whether any changes will come to fruition.

Newsom announced yesterday that low-risk retail companies such as bookstores, music stores, toy shops, florists, sporting goods retailers and others can reopen for curbside service Friday under guidelines to be announced Thursday.

This has led to some confusion, though, as many aren’t clear which stores are considered low-risk and which aren’t — and no clarifications will be made until the day before shops are allowed to reopen, government officials said.

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