In California: State aims to take control of COVID-19 vaccine, and gorillas get better

Millions may have to repay jobless aid, a strong winter storm heads straight for California, and San Diego gorillas are on the mend.

Greetings from Palm Springs. I’m Robert Hopwood, online producer for The Desert Sun, bringing you a daily roundup of the top news from across California.

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Taking control of vaccine delivery

California is revamping its coronavirus vaccine delivery system by centralizing its hodgepodge of county systems and streamlining appointment sign-up, notification and eligibility for its 40 million residents. 

On Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom named Yolanda Richardson as secretary of the government operations agency that will lead operations and delivery. She will work with private third-party administrators, as yet unnamed, to decide where the state’s supply of vaccine should go.

The change should mean that counties and hospital networks — which have been scheduling appointments and determining eligibility under broad state guidance—move at a more uniform pace. California has been dinged for vaccinating relatively few people —compared to other states — even amid a national vaccine shortage.

It wasn't clear how the change might affect mass vaccination sites or people who have received first doses but still require second shots. 

Strong winter storm to bring downpours, snow

A strong winter storm barreled toward California on Tuesday, bringing the threat of downpours that could unleash destructive debris flows from wildfire burn scars as well as a heavy dump of snow in the Sierra Nevada.

Evacuation orders were issued in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties around the area scorched by a complex of wildfires ignited by lightning last August. The state Office of Emergency Services positioned strike teams and task forces in five counties.

The atmospheric river — a huge plume of moisture extending over the Pacific — was expected to be preceded by lighter prefrontal rain before intensifying Tuesday evening, hitting the North Bay first, then spreading south to Santa Cruz, Monterey and Big Sur.

Flash flood watches were issued for two other Northern California areas scorched by lightning complexes, and snow was forecast to fall as low as the floor of the Sacramento Valley. Travel was more than just discouraged in the mountains above the valley.

In the Sierra Nevada, the closure of Yosemite National Park was extended to at least Jan. 30.

Audit: Millions may have to repay jobless aid

The California Employment Development Department might have overpaid millions of people since March after it stopped enforcing some eligibility rules so they could process claims faster, according to a new audit released Tuesday.

As millions of claims poured in, during the height of state restrictions on businesses, state officials decided to stop doing some of the time-consuming work necessary to make sure people who applied for benefits were eligible to get them. They also stopped their bimonthly checks with people who were already getting benefits to make sure they were still eligible to receive them.

The result: Up to 4.1 million claimants could have to repay some or all of the unemployment benefits they got during the pandemic — some through no fault of their own.

A new report from California State Auditor Elaine Howle on Tuesday found the agency has "no clear plan" to address that backlog, saying it "represents a workload never before seen by the department." 

Howle said the decision to stop enforcing some eligibility rules to speed up payments was "drastic," especially given the agency appears not to have learned from its mistakes in the 10 years since the Great Recession.

Howle said previous audits of the agency have revealed its lack of planning for recessions, poor management of call centers and a laborious training program for new employees that hindered its ability to respond to any surge in claims.

But in the decade since the last unemployment peak, Howle said agency officials adopted no meaningful major reforms. Employment Development Director Rita Saenz hinted in a response letter that the blame lies partly on the Legislature, which usually only pays significant attention to the agency during a recession. 

State reveals COVID-19 data

California’s health department has released previously secret projections for future hospital intensive care unit capacity throughout the state. However, state officials did not explain how regional per capita virus cases and transmission rates that also were released might influence how much ICU space will be available in four weeks.

In December, Newsom announced a stay-at-home order that was based on ICU capacity in each of five regions. Any region that fell below 15% had new restrictions imposed.

Four of the regions fell under the stay-at-home order and three remained there until Monday, when state health officials announced that four-week projections showed them rising above the 15% threshold and Newsom said the order was lifted.

At a news conference with Newsom, California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly promised to reveal some of the information behind the projections. The agency released a chart showing projections for regional ICU capacity, along with per capita cases and transmission rates.

• The state said the Southern California region will go from no ICU capacity under the state’s weighted formula to 33.3% capacity in four weeks.
• The San Joaquin Valley just to the north will jump from 0% to 22.3%, the state projects
• The San Francisco Bay Area will reach 25%, up from 8.2% now.
• The Greater Sacramento region is projected to have 27.3% capacity. It’s currently at 9.9%.
• Only the rural Northern California region never was under the order. However, the state now projects its capacity will fall from 47.9% to 18.9%.

Follow rules or no more vaccines

Santa Clara County health officials are withholding COVID-19 vaccines from a hospital after it offered the vaccine to about 65 teachers and staffers from a wealthy school district in Silicon Valley, skipping people over 65 and health care workers. 

Teachers and staff at Los Gatos Union School District received an email last Thursday from Superintendent Paul Johnson offering vaccines ahead of schedule. 

In the email, first reported by the San Jose Spotlight news outlet, Johnson said the hospital's offer was made in gratitude because the district raised funds for 3,500 meals that went to frontline workers at Good Samaritan and another hospital.

Teachers, per the email, were told to impersonate health care workers despite the threat of perjury — with the approval of COO Gary Purushotham — to obtain access to the vaccine. 

In a letter from the county obtained by the SFGATE news website, Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, the county's COVID-19 vaccine officer, said that the Good Samaritan Hospital's actions "are inconsistent with both the letter and spirit" of California's vaccine protocol. 

Santa Clara County will provide second doses for those who received their initial shot at Good Samaritan. But additional doses will be withheld "unless and until Good Samaritan provides sufficient assurances it will follow state and county direction on vaccine eligibility," Fenstersheib said. 

$25 million to help Children's Hospital L.A.  

The Children’s Hospital Los Angeles has received an anonymous $25 million gift, according to CNN.

The gift is one of the largest donations in the hospital’s history, according to President and CEO Paul Viviano.

The money will be used to create a multidisciplinary Neurological Institute Outpatient Center and improve the hospital’s interventional radiology.

Gorillas prognosis improves after antibody therapy

A troop of gorillas at San Diego Zoo Safari Park in Escondido appears to be recovering from COVID-19

The western lowland gorillas were infected with a variant that has been circulating in California and is believed to be more contagious than other strains, the safari park said in a statement. Some gorillas showed symptoms including mild coughing, congestion and intermittent lethargy.

A 49-year-old silverback named Winston had pneumonia, likely caused by the virus, as well as heart disease. He has been more active since being put on antibiotics and heart medication, and receiving an antibody treatment, San Diego Zoo Safari Park said in a statement. 

The animals' fecal matter is no longer testing positive for the virus, according to the park's executive director, Lisa Peterson.

Disney’s Jungle Cruise updated over racial insensitivity criticism

Jungle Cruise, one of the original Disney parks' rides, is getting a 21st century remodel following years of criticism the ride is racially insensitive.

The ride will be updated by Disney Iimagineers at the Disneyland park in California and the Magic Kingdom park in Florida with a new storyline and characters that "reflect and value the diversity of the world around us," Disney said in a blog post.

The ride, which first opened at Disneyland in 1955, had been criticized for its depiction of animatronic indigenous people as savages or headhunters.

That's all for this Tuesday. We'll be back in your inbox tomorrow with more headlines from the Golden State.

In California is a roundup of news from across USA Today network newsrooms. Also contributing: The Associated Press and CNN.