In California: Newsom says stay-at-home orders will likely be extended

Plus: The world's third-richest woman donates $10 million to Goodwill, L.A. schools to remain closed, and an extraordinary encounter with bighorn sheep.

I'm Winston Gieseke, philanthropy and special sections editor for The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, happy to welcome you to this wonderful holiday week with some of the latest headlines from this great state of ours.

In California brings you top Golden State stories and commentary from across the USA TODAY Network and beyond. Get it free, straight to your inbox.

Newsom: Stay-at-home orders will 'likely' be extended

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday the regional three-week stay-at-home orders imposed by the state for all of Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley will probably be extended beyond next week's expiration date of Dec. 28.  

Other areas currently under stay-at-home orders include the greater Sacramento area and the Bay Area. Only sparsely populated Northern California has escaped the orders, as its ICU bed capacity has stayed above the 15% threshold.

Here's a look at the current available ICU capacity by region, and earliest possible day to lift stay-at-home orders:

• San Joaquin Valley: 0.0% (Dec. 28)
• Southern California: 0.0%  (Dec. 28)
• Greater Sacramento Region: 16.2% (earliest possible day to lift stay-at-home order: Jan. 1)
• Bay Area: 13.7% ( Jan. 8)
• Northern California: 28.7% (N/A)

"We are likely, I think it's pretty self-evident, going to need to extend those regional dates," Newsom said. "... Based upon all the data and based upon all these trend lines, it is very likely based on those current trends that we'll need to extend that stay-at-home order.''

It is not known when the decision will be made or how much longer the orders will remain in place.

Orange County is among those places wiping out previous records for new cases in a single day. On Sunday, it added 4,606 new coronavirus infections, shattering the county’s previous one-day high of 3,445, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Our hearts break for our neighbors lost to this pandemic,” county health officials wrote Sunday on Twitter. “We ALL have the power to protect each other and #stopthesurge.” To date, nearly 1,800 Orange County residents have died from COVID-19.

Governor back in quarantine after staffer tests positive

For the second time in two months, Newsom is in a precautionary coronavirus quarantine after one of his staffers tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday afternoon. Newsom was then tested, and his result came back negative, as did the tests of other staffers who were in contact.

Last month, members of the governor’s family were exposed to someone who tested positive for the virus. Newsom, his wife and four children tested negative at that time.

This time around, the governor will quarantine for 10 days.

Newsom has said California is experiencing “some of the darkest days of our COVID-19 surge,” but the darkness dissipated somewhat Sunday as a group of experts endorsed another vaccine, this one from Moderna.  

65 infected with coronavirus at Napa psychiatric hospital

Napa State Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Northern California, is the state’s oldest psychiatric hospital. And on Friday, the San Francisco Chronicle reports, 65 patients and staff were diagnosed with coronavirus infections. That brings the total, since March, to more than 150 infected patients and staff.

The Department of State Hospitals, the organization that oversees Napa State Hospital and four other psychiatric facilities throughout California, reports that overall, 909 patients and more than 1,000 staff have tested positive for the coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic.

As a result, Napa State Hospital began mandatory daily coronavirus testing last week for staff members who work directly with patients, and hospital employees will begin receiving vaccinations this week, according to state officials.

 “Napa State Hospital continues to follow protocols to protect its patients and staff from the COVID-19 pandemic,” a DHS spokesman said in an email. “The hospital has implemented extensive infection control practices, established social distancing standards and tested thousands of patients and staff for the disease.”

Bite-sized news bits

• Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, the former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, whose $38 billion settlement from her 2019 divorce made her the world's third-wealthiest woman, has donated $10 million to Goodwill of Silicon Valley, the largest donation in the nonprofit's history, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. In addition, Scott, a San Francisco native, donated money to 46 Goodwill organizations nationwide and to Goodwill Industries International. “This pandemic has been a wrecking ball in the lives of Americans already struggling,” wrote Scott. “Meanwhile, it has substantially increased the wealth of billionaires.”
• L.A. Unified will remain closed when spring semester begins. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the Los Angeles school district will not reopen campuses when the spring semester starts Jan. 11, providing no timetable for bringing students back to campuses amid the surge of coronavirus cases. “It will not be possible for us to reopen school campuses by the time next semester starts on Jan. 11,” said Superintendant Austin Beutner Monday.  He also revealed a staggering statistic: 10% of the students coming into school-based campus coronavirus testing sites end up testing positive for the virus. A spokesperson for United Teachers Los Angeles, the local teachers union, added that there won't be a reopening until the union signs off because the circumstances must be negotiated.
• COVID-related illness is affecting kids in California. The Los Angeles Times reports that multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) is a rare and potentially fatal condition that infects children exposed to the coronavirus. To date, at least 45 children in Los Angeles County have been diagnosed with MIS-C, and one has died. Similar to the coronavirus, MIS-C has disproportionately infected Black and Latino children. While much about the illness remains a mystery, what is clear is that MIS-C cases are directly linked to a surge in COVID-19 infections.

And finally: This sheep isn't sheepish

Vickie Connor, a photographer for The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, was out on assignment on Sunday when she came across a group of about 10 endangered Peninsular bighorn sheep on a trail just south of downtown. She captured this extraordinary image of a bighorn sheep butting against a cactus.

Turns out, it was just lunch. In drier months, the sheep are known to use their hooves and horns to remove spines from cacti, then eat the juicy insides.

Helicopter surveys conducted in the fall of 2016 indicated that approximately 780 Peninsular bighorn inhabit the U.S., and the most recent surveys of Mexico estimate the Baja California Peninsular bighorn population at 2,000-2,500 bighorn, according to the Bighorn Institute.

In California is a roundup of news from across USA Today network newsrooms. Also contributing: Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle.

As the philanthropy and special sections editor at The Desert Sun, Winston Gieseke writes about nonprofits, fundraising and people who give back in the Coachella Valley. Reach him at winston.gieseke@desertsun.com.