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Santa Clara County will require its 22,000 employees to be vaccinated for COVID-19 in an attempt to curb infections driven by unvaccinated individuals. The vaccine policy and timeline are still under development. The vast majority of county employees across all departments are fully vaccinated, a county spokesperson told San José Spotlight. The spokesperson did not provide...
Santa Clara County wants employers to require vaccines for employees
Health officers from three Bay Area counties announced Thursday that they want all employers to require their employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19, with few exceptions. “With the rise in COVID-19 cases leaving unvaccinated individuals at risk for serious illness and death, the health officers of Contra Costa, Santa Clara and San Francisco counties strongly...
San Jose professor joins state advisory board on racial profiling
A San Jose State University professor is joining a broader effort to help research and combat racial profiling in California. Earlier this month, Sen. Toni Atkins of San Diego appointed William Armaline, professor of sociology and founding director of the school’s Human Rights Institute, to California’s Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board. Armaline is known...
No Delta variant spike in Santa Clara County—yet
One month ago, millions of Californians celebrated the end of COVID-19 restrictions and mask mandates. But a new variant of the virus poses an outbreak threat that some experts say is only a matter of time. While people took their masks off for the first time in a year, COVID-19 spread and mutated, mainly among unvaccinated people. Now,...
Santa Clara County revises total COVID deaths by over 20%
Santa Clara County’s COVID-19 death toll dropped by 22% this month. That’s not a mistake—last Friday, county health officials announced a narrower criteria for deaths attributable to COVID-19, which excluded about 500 fatalities previously attributed to the disease. A similar change took place in neighboring Alameda County last month, when officials updated their COVID-19 death definitions....
South Bay government agencies won’t mandate vaccines
Unlike their counterparts in San Francisco, Santa Clara County government employees won’t be required to get COVID-19 shots any time soon. Last month, San Francisco announced all 35,000-plus city workers will be required to receive a COVID-19 vaccine once one is fully approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “The city and county of San...
Downtown San Jose businesses eager for return of students
Students are coming back to campus at San Jose State University this fall, and they may bring the city’s economic recovery with them. A recent study shows the university, prior to the pandemic, generated $776 million in economic output annually for San Jose and $2.4 billion for the Bay Area. That disappeared with the onset of the...
San Jose students survey residents on Reid-Hillview Airport closure
When Yajaira Gutierrez first heard of a widespread survey about the potential closure of Reid-Hillview Airport in East San Jose, she was surprised by what it found. “I thought the results were really alarming,” Gutierrez told San José Spotlight. “It didn’t make sense to me that the community would rather keep that airport open than shut...
Santa Clara County cracks down on student absenteeism
More than 25,000 Santa Clara County students are chronically absent from school each year. Elected officials want to change that. The county Board of Supervisors this week voted unanimously to create a plan and funding options to address the issue. County leaders hope that contracts and a work plan are ironed out for the start...
UPDATE: Santa Clara County adopts Laura’s Law
Twenty years after California gave counties the option to create court-ordered psychiatric treatment programs, Santa Clara County supervisors have “opted in” to the legislation. The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to opt in to Laura’s Law and begin creating an assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) program that legally requires individuals struggling with severe mental illness...