UPDATE, SEPT. 22: When this story was written, it was believe that Emily Manfredonia’s father was the first fully vaccinated Humboldt County resident to die of COVID. However, the local Public Health Division later identified at least one, and possibly more, cases that preceded Larry’s passing. 

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Larry | Photo courtesy of Emily Manfredonia

In a few words, Emily Manfredonia described her dad, Larry, who she lost this week following a month-long battle with COVID pneumonia. Larry was a veteran who loved spending time with his family, Manfredonia said. He was a metal-detecting hobbyist, avid model airplane builder — in homage to his Air Force days — and passionate gardener. 

In fact, he got out every single day to take care of his tomato plants — even with a terminal lung condition, Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, that Larry had been fighting since 1993 and that increasingly impacted him with age, Manfredonia told the Outpost.

As someone with a pre-existing condition, Larry, who was in his 70s, got vaccinated as soon as he was eligible in early 2021. His death marks Humboldt’s first COVID-related loss of a fully vaccinated person — of 65 deaths total — but his daughter is “not at all” disillusioned about the effectiveness of the vaccine. 

“For him to catch this when he was fully vaccinated was discouraging,” Manfredonia said. “But we wanted to get the word out.” She hopes that by sharing the circumstances of her dad’s death, people will not incorrectly point to his passing as evidence against the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. 

When Larry got sick, he didn’t think he was sick with COVID-19. But when he went to the hospital because of difficulty breathing, he tested positive. Larry stayed in the hospital for a week before going home against his doctor’s wishes, Manfredonia said. Her dad wasn’t comfortable in the hospital. 

He had to return to the hospital not long after with continued difficulty breathing. Because of Larry’s condition, he was living with only 30 percent lung capacity, Manfredonia said. 

In Larry’s last week, his family wasn’t able to be with him in the hospital for safety reasons, and over the phone it was difficult to understand Larry through his oxygen hookups, Manfredonia said.

“It was really hard,” she said. “His last days I would have wanted to give him a hug or tell him how much I love him.”

Larry died on Tuesday morning. 

If it hadn’t been for his lung condition, Manfredonia thinks her dad would have survived. 

Post-inoculation deaths are rare. Of California’s more than 22.2 million vaccinated individuals, 239 have died, according to the California Department of Public Health, which notes that “it is unknown if the primary cause of death in these cases was COVID-19 or if there were other contributory or alternate causes.” In California, there have been 64,931 total COVID-related deaths. 

A total of 93,646 “breakthrough” cases — infections of the fully vaccinated — have been reported in California, and of those, at least 2,331 people have been hospitalized, CDPH says. 

The delta variant is now the dominant strain in the US and is more contagious than other variants. Fully vaccinated people seem to be more susceptible to “minor to moderate infections” by the delta variant than other strains, the Washington Post reports, though each vaccine continues to “offer strong protection against severe disease and death from the delta variant.”

Getting the vaccine remains the best defense against COVID-19, public health maintains. 

Today, just over half the county is fully vaccinated, and Manfredonia hopes more people in Humboldt will take that precaution. She and her daughter both got breakthrough cases of COVID themselves, Manfredonia said. Their symptoms were mild, “like a cold.” 

“If [people] are fearful of getting a vaccination, they should still get it because it does help to not get so sick,” Manfredonia said. “Just because dad passed away — [his case] was because his lung was so weak anyway. He probably could have kept fighting and kept fighting, but he was too weak.” 

If not the vaccine, Manfredonia asks Humboldt’s community members to “just to please wear their masks. Take care of themselves and their families,” she said. 

“If people were more careful, my father might not have caught it.”

Booster shots became available in Humboldt to immunocompromised individuals last week. People interested in inquiring about eligibility should talk to their doctor, visit a pharmacy or call public health.

Look here! A LoCO reader sends in game cam footage recorded just after 5 a.m. Thursday morning of a mountain lion strolling through a yard on Hillside Court in greater Eureka’s Pine Hill neighborhood.

“Some of us have chickens and other outdoor animals and so far there are no known losses to this mountain lion on our street,” they said. Be aware!

Monument Fire

Highway 299 has been reopened to one-way traffic as the Monument Fire continues to burn along the highway in Trinity County between Burnt Ranch and Weaverville.

“Highway 299 will be reopened today but only during the day and with pilot cars leading traffic in both directions at designated times,” the fire’s incident management team stated this morning. “The section open with pilot cars is from Burnt Ranch to Helena, every three hours starting at 7 a.m. Pilot cars will leave east and west points at 7 a.m., 10 a.m., 1 p.m., 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. The road will be closed after the last escorted group of the day until 7 a.m. for everyone except local residents with proof of address, and emergency traffic.”

The fire is now 157,287 acres in size and remains 20 percent contained.

A team of 1,992 firefighters is currently working on the fire, including 24 hand crews, 153 engines, 15 helicopters, 57 dozers, 47 water tenders, 3 skidgines, 4 masticators and 21 excavators.

The Trinity County Office of Emergency Services is urging people to sign up with the CodeRed emergency alert system for the latest evacuation information.

Evacuation Orders: In effect for Hayfork north of Highway 3, Sky Ranch Road and Dutch Creek.

Evacuation Warnings: In effect for Big Bar, Big Flat, Burnt Ranch, Douglas City, Junction City, areas south from Barker Mountain to Haystack, the north side of Hyampom Road from Hayfork to 9-mile bridge, Denny, Hawkins Bar and Trinity Village. For detailed evacuation information, visit the Trinity County Office Sheriff Facebook page at Trinity County Sheriff’s Office Facebook.

Evacuation Centers: American Red Cross Shelters have been set up at Shasta College, 11555 Old Oregon Trail, Building 1900, Redding CA; Willow Creek Bible Church, 39 Brannan Mountain Road, Willow Creek, CA; and Fireman’s Hall Pavilion, 9 Park Street in Fortuna.

Animal Evacuation: (Domestic animals)  Trinity County Animal Shelter, 563 Mountain View St, Weaverville, CA (530- 623-1370).  (Domestic + Large Animals)  Hoopa Rodeo Grounds on Pine Creek Rd, Hoopa, CA. (Large Animals with the exception of Swine): Redding Rodeo Grounds, located at 715 Auditorium Dr., Redding, CA (Sandy Ekman (530) 739-8469)

Clean Air Center:

Trinity County has established a Clean Air Center at the Trinity County Library, 351 Main Street, Weaverville. Hours are Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 1-6 p.m. and Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The Clean Air Center at the Murray Building at 6641 Highway 3 in Hayfork has been closed due to fire activity.

A damage assessment team confirmed that 50 structures have been destroyed by the fire. For information regarding property damages, contract the Trinity County Office of Emergency Services at (530) 623-1116.

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McFarland Fire

The McFarland Fire burning along Highway 36 in Trinity County is now 122,598 acres in size and 84 percent contained.

A team of 680 firefighters are currently working to contain the blaze, including 11 hand crews, 37 engines, 7 helicopters, 31 dozers, 18 water tenders and 3 masticators.

“Overnight, crews worked primarily in Beegum Gorge and along Highway 36 mopping up and extinguishing any hot spots near containment lines and patrolled the rest of the fire,” the fire’s incident management team stated this morning.

Highway 36 remains closed between Harrison Gulch to Vestal Road.

A damage assessment team has confirmed that 24 homes and 22 other structures have been destroyed by the fire. One additional home was confirmed to be damaged by the fire. Damage assessments are ongoing. A map of the destroyed structures and images of the properties can be found by clicking this link: visit:https://arcg.is/1Pu8GW

Evacuation Orders and Warnings:

El Niño and La Niña weather patterns explained. | NOAA

The drought-stricken Pacific Northwest is expected to see heavy rainfall in the coming months, scientists say.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced earlier this month that the region has a 70 percent chance of receiving La Niña weather between November and January.

La Niña is a shift in weather patterns that occurs every two to seven years, caused by strong westerly trade winds that upwell cooler ocean waters in the eastern Pacific. The cool ocean waters push the polar jet stream north, bringing colder temperatures, heavy rains and flooding to the Pacific Northwest. This shift can also spell drought for America’s Southwest and severe hurricanes for the East Coast.

The NOAA predicts that the La Niña weather pattern could emerge as early as August, and have the potential to dump heavy rainfall across Pacific Northwest throughout the 2022 winter season.

The storms will likely provide relief for much of America’s Northwest, which is currently experiencing various stages of intense drought.

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In the past month, four emergency room nurses — exhausted by the onslaught of patients and emotional turmoil wrought by COVID-19 — have quit at the Eureka hospital where Matt Miele works.

Miele, who has been a trauma nurse for four years, is actively looking for a less stressful nursing position and has colleagues who are, too.

“On the bad days, I think ‘What am I doing and is this what I want to be doing?’” Miele said. “It’s shifting me to my core.”

Around California — and the nation — nurses are trading in high-pressure jobs for a career change, early retirement or less demanding assignments, leading to staffing shortages in many hospitals.

Hospitals are struggling to comply with the state’s nurse staffing requirements as pandemic-induced burnout has exacerbated an already chronic nursing shortage nationwide.

But burnout isn’t the only thing compounding California’s nursing shortage: The state’s new vaccine mandate for health care workers is already causing headaches for understaffed hospitals before it is even implemented. Some traveling nurses — who are in high demand nationwide — are turning down California assignments because they don’t want to get vaccinated.

Hospitals say they are reaching a crisis point, straining under the dual forces of more people seeking routine care and surging COVID-19 hospitalizations driven by the Delta variant.

“Oftentimes at hospitals there are long waits and long delays,” said Dr. Tom Sugarman, an emergency physician in the East Bay and senior director of government affairs at Vituity, a physicians’ group. “There’s not enough staff to keep beds open, and patients can languish waiting.”

In March 2020, the California Department of Public Health contracted with Aya Health — one of the nation’s largest traveling nurse providers — to pay up to $1 billion over six months to help hospitals meet nursing and other clinical staff shortages.

Department officials did not respond to multiple requests about the number of hospitals now seeking emergency staffing, and would not release the updated contract.

Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order reinstating emergency provisions aimed at ensuring adequate staffing. In part, the order allows health care workers from out of state to work in California.

Unprecedented staff shortages

Before the pandemic, nursing shortages were common in most areas of the state, according to the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development.

Now the pandemic has stretched resources to a breaking point.

Hospitals, some with more COVID-19 patients now than during the winter surge, say they are confronting unprecedented staffing shortages, particularly among nurses.

“All of our hospitals are saying staffing is a big problem,” said Lois Richardson, attorney for the California Hospital Association. “We have fewer personnel than at the beginning of the pandemic and more patients.”

The staffing shortage is so severe that Scripps Health is considering temporarily consolidating some of its outpatient centers. Scripps, which has five hospitals and 28 outpatient clinics in the San Diego area, told CalMatters that it is serving nearly 20% more patients on average than before the pandemic. At the same time, job openings at the hospitals have increased 57% since August 2019. For nursing jobs alone, vacancies have increased 96%.

“We’ve had some staff leave the organization or leave the industry as a whole because they’re burned out,” said Eric Cole, corporate senior vice president of human resources for Scripps. “They’ll wake up in the morning and call off the shift. They’ve done as much as they can do.”

“All of our hospitals are saying staffing is a big problem. We have fewer personnel than at the beginning of the pandemic and more patients.”
— Lois Richardson, California Hospital Association

Emotional and physical exhaustion is the primary reason nurses are fleeing the bedside, experts say. It has been a long and brutal 18 months.

“We thought the pandemic would be over soon and could take time later to deal with our emotions,” said Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, president of National Nurses United, the largest nursing union in the country, which has more than 100,000 members in its California association. “Then the second surge hit, and the third and now it’s the fourth.”

Mary Lynn Briggs, an ICU nurse in Bakersfield, said of the dozens of COVID-19 patients she has treated since the pandemic began, only three have survived.

“Some days coming home from the hospital I yell at God, I yell at myself, I yell at COVID and cry. And that’s all before I pull into my driveway,” Briggs said.

Her workplace has lost more staff than they can hire, and that means the ones who are left have to pick up the slack.

“There have been multiple nights where I swear I am tired and I need a night off, and then I get a call from somebody saying we’re going to give the nurse three patients, so I go in because I don’t want anyone to work out of ratio,” Briggs said.

“Some days coming home from the hospital I yell at God, I yell at myself, I yell at COVID and cry. And that’s all before I pull into my driveway.”
— Mary Lynn Briggs, ICU nurse in Bakersfield

“Out of ratio” means that a nurse is assigned too many patients. California is the only state that caps the number of patients that can be assigned to a single nurse. Under state requirements, for instance, an ICU nurse can have no more than two patients and an emergency room nurse, no more than four.

In December, during the winter surge, emergency waivers for the ratios were granted to hospitals throughout the state, allowing ICU nurses to see three patients, for instance. Critics say the conditions threatened patient safety.

Newsom’s order last week did not reinstate the waivers of the nurse-patient ratios, which expired on Feb. 8. Individual facilities, however, can still apply for them.

“I would not be surprised if they reapply for waivers,” union president Triunfo-Cortez said.

The state health department did not respond to requests seeking information on whether hospitals have applied for staffing waivers in response to the shortages.

Vaccine mandate complicates staffing

Hospital administrators worry that the state’s vaccine mandate for health care workers, which goes into effect Sept. 30, could drive some of their workers out. Already, some report resistance among employees.

“One hospital told us they had 474 unvaccinated employees. They did a big education and incentive push. Only 12 people signed up,” said Richardson, the hospital association’s attorney.

Administrators are particularly concerned about low vaccination rates among support staff like janitors and food service workers. However, some nurses also are wary of the COVID-19 vaccine. Some nurses with large social media followings have participated in protests in Southern California, arguing that the mandates violate their personal freedom.

“If they don’t want to get vaccinated, they are turning down California assignments.”
— Eric Cole, Scripps Health

The vaccine order allows only for narrow religious and medical exemptions. Until Sept. 30, unvaccinated workers must undergo weekly COVID-19 testing. The state nursing association issued a statement saying “all eligible people should be vaccinated.”

While California was first in the nation to impose a vaccine mandate for health care workers, other states have since joined in, but their mandates aren’t as broad.

Cole of Scripps Health said the state’s testing requirement, imposed this week, already has discouraged some out-of-state, traveling nurses from taking temporary jobs at California hospitals.

“If they don’t want to get vaccinated, they are turning down California assignments,” he said.

Traveling nurses in high demand

To contend with local shortages, hospitals are increasingly turning to hiring temporary, traveling nurses from around the country.

During the past 18 months, Janet Stovall, a traveling ICU nurse for more than 20 years, has worked in hospitals in the Imperial Valley town of Brawley, Visalia, Wichita, Kan., and now Folsom and Alameda — and all of them have been running on “very lean staffing.”

“Last night there were ambulances waiting just to get into the ER to be evaluated… They pulled a nurse from the ICU to help with the ER, and we worked without a charge nurse or a break nurse,” Stovall said.

Stovall said traveling nurses like her are in high demand. At one hospital, “we hadn’t even finished orientation when the VP of patient services called and said ‘You need to leave right now, test out of orientation, and be at work by 11 p.m.,’” Stovall said. “That’s how desperate they are.”

Sophia Morris, vice president of account management at Aya Healthcare, said California has the second highest number of positions posted for nurses, exceeded only by Texas.

Nationwide more than 52,000 temporary health care jobs are posted, and Aya is only able to fill about 3,000 per week, she said.

“In the 16 years I’ve been in this space, I have never seen this high a need,” Morris said.

That need is creating intense competition for a limited pool of nurses nationwide.

“Nurses are getting paid premiums to work in Texas and Florida where it’s surging right now,” Sugarman said. “Those nurses have to come from somewhere, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some are coming from California.”

Hospitals have been paying twice as much as pre-pandemic times for travelers, Morris said.

To entice nurses to come to California, the state Department of Public Health agreed to pay up to $145 per hour for Aya Health’s ICU nurses and more if a facility had a “critical need.” Stovall, who works for Aya, said between October and December 2020, she was paid $10,000 per week with an additional $2,000 if she picked up an extra shift.

It’s working — but not without consequences.

The money is pulling full-time staff nurses into traveling positions, further aggravating the staffing shortage nationwide. Stovall, who is based in North Carolina, said her sister-in-law took a week’s vacation from a full-time nursing gig to pick up an $8,000 traveling contract. She also convinced a longtime friend, Candace Brim, to leave her staff position and travel during the height of the pandemic in December.

“Everywhere we go people ask, ‘Can we get your recruiter’s number?’ We’ve given it out 20 times,’” she said.

Traveling has been key to helping them avoid burnout, Brim and Stovall said. It’s rewarding to be able to come in and “save the situation” at hospitals in dire need of extra hands, Brim said, and the money is good enough that they can afford to take weeks off at a time after difficult assignments. Their contracts in Folsom and Alameda last until Thanksgiving.

“By the time we finish our contract in November, we will have enough money to sit home the rest of November and December all through the holidays,” Stovall said.

Time off has helped them cope with the somber realities of treating COVID-19 patients in the ICU: In the past seven months, every COVID patient Brim and Stovall treated has died.

“We took care of about 65 COVID patients in Brawley and not a single one made it,” Stovall said. “We coded one every night.

“Before (COVID-19), you could make a difference in someone’s life. Now I will do anything for a patient, and it does not make a difference. …Three days later they don’t make it.”

Will so many nurses burn out and leave the profession that California will face long-term shortages? It’s possible. Pre-pandemic, one projection said California will be short more than 44,000 nurses by 2030, while other studies suggested that there will be an adequate supply of new graduates.

Low staffing stresses out ER nurses

In Humboldt County, all floors are at full capacity at the hospital where ER nurse Miele works. Humboldt is one of the areas experiencing record-setting COVID-19 hospitalizations.

Miele has had patients who waited 10 to 12 hours in the emergency room. Sometimes, the patients he checks on at 9:30 p.m. before he leaves are still in the waiting room the next morning when he returns to work.

“To me it seems like the lowest staffing levels that I’ve seen at the time we need it the most,” he said, adding that he frequently works at a patient-to-emergency-room-nurse ratio that exceeds the four-to-one required by the state.

People are triaged in the waiting room “like a mass casualty patient event,” getting their initial assessments and tests ordered before ever seeing the inside of an examination room. He said he worries because staff are unable to routinely monitor the patients in the waiting rooms.

His hospital hasn’t yet rationed care by prioritizing who gets treated based on who is most likely to survive, but it is being discussed, Miele said.

“Stress is part of the game when you sign up to be an emergency medicine RN,” he said, “but this is another level.”

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CALmatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Our beloved Mother and “Auntie,” Velva Angell, passed from this earth on August 14, 2021 at the age of 92. She was proud of her Native American heritage as she was Wiyot, Yurok and Wintun Indian.

Velva was born in Eureka on April 5, 1929 to her parents, Elizabeth Logan Cooper and Henry Clay Cooper. She attended and graduated from Eureka High School. Shortly after graduation Velva moved to San Francisco to attend and graduate from California Beauty School.

Velva met and fell in love with the love of her life, Lucius “Bud” Angell III, while he was on shore leave as a sailor in San Francisco. They were married on Feb. 8, 1948 at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka. Together they raised three sons — Lucius “Bud” Angell IV (Betsy), Bruce Steven Angell and Paul Douglas Angell. They welcomed their niece, Cindy Dunlap Dutra (Dave), into their home after the death of her mother, and raised “their girl” as their own.

Velva worked for and retired from Eureka City Schools. She first worked as a noon monitor at Alice Birney Elementary School and later as a classroom aide at Jacobs Junior High School. She served for many years, with great pride, on the Board of Directors of the United Indian Health Services as the Table Bluff, Wiyot Tribal Representative.

An extremely talented seamstress she sewed many outfits for her children. School clothes, dresses for dances, cheerleading outfits and formal wear were all sewn with love and an eye for detail. Later, her handiwork was evident in the pine needle baskets she wove, the hand stitcheries she proudly shared with others and the many crocheted caps she made for the premature babies at St Joseph Hospital.

Velva had four grandchildren, Elaine Angell, Eric Brunton (Taunya), Aaron Brunton (Joy) and Tabatha Leady (Matt), 11 great-grandchildren and 1 great-great grandchild.

Velva was preceded in death by her beloved husband Bud Angell, her son Bruce Angell, her brother Henry Clay Cooper as well as her three sisters Roberta Cooper Martin, Carole Cooper Koch and Marilyn Cooper Dugan.

A special note of thanks for the many years of kind friendship and daily phone calls from her sister-in-law, Ruth Cooper, and to her niece, Wanda Hansen, for all the home cooked meals that she brought. Thank you also to the doctors. and staff at United Indian Health Services and St. Joseph’s Hospital for their kindness and support.

Velva will be interred at Sunset Memorial Cemetery. Due to current Covid-19 restrictions we are postponing a memorial until it is safe to do so. We ask that in lieu of flowers, please send any contributions to Shriners Hospital for Children of Northern California.

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Daniel “Dan” Wesley Lucas Sr. was born Thursday May 21, 1959 in Clovis, New Mexico to Harold and Madeline Lucas. He was suddenly called home the morning of August 1, 2021 due to complications from end stage COPD. Daniel was the sixth of eight children, the youngest of five boys.

Dan served in the United States Navy on the USS Okinawa proudly before coming home and then meeting the love of his life, Edythe, whom he spent the last 31 years of his life with, having four children Daniel Jr, Jennifer, Elizabeth and David.

In the summer of June 1990 Dan and Edythe had their first child together while living in the Sacramento area and shortly after relocated to Humboldt County, where he and Edythe then had three more children and built a beautiful life together. Dan was passionate about many things, collecting vintage and antique figurines, helping raise his youngest grandson and restoring motorcycles (or anything with wheels or a motor for that matter). He was a contractor by trade, working for a local property management’s maintenance department before his illness became too much to handle while working full time. In his new found time off, he found side jobs to keep busy, but also enjoyed fishing, working on his bike or just being there for his kids when they needed him and spending quality time with his grandchildren.

Dan was immensely proud of all seven of his grandchildren. Seeing their faces and smiles whenever he could made his day. He was truly happiest when surrounded by his family.

Dan is proceeded in death his grandparents on both sides, his father Harold Dean Lucas, brothers Harold “Butch Jr.”, and Micheal Lucas, little sister Elizabeth Lucas, and his son David Dean Lucas, who he deeply longed to be reunited with one day. He is survived by the love of his life Edythe Donne, his mother Madeline Lucas, brother Tom Lucas and his wife Mary, sister Lori Guile and husband, sister Madeline (Sandee) Parham and husband Wayne, Son Daniel Wesley Lucas Jr., daughters Jennifer Ester Line Gale Lucas and Elizabeth Renee Lucas, Grandchildren in order from oldest to youngest Anastasia Destiny-Maey Lucas, Daniel Wesley Lucas III, Jordan Dean Lucas, Jacob Wesley Lucas, Haedan Michelle-Donne Lucas, Frankie Dalton Adams, and Kyah Elizabeth-Renee Lucas; who all miss their papa Dan dearly. Including many nieces, newphews, cousins and friends..too many to name but all held a special place in Dan’s heart.

He will be remembered as a loving and devoted life partner, father, grandfather, brother, son, uncle and friend.

Services will be held August 26, 2021 at 11 a.m. at Faith Center Foursquare Church, 1013 Bay Street, Eureka.

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