Getting the coronavirus vaccines into the arms of as many Californians as possible has become a race against time as COVID-19 cases continue to spiral upward and a more infectious variant of the virus takes root.

Many questions remain unanswered about how the next — and much larger — wave of Californians will be vaccinated, even as doctors and other health providers in the first priority group are complaining to state officials that they still can’t get access to the vaccines.

At a vaccine community advisory committee meeting on Wednesday, state epidemiologist Dr. Erica Pan announced an ambitious immunization goal, acknowledging widespread criticism that the state has moved too slowly to vaccinate its first priority group of frontline health care workers and nursing home residents.

California now aims to immunize 1 million people within the next 10 days, Pan said. Officials are recruiting dentists and other health professionals to become vaccinators, and Gov. Gavin Newsom asked state lawmakers to approve $300 million to support the vaccination push.

“We do need to move faster,” Pan said, “especially in the middle of this surge.”

Nearly 530,400 doses of either the newly authorized Pfizer or Moderna vaccines had been given by the end of Wednesday, just over a quarter of the more than 2 million doses shipped to California hospitals and county health departments.

The current system “leaves out workers who are not employed by the major health systems, and some of these workers face a high risk of COVID infection.”
— Dr. Ana Sanchez, Orange County OB/GYN

In written comments submitted before the meeting, doctors in the first priority group who aren’t affiliated with large health providers complained that they had no way to obtain vaccines for themselves and their staff even though they treat COVID-19 patients.

Licensed midwives and home health care workers had similar complaints.

The current system “leaves out workers who are not employed by the major health systems, and some of these workers face a high risk of COVID infection,” wrote Dr. Ana Sanchez, an Orange County ob/gyn, in her public comment. She noted that she and her staff provide prenatal care to mostly low-income women, some of whom are infected.

A doctor for the Solano County jail wrote that he was surprised to find that he was not included in the first priority group despite treating COVID patients.

“We are the ‘forgotten physicians,’” wrote Dr. Lysa Nguyen, another Orange County physician in a four-doctor family medicine practice. “Though we are not working in the hospitals, we are swabbing patients and providing outpatient care to those with COVID-19 in hopes of helping our local ERs from being inundated.”

At the meeting, a state working group of experts unveiled newly refined priorities for which groups should be vaccinated after health care workers and nursing home residents. These recommendations will be finalized soon by state health officials.

Under these recommendations, the next wave of vaccinations, known as Phase 1b, includes people over 74 years old plus teachers and childcare workers, food industry and agriculture workers and non-medical first responders.

Phase 1b’s second-priority group includes people over 64 years old, prisoners and the homeless, and essential transportation, manufacturing and construction workers at risk of exposure.

The final priority group, Phase 1c, includes people over 49 years old, people aged 16 to 64 with chronic conditions or disabilities, and essential workers in the water, defense, energy, communications, financial and government sectors among others.

State public health officials set the priority groups, but counties have some leeway within them to prioritize certain occupations or high-risk people. In an agricultural county, for example, migrant farm laborers might be prioritized over other workers. Public health officials acknowledged that it’s difficult to tell when each county will be able to move from one phase to the next, but emphasized that local health officials should be the ones to decide.

Many questions remain, including how to notify Californians when their turn comes. It was relatively easy to notify and screen the eligibility of frontline hospital workers and nursing home residents. But logistics will be far more complicated now.

How will counties decide which people over 74 should be immunized first? What documents will workers need to provide to prove their eligibility in a priority group? Who’s responsible for ensuring that people don’t jump the line? Should a pharmacy be able to collect social security or driver’s license information as a requirement for immunization? What about people, including the blind or disabled, who need help with transportation to a vaccination site?

The answers are just starting to surface as officials continue to work on the daunting logistics of delivering highly perishable vaccines to millions of Californians.

For example, to ensure that the vaccine is equitably distributed to people of color and lower-income Californians — who have disproportionately been affected by COVID-19 — some counties are prioritizing communities that score lower on the California Healthy Places Index, which identifies disadvantaged neighborhoods and highlights their health concerns.

Health officials said Californians can call the state COVID hotline, open seven days a week, at 1-833-422-4255 to talk to a staff member who can advise on when they will be eligible depending on their job, age and other criteria.

To ensure that the vaccine is equitably distributed to people of color and lower-income Californians, some counties are prioritizing communities that score lower on the California Healthy Places Index.

The experience at some Los Angeles area vaccination sites foreshadows some of the challenges to come. Vaccinators weren’t checking credentials of people earlier this week, allowing non-health care workers to jump the line, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

“Across the state, our goal is to get vaccine safely into people’s arms as quickly as we possibly can,” said Kim Saruwatari, director of the Riverside County Public Health Department. “We are getting faster and identifying the logistical challenges and working through them, and I think that’s only going to improve as we move forward.”

More than 36,000 new cases and 583 deaths were reported today. At least 34 cases of the new, more infectious COVID-19 variant have been reported in Southern California, including 32 in San Diego County.

Particularly in the hard-hit Los Angeles region, some hospitals are so full that California Public Health Officer Dr. Tomás Aragón late Tuesday ordered hospitals with open beds to accept intensive care patients from hospitals in crisis. Under the order, hospitals with less than 10 percent intensive care capacity also must cancel some elective procedures, including colonoscopies, knee replacements and cataract surgeries. Many hospitals throughout the state already have cancelled those surgeries.

While some scientists have proposed reaching more people by giving half-doses of vaccine or delaying the required second dose nationwide, Aragón said California officials expect to stick with the current regimen authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He said there is “not enough scientific evidence at this moment to adopt this new approach.”

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

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At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, everyone seemed to have the same question for Humboldt County Health Officer Dr. Ian Hoffman: What’s the plan for getting the public vaccinated?

More than 10 months after the first county resident was diagnosed with COVID 19, Humboldt’s case count is skyrocketing, nearly two dozen residents have died, and the local economy remains hobbled by virus-triggered restrictions. Everyone is desperately reaching for the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. 

But it hasn’t even been a month since the FDA authorized emergency use of two COVID vaccines, and on Tuesday Hoffman said it’s just not possible to lay out a concrete timeline at this early stage.

“There is a plan,” he said, “but the plan has to be fluid because it all depends on how much vaccine is coming down the road — and we just don’t know the answer to that.”

Humboldt County has received 5,500 doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in the three weeks since the first shipment arrived. As of Tuesday, about 3,600 of those doses had been administered, and Hoffman said the remaining 2,000 or so should be administered “in the coming weeks.”

While the county’s Public Health Branch is acting as the coordinator for vaccine distribution, it’s local health care partners who are responsible for actually administering the shots. So far, those partners include the four local hospitals — St. Joseph, Mad River, Redwood Memorial and Jerold Phelps — along with Open Door Community Health Centers and the United Indian Health Services.

Other partners are coming online. Pharmacies have partnered with the CDC, and Hoffman said this program allowed CVS to vaccinate folks at a local skilled nursing facility on Monday. Safeway, Costco and Cloney’s pharmacies are expected to come online with vaccine delivery in the coming weeks, though Hoffman said the bureaucratic process is cumbersome.

But we’re still very early in a vaccine rollout that will take months to complete. Speaking to the board Tuesday, Sheriff William Honsal said that he and others in a statewide sheriffs organization were recently briefed by Dr. Mark Ghaly, Secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency.

“As far as this being open to the public, a vaccine is likely six to nine months away from being readily available,” Honsal said. “That was something that was kind of shocking to me … .”

The County’s Joint Information Center on Wednesday noted that we’re still in Phase 1A of the state’s multi-phase vaccination rollout plan. That means the vaccines shipped here are still reserved for health care workers and residents of long-term residential care facilities.

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Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two doses — administered three to four weeks apart — to be fully effective. Second doses started arriving this week, and Hoffman said that will be most of what gets delivered to Humboldt County over the next two weeks. “We expect to see very little new vaccine coming in,” he said.

The constriction in the supply chain is coming at the federal level, not locally, Hoffman explained. “As we’ve said all along, the limiting factor is going to be how much vaccine we are getting and at what rate.”

While many of us may feel impatient to be done with COVID, Hoffman said things are going as well as can be expected thus far.

“We feel that the vaccination process in Humboldt County is going very well,” he noted at Tuesday’s meeting. “We are ahead of our counterparts in the rest of the state and certainly, from what I’m hearing in the news reports, the rest of the country.”

The county’s Public Health Branch began offering its own vaccination clinics on Wednesday — again, serving local people who fall into Phase 1A. The clinics will operate three days a week with a goal of vaccinating as many as 750 people per week in the coming weeks. Phase 1A is expected to last through mid- to late-January, at which point vaccines will start being offered to people age 75 and older along with front-line essential workers in education, childcare, emergency services or food and agriculture, though Hoffman said the details for Phase 1B have yet to be finalized.

The county is receiving between 1,000 and 2,000 doses per week at this point, and Hoffman said, “At some point we will need to be getting like five to six thousand doses of vaccine each week.” County staff is prepared to distribute that much, and Public Health is coordinating a mass vaccination clinic that will increase capacity to administer those shots.

Public Health Director Michelle Stephens explained that the vaccines aren’t given to anyone under age 16. That leaves somewhere around 110,000 Humboldt County residents eligible for the vaccine, according to the latest census data. 

Several of the county supervisors pressured Hoffman for more details Tuesday, asking him for simple and concrete specifics.

“It would be nice to have a handout for what the plan is,” Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone said, noting that he’s been getting a lot of questions from constituents.

First District Supervisor Rex Bohn agreed. “Is there a plan we can show people?” he asked.

But Hoffman said things can’t really be made any simpler right now. 

“What I said today is the plan,” he told the board. “We’re building the ship as we sail it, so it’s hard to give you specifics on something we don’t know about. We don’t know how much vaccine we’ll get each week.”

Certain unknowns, like the virus itself, we’ll just have to live with. 

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SEE ALSO: What Happens If Our Vaccine Freezers Fail? Humboldt County Health Officer Answers Media Questions

Today Dr. Ian Hoffman, Humboldt County health officer, took a number of questions on the state of the pandemic from local reporters. Today’s media availability was focused mostly on various aspects of the vaccination program currently underway, and how it might be scaled up in the near future.

Video above, rough transcript below.

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From Reporter Daniel Mintz: “Last summer and fall, researchers reported that minimal SARS-CoV-2 diversity suggested that vaccination could be broadly protective. Now that the virus is diversifying, including a variant strain in South Africa that has potential for vaccine resistance, how confident should we be about the viability of vaccinating ourselves out of the pandemic?”

It’s a great question.

I’m still confident and we are moving forward with this vaccine process and our plan is to continue to vaccinate all of Humboldt County over the course of this year.

From the Redheaded Blackbelt: “Will the dashboard eventually enumerate vaccines on hand, vaccines given and some form of showing people with the first dose as well as those who have the complete two doses needed?”

Great question.

We are working really hard here in Public Health to figure out what kind of data we can get up that’s accurate and reliable.

We should have something either late this week or early next week that’ll enumerate some of the different questions here, and then also we do have a link now to the CDPH website which has some of those things for Humboldt County including the number of vaccines that have been allocated to Humboldt County as well as the number of doses that have been given out in the whole region.

From the Redheaded Blackbelt: “School staff is in the phase 1B of getting COVID vaccinations and children down to age 16 have been approved for vaccinations, but do we have a sense of when younger children vaccinations might be approved?”

It’s not really a question for a local level and I have no information on that other than what’s in the media currently.

From the Redheaded Blackbelt: “Is there a plan to offer regular testing for COVID in school children or any options Public Health is considering to get young students to in-person classes?”

Yeah so the governor came out with a plan this week which is posted online.

We’ve been reviewing that with our partners in education in the county, including well before that plan with many ideas of how we can get kids back in in classrooms. There will be support for testing we’re working with the local leaders around what kind of testing can be available and as always our commitment is to try to get kids back in school as quickly and safely as possible. Thank you.

From the Redheaded Blackbelt: “Considering the current trend in cases locally and the strain on contact tracers with the volume of cases, will Humboldt County, as do other counties such as Trinity County, identify locations with connection to COVID with a date and time frame in order to locate additional cases resulting from the particular exposure?”

We don’t have any plan right now to do that.

We don’t feel that would be helpful given our situation in Humboldt County. The vast majority of the spread in Humboldt County is through a known contact, so a household member or a friend, there could be some minimal spread in other places and there has been have been workplace settings and we work with those workplaces to identify the the folks and get things out, but I don’t think there’s any reason to publicly call out these places in that way, that, it wouldn’t be helpful to our investigations.

From the Redheaded Blackbelt: “The California Health and Human Services open data shows zero deaths at Granada as of January 1 but we know there have been at least 12 residents lost to COVID from Granada. Can you explain how this data is gathered and then how it is provided to the state and why the data doesn’t reflect the information correctly?”

I don’t know how that data gets to the state but I think what this highlights is that there is a lag in the data, usually from the local level to the state level, much in the same way as is reflected in our discussion around the tiers.

From the North Coast News: “Some health experts are recommending that more people get at least one round of the vaccine as opposed to fewer people getting both rounds due to the new more contagious strain from the UK entering the U.S. Would this change the vaccine’s efficacy since it’s a different method than the clinical trials? Do you agree with this method?”

I do not agree with that method and we will continue to follow a two-dose recommendation here in Humboldt County as well as in California.

There is strong evidence to support that approach and until there’s uh evidence to support otherwise or recommendations I would not recommend we change that locally.

From the North Coast News: “What do you do when you’re in the tier that’s having the vaccine administered to it? Should you be reaching out to your primary care physician or wait for them to reach out to you? Is it covered by insurance like the flu vaccine for most insurances?”

Yeah great question, so we’re currently in phase 1A still which is about 10,000 people in Humboldt County and that is being done by invitation only as I’ve mentioned through large hospital systems or through clinical networks and we are now working on getting in folks who are not part of a bigger hospital system through multiple avenues over the course of the next week.

There’s no cost of the vaccine, the vaccine is being provided for free, insurances can be billed and asked for reimbursement for it if someone has insurance, but you cannot charge someone if they have no insurance.

Going forward, phase 1B is going to be a much larger group and a much more diverse group of folks, so that might look different.

We’re working those details out this week and hope to have a plan in the coming week or two to release to the public how phase 1B will be started.

From KMUD News: “Have all Southern Humboldt first responders and health care providers received their first doses of the vaccine?”

I believe so, we worked closely with Southern Humboldt to get the vaccine down to Jerald Phelps and Redwood Rural.

The first responders are not yet up, so I think when that question, you’re talking about medics, and we did work with the local folks down there to make sure that the medics were invited and and even some of the first responders who do transportation of patients who are not medical providers, so if you haven’t been contacted in you’re a medic or a medical provider provider who’s a first responder, please do reach out to those folks locally, they have a vaccine for you.

From KMUD News: “Is the county currently administering both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and if so, how does one choose between the two? Do you think other vaccines will also be available?”

Yeah so we’ve been receiving both vaccines, mostly the hospitals have been receiving the Pfizer vaccine because of the storage issues, and outpatient settings have been receiving the Moderna vaccine.

The vaccine, other vaccines coming available, there are many, many trials, there are a few that are looking more promising, I don’t think it’s going to be in the next weeks or months, it could be you know later in the spring or summer before we get another approved vaccine, but again that’s really a more of a national discussion than a local discussion.

Also from KMUD News: “At what point in 2021 do you believe the vaccine will be made available for all members of the public? At that point will life return to normal?”

Yeah this, the big question, I mean we do hope that this vaccine campaign will allow us to get back to normal life and and what that looks like and sort of what, how that comes down is still a big question.

Right now, we’re getting about one to 2,000 vaccines a week in Humboldt County so as I mentioned we have about 10,000 phase 1A folks to get through, so you can do that math pretty easily, it’s going to take a little while.

If we were getting five to six times that amount, we could easily build up enough infrastructure in Humboldt County to vaccinate more people and potentially get through the entire population throughout the rest of this year.

So it’s it’s really a supply issue, it’s not a delivery issue, we will build a bigger delivery system if more supply comes to us.

From the Times-Standard: “What is the county’s plan to get as many of us through this year as possible, alive and kicking?”

Well I think we’re all going to keep doing what we’ve been doing.

Here at Public Health we’re going to keep doing our contact tracing, we’re going to keep offering robust lab services and testing services, we’re going to keep working with our leaders to make policies that make sense to protect ourselves and as a community, we’re going to keep following the guidelines and masking and distancing and as time goes on and we get more vaccine and we feel confident that we can open up society, we will do it as as that comes.

From the Times-Standard: “How are county health officials countering anti-vaccination rhetoric?”

So we’ve been doing a lot of public forums, we started those in really November, and throughout December we’ve been ramping those up and moving from both the medical community and outreach to specific medical providers and groups, medical groups, and then also with community groups.

So those will continue uh in the coming weeks and months as we continue to roll out the the vaccine to larger populations.

From the Times-Standard: “What’s the contingency plan if cooling equipment for vaccines fails?”

Well everyone should know we have extraordinarily robust backup system for our cooler, our freezer at St. Joseph’s, it has multiple alarms, there’s multiple backup generators, it would require an epic failure for it to fail.

I don’t know the specifics of what happened in Mendocino County, but if we were in a situation like that here in Humboldt County, you know, we would have to have a call to action and and do a mass vaccination just as they did because we would not want those doses to go to waste.

From the Times-Standard: “It took about three weeks to administer 3,600 vaccines. At that rate, it would be more than two years before the entire county is vaccinated. What is the county’s goal date for vaccinating all Humboldt County residents and how does it reach that goal?”

Yeah I think I alluded to this earlier, this is a supply issue, not a delivery issue.

So we’ve been delivering the amount of vaccine that’s been coming in, we’re only getting about one to 2,000 doses per week on average, so if and when we get more vaccine we would scale up to meet those demands.

And yes, if we only get one to 2,000 doses a week if it’s going to take us a long time, so we’re waiting, we’re hopeful that at some point the manufacturers of this vaccine will be able to provide us with more than than that.

From the North Coast Journal: “Does the hospitalization data on the county’s website include any hospitalized patients who may be technically COVID recovered under CDC guidelines but are still hospitalized with COVID-19 related illness? Do you have an estimate of how many COVID-19 recovered patients are currently hospitalized locally?”

No that is not data that we have and I think you would have to talk to the local hospitals to gather that sort of information.

From the North Coast Journal: “With the state order requiring hospitals to accept transfer patients from overwhelmed areas, does it make sense to you that the Northern California region remains exempt from the state’s stay-at-home order because the cumulative available capacity of its roughly 120 ICU beds remains above 15 percent?”

So I don’t believe that we should be doing anything differently than the state’s orders. I think that you know if we triggered the regional ICU capacity we should go under the regional stay at home, and as I stated previously I really don’t think this new order is going to affect our hospital system here anytime in the near future.

From the North Coast Journal: “You have now repeatedly said local data does not support Humboldt County remaining in the state’s red risk tier but have not used your authority to issue a health order imposing restrictions that would align it with the state’s purple risk tier. Why haven’t you taken that step?”

Yeah my answer remains unchanged. It is a very blunt tool and one that there is very little appetite for locally.

We’ve met with many of the leaders and we’ve agreed to put out a strong, unified message that we’re confident that our numbers are solid here, that they still look purple. I can tell you that today, in review of the numbers, they continue to look purple and I feel as each day goes on, more confident that next week we will be moved back into the purple tier.

So we will continue to use our forum to educate the public and ask them to to follow those guidelines and make the decision that’s safest for Humboldt County.

Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office:

On December 13, 2020, at about 9 a.m., Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office Correctional Deputies found an unresponsive male inmate lying in his bed. The on-site medical staff began life-saving measures and additional emergency medical personnel responded to the jail.

Suspect Brenan McCovey. | SCSO

After unsuccessful attempts to revive him, Alan Gene Gibson Jr., age 47 of Happy Camp, California, was pronounced deceased at the jail. SCSO Detectives responded to the jail and began an investigation.

On December 16, 2020, as part of the ongoing investigation, a forensic autopsy was conducted on Mr. Gibson. Even though the preliminary investigation did not show obvious signs of foul play, the forensic autopsy revealed Mr. Gibson’s cause of death was homicide due to strangulation. SCSO Detectives identified Brenan McCovey, age 22, of Orleans, California, as the one responsible for Mr. Gibson’s death.

On October 16, 2020, Brenan McCovey was booked at the Siskiyou County Jail for vehicle theft and obstructing and resisting arrest. Mr. McCovey remains in-custody on additional charges of murder.

This is an ongoing investigation, and more information will be released as it becomes available. If anyone has any information related to this homicide, please contact the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office at (530) 841-2900.

PREVIOUSLY:

• California AG Investigation Concludes With Agreement Requiring Sweeping Changes to Humboldt Child Welfare Services
• Flaws in County System for Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect Triggered a State Investigation. Here’s What’s Changing As a Result.
• Once Drowning in Unresolved Reports of Abuse and Neglect, Local Child Welfare Services Department Says It’s Clearing Out Backlogged Cases
• State Attorney General Pursuing a Court Order to Compel County’s Compliance With 2018 Child Welfare Judgment
• DHHS Calls Attorney General’s Pursuit of More Child Welfare Services Oversight a ‘Waste of Taxpayer Money’

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Press release from the Yurok Tribe:

Today, the Yurok Tribe, Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria, the Wiyot Tribe and the Trinidad Rancheria announced their support of the California Attorney General’s effort to pursue a court order requiring the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services Child Welfare Services Division and the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office to fully and transparently implement the terms of a 2018 court ruling regarding the agencies’ mismanagement of child abuse and neglect cases.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra recently took a first step toward extending the conditions in the Court-ordered Judgment against the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office. Preserving the provisions for a longer period of time would compel the agencies to resolve ongoing and substantial structural deficiencies within the child welfare system.

Coupled with a substantial list of mandatory reforms, the 2018 Judgment forced the county agencies to comply with the California Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act. Humboldt DHHS and the Sheriff’s Office were also required to hire an independent entity to oversee the complete implementation of the order. DHHS recently objected to the Attorney General’s decision to seek a resolution from the court, claiming that an extension of the terms is a reflection of “the state’s desire to waste taxpayer money on unnecessary consultants and monitors.”

“Humboldt County’s assertion that child safety is a waste of taxpayer money is akin to stating that our next generations and our shared future in this county are a misuse of taxpayer funding,” said Frankie Myers, the Yurok Tribe’s Vice Chairman and a recently appointed member of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s newly Truth and Healing Council. “The Truth and Healing Council was formed to prevent history from repeating itself, which is clearly happening in Humboldt County, where my grandmother and many other elders suffered horrific abuses at the hands of the state. The widespread and ongoing systemic failures with Humboldt DHHS and the Sheriff’s Office put our children at risk and they cannot be allowed to persist.”

“It’s disappointing and frankly discouraging that after years of well-documented systemic failures by the County’s DHHS, the County still considers the protection of children and the prevention of child abuse and neglect a waste of taxpayers’ money. Unfortunately, the County’s actions and comments demonstrate a continued lack of understanding of DHHS’s failures and underscore the need for continued oversight to best protect children who are suffering or at risk of abuse in Humboldt County,” said Wendell Freeman, the Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria’s Tribal Council Treasurer. “The third-party compliance monitors have played an essential role in improving the agencies’ response to cases of child abuse and neglect by proactively identifying issues and assisting with development of solutions to the problems outlined in court-ordered settlement.”

“This is about more than money, it is about the safety of our kids. We’re talking about children, the quality of their lives and the future of our communities. While the county purports that improvements have been made, when it comes to the safety of local children, not much has been changed since the court ordered settlement was announced,” said Ted Hernandez, Wiyot Tribe Chair.

Trinidad Rancheria Vice-Chairman, Robert Hemsted added, “In order to effect meaningful change within DHHS, County leadership must embrace the spirit and extension of the AG Judgement, which is meant to protect our children. Denying that problems still exist is not acceptable. DHHS must also implement training for staff beginning with the DHHS Director. DHHS Director Beck’s press release stating that monitors are a waste of taxpayer dollars reflects a lack of cultural sensitivity as well as understanding and willingness for true collaboration. Nothing can change until the County embraces its internal issues and comes to the table without excuses as to why they are unable to fulfill the judgement mandates. We have been willing to work with the County and will continue to work with them through Government to Government Consultation, Collaboration and Communication. Our children’s lives and well-being depend on it.”

The four Northern California tribes vigorously support an extension of the Judgment and categorically disagree with DHHS’s characterization of its progress. From the Tribes’ perspective, the newly formed policies and procedures are not adhered to or adequately measured to show definitive progress. A report by the third-party monitor documents the agency’s failure to comply with the order, which is why there is a continued need for the extension proposed by the AG’s office.

According to a motion filed by the Attorney General, “the monitor is concerned that while (Humboldt) DHHS-CWS may have revised its policies and procedures in paper form, DHHS-CWS has failed to ensure staff is consistently implementing these changes, as required under the Final Judgment and DHHS-CWS is not holding staff accountable for lapses.”

Because tribes share jurisdiction with DHHS over child welfare matters involving tribal children, tribes have a unique view into the daily practices of DHHS child welfare services and its structural failings. Yurok Vice Chairman Frankie Myers commented, “Tribes see the daily practices of DHHS child welfare services. While some improvements have been made, a report by the third-party monitor documents the agency’s failure to comply with the order, which why we strongly believe that there is a continued need for the extension proposed by the AG’s office.”

The initial investigation, launched in 2016 by then Attorney General, now Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, and completed by Attorney General Becerra, found numerous deficiencies in Humboldt DHHS’s and Sheriff’s Office’s management of cases involving child abuse and neglect, especially those involving Native American children. AG Becerra was recently nominated to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services. In 2017, a Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury released two reports concerning DHHS’s mishandling of child abuse and neglect reports. In both instances, the Grand Jury found: “Too often, our children are being neglected and abused by parents and family members, and when Mandated Reporters make allegations of abuse and neglect to CWS, the system is failing to respond in a timely manner, or to respond at all.” The Grand Jury further found these failings occurred in spite of clear requirements laid out in state law and internal policies.

According to the Grand Jury, before 2018 DHHS was not meeting basic legal requirements and issues reported by the oversight body remain unresolved. Children are left in unsafe situations where the worst possible outcomes, potentially preventable child deaths, have occurred since the Judgment was entered. Lengthening the 2018 terms serves as the best mechanism to repair the system and keep all children safe.

The Court was scheduled to decide on the Attorney General’s request for extension of the Judgment on January 15, 2021 however, the County requested a continuance to February 9, 2021.

The Humboldt County Democratic headquarters in Eureka was vandalized in broad daylight yesterday after an unknown person bashed in the building’s 4th-Street-facade window.

The break-in appears to be a blatant act of vandalism likely linked to yesterday’s terroristic raid on the U.S. Capitol Building in D.C. by Trump supporters.

Eureka Police Department spokesperson Brittany Powell told the Outpost that no items are believed to have been taken from the Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee building.

“Officers responded and found that entry had been forced and items inside had been vandalized,” Powell said.

The Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee issued a resilient statment on social media following yesterday’s crime.

“The Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee would like to thank the person or persons who helped us improve our 4th St. entrance today by opening the large window to the left of the front door,” the committee stated. “Previously, as you can see in the photos, our rather large Biden/Harris sign was more difficult to see. Today, thanks to your ingenuity and our sweat equity the sign is now prominently visible to all. It serves as an excellent reminder that our nation has better days ahead after January 20.”

The committee has since boarded up the broken window with help from the local nonprofit Cooperation Humboldt.

There is no known video surveillance of the crime and no suspects have been taken into custody. EPD is encouraging anyone with suspect information to call its non-emergency line: (707) 441-4060.

Read the Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee’s full statement in response to the burglary:

The Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee would like to thank the person or persons who helped us improve our 4th St. entrance today by opening the large window to the left of the front door. Previously, as you can see in the photos, our rather large Biden/Harris sign was more difficult to see. Today, thanks to your ingenuity and our sweat equity the sign is now prominently visible to all. It serves as an excellent reminder that our nation has better days ahead after January 20th.

And look, we get it, you feel the election wasn’t fair (even though it was) and that your rights have been taken from you (even though they haven’t). There are so many men and women of color who have felt like they have been robbed of justice and have had to defend the rights they have struggled for decades to enjoy despite having actual constitutional amendments in their favor. It is hard to be kind and lawful when you feel so frustrated and angry isn’t it?

However, in the future, we would appreciate it if you would take your stress to the ballot box instead. There are already too many problems in the world without destroying the property of your Humboldt County neighbors. We have a long road ahead of us. Let’s work together instead of pushing so much anger, hatred, and violence. Hell, you might even think about something nice you can do for the “bad guys” next time. Be better.

From the Humboldt County Drug Task Force:

On January 6th, 2021, special agents with the Humboldt County Drug Task Force (HCDTF), with the assistance of the Eureka Police Department POP team, served a search warrant on Miguel Jose Sierra Herrera (25 years old Eureka) and his girlfriend Micheal Clair Guyette (25 years old Eureka). Agents have been investigating the couple for trafficking methamphetamine in Humboldt County.

Agents made a traffic stop on the couple in the area of Buhne Dr. and Union St. in Eureka. Guyette attempted to walk away from the vehicle and was detained by agents. Guyette was found to have approx. 1.25 pounds of methamphetamine concealed in the front of her pants. Agents also located 1 ounce of methamphetamine inside the vehicle.

Agents responded to the 1500 block of John Hill Rd. in Eureka and served a search warrant on Herrera and Guyette’s residence. Inside the house agents located approx. 1.5 ounces of cocaine and approx. $7900 in US currency.

Herrera and Guyette were both booked at the Humboldt County Jail for the following charges:

• H&S 11378 Possession of methamphetamine for sale

• H&S 11379 Transportation of methamphetamine for sale

• H&S 11351 Possession of cocaine for sale

• PC 182 Conspiracy to commit a crime

Anyone with information related to this investigation or other narcotics related crimes are encouraged to call the Humboldt County Drug Task Force at 707-267-9976.