NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – Upper Lake District Ranger Frank Aebly issued a communications use lease for the Big Signal Peak communication site project in Mendocino County on the Mendocino National Forest on Dec. 24.
This lease allows the installation of an additional wireless communications tower at an existing telecommunication site on National Forest System lands.
“This project will contribute to the existing telecommunications infrastructure on Big Signal that is an integral part of the agency’s goal of providing quality communication access to all Americans,” Forest Engineer Shannon Pozas said.
The project is located approximately 18 miles northeast of Willits and is adjacent to the Sanhedrin Wilderness.
The telecommunications services provided at this site will contribute to the safety of the surrounding communities.
The Mendocino National Forest worked in collaboration with Mendocino County Emergency Services to reach a solution to provide this communications site while not interfering with existing county emergency operations and maintenance.
Mendocino Forest Supervisor Ann Carlson added, “Issuing this lease will bring important internet services to rural communities, like Covelo and Laytonville, during a time when telework and distance learning for families is ever more important due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Project implementation may occur immediately.
Correction: The Forest Service has issued an update in which it said the project is to the northeast of Willits, not the southwest.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Clearlake Animal Control is hosting many dogs for Christmas this year, canines it hopes to send home with new families.
The following dogs are ready for adoption or foster.
‘Bella’
“Bella” is a female Siberian Husky mix.
She has a long red and white coat.
She is dog No. 4428.
‘Ben’
“Ben” is a male American Pit Bull terrier mix.
He has a short brindle coat.
He is dog No. 4454.
‘Brownie’
“Brownie” is a male Chihuahua with a short black and tan coat.
He is dog No. 4431.
‘Bruce’
“Bruce” is a male American Staffordshire Terrier mix puppy.
He has a short smooth yellow coat.
He is dog No. 4383.
‘Bumble’
“Bumble” is a male Siberian Husky with a gray and black coat.
He is dog No. 4452.
‘Cindy Lou’
“Cindy Lou” is a female German Shepherd mix.
She has a medium-length tan and black coat.
She is dog No. 4448.
‘Jack’
“Jack” is a male Labrador Retriever mix with a short yellow coat.
He is dog No. 4155.
‘Jerry’
“Jerry” is a male American Pit Bull terrier with a short brindle coat.
He is dog No. 4455.
‘Rudolph’
“Rudolph” is a male shepherd mix.
He has a short tan and black coat.
He is dog No. 4436.
‘Sadie’
“Sadie” is a female American Pit Bull terrier mix with a short black and white coat.
She is dog No. 4460.
‘Sugarplum’
‘Sugarplum’ is a female German Shepherd mix.
She has a medium-length black coat.
She is dog No. 4447.
‘Tinsle’
“Tinsle” is a female American Pit Bull Terrier mix puppy.
She has a short brindle and brown coat.
She is dog No. 4433.
‘Toby’
“Toby” is a male boxer mix.
He has a short tan and white coat.
He is dog No. 4389.
‘Yule’
“Yule” is a husky of undetermined gender with a black and white coat.
Yule is dog No. 4432.
Call the Clearlake Animal Control shelter at 707-273-9440, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to inquire about adoptions and schedule a visit to the shelter.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – As Californians prepare for the Christmas holiday during the COVID-19 pandemic, the California Highway Patrol reminds everyone the rules of safe driving are just as critical as ever.
Although traffic may be lighter this holiday season, it is not an invitation to speed.
The rules of the road still apply, and motorists should avoid driving tired, impaired or distracted.
California has instituted a regional stay at home order throughout most of the state and is advising residents to stay close to home as much as possible and not travel significant distances.
If you must travel, the CHP wants to remind you of some important traffic safety tips to help you arrive safely: Drive sober, avoid distractions, always buckle up, and leave plenty of time to get to your destination.
“The CHP wants to ensure your safety throughout this unprecedented year,” said CHP Commissioner Amanda Ray. “We are hopeful that the public will do their part and remember to make safety a priority.”
Safeguarding California’s roadways through the upcoming Christmas holiday, the CHP will implement a maximum enforcement period, which begins at 6:01 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 24, and concludes at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 27.
During that time, all available officers will be on the road for enhanced enforcement and to assist any drivers in need of help.
The mission of the CHP is to provide the highest level of safety, service and security.
Laurie Archbald-Pannone, University of Virginia; Kathleen C. Brown, University of Tennessee; Ryan Huerto, University of Michigan; Sue Mattison, Drake University, and Thomas A. Russo, University at Buffalo
Earlier this fall, many of the nation’s restaurants opened their doors to patrons to eat inside, especially as the weather turned cold in places. Now, as COVID-19 cases surge across the country, some cities and towns have banned indoor dining while others have permitted it with restrictions. Still other geographies have no bans at all.
We asked five health professionals if they would dine indoors at a restaurant. Four said no – and one had a surprising answer.
Not an option
Dr. Laurie Archbald-Pannone, Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Virgina
No. March 12, 2020 was the last day I ate indoors at a restaurant. At the time, there was mild apprehension – but much changed that week. The COVID-19 pandemic altered many aspects of “normalcy,” and for me eating inside at a restaurant is one of those activities. I loved eating out and typically would eat out three times a week (sometimes more!). But understanding how the COVID-19 infection is transmitted, I feel that being inside without a mask on – even just to eat – is not an option for me. I strongly believe that we need to support our community through these challenging times, so we still get curbside pickup or delivery from our favorite local restaurants at least three times a week – sometimes more! – but it will be a while before I’m back inside. When I do return I’m definitely getting dessert.
Great risk
Dr. Thomas A. Russo, Chief of Infectious Disease Division, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo
No. And it’s been “no” right from the beginning.
We have a little more information now, but what I said in the spring hasn’t really changed. The greatest risk of getting infected with SARS-CoV-2 is being indoors with people who aren’t using masks at all times. The concern isn’t just big respiratory droplets when close to someone talking; it’s also the tiny aerosols that linger in the air.
Making it even riskier is the generally poor ventilation in many restaurants. The key differences between indoor dining and shopping in a big box store or grocery store are: 1) big stores have more ventilation and greater air space; 2) everyone can wear a mask at all times; 3) you’re not fixed in space, so if you see someone who just has a bandanna or their mask drops down below their nose, you can steer clear of them; and 4) it should take less time than dinner out. At a restaurant, you’re stuck at that table. If a party near you is having an animated conversation, they could be generating a lot of respiratory secretions.
Some interesting studies have looked at the airflow and air currents in restaurants in relation to where people became infected. In one, a person was 20 feet away from the source for only about 5 minutes, but the person was directly in the airflow and became infected. It’s a reminder of what we’ve been saying – there’s nothing magical about 6 feet. The high degree of community disease in the U.S. right now increases the likelihood that another diner in the restaurant is infected. If you are tired of cooking and need a break, takeout is the way to go.
Careful mixed with trust
Sue Mattison, Provost and Professor in the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Drake University
Yes. As an epidemiologist, my response may seem surprising or hypocritical: I do eat at local restaurants, but only because in April, like more than 17 million Americans since that time, I tested positive for COVID-19 and recovered. According to the latest evidence, I believe I have immunity for now, and perhaps longer. But I am not pushing my luck.
I have my own list of four restaurants where I eat. I trust these restaurants because each has drastically reduced their number of tables and spaced them at least 6 feet apart, and everyone inside is diligent about wearing a mask. My husband and I also order takeout a lot. It is important to reiterate, however, that evidence shows restaurants are a significant source of infection, and those who have not recovered from COVID-19 should refrain from eating at restaurants until the community gets a better handle on the spread of infection.
Short-term sacrifices
Dr. Ryan Huerto, Family Medicine Physician, Health Services Researcher and Clinical Lecturer, University of Michigan
No. While I understand many factors contribute to indoor dining, such as the mental health toll of social isolation, the opportunity to support small businesses and cold weather, I strongly recommend against indoor dining.
The risk of contracting COVID-19 from indoor activities is far greater than from physically distanced outdoor activities. The recent spike in COVID-19 infections, deaths and ICU bed shortages is likely linked to indoor gatherings during Thanksgiving.
On Dec. 22, 201,674 infections and 3,239 deaths due to COVID-19 were reported. This death toll is equivalent to approximately 20 Boeing 737 aircrafts crashing in a single day.
Even with a COVID-19 vaccine approved, staying home, physically distancing, wearing a mask and good hand hygiene are as important as ever. Think of these as short-term sacrifices to help protect your friends, family, neighbors and essential workers.
Instead of dining in, please consider exponentially safer alternatives such as ordering delivery or curbside pickup.
Restaurants pose big risk
Kathleen C. Brown, Associate Professor of Practice and MPH Program Director, College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, University of Tennessee
No. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that patients testing positive were twice as likely to have eaten in a restaurant than those testing negative in the 14 days preceding their test. I regularly get takeout but do not eat in restaurants.
What I cannot control poses a risk. I have very open and honest conversations with family and friends about where we have been and who we have been with. From there, our risk is pretty clear but still not at zero. The more people I come into contact with, the greater the risk.
In a restaurant, I am not able to assess the risk posed by other patrons or the staff. Each person in that restaurant has a network of others that, taken together, increases my risk of contracting COVID-19. Currently, Tennessee, where I live, is the second-leading state for cases per 100,000, which means community spread is high.
In plain language, that means there is an increased likelihood that I may come into contact with someone who is infectious – symptomatic or not – if I eat inside a restaurant. I will continue to pick up my takeout for now.
Thousands of sparkling young stars are nestled within the giant nebula NGC 3603, one of the most massive young star clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy.
NGC 3603, a prominent star-forming region in the Carina spiral arm of the Milky Way about 20,000 light-years away, reveals stages in the life cycle of stars.
Powerful ultraviolet radiation and fast winds from the bluest and hottest stars have blown a big bubble around the cluster.
Moving into the surrounding nebula, this torrent of radiation sculpted the tall, dark stalks of dense gas, which are embedded in the walls of the nebula.
These gaseous monoliths are a few light-years tall and point to the central cluster. The stalks may be incubators for new stars.
On a smaller scale, a cluster of dark clouds called "Bok" globules resides at the top, right corner. These clouds are composed of dense dust and gas and are about 10 to 50 times more massive than the sun.
Resembling an insect's cocoon, a Bok globule may be undergoing a gravitational collapse on its way to forming new stars.
The nebula was first discovered by Sir John Herschel in 1834.
NORTH COAST, Calif. – COVID-19 testing is underway at the Mendocino County Jail where several staffers and inmates have tested positive for the virus.
Lt. John Bednar of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office said a corrections deputy at the Mendocino County Jail had been off work with an illness and, per policy, received testing for COVID-19.
On Saturday, the corrections deputy reported to jail administration that he had taken a COVID-19 test and received a positive result, Bednar said.
Working with Mendocino County Human Resources, contact tracing was immediately done. Bednar said two employees were identified as being potentially exposed and were subsequently tested.
On Monday, one of those employees received a positive test. Bednar said an additional employee reported feeling ill and submitted to COVID-19 testing, and was also found to be positive that same date.
Because of the positive results, Bednar said jail administration reached out to Mendocino County Public Health, which arranged for testing kits for all staff members. Testing began for all staff members on Tuesday.
The Mendocino County Public Health Department also worked to secure test kits so that all of the inmate population and corrections staff can be tested. Bednar said testing has begun and will continue until all inmates and staff have been tested.
On Tuesday evening, three male inmates reported feeling ill with flu-like symptoms. On-site jail medical staff from Naphcare responded immediately and began testing the three inmates. Bednar said the three inmates all tested positive for COVID-19.
Based on those results, Bednar said the housing unit in which they were assigned was quarantined, following the jail’s COVID-19 policy, to avoid any potential spread of the virus.
On Wednesday morning, a fourth male inmate from a different housing unit, complaining of flu-like symptoms, was tested and found to be positive, Bednar said. Again, following the jail’s COVID-19 policy, the housing unit in which the inmate was housed was placed on quarantine.
In addition to the normal cleaning of the jail, a deep cleaning of the jail was performed by staff following the positive findings, Bednar said.
The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office thanked Bekke Emery and her staff for their quick response in assisting it and providing the necessary testing supplies so that testing can be completed for the safety of inmates and staff.
“Working with our partners at the Public Health Department, we will continue working to keep the staff and residents within the Mendocino County Jail safe,” Bednar said.
BERKELEY, Calif. – Astronomers are still searching for a hypothetical “Planet Nine” in the distant reaches of our solar system, but an exoplanet 336 light years from Earth is looking more and more like the Planet Nine of its star system.
Planet Nine, potentially 10 times the size of Earth and orbiting far beyond Neptune in a highly eccentric orbit about the sun, was proposed in 2012 to explain perturbations in the orbits of dwarf planets just beyond Neptune’s orbit, so-called detached Kuiper Belt objects. It has yet to be found, if it exists.
A similarly weird extrasolar planet was discovered far from the star HD 106906 in 2013, the only such wide-separation planet known. While much heavier than the predicted mass of Planet Nine — perhaps 11 times the mass of Jupiter, or 3,500 times the mass of Earth — it, too, was sitting in a very unexpected location, far above the dust plane of the planetary system and tilted at an angle of about 21 degrees.
The big question, until now, has been whether the planet, called HD 106906 b, is in an orbit perpetually bound to the binary star — which is a mere 15 million years old compared to the 4.5 billion-year age of our sun — or whether it’s on its way out of the planetary system, never to return.
In a paper appearing Dec. 10 in The Astronomical Journal, astronomers finally answer that question. By precisely tracking the planet’s position over 14 years, they determined that it is likely bound to the star in a 15,000-year, highly eccentric orbit, making it a distant cousin of Planet Nine.
If it is in a highly eccentric orbit around the binary, “This raises the question of how did these planets get out there to such large separations,” said Meiji Nguyen, a recent UC Berkeley graduate and first author of the paper. “Were they scattered from the inner solar system? Or, did they form out there?”
According to senior author Paul Kalas, University of California, Berkeley, adjunct professor of astronomy, the resemblance to the orbit of the proposed Planet Nine shows that such distant planets can really exist, and that they may form within the first tens of millions of years of a star’s life. And based on the team’s other recent discoveries about HD 106906, the planet seems to favor a scenario where passing stars also play a role.
“Something happens very early that starts kicking planets and comets outward, and then you have passing stars that stabilize their orbits,” he said. “We are slowly accumulating the evidence needed to understand the diversity of extrasolar planets and how that relates to the puzzling aspects of our own solar system.”
A young, dusty star with a weird planet
HD 106906 is a binary star system located in the direction of the constellation Crux. Astronomers have studied it extensively for the past 15 years because of its prominent disk of dust, which could be birthing planets. Our solar system may have looked like HD 106906 about 4.5 billion years ago as the planets formed in the swirling disk of debris left over from the formation of the sun.
Surprisingly, images of the star taken in 2013 by the Magellan Telescopes in Chile revealed a planet glowing from its own internal heat and sitting at an unusually large distance from the binary: 737 times farther from the binary than Earth is from the sun (737 astronomical units, or AU). That’s 25 times farther from the star than Neptune is from the sun.
Kalas, who searches for planets and dust disks around young stars, co-led a team that used the Gemini Planet Imager on the Gemini South Telescope to obtain the first images of the star’s debris disk. In 2015, these observations provided evidence that led theorists to propose that the planet formed close to the binary star and was kicked out because of gravitational interactions with the binary. The evidence: The stars’ outer dust disk and inner comet belt are lopsided, suggesting that something — the planet — perturbed their symmetry.
“The idea is that every time the planet comes to its closest approach to the binary star, it stirs up the material in the disk,” said team member Robert De Rosa of the European Southern Observatory in Santiago, Chile, who is a former UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow. "So, every time the planet comes through, it truncates the disk and pushes it up on one side. This scenario has been tested with simulations of this system with the planet on a similar orbit — this was before we knew what the orbit of the planet was.”
The problem, as pointed out by those simulating such planet interactions, is that a planet would normally be kicked out of the system entirely, becoming a rogue planet. Some other interaction, perhaps with a passing star, would be necessary to stabilize the orbit of an eccentric planet like HD 106906 b.
A similar scenario has been proposed for the formation of Planet Nine: that its interaction with our giant planets early in our solar system’s history kicked it out of the inner solar system, after which passing stars in our local cluster stabilized its orbit.
Kalas went looking for such a fly-by star for HD 106906 b, and last year he and De Rosa, then at Stanford University, reported finding several nearby stars that would have zipped by the planetary system 3 million years earlier, perhaps providing the nudge needed to stabilize the planet’s orbit.
Now, with precise measurements of the planet’s orbit between 2004 and 2018, Nguyen, de Rosa and Kalas present evidence that the planet is most likely in a stable, but very elliptical, orbit around its binary star.
“Though it's only been 14 years of observations, we were still able to, surprisingly, get a constraint on the orbit for the first time, confirming our suspicion that it was very misaligned and also that the planet is on an approximately 15,000-year orbit.” Nguyen said. “The fact that our results are consistent with predictions is, I think, a strong piece of evidence that this planet is, indeed, bound. In the future, a radial velocity measurement is needed to confirm our findings.”
The science team’s orbital measurements came from comparing astrometric data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia observatory, which accurately maps the positions of billions of stars, and images from the Hubble Space Telescope. Because Hubble must obscure the glare from the binary star to see the dimmer debris disk, astronomers were unable to determine the exact position of the star relative to HD 106906 b. Gaia data allowed the team to determine the binary’s position more precisely, and thus chart the movement of the planet relative to the binary between 2004 and 2018, less than one-thousandth of its orbital period.
“We can harness the extremely precise astrometry from Gaia to infer where the primary star should be in our Hubble images, and then measuring the position of the companion is rather trivial,” Nguyen said.
In addition to confirming the planet’s 15,000-year orbit, the team found that the orbit is actually tilted much more severely to the plane of the disk: between 36 and 44 degrees. At its closest approach to the binary, its elliptical orbit would take it no closer than about 500 AU from the stars, implying that it has no effect on inner planets also suspected to be part of the system. That is also the case with Planet Nine, which has no observed effect on any of the sun’s eight planets.
“What I really think makes HD 106906 unique is that it is the only exoplanet that we know that is directly imaged, surrounded by a debris disk, misaligned relative to its system and is widely separated,” Nguyen said. “This is what makes it the sole candidate we have found thus far whose orbit is analogous to the hypothetical Planet Nine.”
The work was supported by the National Science Foundation (AST-1518332) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NNX15AC89G, NNX15AD95G, HST-GO-14670/NAS5-26555). This work benefited from NASA’s Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) research coordination network sponsored by NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
Robert Sanders writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.
Peter C. Mancall, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
When winter cold settles in across the U.S., the alleged “War on Christmas” heats up.
In recent years, department store greeters and Starbucks cups have sparked furor by wishing customers “happy holidays.” This year, with state officials warning of holiday gatherings becoming superspreader events in the midst of a pandemic, opponents of some public health measures to limit the spread of the pandemic are already casting them as attacks on the Christian holiday.
But debates about celebrating Christmas go back to the 17th century. The Puritans, it turns out, were not too keen on the holiday. They first discouraged Yuletide festivities and later outright banned them.
At first glance, banning Christmas celebrations might seem like a natural extension of a stereotype of the Puritans as joyless and humorless that persists to this day.
But as a scholar who has written about the Puritans, I see their hostility toward holiday gaiety as less about their alleged asceticism and more about their desire to impose their will on the people of New England – Natives and immigrants alike.
An aversion to Christmas chaos
The earliest documentary evidence for their aversion to celebrating Christmas dates back to 1621, when Gov. William Bradford of Plymouth Colony castigated some of the newcomers who chose to take the day off rather than work.
But why?
As a devout Protestant, Bradford did not dispute the divinity of Jesus Christ. Indeed, Puritans spent a great deal of time investigating their own and others’ souls because they were so committed to creating a godly community.
Bradford’s comments reflected Puritans’ lingering anxiety about the ways that Christmas had been celebrated in England. For generations, the holiday had been an occasion for riotous, sometimes violent behavior. The moralist pamphleteer Phillip Stubbes believed that Christmastime celebrations gave celebrants license “to do what they lust, and to folow what vanitie they will.” He complained about rampant “fooleries” like playing dice and cards and wearing masks.
Civil authorities had mostly accepted the practices because they understood that allowing some of the disenfranchised to blow off steam on a few days of the year tended to preserve an unequal social order. Let the poor think they are in control for a day or two, the logic went, and the rest of the year they will tend to their work without causing trouble.
English Puritans objected to accepting such practices because they feared any sign of disorder. They believed in predestination, which led them to search their own and others’ behavior for signs of saving grace. They could not tolerate public scandal, especially when attached to a religious moment.
Puritan efforts to crack down on Christmas revelries in England before 1620 had little impact. But once in North America, these seekers of religious freedom had control over the governments of New Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut.
The Puritans in Plymouth and Massachusetts used their authority to punish or banish those who did not share their views. For example, they exiled an Anglican lawyer named Thomas Morton who rejected Puritan theology, befriended local Indigenous people, danced around a maypole and sold guns to the Natives. He was, Bradford wrote, “the Lord of Misrule” – the archetype of a dangerous type who Puritans believed create mayhem, including at Christmas.
In the years that followed, the Puritans exiled others who disagreed with their religious views, including Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams who espoused beliefs deemed unacceptable by local church leaders. In 1659, they banished three Quakers who had arrived in 1656. When two of them, William Robinson and Marmaduke Stephenson, refused to leave, Massachusetts authorities executed them in Boston.
This was the context for which Massachusetts authorities outlawed Christmas celebrations in 1659. Even after the statute left the law books in 1681 during a reorganization of the colony, prominent theologians still despised holiday festivities.
In 1687, the minister Increase Mather, who believed that Christmas celebrations derived from the bacchanalian excesses of the Roman holiday Saturnalia, decried those consumed “in Revellings, in excess of wine, in mad mirth.”
The hostility of Puritan clerics to celebrations of Christmas should not be seen as evidence that they always hoped to stop joyous behavior. In 1673, Mather had called alcohol “a good creature of God” and had no objection to moderate drinking. Nor did Puritans have a negative view of sex.
By comparison to their treatment of Natives and fellow colonists who rebuffed their unbending vision, the Puritan campaign against Christmas seems tame. But it is a reminder of what can happen when the self-righteous control the levers of power in a society and seek to mold a world in their image.
In the midst of the raging coronavirus pandemic, we’re faced with agonizing decisions about whether to forgo treasured holiday rituals.
Many people have defied health officials, putting themselves at risk of contracting COVID-19 or spreading the disease in order to uphold their family traditions in person.
A new paper by two researchers at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business sheds light on the psychology of rituals – and why health officials may have to do more than just tell people not to gather in order to be effective.
That's because coming together to exchange gifts on Christmas isn’t just about getting presents; it’s a symbol of love. Eating turkey on Thanksgiving isn’t just a shared meal; it’s an expression of gratitude.
“We view rituals as more important than regular types of group activities because they reflect the values of the group,” said Dan Stein, a Berkeley Haas doctoral student and lead author on the paper.
“When people alter activities that are more ritualistic, it elicits stronger moral outrage,” said Juliana Schroeder, an assistant professor in the Haas Management of Organizations Group and the paper’s co-author. Pitting pandemic social distancing against the values of love and togetherness represented by the holidays creates moral conflict for many people. “If messages from officials to social distance are going to be successful, they must come up with a response to these strong group values.”
The paper, forthcoming in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, examines the psychology of rituals through seven experimental studies that drive home just how strongly people feel about traditions. It was co-written by Harvard Business School professors Francesca Gino and Michael Norton along with Nicholas Hobson, founder of The Behaviorist consulting firm.
"From Catholics performing the sign of the cross since the fourth century to Americans reciting the Pledge of Allegiance since the 1890s, group rituals have strikingly consistent features over time," the researchers wrote. "Because group rituals symbolize sacred group values, even minor alterations to them provoke moral outrage and punishment."
In one experiment, the researchers asked Berkeley undergraduate students to rate 15 holidays according to how ritualistic they were. They then asked them to rate on a scale of 1 to 7 how angry and frustrated they would feel if the U.S. government “moved celebrations for the holiday one week forward,” and also how immoral and inappropriate it would be to change the date. The more ritualistic the holiday, the higher it scored on both scales, signifying stronger “moral outrage” about altering it. Christmas and New Year’s scored above 5 on both scales, while Columbus Day scored as a 2 on both.
Change for the sake of good
In other experiments, they found that altering a ritual elicits moral outrage even if a person has a good reason for doing so.
When they asked participants – all U.S. citizens – how they would feel if they saw another citizen remaining seated rather than standing for the Pledge of Allegiance, participants reported outrage even when they were told the person was sitting to show solidarity with Americans with disabilities.
Participants expressed even more outrage, however, when told that the person was sitting to protest U.S. values – indicating that the reason for the change was important – and they were also upset if told that the person had forgotten to stand. Their irritation only subsided when they were told the person was injured and physically unable to stand.
Even changes that might make a ritual safer elicit moral outrage, they found.
In another experiment, the researchers asked Jewish participants how they would feel if a circumcision ceremony – a highly ritualized event occurring the same way for thousands of years – was done in a hospital rather than at a temple. Over 80 percent of respondents agreed that a hospital ceremony would be safer, and yet they also reported more anger about the suggestion of moving the circumcision ceremony to a hospital rather than keeping it the same, even if it was riskier.
“People don’t want to have to pit one sacred value against another,” Stein said. “While medical safety represents the sacred value of life in Judaism, circumcision stands for a literal blood covenant with God. That creates an uncomfortable conflict in people’s minds.”
Commitment to group values
In fact, the researchers found that the study participants who were most committed to U.S. values expressed the most outrage about changing holiday traditions.
“We theorize that moral outrage is functional in the long-run because it can help a group protect its sacred rituals,” Stein said. “We need those people who are committed for the group to survive, but our research suggests that trying to tell people, ‘By not practicing your ritual, you’ll save lives,’ might not be effective for everyone.”
The challenge for families trying to stay safe during the pandemic is how to alter rituals in ways that keep their values intact, even if getting together physically isn’t possible. “This research suggests that to reduce outrage when altering rituals, you should try to change them in ways that still allow people to celebrate group values,” said Schroeder. “That’s what people are getting upset about when the ritual is altered – and that’s the thing that needs to be maintained.”
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Recent rains and cooler temperatures across the region have lowered the threat of wildfires, allowing Cal Fire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit to transition out of peak fire season.
The transition is effective Monday, Dec. 28, at 8 a.m. in Sonoma, Lake, Napa, Colusa, Yolo, and Solano counties.
It’s the latest fire season transition over the past decade, which has seen the fire season extend further into the late fall and early winter months.
Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit Chief Shana Jones reminded residents that safe residential pile burning of forest residue by landowners is a crucial tool in reducing fire hazards.
State, federal and local land management and fire agencies will also be utilizing this same window of opportunity to conduct prescribed burns aimed at improving forest health on private and public lands.
Cal Fire will continue to maintain staffing to meet any potential threat, as well as maintaining the ability to strategically move resources to areas that remain at a higher threat level.
Cal Fire also will continue to monitor weather conditions closely and still has the ability to increase staffing should weather conditions change or if there is a need to support wildfires or other emergencies in other areas of the state.
The 2020 fire season has been a very active year, even more so than in 2019. Statewide, Cal Fire and firefighters from many local agencies responded to over 8,000 wildfires within the State Responsibility Area that burned over 1.4 million acres.
In the Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit, Cal Fire responded to over 600 wildfires that charred over 434,000 acres.
During the cooler winter months, Cal Fire will continue to actively focus efforts on fire prevention and fuels treatment activities as guided by the state’s Strategic Fire Plan and localized unit fire plans.
These will be done through public education, prescribed burns and various types of fuel reduction projects. These activities are aimed at reducing the impacts of large, damaging wildfires, public safety and improving overall forest health.
Residents are urged to still take precautions outdoors in order to prevent sparking a wildfire. A leading cause of wildfires this time of year is from escaped landscape debris burning. Before you burn, ensure it is a permissive burn day by contacting the local air quality district and then make sure you have any and all required burn permits.
During burning, make sure that piles of landscape debris are no larger than 4 feet in diameter, provide a 10-foot clearance down to bare mineral soil around the burn pile and ensure that a responsible adult is in attendance at all times with a water source and a shovel.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County will see expanded COVID-19 testing hours and new weekly schedules beginning in January.
Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace said this week that Verily, a South San Francisco-based company that has been conducting testing for the virus in the county since the spring, will be replaced by OptumServe.
Pace said drive-thru testing will no longer be offered. Instead, testing will take place indoors at sites in Lakeport and Lower Lake.
Beginning on Jan. 4, OptumServe will offer testing at the Silveira Community Center, 500 N. Main St. in Lakeport from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays.
Testing will be offered from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at the Lower Lake Town Hall, 16195 Main St.
Pace said walk-ins are welcome and no appointments are necessary. He said the new testing services should be much more accessible.
He said Rite Aid also is offering COVID-19 testing. Appointments can be made at the Rite Aid website, which shows that the service is available at the company’s Clearlake store and is being conducted by Verily.
Public Health officials have continued to urge people to be tested for the coronavirus as a way of identifying those who need care quickly and in an effort to prevent people who are infected from spreading it to others.
As of Wednesday, Lake County Public Health said approximately 21,804 COVID-19 tests have been conducted in Lake County, which has a population of just over 64,000.
Of those tests, 1,524, or 7 percent, have been positive, and 20,280, or 93 percent, have been negative, Lake County Public Health reported.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – While the COVID-19 vaccine rollout continues, Lake County’s Public Health officer said Tuesday that the case rate is climbing and he urged residents to stay home for the holidays.
“We are in a situation where the number of cases is increasing dramatically,” Dr. Gary Pace said in a video posted on Facebook.
Separately, he told Lake County News that the “big rise” in local cases is likely due to Thanksgiving, which he said is “very concerning.”
As of Tuesday, Lake County had 1,583 confirmed cases and 22 deaths, Public Health reported.
There are 13 people hospitalized, one of the highest hospitalization rates reported so far locally during the pandemic.
Pace said more than 230 cases are active, by far the highest number of active cases the county has had.
Across the state, more than 1.96 million cases and nearly 23,300 deaths were reported Tuesday by Public Health departments in California’s 58 counties.
Pace said California’s positivity rate was 12.2 percent, while in Lake County it’s ranged between 8 and 11 percent in recent days.
He attributed the local and statewide case increase to the Thanksgiving holiday. “The cases go up and then a couple of weeks later, the hospital rates go up.”
The death rate curve also is moving upward, following case and hospitalization rates, he said.
Neither the case nor the hospitalization rate curves are showing any signs of flattening, with 1,399 intensive care unit beds available statewide and concerns that those remaining beds could be used up in coming weeks, Pace said.
“We’re anticipating that the number of people needing hospital beds is going to continue to increase,” while the number of beds available doesn’t change much, he said.
Lake County has had more than 200 new cases in the last week alone, with a case rate of 31.5 per 100,000 people. Pace said a case rate of 10 per 100,000 is what qualifies for the purple tier, the most restrictive on the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy, which Lake County moved into late in November.
State officials have broken down California into five regions for the purposes of case measurement.
Lake County is in the Northern California region, the only one so far that hasn’t been placed in a regionwide stay-at-home order because of the availability of ICU beds falling below 15 percent.
Pace said the Northern California region’s ICU bed capacity has been staying stable at about 28 percent.
However, in Lake County, the pressure on ICU beds is growing. Pace said that on Monday seven of the county’s eight ICU beds were in use.
With the county still able to transport some patients to other regional hospitals, “We’re not in a crisis situation now,” Pace said.
Pace said the state has plans to set up 20 extra beds each in Chico, Marysville and Redding to address the growing bed shortage.
Virus level in community reported to be high
The virus is now popping up all over Lake County, Pace said.
“The virus is spreading throughout the whole community,” said Pace, with the amount of virus in the community very high. He said 75 percent of the county’s total cases tracked to the most populated areas – Lakeport, Kelseyville and Clearlake.
There is an outbreak of more than 100 cases in the tribal community that he said now appears to be slowing.
Pace said one of the skilled nursing facilities, which he did not name, has a significant cluster of cases but the others are OK.
The state’s skilled nursing facility dashboard showed that Rocky Point Care Center in Lakeport has had 50 positive cases among residents and 17 among health care workers, with none of those cases now active.
Lakeport Post Acute has had 41 cases among residents, none of which currently are active, with 23 of its health care workers infected. Less than 11 of those cases with staff remain active.
For Meadowood Nursing Center in Clearlake, there are 12 cases amongst residents, with less than 11 active. It also has less than 11 active cases amongst health care workers.
Less than 11 deaths at each of the facilities were reported for residents, with no reported deaths among health care workers, the state reported.
Pace said Public Health’s efforts are now turning increasingly to communications and public education, and preparing for a change in testing companies that goes into effect in January.
Vaccine being distributed to health care workers
Lake County received the first shipment of 975 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, and Pace said the focus is on getting them to the staff at the acute care hospitals.
“I’m very, very concerned about what’s going to be happening to our medical infrastructure for the next eight weeks or so, Pace said.
In the coming days, a vaccine clinic will be set up for EMS and first responders, with the next tier of vaccines to cover nursing homes. Pace said pharmacies are helping distribute the vaccine to skilled nursing facilities, with shipments for those populations expected next week.
The goal is to cover these initial tiers before moving on to other medical settings like outpatient clinics, he said.
The state of California expects to have 1.7 million vaccine doses by the end of the month, and by that point Pace estimated Lake County would have received between 1,100 and 1,500 doses.
He said he’s heard concerns about the vaccine and while there have been reports of some people in other parts of the country and the world having allergic reactions, on the local level, “At this point, we’re seeing really good things,” with reactions limited to soreness at the injection point, muscle aches and fever, none of which last long.
Pace said the risk of the disease is much greater than the risk of the vaccine based on what’s known at this time.
“It’s a very, very difficult time right now,” said Pace, noting that the community is now entering the phase he’s been concerned about all along.
“Where this ends up, it looks pretty concerning to me right now,” he said, urging people to stay home for the holidays and protect their families.
Those heightened precautions shouldn’t last long and in a few months we should be on the way out of the situation, Pace said, adding the vaccine is the light at the end of the tunnel.
“I want to really encourage people to be as safe as possible and just take extra precaution this year so we can all be around next year to enjoy each other’s company and have a more normal time together,” Pace said.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.