this bs needs to STOP! basic human rights stripped away…

Citations: San Antonio gym cited for employees, manager not wearing masks

The City of San Antonio has issued more than 3,000 warnings and 280 citations for violating the emergency declarations, according to an enforcement report.

Officials had received over 15,200 calls reporting violations as of Monday.

The social distancing orders, intending to slow the spread of COVID-19, first went into place on March 18. The most recent, a third addendum to the eighth emergency health declaration, went into effect on June 26.

Multiple city departments — Code Enforcement, Parking Enforcement, Metro Health and the San Antonio Police Department — are enforcing the order.

Here are the citations issued so far:

October 24

• A proactive inspection at Texas Roadhouse, located at 6616 West Loop 1604 North, found patrons sitting back-to-back in booths without a partition. A citation was issued.

October 21

• A caller reported that people were not wearing masks or social distancing at Crunch Gym, located at 8725 Marbach Road. Inspectors saw multiple employees, guests and a manager who were not wearing masks. A citation was issued.

• A caller reported people not wearing masks at Midas, located at 11000 Interstate 10 West. Inspectors saw two people, one without a mask, interacting within 6 feet. A citation was issued.

October 17

• At Anchor Bar, located at 4553 N. Loop 1604 W., inspectors saw tables not adequately spaced out to maintain a 6-foot distance. A citation was issued.

• At The Lost Bar & Grill, located at 12730 N.W. Loop 410, inspectors saw tables not adequately spaced out to maintain a 6-foot distance. A citation was issued.

• At Elsewhere Garden Bar, located at 103 E. Jones Ave., inspectors saw violations of the mask and social distancing requirements. A citation was issued.

• At Social Spot, located at 930 Broadway, the business was operating over the maximum allowable capacity. There were also violations of the mask and social distancing requirements. Citations were issued.

• A Boneheadz Sports Bar, located at 9503 Console Drive, patrons were close to one another, violating the social distancing requirement. A citation was issued.

October 16

• A caller reported employees were not wearing masks at Hernandez Tire and Muffler Shop, located at 1514 Bandera Road. Inspectors saw employees in the bay area not wearing masks or social distancing. Two citations will be filed in municipal court.

• A caller reported social distancing violations at Circus Bingo SA, located at 3307 Wurzbach Road. Inspectors saw several players sitting back-to-back with no masks on. A citation will be filed in municipal court.

• At Pueblo Hall, located at 3315 Northwestern, inspectors saw the establishment hosting a mixed quinceanera. The tables were not adequately spaced out. A citation was issued.

many more https://www.mysanantonio.com/coronavirus/article/Citations-San-Antonio-gym-cited-for-employees-15187448.php

Two Bay Area counties halt COVID-19 test program run by Google offshoot

Amid fanfare in March, California officials celebrated the launch of a multimillion-dollar contract with Verily — Google’s health-focused sister company — that they said would vastly expand coronavirus testing among the state’s impoverished and underserved communities.

But seven months later, San Francisco and Alameda counties — two of the state’s most populous — have severed ties with the company’s testing sites amid concerns about patients’ data privacy and complaints that funding intended to boost testing in low-income Black and Latino neighborhoods instead was benefiting higher-income residents in other communities.

San Francisco and Alameda are among at least 28 counties, including Los Angeles, where California has paid Verily to boost testing capacity through contracts collectively worth $55 million, according to a spokesperson for the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. About half have received coronavirus tests through six mobile units that travel among rural areas.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has heralded the investment as a game-changer in addressing persistent inequities in access to testing across the state that tend to fall along lines of ethnicity and income. The goal, he said in April, touting six new Verily testing sites, was to “make sure we’re truly testing California broadly defined, not just parts of California and those that somehow have the privilege of getting ahead of the line.”

Yet the roadblocks for getting underrepresented populations to use the program soon became apparent to Alameda County officials. In a June letter to California Secretary of Health Mark Ghaly, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and other members of the county’s COVID-19 Racial Disparities Task Force raised numerous concerns about the Verily protocols.

Among their complaints: People signing up for a test through Verily had to do so online, using an existing or newly created Gmail account; the sign-ups were offered only in English or Spanish; and participants were asked to provide sensitive personal information, including their home address and whether they were managing chronic health conditions such as diabetes, obesity or congestive heart failure, which could expose their data to third-party use.

“It is critical in this crisis that we continue to build trust between government and healthcare providers and vulnerable communities,” the task force members wrote.

Verily had two sites in Alameda County, and one was shuttered by May. The second, located at an Oakland church, closed in August and is set to reopen using a different testing vendor. Alameda County testing director Dr. Jocelyn Freeman Garrick said that while the Verily sites helped the county reach testing goals in terms of raw numbers, they were phased out because of long wait times of a week or more for results, and because the tests were not reaching the residents in greatest need.

Verily does not manufacture the tests used at its California sites. It contracts with major corporations such as Quest Diagnostics and Thermo Fisher Scientific to provide the test kits and perform the lab work. What Verily provides is a digital platform where people are screened for symptoms, schedule testing appointments at participating sites and check back for test results.

…Problems emerged almost immediately, she said. People were suspicious of the requirement that they sign up with a Gmail account and the request for personal information, such as health status and risk factors. “You don’t necessarily want to share that with Google,” Aboelata said.

Then there was the language in the privacy policy that allows for sharing data with third parties. “That always is going to raise suspicion and concern in our community,” she said.

…Participants in the Verily initiative sign an authorization form that says their information can be shared with multiple third parties involved in the testing program, including unnamed contractors and state and federal health authorities.

more https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-10-26/verilys-covid-testing-program-halted-in-san-francisco-and-oakland