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California Watch

News stories in this section spotlight activities in California, including actions by the state Assembly and state Senate; proposed legislation; regulators like the Department of Managed Health Care and Department of Insurance; and the state ACA exchange, Covered California.

S.F. All But Gives Up On Contact Tracing For Monkeypox

San Francisco has demanded more vaccines and treatment options for its escalating cases of monkeypox — but the city has all but abandoned a time-honored method of containing outbreaks: contact tracing.U.S. health officials declared monkeypox a national health emergency last week, as did California and San Francisco city officials, and although it’s typically non-fatal, no one ...

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California Fair Pay and Employer Accountability Act Qualifies for 2024 Ballot

The Secretary of State has announced that the California Fair Pay and Employer Accountability Act qualified for the 2024 ballot on the random sample count of signatures. The initiative’s campaign submitted 962,217 signatures in support of the reform, meeting the 110% validity rate threshold The ballot measure will put workers’ labor claims back in the ...

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California Governor Declares Monkeypox State Of Emergency As Cases Climb

California's governor has declared a state of emergency to speed efforts to combat the monkeypox outbreak, becoming the second state in three days to take the step.

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COVID: Reinfections account for 50,000 California cases this month. Here’s how that number is rising

Have you had COVID a second time? Or a third? If so, you are in good company. New data from California’s public health department show that in the first three weeks of July there were more than 50,000 documented reinfections, accounting for 1 in 7 new COVID cases through the middle of the month. And, ...

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$85 Million in Tax Credits Available for California Businesses

This year’s California Competes Tax Credit (CCTC) application period is underway and the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) has up to $85 million in tax credits available to award businesses that want to locate in California or stay and grow in the state. The tax credit program has a total of $304,727,233 ...

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Citing a Mental Health Crisis Among Young People, California Lawmakers Target Social Media

Karla Garcia said her son’s social media addiction started in fourth grade, when he got his own computer for virtual learning and logged on to YouTube. Now, two years later, the video-sharing site has replaced both schoolwork and the activities he used to love — like composing music or serenading his friends on the piano, ...

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L.A. County Coronavirus Weekly Death Rate 70% Higher Than In Bay Area: Why So Much Worse?

L.A. County’s weekly COVID-19 death rate is significantly higher than that of the San Francisco Bay Area. On a per-capita basis, L.A. County was recording 96 deaths a week for every 10 million residents, while the Bay Area was recording 56 deaths a week for every 10 million residents.

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Updated Cal/OSHA, EEOC COVID-19 Guidance

While COVID-19 guidance, orders and regulatory changes haven’t been as frequent as they were in the past two years, employers should review a couple of recent updates, including clarification of “indoor air space” and new limits to an employer’s ability to require viral COVID-19 testing. First, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) ...

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California’s Public Health Tax Is Dead for the Year

A ballot initiative that would have raised taxes on California millionaires and billionaires to fund public health programs and pandemic prevention is dead — at least for this year.

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Comic-Con Issues A Mask Mandate, Not The Costume Kind, For Event In San Diego.

Comic-Con International, which considers itself the oldest pop-culture convention in the world, is returning to San Diego for its first major in-person event since before the coronavirus pandemic began, and masks will be mandatory.

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