Coronavirus

At Korematsu Middle School in El Cerrito Tuesday, school was back in session after a four-day weekend where the district had each school deep cleaned.

Palo Alto Unified is asking hundreds of parents to volunteer on campuses to help with increased staff absences.

California is making it easier for school districts to hire teachers and other employees amid staffing shortages brought on by the latest surge in coronavirus cases, the governor said Tuesday. 

Scientists are seeing signals that COVID-19′s alarming omicron wave may have peaked in Britain and is about to do the same in the U.S., at which point cases may start dropping off dramatically.

California health authorities announced over the weekend that hospital staff members who test positive but are symptom-free can continue working. Some hospitals in Rhode Island and Arizona have likewise told employees they can stay on the job if they have no symptoms or just mild ones.

Oakland School for the Arts has shutdown for the remainder of the week, blaming staff shortages because of quarantines.

Sonoma County's public health officer issued an order that prohibits gatherings of more than 50 people indoors or more than 100 people outdoors. Situations exempt from the health order include schools, outdoor recess, workplace settings, courthouse activities, places of worship, cafeterias, but also shopping malls, stores, restaurants/food facilities and museums.

One Berkeley lab can process 4,000 samples a day.

A third Chinese city has locked down its residents because of a COVID-19 outbreak, raising the number confined to their homes in China to about 20 million people.

As omicron cases surge, the demand for COVID testing is through the roof, but health experts in San Francisco are warning people to be careful which sites they go to for testing.

The Hayward Unified School District will switch to all-remote learning for its 20,000 students on Tuesday, making it the first in the Bay Area to revert to online learning for the next week despite being warned by the county and the state that they should not do that. 

San Francisco's Department of Health officials Monday said four testing sites will be temporarily reducing their hours because of staffing shortages and increased processing times.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order this weekend aimed at preventing price gouging on COVID-19 at-home test kits, which are in high demand due to the omicron variant surge.   

Demand for emergency medical assistance in San Francisco stabilized to typical levels on Saturday night, following a spike in calls last week due to residents seeking help for COVID-19 symptoms, officials said. 

An increase in COVID cases is forcing the temporary closure of a city building in Pinole.