Bay Briefing: The Bay Area locks down again - San Francisco Chronicle

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Good morning, Bay Area. It’s Monday, Dec. 7, and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is President-elect Joe Biden’s surprise pick to head the U.S. Health and Human Services Department. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.

New shutdown begins — businesses try to hang on

The Bay Area today wakes up to renewed restrictions on daily life in response to a pandemic that continues to gain fury after more than eight months. The stakes are higher than ever, with the region’s hospitals on the verge of being overwhelmed. Almost one out of every 10 Californians who got tested last week for coronavirus received a positive result, a chilling benchmark.

Five Bay Area counties — San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin and Santa Clara — plus the city of Berkeley on Friday opted to move ahead of California’s new stay-home order that requires regions to shut down if the supply of available hospital intensive care beds falls below 15%. The first measures went into effect Sunday evening and will stay in place until Jan. 4.

This weekend, the news stirred frustration and anger even as residents grasped the seriousness of the situation. In advance of the lockdown, kids enjoyed a last romp at local playgrounds. Some grocery stores saw large crowds. Restaurants served their last patio and parklet meals before going to takeout service only. As Tatiana Sanchez and Vanessa Arredondo report, some companies bemoaned the new restrictions as a likely last straw for their efforts to stay in business.

• Details of the new lockdown: What you need to know in the Bay Area.

• Bay Area travel: What’s allowed and what’s not under the new order.

• From Soleil Ho: A total restaurant apocalypse is coming, but it’s not inevitable.

• Latest news: Read our Coronavirus Live Updates. Visit our Coronavirus Tracker for updated statistics in the Bay Area, California and U.S.

State declined to free its sickest prisoners

Patricia Ramdhan was released from prison July 22, 2020. She said she wrote letters to the California governor on her typewriter for 24 years. She poses for a portrait in Los Angeles, CA December 4, 2020.

As the coronavirus tore through California prisons this summer, activists, health officials, doctors and judges implored Gov. Gavin Newsom to shrink the state’s inmate population and release some of the sickest and most medically vulnerable prisoners.

On July 5, the head of health care in the state’s prison system delivered a list of more than 6,500 medically high-risk inmates to the state corrections department. Newsom pledged to release 8,000 prisoners by the end of August.

Since then, about 7,500 people have been granted early release. But the Newsom administration has prioritized those nearing completion of their sentences, the majority of whom are ages 25 to 44, data obtained by The Chronicle shows.

California GOP fired up for more victories

In any other universe, the November election results would be devastating for the California GOP. It remains in a superminority in the Legislature. Only 11 of the state’s 53 House members next year will be Republicans. And Joe Biden drubbed President Trump in the state.

But many Republicans are upbeat. They see hopeful sparks in those election embers and the promise of more victories to come. Fourteen years after a Republican was last elected to statewide office, the California Republican Party may have a future.

Oakland landmark faces uncertain future

Mountain View Cemetery, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020, in Oakland, Calif. For generations, the cemetery has been a jewel of the East Bay. The 223-acre park is the final resting spot for notables ranging from Charles Crocker and Julia Morgan to Mac Dre and Ernie Lombardi. Frederick Law Olmsted’s creation has also been the place for morning runs, dog walkers, bicyclists, picnickers and hikers. That all changed with the coronavirus panemic, when the owners closed the grounds to everyone, except those attending funerals or visiting a relative's grave.

Oakland’s celebrated Mountain View Cemetery, a 226-acre jewel set into the hills above Piedmont Avenue, closed to the public in March, shuttered like so many other places amid the spread of the coronavirus.

In the ensuing eight months, the 157-year-old landmark has remained locked down, leaving frustrated neighbors and enthusiasts fearful that its parklike grounds will never reopen for recreational use. Their concern reflects broader worries that some of the Bay Area’s cherished places may be lost to COVID-19 — even after the pandemic passes.

Around the Bay

• Critical fire weather: Red flag alert in Bay Area starting Sunday night, but PG&E outages for Napa and Sonoma counties canceled.

• Increase begins in March: PG&E bills to rise over $160 per year on average to fund wildfire risk reduction.

• “Freak accident”: Moraga man felt sharp pain while working out. It was a coyote clamped on his leg.

• Arrest in Mill Valley: Woman faces DUI charges after leaving broken-down car, carrying baby onto Highway 101.

• “Fixer-upper” a relative term? Levi Strauss heir’s big plans for historic Petaluma home have some foes digging in.

• “We were able to stabilize ourselves”: How grassroots fund helped hundreds of Peninsula families pay rent during the coronavirus pandemic.

• Continuing challenge: BART’s new gate stopped some fare cheats this year. How will the agency pay for more?

• “Very difficult balancing act”: S.F. releases most detailed plan yet for homeless living in hotels. Here’s what’s at stake.

• From Heather Knight: Why were lavishly paid public servants in S.F. City Hall scandal allegedly bribed for so little? From Phil Matier: Former S.F. Mayor Ed Lee — code name “35” — turns up in City Hall corruption probe. Graphic: A look at Mohammed Nuru and the other key players in expanding corruption case.

• Sporting Green: Warriors clear to hold practices and games in S.F. despite new stay-at-home order. From Ann Killion: Why should Warriors practice while the Bay Area stays at home and struggles to get tested?

Bay Area has been memorable, but family's calling

Jenn Oakley, who was previously homeless, sits on her bed and does homework next to her dog Fattie in her new studio apartment on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020 in Berkeley, California.This is the first time sheÕs had a place of her own in twelve years.

Columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. shares with readers today that he is returning home, to the South. Influenced by a desire during the pandemic to be closer to his family, he’ll continue to report on race, equity, housing and policing in the battleground state of Georgia.

In his final column for The Chronicle, Taylor shares an inspirational story about Jenn Oakley. When he met her in May at a transitional housing site in Oakland, she had been homeless for a decade. Now, she has a new job and a place of her own to call home.

She worked hard, but she also had help — from readers of Tayor’s columns. And as he writes, witnessing the kindness and empathy of strangers was the most memorable part of his job. But much more remains to be done.