Coronavirus

Gov. Gavin Newsom said the feds failed to deliver promised vaccine supplies, but he expects Californians with their first shots to be able to secure their second.

As complaints mount about the state’s lagging vaccine rollout, health officials allow any seniors to seek the shot now — but not younger people with preexisting conditions.

As ICUs are overwhelmed, California hospitals ask the state to loosen rules related to nursing and where patients are discharged. But nurses say hospitals already have too much leeway. “This is not the time to be cutting back on standards of nursing care,” said registered nurse Gerard Brogan.

Acknowledging that vaccinations have been too slow, state officials aim to ramp up the pace. But many questions remain about expanding to the next groups of Californians, and, in the meantime, some doctors complain that they still haven’t been vaccinated.

As a new, highly infectious coronavirus variant appears in California, state health officials try to speed up vaccine distribution.

The new variant so far has been detected in six people in the Golden State, after its initial discovery in the U.S. in a Colorado National Guardsman.

1. California widens mental health conditions insurers must cover In the past, state law only required treatment for nine serious mental illnesses. Even before the pandemic, more than half of Californians said most people with mental health conditions couldn’t get the help they needed. Some families even dropped private insurance to qualify for treatment in […]

Millions of Californians continue to risk COVID-19 infection by showing up in person at work during the pandemic. But the state and federal governments have never required companies to share information about outbreaks with their employees — or to health authorities. More than nine months after Gov. Gavin Newsom issued the first shelter-in-place order, a […]

Schools would only qualify in counties with lower infection rates. Kindergarten through sixth grade is prioritized in the governor’s $2-billion plan, which would need the Legislature’s approval.

From the first documented case of COVID-19 to the search for a vaccine, the coronavirus pandemic has touched the lives of every Californian in 2020. Here are some of their stories.