Public Health confirmed Humboldt County’s 39th COVID-related death today, along with 11 new cases, making 44 so far this week amid an ongoing surge. Addressing the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors this morning, Hoffman made clear that he believes the surge — which saw the county confirm 137 cases last week and 130 the week […]
disease
Posted inNews
Vaccine Passports in California? Answers to Your Questions
Now that more than 7.5 million Californians have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the Newsom administration has set a goal of reopening the state’s economy by June 15. So what does the state plan to do when it comes to proving that people are vaccinated? State health officials said Tuesday that verification of immunization or […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Community Responsibility
A friend of the Journal recently said that opening one part of the country — or one part of the state — amid the COVID-19 pandemic is akin to having a peeing section in a public swimming pool. The analogy is crude but accurate. We were reminded of this July 13 when, faced with soaring […]
Posted inNews
Public Health: Another Confirmed COVID-19 Case
Editor’s note: Public Health reported May 15 that the press release this report was based on was inaccurate, and that the confirmed COVID-19 patient referred to in the release was initially believed to work at Alder Bay Assisted Living but that was later to be determined to be inaccurate. We’ve updated this post to correct that […]
Posted inNews
Public Health Announces Two New COVID-19 Cases, First Hospitalization
Humboldt County Public Health announced two more positive COVID-19 tests this afternoon and that a different local resident has been hospitalized with the disease. An investigation is underway into how the latest positive residents contracted the virus, and Public Health released no information regarding the condition of the person hospitalized. The number of confirmed COVID-19 […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Friends and Enemies
This week I started to write about spiders and ended up buying a book on mosquitoes. In the recently published book The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator, author Timothy Winegard calculates nearly half the people who ever lived died of mosquito bites. To put things into a modern perspective, mosquitoes kill on average […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Our Worst Mistake, Part 1
The downturn in human nutrition began long before Ray Kroc brought Big Macs to the masses, Coca Cola conned developing countries into buying their addictive sugary concoctions and Nestlé weaseled its way into babies’ bellies with formula milk. Long, long before. Archeologists call it the Neolithic Revolution, the series of events that started in the […]
Posted inNews
Crow Tests Positive for West Nile Virus
The Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services reports that a crow has tested positive for West Nile Virus and that local humans should take precautions to avoid the disease. West Nile Virus is spread by mosquito bites and in humans the symptoms can range from none to severe illness and even death. DHHS […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: Killer Wrigglers
Last night I mercilessly killed a couple hundred of the deadliest animals on the planet, maybe averted a plague and fed the hungry. I hardly worked up a sweat. Statistically, more human deaths (not to mention misery) are caused annually by mosquito borne diseases than those carried by any other critter. At last count they […]