The Buzz 12.03.20

FREE SPEECH

It’s a fact that on Nov. 24, just two days before Thanksgiving, Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital had a record number of patients – 32 – in its three Covid wards. It’s also a fact that some people still don’t believe the virus that has caused the global pandemic is real. The World Health Organization even has a word for this – infodemic. The Corona VirusFacts Alliance, a group led by the International Fact-Checking Network at the Poynter Institute, launched in January before the virus had spread widely, but misinformation and even disinformation about it already had. The alliance has completed more than 9,000 fact checks about the virus, from information emanating from more than 70 countries in 40 languages. That it’s necessary is terrible, that they’re doing the work of halting the spread of disinformation is laudable. Visit poynter.org/coronavirusfactsalliance for its highly searchable database, where you can learn, for example, why holding your breath for 10 seconds isn’t a legitimate way to determine if you have Covid-19.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I get to see the sunrise over the city. I see Pinnacles, the fields.” - Dominic Conricode reflecting on his pandemic-era routine living at home in King City while attending UC Berkeley. He is interning at the Monterey County Agricultural and Rural Life Museum collecting oral histories of young people.

GOOD WEEK / GREAT WEEK

GOOD:

Sometimes good things happen to good people, especially for those who never give up. Luz Garcia graduated with honors from Alisal High School in 1991 and had a full-ride scholarship to UC Berkeley. Her dream was to become a doctor, but she was an 18-year-old mother of a premature baby and her husband wouldn’t move. Garcia enrolled at Hartnell College, graduated in 1994, and worked her way to becoming a family-practice physician’s assistant. Her persistence, success and service were recognized on Nov. 18, with a 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award from the Community College League of California. She was praised as the founder and chief financial officer of the Gonzales Medical Center, founded in 2016, as well as a jointly owned ultrasound center in Gonzales, where she lives. Garcia pays forward her success by offering internships and mentoring.

GREAT:

Whether your candidates or ballot measures won on Nov. 3, here’s a victory for democracy and the system overall: In Monterey County, 80.21 percent of registered voters cast their ballots in this election, and there are 206,917 registered voters, a record high. That’s according to the official results, certified Nov. 24 by the Monterey County Elections Department. The turnout reflects an unprecedented rate of voting by mail – 74.71 percent. “I am very proud that voters in Monterey County heard the message to vote by mail and vote early in order to avoid crowding polling places on Election Day,” Registrar of Voters Claudio Valenzuela said in a statement. County elections officials also operated a record high number of polling places, 85. “It was good preparedness, planning and truly a team effort that made it possible to conduct a successful election in the middle of a global pandemic,” Valenzuela said.