EAST COUNTY ROUNDUP: LOCAL AND STATEWIDE NEWS

June 15, 2021 (San Diego) -- East County Roundup highlights top stories of interest to East County and San Diego's inland regions, published in other media.  This week's round-up stories include:

LOCAL

• San Diego County reaches key benchmark: herd immunity (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Publisher’s cancer battle endangers future of Julian’s newspaper (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• El Cajon-based Taylor Guitars hit new highs and lows during pandemic (10 News)
• Scripps Health Notifying 147,000 Whose Data Possibly Compromised in Cyber Attack (Times of San Diego)
• Number of ‘ghost guns’ seized by San Diego police on pace to double last year’s take (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• 2 SDPD officers among three people killed in wrong-way crash on I-5 in San Ysidro (San Diego Union-Tribune)

STATE

• Ticks on a ‘quest’ for blood at California’s beaches. Is Lyme disease a rising risk?(Los Angeles Times)
• Gov. Newsom: A vaccination verification system is coming ‘very shortly’ (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Biden restores $929 million for California high-speed rail withheld by Trump (Reuters)
• Been vaccinated? California wants to give you a dream vacation (Los Angeles Times)
• Disneyland increases attendance capacity, drops masks and physical distancing as pandemic rules end (Los Angeles Daily News)
• The Central California town that keeps sinking (HCN)

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

LOCAL

San Diego County reaches key benchmark: herd immunity (San Diego Union-Tribune)

On Saturday, the region’s vaccine tracker ticked past 2.1 million, a figure said to represent 75 percent of the 2.8 million San Diego County residents age 12 and older. This is the local “herd immunity” threshold said to represent a point at which the virus will have a hard time spreading very far or very quickly.

Publisher’s cancer battle endangers future of Julian’s newspaper (San Diego Union-Tribune)

For 36 years, The Julian News has been keeping its subscribers in North County’s backcountry communities informed, entertained and united through wildfires, recessions and political discord. But today, for the first time in nearly 17 years, issues of the weekly family-owned paper won’t arrive in customers’ mailboxes. Longtime publisher, editor and chief photographer Michael Hart, 68, is in a tough battle with cancer…The couple are now looking for a buyer to step in and save the Julian News from closure. So far, there have been no takers.

El Cajon-based Taylor Guitars hit new highs and lows during pandemic (10 News)

Guitar sales soar, and sorrow struck team to it's core

Scripps Health Notifying 147,000 Whose Data Possibly Compromised in Cyber Attack (Times of San Diego)

Scripps Health announced Tuesday that some patient information was acquired during last month’s ransomware attack, with the investigation ongoing into the full scope of the data breach. In a statement, the San Diego-based healthcare system said an “unauthorized person” gained access to Scripps’ network and while the individual did not access Epic, Scripps’ electronic medical record application, “health information and personal financial information was acquired through other documents stored on our network.”

Number of ‘ghost guns’ seized by San Diego police on pace to double last year’s take (San Diego Union-Tribune)

San Diego police are on pace this year to nearly double the number of ghost guns — firearms that are assembled by hand and are usually untraceable — that they impounded last year, according to a new report on the proliferation of such weapons in the city.

2 SDPD officers among three people killed in wrong-way crash on I-5 in San Ysidro (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Three people are dead, including two San Diego Police Department officers, after a wrong-way driver heading north in the southbound Interstate 5 lanes in San Ysidro collided with an oncoming car Friday morning, authorities said.

STATE

Ticks on a ‘quest’ for blood at California’s beaches. Is Lyme disease a rising risk?(Los Angeles Times)

Biologists are unsure how the disease-carrying parasites are surviving in coastal areas. Millions of people enjoy hanging out at California beaches in the warmer months. So do ticks carrying Lyme disease.

Gov. Newsom: A vaccination verification system is coming ‘very shortly’ (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Electronic system will allow businesses to check who has received shots.

Biden restores $929 million for California high-speed rail withheld by Trump (Reuters)

The Biden administration late on Thursday restored a $929 million grant for California's high-speed rail that then-President Donald Trump revoked in 2019.

Been vaccinated? California wants to give you a dream vacation (Los Angeles Times)

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday announced six dream vacation packages as part of the state’s Vax for the Win incentive program in an effort to keep building momentum for vaccination efforts. Californians 18 and older who have received at least one dose of the COVID1-9 vaccine will have a chance to win one of six getaways in the Golden State during a drawing July 1. Eligible Californians are automatically entered in the lottery.

Disneyland increases attendance capacity, drops masks and physical distancing as pandemic rules end (Los Angeles Daily News)

Disneyland will increase attendance, drop mask requirements for vaccinated visitors, discontinue physical distancing and continue advance reservations as the state ends most COVID-19 health and safety measures.

The Central California town that keeps sinking (HCN)

In California’s San Joaquin Valley, the farming town of Corcoran has a multimillion-dollar problem. It is almost impossible to see, yet so vast it takes NASA scientists using satellite technology to fully grasp. Corcoran is sinking. Over the past 14 years, the town has sunk as much as 11.5 feet in some places — enough to swallow the entire first floor of a two-story house and at times making Corcoran one of the fastest-sinking areas in the country, according to experts with the United States Geological Survey.