COVID-19

CENTRAL COAST—An estimated 10 million people took to the skies over the Christmas holiday despite being urged by health officials, law agencies and politicians around the country, and locally, to stay at home and not continue to spread the coronavirus through gatherings. Despite regional lockdowns...

WATSONVILLE—Keeping area streets and sidewalks tidy has become more of a chore since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.  An uptick in disposable rubber gloves and all types of masks dumped on the streets has been commonplace since early March. And they’re building up. These items,...

WATSONVILLE—The Watsonville City Council on Tuesday approved several changes to its Community Development Block Grant funding plan from the previous fiscal year and accepted an early funding plan for the 2020-21 fiscal year. The amendments to the 2019-20 fiscal year were needed because the City...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—Gyms, barbershops, beauty salons, places of worship and shopping malls across Santa Cruz County will all have to close their indoor services on Tuesday, county health officials announced Monday. Retail and existing outdoor restaurant operations are unaffected by the new county health orders...

WATSONVILLE—The Watsonville Public Library continues to maintain a host of services, from online classes and movie streaming, to book checkouts during the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic. Though the Freedom Branch is closed, its inventory is still obtainable, either online or through curbside pickup at the...

One facet of the stay-at-home, and work-from-home coronavirus ordeal is an uptick in home gardening and landscaping. With extra time spent around the home, some folks are putting more time, and money, into the land that surrounds their homes. “They’re stuck at home more and...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—Santa Cruz County now has several Covid-19 Test to Treat sites available to the community, including the three OptumServe testing sites, which are available to anyone regardless of insurance or documentation status. Test to Treat sites allow individuals to get tested, be...

SANTA CRUZ—Second Harvest Food Bank hosted a drive-thru community food distribution Friday at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Supported by numerous volunteers and members of the California National Guard, the distribution unfolded under overcast skies as part of ongoing county-wide distributions that alternate between the...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—A team of local educators is teaming up with a Santa Cruz internet provider to bridge the so-called digital divide and bring broadband service to families who have been unable to access it. The Equal Access Santa Cruz County (EASCC) fund is a...

WATSONVILLE—The man who died at Watsonville Community Hospital on March 20 after testing positive for COVID-19 was fighting diabetes, his family said in a Facebook post over the weekend. The man in his early 50s was believed to be a resident of Las Lomas, a...