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Walgreens announced Tuesday it would be closing five of its San Francisco locations due to "organized retail crime," but police department data, local officials, and policy experts are casting doubt on that reasoning, according to a report published by the San Francisco Chronicle on Saturday.While the report said the chain has experienced retail theft, other factors like the COVID-19 pandemic and oversaturation of stores were cited as potential factors behind the decision to close the stores.However, San Francisco Police Department data obtained by the Chronicle contradicts Walgreens' claims, with one of the stores slated to close reporting only 23 shoplifting...

IKEA is temporarily removing unavailable products from its websites and store showrooms as the retailer battles the impacts of the supply chain crunchThe company is also reducing the number of versions of some products to ensure its most popular items are availableAdditionally, the retailer plans to lease more ships, buy containers and re-route goods between warehouses in an effort to reduce disruptionsIKEA executives, who shared that no one at the company anticipated the current disruptions, predict the supply chain crisis to continue well into 2022Like most retailers, IKEA is feeling the impacts of the supply chain crunch and struggling to...

With a lack of tech workers and foot traffic, downtown San Jose became a ghost town during the pandemic, but five miles away high-end Santana Row flourished. These two destinations linked by San Carlos and Stevens Creek boulevards and Interstate 280 are worlds apart socioeconomically and the COVID-19 pandemic made that schism wider. Downtown was hit incredibly hard by shelter-in-place mandates during the pandemic. Numerous businesses were unable to survive, leaving streets littered with empty restaurants and storefronts. Built more for office workers than retail shoppers, its restaurants and bars suffered as tech employees worked from home. Uphill road for...

The Food and Drug Administration is asking food manufacturers and restaurants to cut the salt in their products over the coming 2½ years with the goal of reducing Americans’ overall sodium intake by 12 percent. The sweeping recommendation, announced Wednesday, is expected to cover a wide variety of foods — from chain restaurant meals to processed food on grocery store shelves and even baby food. the FDA will watch the industry carefully over the coming years, rewarding companies that comply. It was unclear Wednesday what the rewards would be, and Woodcock did not say whether the FDA would take any...

More than half of restaurant operators surveyed by the National Restaurant Association say that business conditions are worse now than three months ago.The delta variant, understaffed restaurants and higher food costs are among the issues plaguing the industry.Just 9% of survey respondents said business conditions improved over the last three months.The trade group surveyed 4,000 operators between Sept. 7 and Sept. 15 and is using the results to lobby against President Joe Biden’s plan to raise the corporate tax rate and proposed changes to the National Labor Relations Act that would allow fines of $50,000 to $100,000 for labor violations....

Roll up your sleeves if you want to work in San Francisco.Starting Wednesday, employees must prove they’re fully vaccinated if they want to clock in.The rule goes for workers at businesses like:BarsRestaurantsClubsTheatersEntertainment venuesIndoor gyms and other fitness establishmentsSan Francisco gave employees two months to get the vaccine. Back on August 12th, San Francisco required customers to show proof of vaccination at the businesses.This is the city’s way to protect people against the spread of COVID-19 but also keep businesses open.The vaccination requirements apply to health care providers too.That includes workers at adult day-care centers, residential care facilities, dental offices, home...

The state of California is jumping into an historic lawsuit against companies who make kits to assemble so-called “ghost guns.” The suit, originally filed in August by the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office along with the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the law firm Keker, Van Nest & Peters, accuses three companies of selling illegal prepackaged kits, allowing people to make a firearm at home. These ghost guns don’t have serial numbers, making them untraceable. In joining the lawsuit against Blackhawk Manufacturing Group, Inc., GS Performance, LLC, and MDX Corporation, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the...

From the end of 2019 to the middle of 2021 — the duration (so far) of the pandemic, more or less — the U.S. economy grew at an annualized pace of 0.6%. It doesn’t explain why California’s growth handily outpaced Florida’s, though, or why Washington grew fastest of all. The simplest explanation for all of this is that the West is where the tech industry is concentrated, and tech companies had a great pandemic. The increase in real GDP produced by the Far West’s information sector, which includes software, gaming and most internet enterprises, was greater than the region’s overall...

The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to pass an ordinance that, as of Nov. 4, will require proof of COVID-19 vaccination to enter restaurants, movie theaters and many other private businesses. Now, the businesses that must require vaccines also include restaurants of any kind (fast food establishments, coffee shops, tasting rooms, cafeterias), gyms and fitness venues, entertainment venues (movie theaters, shopping centers, concert and performance venues, sports arenas, museums, arcades) and personal care establishments (spas, nail salons, hair salons, tanning salons, estheticians, skin care, tattoo shops). “If we ever want to get back to normal, to what Los Angeles...

Bay Area health officials are considering dropping indoor mask mandates. On Tuesday, Mayor London Breed said the change is long overdue. But, there's still a lot of hesitation among Bay Area residents, epidemiologists included. Mask mandates have been a moving target throughout the pandemic. In mid-June, when California reopened, the state dropped indoor mask mandates. But when Delta created a new surge, seven Bay Area counties re-issued indoor masking mandates in early August. Now Bay Area health officials are discussing ditching the face coverings once again. "The mask just feels like a safety blanket," said San Francisco resident, Danielle Coller....

Bay Area health officials on Thursday are expected to announce plans for an eventual end to the region’s indoor masking mandate.Health officials are finalizing criteria in which counties would be required to meet in order to lift the restrictions. Those criteria are likely to include case rates, vaccination rates and hospitalizations, according to officials.“We have been discussing this among the health officers in the region, and our intention and our plan is to develop a set of metrics we all share that are common across the region as to when to lift indoor masking,” Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr....

The San Jose police union and the city have reached an agreement on employee COVID vaccinations. The agreement stipulates officers have until Sunday to either be vaccinated or show proof of a weekly negative COVID test.Upwards of 140 police officers, half the dispatchers, and 80 firefighters have indicated they’ll resign or take termination before being forced to get vaccinated. Firefighter Barry Arata had said that "if a firefighter and police officers don’t want to get vaccinated that is our choice with our rights to freedom and privacy."In terms of the rules for the city, the mayor's office said they...

In the first such action in the nation, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a mandate Friday requiring all eligible public and private schoolchildren in California to be vaccinated against COVID-19... The mandate would take effect for grades 7 through 12 the semester following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's full approval of the vaccine for children ages 12 and over, ...Students in kindergarten through sixth grade would be phased in after the vaccine is formally approved for younger children. Once in effect, students will not be allowed to attend classes in-person on campus without being vaccinated, just as with any other...

A new set of restrictions were implemented last week for residents of Contra Costa County. The goal is to increase the percentage of vaccinated citizens. The County will adopt some of the strictest COVID-19 measures in the country. According the Contra Costa Health website, "Everyone 12 and older must show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test to enter restaurants, gyms and other indoor businesses where there's an increased risk of spreading." California has one of the highest rates of vaccination among the United States. The state has administered at least one vaccine dose to 70% of the eligible...

At a Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors meeting at the end of August, Supervisor Susan Ellenberg repeatedly pressed Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody on when the county's indoor mask mandate would be lifted. The number of new COVID-19 cases in Santa Clara County had started to slow at the time of the meeting, and when Ellenberg asked Cody how long the mandate would last, Cody seemed to suggest some degree of perpetuity. What followed was an exchange that grew increasingly tense with each reply. "I appreciate that comment about the flu, of course last year not only were we...

There is good news coming in on the COVID-19 front. A new CDC forecast model put together at UMass Amherst predicts that COVID hospitalizations will drop by nearly half in the next two weeks. COVID death and case numbers are also likely to drop and a Stanford doctor says that the latest U.S. surge has likely hit its peak. "It's clear that the United States has probably peaked in its latest surge connected to the Delta variant and some states will see steeper declines than others and some counties within states will do the same," says Stanford's Dr. Jorge Salinas....

Businesses requiring their workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 are still facing some holdouts, prompting concern that workers fired for not getting the vaccine will expand the staffing shortages across the country. The Biden administration has said that companies will face $13,600 fines per violation and mandatory weekly testing will be the alternative to being vaccinated. Delta Air Lines stopped short of requiring vaccination but said that starting in November, unvaccinated workers on the company health plan will pay a $200 monthly surcharge.

Los Angeles is considering a sweeping law requiring adult customers to show proof of full vaccination to enter indoor restaurants, coffee shops, gyms, shopping centers, museums, movie theaters and hair and nail salons. The proposal also would require adult customers to show proof of vaccination to enter bowling alleys, arcades, cardrooms and pool halls, as well as personal care establishments such as tanning salons, skin care businesses, tattoo and piercing shops, and massage therapy settings except for treatment of a medical condition. An exemption to the requirement would be available for people with a "sincerely held religious belief" or a...

In June, San Francisco announced requirements for all city employees to be vaccinated.There are 366 unvaccinated police officers, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.More than half, 193 of them, are requesting religious exemptions.See more stories on Insider's business page.Of the 366 San Francisco Police Department employees that are unvaccinated against COVID-19, 193 have applied for religious exemptions to avoid having to get required vaccines, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.In June, San Francisco became the first major city to announce that it will require approximately 35,000 city employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or risk losing their jobs, The Los Angeles Times...

Conclusions: Meta-analyses based on 18 randomized controlled treatment trials of ivermectin in COVID-19 have found large, statistically significant reductions in mortality, time to clinical recovery, and time to viral clearance. Furthermore, results from numerous controlled prophylaxis trials report significantly reduced risks of contracting COVID-19 with the regular use of ivermectin. Finally, the many examples of ivermectin distribution campaigns leading to rapid population-wide decreases in morbidity and mortality indicate that an oral agent effective in all phases of COVID-19 has been identified.