Scroll from the bottom up to read in chronological order. And click here to catch up on the rest of our coronavirus coverage. 

5:40pm: Fight the good the fight.

Health care professionals, medical retirees, behavioral health scientists, pharmacists, first responders, administrative assistants and nursing students are all urged to sign up for the California Health Corps to fight in the front lines of this pandemic.

Visit healthcorps.ca.gov for more information about the initiative, which comes as Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order that temporarily expands the healthcare workforce to add another 50,000 hospital beds to treat COVID-19 patients. (A copy of the order can be found here, and the text of the order can be found here.)

“California’s health care workers are the heroes of this moment, serving on the front lines in the fight against this disease,” Newsom said in a news release today. “To treat the rising number of patients with COVID-19, our state needs more workers in the health care field to join the fight. If you have a background in health care, we need your help.”

To learn about more ways to support the the fight against the coronavirus, check out serve.ca.gov or visit covid19.ca.gov.

4:57pm: Still going strong.

Google is the latest corporation to pour money into the Silicon Valley Strong fund, which was started to help people and organizations disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus outbreak. The tech titan has pledged $1 million to help residents, small businesses and nonprofits that are feeling the financial impact of the global health crisis.

“I am incredibly grateful to Google and their contribution to the Silicon Valley Strong Fund,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said in a media statement. “As we continue to face this pandemic head-on, it’s thanks to the help and generosity of neighbors like Google, that we are able to continue to financially protect our residents and small businesses.”

The fund, which has amassed $14 million in donations to date, is being managed by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

In a blog post last week, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said the Mountain View-based company was committing more than $800 million to support businesses, health organizations and health workers who are on the frontlines of the pandemic.

4:08pm: What’s the delay?

The number of confirmed COVID-19 incidences in Santa Clara County skyrocketed this afternoon. Public health officials reported 202 new cases and three more fatalties due to  the novel coronavirus. That brings the local tally up to 848 and the death toll up to 28.

Santa Clara County health officials said the sudden surge is due to a “reporting delay” and doesn’t necessarily represent a “significant single-day increase.”

Over the weekend, the county also reported the death of someone between 21 and 30 years old. Though the Public Health Department had been previously reporting whether each patient who succumbed to the illness had underlying health conditions, a spokesperson for the office told San Jose Inside that such information will no longer be available on a case by case basis.

“We are able to provide aggregate data about deaths, but cannot provide detailed information about each person whose death we report,” a spokesperson told us.

The health department has also yet to update its coronavirus dashboard with information about hospitalization rates. That level of detail was available to the public until last week.

2:47pm: This is gonna last a while.

April 7 was always a far-fetched deadline. A few weeks ago, six Bay Area counties and one city announced an unprecedented shelter-in-place order that would have residents holed up in their homes through the second weekend of April.

Non-essential businesses shuttered and gridlocked roads became deserted overnight. But the new eerie calm that has been cast over the Bay Area will last a bit longer.

Bay Area health officials confirmed today that the stay-at-home mandate will be extended through at least May 1. Details about the new edict are still being firmed up and are expected to be announced sometime in the next few days.

Even then, Californians still don’t know when life will return to “normal.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s isolation order has no end date and the state’s top elected official has even told parents to be prepared that schools may not re-open until the fall.

As always, please feel free to reach out to me with questions, tips and story ideas at

gh***@me*******.com











. You can also contact my editor Jennifer Wadsworth at

je*******@me*******.com











.