Berkeleyside rarely turns outside the city to review happenings at the state level but the current coronavirus pandemic has been an exception.
In recent weeks, Berkeleyside has been monitoring Gov. Gavin Newsom’s noon briefings about various aspects of the state’s COVID-19 response. Newsom has covered what the state is doing for unsheltered people and senior facilities, what the state models have shown about California’s infection peak, how the economy will get back on track, when things might get back to normal, and much more.
On Tuesday, Newsom announced a new initiative he hopes will create an “army of volunteers” to help address the vast need the state is seeing across all aspects of daily life. On Wednesday, he’ll give a hotly-anticipated update about testing, tracing and more.
Each day, Berkeleyside has live-tweeted the Newsom briefings, which were created for the media but include COVID-19 information that’s relevant to everyone. Follow along at noon on the Berkeleyside Twitter feed. You do not need an account to view tweets.
If you want more than the highlights, you can watch the Newsom briefings yourself on Facebook and Twitter. Look for the live broadcast on your social media platform of choice several minutes before noon.
Pro tip: Don’t get fooled by Facebook, which makes it easy to mistake a prior bulletin for the new one. Double-check the post date before you start watching.
For the most part, the briefings only take place on weekdays. Newsom generally talks for about 30 minutes, and sometimes invites experts to present on specific topics. That’s followed by a media Q&A for credentialed press only. (Anyone can listen to the questions and answers, but only media can call into the briefing.)
