COVID-19

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—A new Covid-19 booster vaccine is now available throughout Santa Cruz County. Following recent approval by the FDA and CDC, the Western States Scientific Safety Review Workgroup also recommends either the Pfizer or Moderna bivalent booster to be given two months after the...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—New Leaf Community Market closed its new Aptos location on Saturday for a one-day deep cleaning after an employee there tested positive for COVID-19. Store officials said that the closure was voluntary. “While healthy authorities have not required us to close the store, we...

WATSONVILLE—The Santa Cruz Warriors’ season ended more than seven months ago—it was cut short due to the Covid-19 pandemic—but the NBA G League franchise has found different ways to score points in the Santa Cruz County. Team mascot Mav’Riks on Oct. 12 dropped off a...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—The Santa Cruz County Office of Education on Thursday evening announced that all schools in the county will be closed from March 16-20. The announcement was emailed to parents throughout the county one day after a case was confirmed in a person with...

WATSONVILLE—The County of Santa Cruz recently announced the opening of a new mass vaccination center in downtown Watsonville, and officially welcomed residents 65 years and older to sign up for their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. The new OptumServe site, located at the old...

WATSONVILLE—Eight people at the Salvation Army Shelter in Watsonville tested positive for Covid-19 last week, forcing the site to temporarily close for cleaning Friday.  Santa Cruz County health officials were notified that a resident of the Salvation Army Shelter on Union Street tested positive for...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—Over the past few weeks, monolith displays urging residents to get vaccinated against Covid-19 have popped up across Santa Cruz County. The installations were organized by Crush Covid, a local group of volunteers made up of retired women (many with backgrounds in health...

WATSONVILLE—Gov. Gavin Newsom announced increased funding for the Farm to Family Program on April 29. The program directly connects farmers and ranchers to food banks to feed Californians around the state. The state intends to seed a $15 million campaign with $3.64 million to...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—Santa Cruz County Health Officer Gail Newel on Thursday indefinitely extended the shelter-in-place order issued on March 31. She also closed the county’s beaches between the hours of 11am and 5pm. Both moves are meant to further reduce the spread of COVID-19 by...

WATSONVILLE—It took all of 48 hours for Digital NEST to move all of its courses, business and employees to a state-of-the-art online platform.  Other local companies, institutions and businesses were not as prepared to be shoved into the work-from-home, online-only era caused by the Covid-19...