Nov. 11—News this week from Pfizer pharmaceuticals of a coronavirus vaccine breakthrough is prompting Sacramento and Northern California healthcare providers to step up preparations for mass distribution.

That includes the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, which is in talks with state officials about serving as a vaccine storage and distribution site for Northern California. The vaccine requires specialized low-temperature freezers for storage, and UC Davis has some and is buying more.

A new study from the California Workers’ Compensation Institute shows the steep drop in the number of inpatient hospitalizations involving injured workers in the state over the past decade was largely due to the ongoing decline in spinal fusions and a more recent decline in lower extremity joint surgeries.

The CWCI study reviews discharge data compiled by the state Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development on 35.9 million inpatient hospital stays from 2010 through 2019 paid by workers’ compensation, Medicare, Medi-Cal and private insurance, to identify workers’ comp inpatient trends and to compare the volume and types of California inpatient hospitalizations covered by workers’ comp to those covered by the three other systems.

Given that business-as-usual is unlikely to return soon due to the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. property/casualty insurers will continue to face challenges related to virus-related insurance losses and premium volume declines in 2021, according to Fitch Ratings.

The operational and risk management challenges of managing workforce flexibility, limiting risk aggregations and reducing claims exposure through clarity of policy terms will endure beyond the pandemic and become “new normal” longer-term drivers of the industry, contend analysts James Auden and Christopher Grimes, authors of “The Next Phase: U.S. Property/ Casualty Insurers.”

Nov. 3—Stanford Medicine has begun enrolling volunteers to participate in a clinical trial for a coronavirus vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson — one of a handful of efforts considered front-runners in the global race for a vaccine.

Enrollment for Phase 3 of the trial began Friday, marking the final stage before potential authorization in which tens of thousands of people receive the vaccine to see if it is effective. Stanford plans to enroll 1,000 volunteers as part of the global trial that will include 60,000 people at 180 sites around the world.

Crews tried to beat back two out-of-control wildfires in Southern California on Tuesday that have kept tens of thousands of people out of their homes.

Fierce winds that drove twin fires through brushy hills near cities in Orange County a day earlier were expected to pick back up, although not to the earlier extremes, according to the National Weather Service.

Southern California Edison reported to regulators that it was investigating whether its equipment might have sparked the Silverado Fire near the city of Irvine. The utility said a wire that lashed a telecommunications line to a supporting cable may have struck a 12,000-volt conducting line above it.

Large swaths of California had no electricity Monday as utilities tried to prevent the chance of their equipment sparking wildfires while the fire-weary state was buffeted by powerful winds and dangerously dry weather conditions.

About 300,000 power customers, more than 1 million people, were in the dark as officials issued warnings for what could be the strongest winds for California this year.

North of San Francisco, a Mount St. Helena weather station recorded a hurricane-force gust of 89 mph late Sunday and sustained winds of 76 mph.

PG&E Corp. prioritized meeting inspection targets over meaningful reduction of wildfire risk, according to a monitor overseeing the utility’s program of trimming trees and vegetation that pose a threat of igniting devastating blazes in California.

Among the court-appointed compliance monitor’s findings: The company failed to conduct detailed climbing inspections of 967 transmission structures located in high-fire risk areas before the start of peak wildfire season. Wind damage to one such tower was the cause of the state’s deadliest fire, which killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise.

Electricity may be shut off to 50,000 Northern California utility customers this week to try to prevent power lines from sparking and igniting new wildfires during a predicted new round of gusty, hot and dry weather.

Customers in parts of 19 counties and in two tribal communities were notified Monday of a potential public safety power shutoff starting as early as Wednesday evening, Pacific Gas & Electric said.

Unions representing over 10,000 Disney theme park workers have told California Gov. Gavin Newsom that the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, Calif., can safely reopen when its location moves into the state’s “orange tier” of COVID-19 test positivity and adjusted case rate.

“We wrote you in June 2020 to tell you that we were not yet convinced that it was safe to reopen the parks on Disney’s timetable,” the unions wrote in a letter dated Oct. 17. “Since then, Disney has taken safety measures we advocated, and engaged with their workers’ representatives, (such that) our original position has changed.”

More than 50,000 California utility customers were without power and others around the state were urged to conserve electricity Thursday amid a fall heat wave that brought another round of extreme wildfire danger.

The National Weather Service issued heat advisories through Friday for temperatures in the 90s and even triple digits in many parts of the state.

Red-flag warnings for extreme fire danger were in place for much of the San Francisco Bay Area where winds bringing hot, dry gusts of up to 55 mph (88.5 kph) were expected to pose a threat of sparking new blazes in a region that already has seen some of the worst wildfires in state history.