The number of California workers’ compensation claims for COVID-19 continues to climb, according to a new report compiled by the California Workers’ Compensation Institute.

Data from the Division of Workers’ Compensation shows that as of Aug. 10, there were 9,515 claims reported for the month of July, bringing the total for the year to 31,612 claims, or 10.2% of all California job injury claims reported for accident year 2020. Those claims include 140 death claims, up from 66 reported as of July 6.

(TNS) - Before the coronavirus pandemic, Irene Teper worked full time as a primary care doctor seeing mostly healthy patients for their routine checkups or non-emergency care. That all changed in March.

“We have been going kind of nonstop since March,” said Teper, who works at MarinHealth in Novato. “There would be weeks where we would work on weekends as well. It’s literally nonstop.”

As the pandemic worsened, Teper was tapped by MarinHealth to establish an adult care clinic where doctors would treat patients showing COVID-19 symptoms. Now Teper is assisting her colleague, internal medicine doctor Elizabeth Lowe, with the mobile testing of the county’s most vulnerable residents in nursing homes and residential care centers where cases had spread rapidly in recent months.

California firefighters battled destructive wildfires Monday as a lengthening heat wave roasted the state.

Thousands of homes were at risk and air quality deteriorated in areas affected by smoke.

The National Weather Service blanketed the state in warnings of excessive heat and high fire danger, including the threat from lightning strikes.

(TNS) - A late-summer heat wave in Southern California typically sends people fleeing to movie theaters, shopping malls and crowded beaches in search of a cool respite.

But the coronavirus pandemic has forced the closure of places where people once gathered, upending those routines.

So as temperatures soared Friday, many people instead stayed at home with their air conditioners blasting. Even though many offices and businesses were closed due to the pandemic, that intense demand — along with other factors including a dearth of power coming in from other states — was enough to create the most serious statewide energy shortage in nearly 20 years, officials said. On Saturday night, another round of temporary blackouts was ordered in parts of the state.

The current heatwave broiling Californians like no event in decades is also elevating the risk for another potential disaster in the weeks ahead: wildfires.

While heat and dry conditions have contributed to the Lake and Ranch fires burning now in Los Angeles County, fear of larger blazes looms in the weeks ahead. As a result of climate change, California sees more than twice as many fall days with “fire weather” as it did a generation ago. The current heatwave raises the odds of “wildfires later in 2020, that’s for sure,” says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

California’s earthquake early warnings will be a standard feature on all Android phones, bypassing the need for users to download the state’s MyShake app in order to receive alerts, the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services said.

The state worked with the U.S. Geological Survey and Google, the maker of Android, to build the quake alerts into all phones that run the commonplace operating system. The deal was expected to be announced Tuesday.

The number of COVID-19 cases in California stood at 554,160 cases Sunday, according to state health department officials.

The California Department of Public Health said in a release that there have been 8,826,119 tests conducted in California, an increase of 118,592 over the prior 24-hour reporting period.

There have been 10,293 COVID-19 deaths in California since the start of the pandemic, the department reported.

Hermosa Beach officials said the city plans is using a private consulting firm to help police enforce an ordinance requiring face coverings in public areas, The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

Figures showing California has slowed the rate of coronavirus infections may be in doubt because a technical problem has delayed reporting of test results, the state’s top health official said.

For days, California hasn’t received full counts on the number of tests conducted nor the number that come back positive for COVID-19, Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said Tuesday.

A wildfire in mountains east of Los Angeles that has forced thousands of people from their homes was sparked by a malfunctioning diesel vehicle, fire officials said Monday.

The vehicle spewed burning carbon from its exhaust system, igniting several fires Friday on Oak Glen Road in Cherry Valley, and authorities were asking anyone who may have seen such a vehicle at the time to contact investigators, according to a statement from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The blaze in Riverside County, among several wildfires across California, had consumed nearly 42 square miles of dry brush and chaparral since it broke out Friday evening, fire officials said.

California’s attorney general and state and local agencies are investigating whether Amazon.com Inc. has taken adequate steps to protect its workers from the coronavirus pandemic, according to a court filing on Monday.

Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office, California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health and the San Francisco Department of Public Health “have all opened investigations into Amazon’s practices” around the pandemic, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman wrote in the filing.