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record case numbers for the entire pandemic. Hospitalizations and deaths are also rising nationally but not as high as during previous peaks.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reversed its earlier position and said fully vaccinated people should go back to wearing masks indoors in places where infections are rising. In May, with hopes high that Americans would embrace vaccinations more fully, the agency heralded a return to normal life by loosening mask recommendations for the fully vaccinated.

The turnaround was not just the increasing spread of cases caused by the delta variant among the unvaccinated. The agency revealed data that raised questions about protection offered by vaccines themselves, though vaccines remain overwhelmingly effective against serious illness and death. Of the 163 million fully vaccinated people in the U.S., 6,239 have been hospitalized and 1,263 have died, the CDC says.

But in an outbreak on Cape Cod in July, about three-quarters of the cases, primarily caused by the delta variant, were among the fully vaccinated. No one died and only seven people were hospitalized.

The outbreak also suggested that inoculated people had similar amounts of virus in their body as unvaccinated people, implying they could spread the disease more easily than previously thought.

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said the push for the use of masks is “mostly” to protect the unvaccinated, especially with the new data pointing to how those inoculated who are infected carry the virus in their noses and throats. About 75% of counties are in areas where there is widespread transmission.

For those vaccinated, the chances of getting infected drop by 3 1⁄2-fold, and the possibility of seeing symptoms go down by eightfold, he said. And the likelihood of getting sick with the need to be hospitalized fall by 25-fold, he added.

“That is so fantastically good for any vaccine,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We didn’t really have a right to dare they would be this good in the real world. And they are, even against delta.”

Text

From Page One

“We have got the text done now. Basically, it’s just drafting right now,” Manchin said. “When you talk about roads and bridges and rails and train and everything that goes with it, and internet services, it’s something that every state, every area of every state, needs.”

A large part of the text has already been shared with Senate offices, said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican who, also on CNN, echoed Manchin’s hope that the bill would be passed by the end of the week.

Manchin and Collins are among the lawmakers negotiating the bipartisan bill.

The legislation marks the biggest infusion of U.S. federal spending on infrastructure in decades, including $110 billion in new spending for roads and bridges, $73 billion of electric grid upgrades, $66 billion for rail and Amtrak, and $65 billion for broadband expansion. It also provides $55 billion for clean drinking water and $39 billion for transit.

The package was led by the White House and a bipartisan group of senators including Democrat Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Republican Rob Portman of Ohio.

Passage of the bill will set the stage for later consideration of President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion economic plan, but a potential showdown looms: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that she won’t hold a vote on the infrastructure bill unless the Senate also passes the larger reconciliation package.

That larger plan, which includes investments in child care, education and paid leave, would require all the Democrat votes in the Senate, where the parties have a 50-50 split and a tie-breaker in Vice President Kamala Harris.

Manchin said he couldn’t guarantee that the reconciliation package would pass the Senate, adding that he was concerned generally about the U.S. level of debt and inflation. The Congressional Budget Office forecast a near-record $3 trillion budget gap this year, close to the 2020 record, and many measures of inflation have been rising.

Sinema, a fellow moderate Democrat, has voiced concern about the size of the plan, saying that $3.5 trillion is too large for her to support.

“We need a reconciliation bill if we want this bipartisan bill to pass,” progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on CNN, responding to Manchin’s comments.

“If the Senate does not pass the reconciliation bill, we will uphold our end of the bargain and not pass the bipartisan bill until we get all of these investments in.”

Phone

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a call center managed by library staff responsible for handling and transferring calls to the nine Solano County Library branches.

“Our new phone menu system is simple. Callers can bypass menu options and select the branch of their choice. We’re always looking at ways to improve customer service. We feel this new phone system makes it easier and faster for library users to connect to the staff at the branches,” said Suzanne Olawski, director of Library Services, in a press release.

Visit solanolibrary.com or call 1-866-57-ASKUS (1-866-572-7587) for more information.

California Lottery | Sunday

Fantasy 5 Numbers picked

Match all five for top prize. Match at least three for other prizes. 1, 20, 21, 31, 39

Daily 4 Numbers picked 2, 8, 1, 7 Daily Derby 1st place 10, Solid Gold 2nd place 3, Hot Shot 3rd place 12, Lucky Charms Race time 1:48.58 and Elevate Sustainable Solutions.

The Green Valley Fire Safe Council is a grassroots collaborative consisting of residents and community members, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the Cordelia Fire Protection District and others. Its purpose is to enhance wildfire survivability through resident education and community engagement, home hardening and creating defensible space by reducing hazardous fuels for what organizers describe as “a fire-safe Solano.”

Participants in Sunday’s event came from rural Fairfield and Vacaville, with some from Yolo County. About half of them are either part of a newly formed fire safe council or interested in forming one, event organizers said.

“I’m going to learn what needs to be done to harden (my property against wildfire),” said Kreinberg, a retired civil engineer and current fine art photographer.

Kreinberg volunteered his property to be inspected and assessed during the event, as did his across-the-street neighbor in their semirural Green Valley area. Since the recent wildfires, Kreinberg said he’s already taken some steps to mitigate the threat of fire to his property and hoped to learn even more when members of Cal Fire and the Cordelia Fire Protection District assessed it.

“I had a driveway lined with oleander, but we had one of these (events) a couple of years ago, and the Cal Fire captain said, ‘I’m not going to send my truck down your driveway.’ So, the oleander’s gone,” Kreinberg said.

The rosemary is going next week, he said.

Rochelle Sherlock of Elevate Sustainable Solutions and the Green Valley Fire Safe Council was the driving force behind the event, which launched in 2019 and includes all of Solano County.

“We are a nationally designated FireWise USA site, and got our FireWise USA designation in July 2020,” she said.

Sunday’s event started at 8:30 a.m. with a twohour classroom training, followed by the property assessment portion of the day.

Participants were instructed in how to assess a home and property for wildfire risks and make recommendations to improve home ignition resistance, create defensible space, and make homes and communities safer from catastrophic wildfire, Sherlock said.

“Upon completing the training, participants will be prepared to become defensible space ambassadors and help residents to assess and prepare their homes for wildfire, and conduct home assessments as part of the Community Wildfire Risk Assessment process through the National Fire Protection Association’s FireWise USA program,” Sherlock said in an email.

Sherlock said she launched this program locally in collaboration with Cal Fire Battalion Chief Aaron Latta after becoming increasingly distressed about the ferocity of wildfires in the region.

“When I saw in the news the wildfire jumped Highway 101 with the Tubbs Fire and wiped out complete neighborhoods, I became concerned,” she said. “Then, the Atlas Fire happened, as I watched in horror, and I knew we needed to get something started here, so I reached out to Cal Fire and was connected with Chief Latta. He and I planned the first event for the purpose of starting a fire safe council, but had many people join in. The work we’ve done, we’ve done as a group.” LUNSFORD

The Tubbs Fire started in October 2017 and burned across a large swath of Napa and Sonoma counties, killing 22 people. It ranks third on the list of the state’s deadliest fires and scorched more than 57.51 square miles (36,807 acres). The Atlas Fire, which also sparked in October 2017, started in Napa County and crossed over into Solano County, killing six people to rank 11th on the list of the state’s deadliest fires. It burned more than 80.66 square miles (51,624 acres).

The size of both fires pale in comparison to the LNU Lightning Complex fire that started in August 2020 in Napa County and burned more than 567.53 square miles (363,220 acres) across Napa, Solano, Sonoma, Yolo, Lake and Colusa counties. It, like the Atlas Fire, left six people dead. It’s the fifth-largest fire in the state’s modern era, dating back to 1932.

The group’s ultimate goal is to “protect life and property by reducing wildfire risk through fuel reduction, defensible space and home hardening,” Sherlock said.

Cal Fire’s goals fit nicely, said Capt. Stephanie Cadwell Lunsford of the Cal Fire Lake-NapaSonoma Unit, which covers six counties, including Solano.

“The goal is creating a defensible space program and educating the public on mitigating hazards within 100-foot clearance of homes, to help with access and egress and our ability to go in and defend structures,” Lunsford said. While efforts to “harden” Solano County against wildfires are vitally important, there is little first responders can do about embers “blowing past the line,” Cordelia Fire Protection District Chief Dave Carpenter said. Hence the need for individual property owners to make their own properties as fireproof as possible.

Reducing wildfire risk is an everyday concern for Cal Fire officials, Lunsford said. They work on fuel reduction projects every day, and are finding that awareness. Funding for this is growing compared to previous years, she said.

Still, Carpenter said, “We can’t eliminate all the fuel,” so as many people as possible knowing what to do to reduce the risk and passing that information on to as many others as possible, is key.

“It’s our goal to get the area surrounding (Solano County) cleared and maintained,” Carpenter said. “That’s why we’re here . . . to give Fairfield a fighting chance to keep wildfires from your homes.”

For information on Elevate Sustainable Solutions and Green Valley Fire Safe Council, visit www.GVFSC.org. If you would like more information, contact Rochelle Sherlock, president of the Green Valley Fire Safe Council, Fire Safe Solano, and founder of Elevate Sustainable Solutions at contact@elevatesustain ablesolutions.org.

Library

From Page One

and Vallejo. Benicia has its own library but is partners with the Solano County Library in providing an online catalog and databases to all county residents.

From five libraries in 1990, it has grown to nine that offer books, movies music and more. Programs for all ages and special events and guest speakers also call the library home.

Olawski took part in a question-and-answer session with the Daily Republic via email.

Q: Share a little of your background. Where were you born and raised? Education?

I was born in Philadelphia and raised in the suburbs. I received my BA degree in English from East Stroudsburg University. I taught adult basic education for a while before returning to school to earn a master of library and information science degree from the University of Pittsburgh. When looking for employment upon graduation, I came across a librarian posting for Solano County Library. I applied and within the year began my professional career as a librarian at Solano County Library.

Q: When, and how, did the library become an important part of your life?

Public libraries became an important part of my life during my childhood. Some of my earliest memories are of visiting my local library branch as a child with my family, checking out stacks of books. Trips to the library always were like going on a great adventure, exploring the shelves and pulling out books on different topics; it was like the world – real and imaginary – was at my fingertips. Literacy was a value instilled in me and my siblings at a very early age. We were and still are a family of readers.

While volunteering as a literacy tutor when in college and teaching adult basic education after receiving my undergraduate degree, I became interested in librarianship as a career. I embraced the values of the profession – intellectual freedom and privacy – and the opportunities such a multifaceted career provides. I chose public libraries as my career focus to make a difference. I believe public service is a privilege and public libraries are a bedrock of a community’s social infrastructure.

Q: Share some of your favorite library experiences from your youth.

I recall my joy and excitement that a trip to the library would bring and the whispering conversations my mother and I would have as we pulled books from the shelves and talked about our favorite characters and their storybook adventures. When I was older, I enjoyed attending the free programs the library offered, especially the ones that were hosted by local community members, such as the World War II veterans’ group who shared their wartime stories, local writers talking about their published –or hoping to be published – works and local historians sharing their knowledge of regional history.

One of the most favorite experiences was when the local Friends of the Library groups would hold their book sales. Most times the sales were held in the basements of the branches. It was like going on an expedition digging through piles of used books and success was leaving with a treasure-trove of used paperbacks –10 for a $1 back then. A visit to a Friends book sale was my family’s trip to the proverbial candy store.

Q: Where did you start your career in library services? What were some of the first obstacles you overcame? What was the most rewarding part of that first job?

My first professional library job was with Solano County Library in 1996. I started as the jail librarian. Starting my career serving a special population was challenging, especially adapting to working in a jail environment and learning about legal resources. I then worked at various branches as a supervising librarian. Each community and their information needs were slightly different. I greatly enjoyed learning about the communities, meeting people and providing programs and building collections that met their interests and needs.

I left Solano County Library for several years in 2007, working as a deputy director for San Mateo Public Library and Berkeley Public Library. I returned in 2015 as assistant director of Library Services.

Q: Favorite authors? Favorite genres?

Favorite authors: Lisa Scottoline, Kathy Reichs, Donna Leone, Alexander McCall Smith, Carolyn Chute, David Sedaris, Louise Erdrich. . . . Favorite genres: mysteries and historical fiction.

I started reading mysteries in my youth, first Nancy Drew then progressing to Agatha Christie. Reference work for me was like channeling my inner Nancy Drew when I was faced with a particularly challenging reference question. It was a great adventure helping someone find the answer to their question.

Q: Reflect on how libraries have changed since you started working in libraries.

Computers used to be a limited resource; we didn’t have enough to meet demand. Now it is like everyone has their own devices and no longer seem to rely on library computers for internet access and personal computing needs. Wi-Fi hotspots are popular these days to provide connectivity support on the go. The nature of reference work also has changed. Again, with personal computers, many people go online to search for information by themselves and then may come to the library for help with more indepth questions.

Q: Would you share some of your goals for the Solano County Library system?

I want the library to make a difference in the lives of our users and our communities; everything we do is in support of their information needs and wants. I want to increase our reach to the communities we serve and ideally get a library card into the hands of every Solano County resident and have them experience the wonder of their Solano County Library. The library soon will begin the process of refreshing its strategic plan and connecting with our stakeholders to learn what is important to them and how the library may help meet their needs.

Q: What impresses you most about the Solano County Library system?

I am impressed by the library’s staff, who are passionate about public service, continually provide excellent customer service and every day strive to make Solano County Library an inclusive and welcoming place for everyone. Moreover, I am most impressed by and appreciative of the communities we serve and the value they’ve placed on and the investment they’ve made in the library. It is my honor to serve Solano County.