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San Mateo County is set to issue a revised health order this week easing restrictions on additional businesses and activities, after the state granted its request to do so.

County officials announced today that the state has granted its variance to fully align with California’s Resilience Roadmap on the grounds that the county has met the required benchmarks to further ease restrictions.

Because of that, the type of businesses that can reopen include dine-in restaurants, hair salons and barber shops, family entertainment centers, restaurants, wineries and bars, zoos and museums, gyms and fitness centers, hotels (for tourism and individual travel), cardrooms, campgrounds and outdoor recreation, schools and day camps.

Not allowed anywhere in the state still are personal services like nail salons and tattoo parlors, playgrounds, concert venues and higher education.

The new order “will make clear what business may open and what guidelines they must follow,” the County said.

“This is great news for so many of the thousands of small businesses that are truly the backbone of our local economy, especially in East Palo Alto and North Fair Oaks,” County Supervisor Warren Slocum said in a statement. “People want to get back to work. That said, it’s up to all of us to continue to wear face coverings and to maintain social distancing so we can continue to reopen both the economy and our social lives in a safe manner.”

For more information, visit the San Mateo County website here.

Photo by Dmitry Zvolskiy from Pexels

With the July 15 tax filing deadline approaching, Tax-Aid is offering is offering free tax preparation service via a curbside drop-off event in Redwood City on Thursday.

From 10 a.m. to noon, residents can drop off their taxes at the Fair Oaks Community Center, 2600 Middlefield Road in Redwood City.

A Tax Aid volunteer will work on them and mail them back when they are ready.

Tax Aid requests all participants to wear mask and gloves at the drop-off site.

Call Tax Aid at (415) 229-9240 for more questions and visit their website here.

Are healthcare workers needed to test us for COVID-19, or could we successfully perform the tests on ourselves? A new study by researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine suggests the latter.

The study, according to the Stanford Medicine News Center, taught 30 people who had previously tested positive for the virus to do their own nasal swabs. They returned to Stanford Health Care and went through drive-through testing, where they collected their own specimens by swabbing both nostrils. A physician then collected two more samples using a nasal swab and a swab applied to the back of the throat and the tonsils.

When comparing self-collected specimens with physician-collected specimens, 29 of the 30 participants received identical results. In one case, the self-administered test showed the presence of the virus whereas the swabs collected by the physician tested negative. Eleven of the participants were positive for the virus, and 18 negative.

The results show promise in efforts to increase testing while also reducing exposure to healthcare workers, said Yvonne Maldonado, MD, professor of pediatric infectious diseases and of health research and policy and a senior author of the study.

“There is an urgent need to increase our testing capacity to slow the overall spread of the virus,” Maldonado said. “A sample collection procedure that can safely and easily be performed by the patient in their own car or at home could reduce the exposure of health care workers and also allow many more people to submit samples for testing.”

Photos credited to Stanford Medicine News Center: Jonathan Altamirano (on left), the lead author of the study, with a self-test kit; Yvonne Maldonado (on right) is the senior author of the study.

San Carlos Mayor Ron Collins is urging the public not to boycott a local restaurant after one of its diners was accused of using insulting and abusive language toward Black Lives Matter protesters.

“They have nothing to do with what is going on today, and are a valued and responsible business in San Carlos,” the mayor said in a Facebook post.

On Saturday, local resident Danielle Meadows-Rios shared a photo and story about an incident during which a man dining outdoors at Stamp Bar and Grill reportedly made hateful comments and gestures toward protesters participating in a peaceful march on Laurel Street. In her post, which was widely shared online, Meadows-Rios claimed Stamps’ management high-fived the diner rather than admonish him for his actions. Meadows-Rios said she told the owner “shame on you” for condoning the diner’s actions.

Stamp Bar & Grill owner Sema Tosun released a statement Sunday denying the claim that her eatery supported the diner’s actions. Tosun says Meadows-Rios misunderstood the situation and that the diner was told “to leave and never come back to our restaurant.”

“There was no high five or fist-bumping, my business partner put his hand up as a gesture to say please leave which is now being construed as him giving a high-five,” Tosun said, adding, “Stamp restaurant is farthest from being a racist establishment.”

Tosun, founder of Fund A Need, a nonprofit supporting low-income seniors, said, “Anyone who knows us knows that we have been very strong in our advocacy to support and better our communities and have been very proactive in the causes related to injustice and vulnerable people….We told the gentleman in this photo to leave and never come back to our restaurant and in no shape or form condone any type of ugly behavior like this.”

Mayor Collins said he posted about the incident Saturday in order to call out racism, hate and bullying. In a Facebook post Sunday, he urged the community against targeting Stamps.

“The owners are good people, dedicated to racial justice and who support many worthy causes, and who in no way condoned their patron’s irresponsible actions,” the mayor said.

Photo: Facebook