Gov. Gavin Newsom signed budget legislation which includes $45 million for the Animal Shelter Assistance Program to be administered by UC Davis 

By KAYA DO-KHANH — campus@theaggie.org

The Koret Shelter Medicine Program (KSMP) at the UC Davis Center for Companion Animal Health has been chosen by Gov. Gavin Newsom to direct a five-year project aimed at improving the lives of at-risk animals and providing support for shelters statewide. 

Newsom signed budget legislation for the project known as the Animal Shelter Assistance Program in 2021, which includes $45 million, an augmentation of $5 million allotted earlier in the year. The program was enacted to stand by the state’s policy goal that “no adoptable or treatable animal is euthanized,” according to the Animal Shelter Assistance Act.

“What’s really important is that the shelter medicine team has always been very accessible and inclusive in their consults with animal shelters and really works with groups on solutions,” said KSMP California State Director Allison Cardona. “It shows that the state of California recognizes that work and trusts us to be stewards of this funding.” 

The Animal Shelter Assistance Act states that the program should provide resources based on assessments and training to prevent animal cruelty as well as administer a grant program to aid shelters in the implementation of best practices. 

“The University of California houses the nation’s premier animal sheltering research, service, and teaching program,” Article 6.4 of the Animal Shelter Assistance Act states. “The shelter medicine program at the University of California, Davis promotes a welfare-centric, life-saving approach to the management of animals in shelters, focused on prevention and grounded in science.”

The program serves as a way to track the stability of animal shelters and connect them to others in the state, according to Cardona. 

Grant opportunities and applications are listed on the California For All Animals website. Along with the application, there is a questionnaire for shelters that will indicate where the greatest need is within the state. 

An online launch party was held on Feb. 14 to accompany the opening of the first round of grants. Newsom made a special online appearance in support of the launch and thanked the UC Davis team for leading the initiative. 

“Four years ago we pledged that all California communities would have the resources they need to ensure that no healthy or treatable animal dies in a shelter,” Newsom said in the online launch party. “I’m really proud that California is following through on these promises, and I’m confident together we can meet the goal of finally becoming a no-kill state.” 

Written by: Kaya Do-Khanh — campus@theaggie.org

A Change.org petition created by third-year Hayden Keller gained 187 signatures against indoor masking as of March 4

By KRISTIN TRENT — campus@theaggie.org

Third-year nutrition science major Hayden Keller created a petition addressed to Chancellor Gary May proposing an end to the indoor mask mandate at the UC Davis Activities and Recreation Center (ARC). The petition states that mask restrictions at the popular exercise facility should be lifted because wearing masks impacts exercise performance. As of March 4, the petition, published on the website Change.org, has 187 signatures. 

Masking risks to students during exercise were emphasized over risks to contracting COVID-19 and its variants. 

“Not only does wearing a mask make it harder to inhale the amount of air needed to perform at your desired level, it is proven that surgical mask increase resistance and strain to airflow, which can pose a much more severe threat to students over contracting a virus that is once again compared to a common cold,” the petition states.

On March 3, the university announced that effective March 19, masks will no longer be required in most indoor settings on campus. Students and staff will still be required to test every 14 days while unvaccinated individuals must still be tested every four days. Some places like public transit and clinical settings will still require masks. 

Since the announcement, Keller has decided to drop the petition.

“Although this decision was made weeks after Yolo County has already lifted the mandate, it is better late than never,” Keller said. “This petition’s greatest achievement wasn’t assisting with the dropping of the mask requirement, but with letting students know that they aren’t alone, and they shouldn’t be afraid to stand up for what they believe in.”

Dr. Cindy Schorzman cited a number of reputable officials that helped inform the decision to continue mask mandates through winter quarter despite California’s indoor mask mandate expiration including UC Davis Health infectious disease experts and public health officials. 

“This decision is in line with advice from the Yolo County Public Health Officer, Dr. [Aimee] Sisson, who continues to recommend masks indoors until the case rate falls into the moderate transmission range,” Schorzman said.

According to Shawn Yew, a fourth-year student, masks are a way for students to protect themselves and others as the pandemic continues.

“In my personal opinion, I think [wearing masks] is good for students,” Yew said. “Wearing a mask is a very useful method to keep away the spreading of the virus. So I would say that wearing a mask is not a big deal and it can give you […] protection against the latest virus.”

Second-year Asian American Studies student Chelsea Vang also commented on masking’s ability to protect others.

“We still have people that are suffering from this virus, and so I’m really glad we have the rules regardless of how low our cases are or even if our cases have gone to a point that people are good to go outside without a mask on,” Vang said. “I personally think it should be a requirement that all students wear a mask because wearing this mask doesn’t only mean protecting other people within the space that you’re in, but it’s also going to protect anyone you [later] interact with.”

Written by: Kristin Trent — campus@theaggie.org

The UC Davis DataLab and Facilities provide tools to examine UC Davis public information

By KATHLEEN QUINN— campus@theaggie.org

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the UC Davis COVID-19 dashboard has been a source for up-to-date information about testing, cases and isolation. Although, additional regularly-updated datasets provide a more complex view of the effects of the pandemic on campus.

Ventilation and filtration data

UC Davis maintains a live Airtable dataset that can be downloaded and shows the current ventilation and filtration system on campus. 

Josh Morejohn, the energy manager for UC Davis, works with a team of engineers and data scientists to maintain this Airtable dataset. 

“It was a matter of putting the information in a place where people could access it,” Morejohn said. “A lot of our students worked on that database because it was a matter of pulling different information from different sources and putting it into one place in an organized way.”

Though UC Davis facilities have maintained ventilation and filtration systems for their own use, information about these systems was made public soon after the start of the pandemic. 

“As soon as the pandemic hit, that was one of the campus’s main requests,” Morejohn said. “Our Vice Chancellor Kelly Ratliff was very interested in trying to give people information because they wanted to know what kind of systems served their buildings.”

This data was aggregated by UC Davis Facilities and visualized by Kathleen Quinn of The California Aggie. This visualization only shows known filtration; unknown filtration has been excluded.

According to the Airtable data, UC Davis has only one building whose heating, ventilation and air conditioning system has a high-efficiency particulate air or “HEPA” filter; however, the university has also installed over 50 portable HEPA filters which are noted on the dataset as “air purifiers.”

Ventilation systems can either have recirculated air, use 100% outside air or a mixture of the two. Outside air helps to avoid the spread of airborne contaminants, including viruses, indoors according to the EPA. According to Morejohn, the portable filters served as an extra precaution in rooms without 100% outside air.

This data was aggregated by UC Davis Facilities and visualized by Kathleen Quinn of The California Aggie. This visualization only shows known ventilation; unknown ventilation has been excluded.

At the top of the list for exposure are general assignment classrooms: classrooms that are used for multiple disciplines and may change from quarter to quarter. Consequently, Morejohn said that these classrooms were the focus of data collection.

This data was aggregated by the UC Davis DataLab and visualized by Kathleen Quinn of The California Aggie. Worksites with no exposure up to March 2 are not included.

Wellman Hall, which tops the charts in exposure for the campus at 46 incidents of reported exposure since Jan. 1, 2021, has a MERV rating of 13 or better, a high rating for air filters, and is ventilated with 100% outside air, which is preferred.

Though this filter cannot catch particles as small as COVID-19, it does capture larger particles that the virus might attach to such as pollen or dust, according to the EPA. 

Dining halls are also one of the most exposed areas on campus. 

“This last quarter, with the omicron variant, we prioritized the dining commons because that’s where people were not masked when they’re eating and that was a concern,” Morejohn said.

As the pandemic evolves, the focus on the filtration system may change, as it can be used in multiple ways, according to Morejohn.

“It’s not only good for COVID virus mitigation, but it’s also good for smoke mitigation,” Morejohn said.

COVID-19 exposure data

As of Jan. 1, 2021, with the passage of AB-685’s COVID-19 imminent hazard provision, the state of California has mandated that all private and public employers inform employees of known workplace exposures. This information is provided daily in an email and includes the location and estimated dates of exposure. 

COVID-19 exposure data for the UC Davis campus is publicly available through the UC Davis website, but the information is deleted every 14 days.

Michele Tobias, a geospatial data specialist at UC Davis, worked with students and researchers at the UC Davis DataLab on a case study using COVID-19 exposure data to create an interactive data visualization that shows the buildings on campus affected over time.

“It was really a good tool to help us better visualize the data and understand what patterns that may or may not be going on, in what was originally a tabular data set,” Tobias said.

The data used was aggregated by the UC Davis DataLab and visualized by Kathleen Quinn of The California Aggie.

According to the data, the largest peak in UC Davis exposure sites was on Nov. 30, 2021 with 38 exposures. Each building with a known exposure may report separately, so this number does not necessarily reflect 38 separate individuals but instead multiple people who migrated from building to building.

In Tobias’ view, a map is an easy way to understand where exposures to COVID-19 are occurring. 

“We felt it was better to represent the data as similar to how it was originally presented without doing a lot of interpretation or analysis on it,” Tobias said. “The goal of the map itself was to present the tabular data in visual form.”

Since the data provided is stored openly in GitHub, it provides an opportunity for the public to use the data in different ways.

“This particular interactive map we made was built on curiosity: what if I built this differently? What do I learn from it?” Tobias said. “Those are the kinds of things [that] if you have open data then the community can also explore it, and maybe we can come up with something useful.”

Tobias said part of her job is to teach people different tools and data visualizations on many different topics using open datasets. 

“Making it all open so people can see how we did it and maybe adapt it — is part of what we do, part of our philosophy at DataLab,” Tobias said. 

Written by: Kathleen Quinn — campus@theaggie.org

Until the new system is running, students will not be able to see live bus arrival times but can refer to the Unitrans website for bus schedule information

By ANGELINA ANGELO — campus@theaggie.org

Due to the nationwide AT&T 3G network shutdown, the Unitrans Nextbus live tracking system, which provides real-time bus arrival predictions, is no longer available to students and Unitrans bus drivers. Not only is this shutdown affecting Unitrans, but it is also impacting transit agencies across the country. Well over 5,000 students rely on this system daily, according to Jeffrey Flynn, the general manager of Unitrans. 

“This outage is not ideal for students who are busy juggling their personal, social and academic lives,” said Luck Vuong, a fifth-year civil engineering major and the student Unitrans route supervisor manager. 

Vuong recommends that students take an earlier bus, arrive at the bus stop one to two minutes earlier than the arrival time on the bus schedule and reach out to bus drivers with concerns.

Bus drivers will stick to the set schedule, but unexpected delays and traffic may still occur. In order to provide accurate bus arrival predictions with the new AT&T network, Unitrans will need to acquire replacement parts to reset its system. 

“[Unitrans] is waiting on replacement parts, which are currently delayed one to three months due to supply chain issues,” Flynn said. 

Unitrans managing staff is actively seeking out solutions for the time being, according to Flynn. 

“We are testing bridge systems in the next weeks in an attempt to find a temporary solution for students,” Flynn said. 

Students can find bus schedule information on the Unitrans website and on paper schedules, which are available on the buses or at the bus terminal boxes.

Justin Medrano, a fourth-year pharmaceutical chemistry major and the student Unitrans operations manager, shared similar sentiments with Flynn. 

“We are trying our hardest as supervisors and as drivers to make service as reliable as possible,” Medrano said. “We ask that the public bears with us. We are as much in the dark as [students] are right now. We understand it’s frustrating not to be able to look at a map and see where the buses are at in real time, and [we] are working toward solutions.”

Written by: Angelina Angelo — campus@theaggie.org