California’s Health System Is Buckling Under The COVID-19 Pandemic (KPBS Midday Edition)

Speaker 1: 00:01 Some hospitals in the region are now dealing with an overflow of patients

Speaker 2: 00:05 And they just see the crush of COVID patients coming into their ER

Speaker 1: 00:10 I’m Jade Hindman. This is KPBS mid-day edition. COVID 19 cases are also surging in jails, prisons and detention centers.

Speaker 3: 00:30 The spread was a result of somebody that was asymptomatic, and that is what’s so challenging and tracking this disease is you could have COVID-19 and bypass, you know, a symptom or thermometer check

Speaker 1: 00:42 And the story of a Marine fighting to stay in the core, plus a more holistic approach to helping threaten species that’s ahead on midday edition.

Speaker 1: 01:00 As California closes in on 2 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in some parts of the state, patients are being treated in hallways and conference rooms because there’s no more available space. Governor Gavin Newsome is warning that the state could see a once unthinkable 100,000 hospitalizations within a month here in San Diego County, the County reported 2,381 additional coronavirus infections. And on Monday and 28 deaths hospital staff are pleading with the public to help stop the spread of the virus by staying home and not celebrating Christmas with people who live outside of your household. Joining me to talk about the latest with the COVID-19 virus in San Diego is Paul Sisson who covers healthcare for the San Diego union Tribune. Paul welcome. Thanks for having me several local hospitals say their staffed ICU bed capacity is in the single digits or no beds at all. You reported that at Scripps hospital in Chula Vista, there’s only one staffed ICU bed remaining. What did you hear about the situation there?

Speaker 2: 02:03 Right. I spoke with Dr. Juan Tovar, uh, there at Scripps mercy Chula Vista hospital. And, uh, he indicated that things were really tight. You know, when I was there in the spring, they had the emergency department split into two halves. One was the COVID half. The other was the non COVID half. Uh, he said when, when I talked to him yesterday that they’ve had to kind of gradually see the non COVID half shrink down smaller and smaller as they need to add more negative pressure rooms. And, and, uh, and they just see the crush of COVID patients coming into their ER, uh, increase and increase and increase again, in terms of the intensive care unit. Uh, you know, they’ve, they’ve done what they can to expand and add some additional beds, but, uh, you know, the staffing really is becoming a challenge. Uh, and so they’re just not quite sure when it’s going to be necessary to start bringing in additional workers who are trained healthcare workers, but don’t work inside hospitals. You know, that’s, I guess the next step in the surge is to bring in, uh, folks who work in the outpatient settings and doctor’s offices and things, and kind of turn them into supervised hospital workers to get us through this search.

Speaker 1: 03:12 Now, the County hospital association announced a slight increase in the number of staffed beds available. What’s being done to prepare for large numbers of people who may have to be hospitalized in the coming days and weeks.

Speaker 2: 03:25 That’s right. All each hospital has a surge plan. I was talking to Patty Mason at the CEO at UCFD earlier this week. She said their plan, uh, is all about converting, uh, resources that are outside the hospital to temporarily housed patients. Uh, that’s outpatient, outpatient surgery centers. Uh that’s uh, you know, uh, I don’t know if doctor’s offices are necessarily part of that, but, uh, they’re looking for non-traditional locations that they can convert for temporary use, uh, you know, generally facilities that have some kind of medical capacity already, but, uh, you know, if you get COVID now, you may find yourself in an operating room with, uh, several other patients, uh, you know, by your side, it’s still a little unclear what they’re going to do with the, uh, with the medical station up at Palomar hospital. There’s 200 beds in a vacant wing there that they could activate. Uh, we know that those are not capable of handling intensive care patients. Uh, and it’s still a little unclear exactly how they plan to activate that, uh, that resource,

Speaker 1: 04:27 The emergency medical director at sharp and Chula Vista, Dr. Andre Smith is really begging the public to stay at home. What did his hospital see as a result of gatherings from Thanksgiving?

Speaker 2: 04:38 Uh, he said that that has been just a very common theme that people come in and they talk about having gone to Thanksgiving gatherings recently, uh, Dr. Tovar over at scripts to the Vista set, the same thing. Uh, you know, it seems like, uh, like a lot of what they’re, what we’re seeing in our hospitals now really is driven by, uh, gatherings in various places at home and elsewhere. Uh, you know, and so they, they all have a very short Christmas list this year. They just want us all to stay home and, uh, and just not, uh, not gathered for Christmas. Uh, I myself have, uh, have told my mom and dad that we’re just going to come and we’re going to, we’re going to exchange, uh, you know, gifts curbside this year. They, they live here in San Diego and then we’re going to go home and, uh, and cook our own Christmas dinner this year. And it’s a, it’s a painful decision to make. But, uh, one that really is starting to feel very necessary.

Speaker 1: 05:30 How did doctors you spoke to describe their concern for what could happen here? If people defy, stay at home orders and attend those Christmas gatherings and new year’s gatherings,

Speaker 2: 05:41 They have very dire projections that they’re a little queasy about sharing with us in the public, but it’s pretty clear that, uh, if we see another surge for Christmas, like we saw for Thanksgiving that, uh, you know, they really don’t think that capacity is going to hold it. And it’s probably going to put us in a situation where rationing is necessary. Uh, and this is a terrible, terrible, terrible, uh, eventuality where you would have have, uh, triaged directors appointed at every hospital, whose job is to look at, uh, patient conditions coming in and decide who is in good enough condition to warrant an ICU bed, to bore into a ventilator. Basically, what there’ll be judging is who is the most likely to benefit, uh, from the scarce resource intensive care, critical care, that kind of care who is the most likely to come out the other side and still be alive. So if you have a preexisting condition, uh, if you are, are generally already getting tough condition with COVID, um, if your, if your blood oxygen level is already very low, if you, if you have a high, uh, level of other problems with your, with your blood supply, you just might not get a bed.

Speaker 1: 06:50 So they’d actually have to start rationing that care out.

Speaker 2: 06:54 Right.

Speaker 1: 06:56 All right. I’ve been speaking with Paul Sisson who covers healthcare for the San Diego union Tribune. Paul, thank you very much. Thank you. COVID-19 cases are surging in San Diego County jails prisons and detention centers. That’s according to San Diego County community outbreak records obtained by KPBS KPBS reporter. Claire Tresor says these numbers underscore that inmates and others held in detention are among the viruses, most vulnerable targets.

Speaker 4: 07:31 I don’t think you have to be, you know, an expert to understand that, you know, even if people are in separate cells, the settings require people to share facilities like showers or microwaves or recreational space. Um, just exposes people. Monica and Greta is an immigrant’s rights attorney at the ACLU. She’s among many who have sounded alarms about how vulnerable people in detention are to COVID-19 in April. The ACLU filed a lawsuit to have at-risk immigrant detainees released from the detention center in Otay Mesa. They won the release of about 100 people, but are still fighting for more. There’s nothing forcing the federal government to detain anybody. I don’t have any set right now. She’s right to be worried. County of San Diego outbreak records obtained exclusively by KPBS show. There have been more than 460 cases in the Otay Mesa detention center, which houses, both ice immigration, detainees, and prisoners for the U S marshals and ice spokeswoman disputed that number saying a total of just 200 detainees at the OTA Mesa facility have contracted the virus since the pandemic first struck in March. Ice does not report cases among its staff at the facility or us Marshall prisoners. The Mesa cases are among nearly 1800 reported in jails and detention centers throughout San Diego County for March through December 18th. According to the records, KPBS obtained,

Speaker 5: 09:07 Three of us were put into a cell together to be put back upstairs.

Speaker 4: 09:12 Jesse Cannon spent two days in the Sheriff’s downtown central jail at the beginning of November, after being arrested for obstructing a police officer during a protest,

Speaker 5: 09:22 And there’s like half eaten food everywhere. It was that point. I had noticed they gave, they gave him one of the homies, a mask, but they hadn’t given all of us a mask. I asked for a mask and they were like, Oh, well, you’re on the, you’re about to bail out.

Speaker 4: 09:32 Not what’s supposed to happen. When people arrive at a Sheriff’s jail says Lieutenant Kyle Bible, an assistant medical administrator for the department,

Speaker 5: 09:41 Before that arrestee even gets out of the car to start our booking process, our staff who are completely equipped and PBE will go out and as part of their assessment, if that arrestee does not have a mask, one is provided to them.

Speaker 4: 09:56 In addition, he says, holding cells are supposed to be cleaned after each new person is brought in and new prisoners are tested for COVID-19 within hours of being brought into booking. Yet, even with these protocols cases have surged at local jails. The KPBS records show more than 600 cases in County jails. As of December 18th, Bible confirmed there had been outbreaks at individual jails and says one outbreak was caused when an inmate was moved from the George Bailey detention facility to the Vista detention facility.

Speaker 5: 10:32 The source of Mt. Outbreak is, is unknown. You know, we did a CA a very thorough contact tracing, um, and it was determined that, uh, the spread was a result of somebody that was asymptomatic. And that is what’s so challenging and tracking this diseases, you could have COVID-19 and bypass, you know, a symptom review or, or a thermometer check

Speaker 4: 10:52 While families of incarcerated people desperately searched for information.

Speaker 5: 10:57 People will let us know that, um, they have had outbreaks of COVID.

Speaker 4: 11:02 [inaudible] a criminal justice advocate at the nonprofit pillars of the community says the lack of information leads to more mistrust of law enforcement in the community.

Speaker 5: 11:12 Families wouldn’t be able to, um, keep track of their loved ones. If we had transparency, we were able to a rapid response or whisky mitigation, something that should be built into our system. We were able to see, we could stop the spread KPBS news,

Speaker 1: 11:29 Go to kpbs.org/outbreaks to see a map and searchable database of all community outbreaks of COVID-19 in San Diego County KPBS, investigative assistant, Katie Steagall contributed to this report. The ongoing hack of our government systems is now being described as a grave risk with no evidence. The situation is under control each day. We learn more about the extent of damage and what institutions have been breached, but what are the potential real world consequences of this hack? How could we all be impacted? Joining me is Jacob Dhahran and SDSU lecture and the department of management information systems and a Homeland security expert. Jacob, welcome by grabbing me first, put this hack into perspective. How big is it and what institutions and systems have been breached?

Speaker 6: 12:28 Well, so far details are a bit scant on the true scope and impact, but even still it’s being built as the single largest cyber incident to date, as it could affect up to 18,000 of solar winds customers that use their Orion platform co confirmed. So on the government side, so far includes department of treasury commerce, energy, and parts of Homeland security as well. And they also count over 400 of fortune 500 companies among their clients. So the potential impact is virtually every large company you’re aware of, including tech, telecoms, finance, and energy giants, the precise number isn’t known just yet for who’s been affected. And it probably won’t be for some time due to the complexity and time required to conduct the investigations into these matters. You know, it’s not quite as cyber Pearl Harbor, as some people are doubling it, but it is by far the largest hack we’ve seen so far.

Speaker 1: 13:16 Now you mentioned solar winds, it’s a software firm, and you mentioned their Orion platform. What is that? And how were hackers able to use it?

Speaker 6: 13:26 Well at a base level, it’s a network and systems monitoring platform to help with a lot of enterprise tasks and activities that you need to help maintain your enterprise level networks. And what seems to happen is that the hackers were able to execute. What’s called a supply chain attack, where they infect the source repository, where customers and clients pull down updates from almost poisoning the well, I imagine for your computer, you get that update that prompts you that, Hey, there’s some updates that are out to resolve some vulnerabilities. You need to install this patch. And you’re like, okay, being a responsible individual and you apply those updates, except that update was actually, you know, hacked or poisoned and is malicious in of itself and has a bad payload in it. So by doing the right thing and staying patched, you are now vulnerable. And that’s what makes this one particularly insidious.

Speaker 1: 14:11 What do you know about the goal of these attacks? Is it just information or might they want to take control of some crucial systems or even destroy data?

Speaker 6: 14:20 Well, that’s the tricky part. It’s still too early to tell, you know, since we’re still in the early days of the hack and the investigations are still underway and for privacy reasons, they don’t want to tip their hand as far as what they’ve uncovered, um, you know, details aren’t too frequent, but there has been some reports that email communications and other sensitive documents have been targeted. And I believe that’s what the department of commerce and treasury now for at least the treasury department, this is especially troubling because, you know, as we know, they’re partially responsible for sanctioning foreign individuals and groups, uh, including those that engage in malicious cyber activity like we’re seeing now, and having advanced insight into those investigations are planned to actions would be particularly valuable to, you know, state sponsored actors or groups, which does attack is believed to be from.

Speaker 1: 15:07 So while we know institutions could be greatly affected by this hack, what about the everyday person, uh, someone like you, someone like me, how could we be impacted?

Speaker 6: 15:18 Well, again, it’s too early to tell at best, this is a egregious act of cyber espionage and compromising systems, but at worst, it could be the establishment of footholds throughout critical infrastructure, various sectors that could be disrupted at a later date.

Speaker 1: 15:34 Like what, you know, I mean, we know hackers, you know, they access the treasury department and the us postal service, uh, what might be the impact there.

Speaker 6: 15:43 It could range from complete disruption to complete knocking out of the systems. Uh, one of the things about this hack is it gave the attackers full control over the effect of servers. And from there, they can move laterally throughout a network, establish further footholds and entrench themselves in a network, which, you know, through the use of privileged accounts, could in a nutshell, give them complete control of a network. And that’s the concerning thing, because once you have that access, there’s virtually no limit to what you could do.

Speaker 1: 16:13 How could people prepare for institutions to fail

Speaker 6: 16:17 In a worst case scenario, if we lose, you know, parts of our communications or our electronics or our power grid, you know, just basic disaster, preparedness steps apply, making sure that you maintain a store of food, have some cash on hand in case credit card readers go down for a period of time, things like that.

Speaker 1: 16:34 And how can people protect their information from these institutional heads?

Speaker 6: 16:38 Well, that’s a little bit harder cause you can’t, uh, manage their systems. But what you can do is make sure that your own systems are up to date as much as possible, which seems like that advice given the current context, but in general, have make sure you’re running the most latest up to dates. Use secure passwords use multi-factor authentication wherever possible, where you need to use, you know, a code sent to your phone. All of these things are vital for helping protect your own information. And in the case of, for companies, their information as well, typically in these, uh, incidents, be it from fishing or other hacks, humans are the weak link. Someone clicks on an email that they shouldn’t have a phishing scam or social engineering, social engineering attack. They fall for it. And then that often is the first step that lets an adversary into a network or into an account that results in compromise

Speaker 1: 17:27 Does working remotely during this pandemic, make it easier for systems and institutions to be hacked.

Speaker 6: 17:33 It hasn’t made it easier per se, but it is certainly changed the threat landscape in a way that’s caught a lot of companies off guard and resulted in a lot of need and change of ways of doing business strategies and what they look out for and account for. But hasn’t directly resulted in more or vulnerability.

Speaker 7: 17:50 And with so many institutions requiring our personal information, is there a way for us to move in the cyber world that doesn’t have a digital footprint and leading right back to us and all of our information

Speaker 6: 18:03 At this point in time? Really? No. Uh, everything is so interconnected. Everything’s tied to our names, our addresses, our digital footprints that we leave. It’s virtually inescapable at this point.

Speaker 7: 18:15 So how do you get all of the malware out of the systems?

Speaker 6: 18:18 It’s not easy and sometimes it can be targeted where you can go through and find the specific location. But in this case, as they’ve had an established foothold, there’s no telling how far they’d be able to spread other access mechanisms or other avenues of compromise. Later, it’s been recommended by the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency that for some organizations, if they know they’ve been exploited, that it may require the full rebuild of certain elements of their infrastructure, because there is no telling just how compromised it’s been or where other payloads might be hiding.

Speaker 7: 18:50 I’ve been speaking with Jacob Dhahran, SDSU lecture and Homeland security expert. Jacob, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you so much for your time. You’re listening to KPBS midday edition. I’m Jayne Hindman it’s been years since the Pentagon declared the services should take into account the wounds of war in cases when vets are discharged for misconduct, still KPBS, military reporter, Steve Walsh has been following one Marine who is fighting to stay in the Corps as a warning. This story contains graphic depictions of suicide.

Speaker 8: 19:31 Uh, my name is Cooper Williams. Um, I’m from Mississippi originally. I’m an active duty Marine, uh, chief warrant officer. I’ve been in the Marine Corps for 17 and a half years. Now.

Speaker 9: 19:44 Williams may not be a Marine for much longer. His story is all too familiar. He had a couple of tours in Iraq in the mid two thousands followed by a tour in Afghanistan. He remembers being in a convoy when a roadside bomb exploded

Speaker 8: 19:58 The whole front right side of the charter of us was blown off. Um, I was the first one there. And, um, you know, at the time like mayhem people, screaming at people crying.

Speaker 9: 20:12 It was one of several incidents that left him with PTSD and traumatic brain injuries. William says he ignored his problems for years. As he pursued a career in military intelligence, his wife, Andrea says she watched him change,

Speaker 8: 20:26 Just set him off things that wouldn’t normally set somebody off. Um, and then more reclusive, um, started being depressed, not being asleep, all those things. Um, and again, life just went on

Speaker 9: 20:45 Violence in his personal life problems that started on the battlefield. His parents died in a murder suicide.

Speaker 8: 20:53 I’ll never forget that day. It was December 23rd. It was two days prior to Christmas. It was

Speaker 9: 20:57 2016. His parents were getting a divorce when his father killed his mother, then himself back in their hometown in Mississippi

Speaker 8: 21:05 To think I took it bad. I feel sad for my brother. My brother took it way worse than I did. And I took it very bad.

Speaker 9: 21:13 His personal life was collapsing, but Williams’ career as a Marine was at its height. He was made a warrant officer in the coveted military intelligence field, but he was falling apart.

Speaker 8: 21:23 The panic attacks became much more severe, like just the impact physiologically physically, mentally

Speaker 9: 21:33 William started drinking heavily by 2019. He applied for a transfer to a wounded warrior battalion at camp Pendleton. He completed treatment for PTSD and alcoholism. It’s also where he received two DUIs in less than a month. He says it was drinking combined with a change in medication.

Speaker 8: 21:52 I remember waking up and, and then, but what I was doing was is just blacking out. And then just doing things that were uncharacteristic to me

Speaker 9: 21:59 Because of the DUIs William’s 17 plus year career is on the line. The Marines have started the process of in voluntarily separating him from the core. That means a potential loss of pension healthcare and the GI bill benefits.

Speaker 8: 22:13 I try and rush this. This is the rest of my life. I have five children. I’ve been in the Marine Corps school almost 18 years now. And you’re just going to take everything.

Speaker 9: 22:21 Thousands of troops with PTSD have been discharged for misconduct starting in 2014, the Pentagon began requiring the services to consider how much the wounds of war played a role in the troops behavior that re-evaluation helps veterans trying to upgrade their discharges. That consideration doesn’t always extend to active duty troops. Esther leaving Farth is an attorney with the national veterans legal services program in Washington, DC. She says the rules need to change. So the military looks more seriously at the wounds of war before kicking out a service member in the first place. We need to stop the problem before it occurs. It’s not enough to do it. Post discharge it’s too late. The damage has already been done. Meanwhile, Cooper Williams is appealing to the Marine Corps to at least give him an in-person hearing at the moment. He can only wait for KPBS news. I’m Steve Walsh police use of crowd control weapons at demonstrations in California have caused physical harm to some protestors. Now as cath radio, Scott, rod reports, state leaders are proposing ways to restrict their use. 22 year old Fusha Connor took to the streets in downtown Sacramento earlier this year for his first ever

Speaker 10: 23:46 Protest. After seeing a video of George Floyd die in police custody,

Speaker 11: 23:50 I felt a strong sense of togetherness and, uh, people were chanting going on

Speaker 10: 23:57 At the time. Connor was training to be an emergency medical technician with the goal of working in law enforcement. It’s a profession he always admired, but as a black first-generation American, he sees racism within the criminal justice system. So he joined hundreds of others that night calling for an end to police brutality. He says the mood changed when protestors squared off with police near the state Capitol,

Speaker 11: 24:21 I start seeing more police presence coming. They were in right gear. They looked like they were holding projectile weapons. And it was really unsettling to the crowd.

Speaker 10: 24:30 Sacramento businesses suffered widespread property damage and theft that weekend, but Connor maintains. He was there to protest peacefully. He was never charged with any wrongdoing as a cap radio reporter. I was also there to cover the protests and captured the moment officers fired projectiles into the crowd

Speaker 11: 24:49 I got hit. And you know, I went to my knees initially. I thought that my eyelid was blown off. Um, I have it still. Um, so I D we might get

Speaker 10: 25:03 Connor still gets choked up talking about the incident. Even six months later, it’s unclear what kind of projectile left a gash above his eye that required seven stitches. It could’ve been a foam bullet of beanbag round, or a flash grenade. Projectile weapons have injured protestors sometimes permanently across California. This year often during racial justice protests and even at championship celebrations for professional sports teams. Now calls for reform are echoing throughout state government, including from governor Gavin, Newsome

Speaker 12: 25:35 Testers have the right to protest peacefully protestors have the right to do so without being arrested, gassed shot up by projectiles.

Speaker 10: 25:45 That’s Newsome speaking at a press conference earlier this summer, less than a week after Connor’s injury. The governor’s office released a report in October that said projectile weapons and tear gas can intensify conflict and recommended police exhausts deescalation tactics. First Newsome also directed the state’s commission on police training to revamp its guidelines for protest response. State lawmakers are also speaking up democratic assembly, woman. Lorena Gonzalez recently introduced a bill to limit police use of projectiles and ban tear gas altogether.

Speaker 12: 26:18 A lot of examples, we now have of people who are just exercising their first amendment rights, who got caught up in a police action. That seemed a little heavy handed for the situation.

Speaker 10: 26:29 A similar version of the bill stalled last year, facing opposition from California’s powerful law enforcement lobby. Damon Kurtz is vice-president of the peace officers research association of California. He says foam bullets, pepper and tear gas are effective when protests turn unruly and they offer a less lethal option to control crowds that could ultimately save lives. As law enforcement, we continue to evolve. We want to be able to protect the public. And at the same time, we wanted to make sure officers are safe during. So trying to find that best mix of tactics and equipment is always our goal. He adds that law enforcement is willing to meet at the negotiating table as the reform debate unfolds. Fusha Connor says he wants to play a role. He’s just not sure whether wearing a badge is the answer. I don’t hate law enforcement, obviously, because I wanted to be part of them. But this needs to change is me being part of the law enforcement, really helping it change, or is there something more I can do? He says, it’s a question. He asks himself every day in Sacramento. I’m Scott, rod

Speaker 7: 27:45 Cross-cultural stories are what inspire filmmaker, Ebony Bailey, and a new episode of KPBS is border podcast. Port of entry hosts, Alan Lillian Thall talks to the Mexican city-based filmmaker about her work, which includes a short documentary about their recent surge of black migrants. Living in Tijuana. Ebony story is part of the border voices series, shorter port of entry episodes, spotlighting people who identify as trans border or simply have some kind of relationship with the U S Mexico border. Here’s Allen

Speaker 13: 28:18 Meet Ebony. I like talking to her because like me, she is a true optimist.

Speaker 14: 28:25 A lot of things in this world are really messed up. But like, in my core, I know like I’m an idealist and I have faith in people.

Speaker 13: 28:33 Ebony Bailey’s unrelenting, faith in people is part of what drives her to do what she does. She’s a filmmaker who makes these really beautiful documentaries about how different cultures mix and the beauty that comes from that. And yeah, 2020 has been rough for her, probably you, me and lots of people, but Ebony says she can’t help, but see some of the good in the bad

Speaker 14: 29:01 We can make the world a better place, which sounds like kind of cheesy. But I really think that it really can be possible. And I just see like instances of that, even with like the protest and the uprisings, or just how people have treated each other people are considering their neighbors more during the pandemic and things like that. Those things like really do give me like spin Anta or like optimism

Speaker 13: 29:26 Right now. Ebony lives in Mexico city. She just completed graduate school for film. And she says in Mexico, sometimes her black skin brings unwanted attention. Most people assume she’s either a tourist or one of the thousands of black migrants passing through the country in recent years on the way to cross into the U S

Speaker 14: 29:49 I have had some aggressive experiences too. Especially with migration. A specific experience I had was in Tiquana when I was traveling from Mexico city in the airport to the Quanta. Every time I take this national flight, there is always someone there who stops me and asked me for my passport. And it always happens. They never asked anybody else for their passport. They always stopped me. And usually it’s just like, Oh, can I see your passport? Okay. Yeah, bye. And I always know why they stopped me, but the last, I think it was the last time that I went to Tijuana. I remember like getting past the point where they usually stop me and thinking like, wow, they didn’t stop me this time. And I was like, almost out the door. And then he like whistled at me and called me back. And I was like, no, Oh, I didn’t make it through this time. I thought I was, but he called me back. And then he said, are you coming from Haiti? And I said, no, I came from Mexico city. And he’s like, where are you from?

Speaker 13: 30:47 Where are you from? It’s actually a question. Ebony gets a lot.

Speaker 14: 30:55 Sometimes the question bothers me, but it’s also like, I kind of get it, but for a lot of Afro Mexicans, it’s a question that really bothers them because they’re born and raised here. And so to be constantly like pegged as a foreigner, it’s like something that just gets really annoying because it’s a constant, if it happens like once in a while, it’s okay. But when it’s a constant, it’s like, [inaudible]

Speaker 13: 31:16 Ebony. Isn’t [inaudible], she didn’t grow up in Mexico. And she’s not sure if it’s her forever.

Speaker 14: 31:21 Yeah. Sometimes people will call me after Mexican. And I don’t mind if they call me that, but also like, it’s not my context. My context is different and I don’t want to take up space or I don’t want to take up like a narrative that I grew up in that context.

Speaker 13: 31:36 Instead Ebony’s context is the U S she grew up here. Her mom is Mexican and her dad is black. So she identifies like this

Speaker 14: 31:46 We’re black and we’re Mexican. So we’re, blaxican

Speaker 13: 31:53 Ebony grew up mostly in a predominantly Mexican town in central California. And she says, kids in her school made it hard for her to feel like she ever fully fit in,

Speaker 14: 32:03 Made me feel very different. They would like make fun of me in Spanish thinking that I wouldn’t understand what they were saying,

Speaker 13: 32:12 But she did understand. She speaks perfect Spanish and feels just as Mexican as she does. African-American the other kids just weren’t able to see her Latina side. And now that Ebony is living in Mexico city. She’s again, coming across that same kind of othering. She felt growing up in rural California.

Speaker 14: 32:32 I used to like being different. So like in Mexico, I’m also more visible because there aren’t. Well, as I say, no negatives in Mexico, they say that it’s not true, but they say that, but there aren’t as many black people in Mexico either. And on one hand, it is like jarring. When people try to ask me to touch my hair or anything like that. But on the other hand, it’s like, I’m so used to it because I’ve always been used to being like different and being like the only black person here,

Speaker 13: 32:59 Ebony is drawn to stories.

Speaker 14: 33:02 I like telling stories on like intercultural cross-cultural type things

Speaker 13: 33:06 A few years ago, while studying in Mexico city, she stumbled on just the kind of cross-cultural story. She loves.

Speaker 14: 33:16 I was reading [inaudible], which is like one of the national newspapers in Mexico. And I saw photos of migrants at the border and all of the migrants were black. And I was like, really curious. I was like, Oh, there’s more black people here in Mexico. Because at the time I didn’t have any of my, my friends or anything. Like, I wasn’t really, um, this was like my first few months in Mexico. So I hadn’t met like the Afro community here yet. From there, I got more interested in the, in the topic. And I decided to do my final project on black Myron, into Mexico.

Speaker 13: 33:51 Ebony’s film about Haitian and other black migrants in Tijuana is called life between borders.

Speaker 15: 33:59 But I use just the, you got a lot from Toronto,

Speaker 13: 34:03 The documentary introduces black migrants. It explains the economic, political, and environmental turmoil they fled and how they ended up at the border.

Speaker 15: 34:15 Well, that is the way of, I mean, Russian [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible], I’ll pull it into [inaudible] [inaudible] suspend. You love yourself money. Daddy, police will. All you, India is stern Barbados. [inaudible]

Speaker 13: 34:43 Ebony saw some of her own struggle for identity in the black migrant. She met while making her film. She stayed in touch with some of them and has felt super connected to be Quana ever since

Speaker 14: 34:54 I feel like the Quanta is one of my homes. One time, one of my friends did that did one of these, um, these memes where it’s like right on my comments. And I’ll tell you which city you are. And so I wrote on the comment and my friend told me, Oh, you’re at the Quanta because you’re like in between, like, not only are you like in between black, Mexican, but you’re also in between Mexican American. And that’s how I feel when I’ve been through Quanta. Like, I feel like I identify a lot with it because it’s like such like an in-between city. Like a lot of people in the Quanta speak also speak fluent English and things like that. And it just it’s feels so from Theresa.

Speaker 13: 35:33 And that was filmmaker, Ebony Bailey talking with port of entries, Alan Malian doll.

Speaker 7: 35:38 You can hear the full border voices episode by finding and subscribing to port of entry. Wherever you listen to your podcast or online at port of entry, pod.org, you’re listening to KPBS midday edition I’m Jade Hindman San Diego zoo global is shifting the focus of its conservation efforts. And this story from earlier this year, KPBS environment reporter Eric Anderson says the multimillion dollar organization plans a more holistic approach to helping threatened species.

Speaker 16: 36:37 The San Diego zoo, Safari parks, nine African elephants were already seeking out shade early on a recent one

Speaker 7: 36:45 Right now is we’ve got, Zuli lying down in a big soft pile of dirt,

Speaker 16: 36:49 Senior keeper, Mindy Albright’s smiles. As the youngest member of the herd tries to relax.

Speaker 7: 36:56 He’s had his morning breakfast. He just had some milk from his mom. And now it’s nap time, just like we would like to do right about now

Speaker 16: 37:05 Year old, McKayla Lumber’s over and sits on this smaller elephant. Zuli the herd clusters around the youngsters in a small spot.

Speaker 7: 37:14 They’re touching each other. Their trunks are inspecting the ground. They’re very sensitive with their skin, even though it’s thick and their feet. So they’re feeling where they’re putting their body so that they don’t step on Zulily.

Speaker 16: 37:26 The elephants eventually leave this area and move to an adjacent compound. Their visitors can get a peek at these giant mammals as the pack of derms, focus on finding and devouring. The treats keeper’s left for them. They’re also helping elephants thousands of miles away for more than a year. Albright and her team have collected milk from the lactating moms. So that that milk can be analyzed by researchers at UC San Diego.

Speaker 7: 37:56 Just like for humans, when you first give birth, the milk has a very specific makeup or composition about it. And then as the calf grows, that milk formula is going to change.

Speaker 16: 38:10 Knowing the exact kind of milk to give an orphaned elephant calf can be the difference between life and death and the [inaudible] elephant sanctuary in Kenya, depends on the information has workers. They’re mixed formulas for orphaned calves.

Speaker 7: 38:29 They get a sick or injured animal. Sometimes I don’t know exactly how old it is because it could be malnourished week. It’s really critical that they know around what age that calf is, so that they can determine what the milk formula is that they’re making.

Speaker 16: 38:43 Albright says elephant numbers are dwindling in the wild and research in San Diego could help Nadine lamb Bursky is the zoo’s new chief conservation officer

Speaker 5: 38:52 Coexisting with wildlife helps the wildlife, and it also helps the community.

Speaker 16: 38:57 She says, the research on elephant milk in San Diego will have a tangible impact at retail.

Speaker 5: 39:03 This is the first community run elephant sanctuary in all of Africa. This is, um, a facility that is completely staffed by, by the folks that live in the community. And they have lived amongst elephants, their entire lives. That relationship hasn’t always been a positive one

Speaker 16: 39:22 Lamb Bursky says conservation allows the community to embrace the wildlife in their region. Instead of fighting against it, cultivating that conservation ethos will in turn, help, create economic opportunities around the reserve and in the nearby,

Speaker 5: 39:37 And really trying to connect that work saving species to increasing biodiversity, which will really help our planet as a whole

Speaker 16: 39:48 Pivot is not an about face research to protect endangered species will continue, but zoo president and CEO, Paul Berra bolt says when the organization moves forward, the focus will be more holistic. Our goal is to take the care that we practice every day, protecting and maintaining wildlife and bring that to the field bearable doesn’t expect an easy transition. And he says there are unknowns as the organization decides where to put its resources. How should we work with partners? How do we collaborate with communities on the ground, other NGOs? And it’s such an incredible, comprehensive approach that I looked at and said, that’s how we need to show up around the world, across all of our work, including here in San Diego, in our own backyard variable, once the overall approach to the zoos conservation initiatives to consider more than just the threatened species, he wants to integrate the zoo’s animal care expertise with consideration of communities and habitats, where those animals live. Eric Anderson KPBS news.

Speaker 7: 40:55 When the us Mexico border shut down in March many plans, including some conservation efforts were put on hold. But earlier this year, KPBS is former science and technology reporter Shalina chop. Bonnie said at the last minute, San Diego researchers were able to bring the red legged frog from Mexico back to Southern California. There has been one around here for almost two decades, herpetologists Bradford Hollingsworth, the San Diego natural history museum is very familiar with the California red legged frog

Speaker 16: 41:28 Frogs sound cell. Um, it gets nuttier. Can you do that?

Speaker 5: 41:38 Yeah,

Speaker 7: 41:38 The frog, which used to be an important part of the food web in Southern California started declining in the region in the 1970s because of habitat destruction and invasive species.

Speaker 5: 41:48 The whole idea of having them back here in Southern California, um, was a dream of many of us,

Speaker 7: 41:55 2006, the museum and federal biologists began studying ways to bring the frog back. And soon they partnered with the nature group in Baja, California, Mexico, where the frog population was thriving in March. The team could finally transport frog eggs across the border for the first time, until

Speaker 5: 42:11 In the middle of the project, the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to shut down. The border.

Speaker 7: 42:19 Hollingsworth says two days before the border shut down, the team was scrambling to come up with a game plan because federal biologists could no longer travel across the border with some shuffling and travel plans. They were ultimately able to transport the eggs, but if they had missed that small window of opportunity, we would have had to wait a whole nother year. The frog made it back to Southern California, but some cross border environmental work has become more difficult in a statement. The us fish and wildlife services wrote that some field research and wildlife management activities have been temporarily halted or restricted for the safety of the public and service staff for the red legged frog, American biologists had partnered with the Mexican nonprofit group concert vests you on the phone or they’ll arrest any Peralta. Garcia is the co-founder. And she says, she’s heard some concerns from other people in the field in Mexico

Speaker 5: 43:08 And all these field work and all these information that just like, Oh, you know, I ha maybe they’ve been working for 10 years just collecting data. Now they will be able to do it.

Speaker 7: 43:18 Peralta Garcia says they were lucky to get the first frog egg masses across the border

Speaker 5: 43:23 Like me. Like I cannot go to the U S anymore. You know what? Even if I want to take some egg masses, I can, somebody from the U S will have to come,

Speaker 7: 43:32 But U us geological services biologist, Robert Fisher says they succeeded because they were also prepared.

Speaker 5: 43:37 We got really lucky. And a lot of it was, um, we were really prepared because we had been, we had done work previously in Mexico. Um, prepare for this with the Mexican team. We did translocations

Speaker 7: 43:53 Because they want to try to move more frogs again, next year to build up the population.

Speaker 5: 43:57 I think this really built enough momentum that, um, we’ll be able to kind of show we can do it and we’ll get more partners on board. But even if they can’t, we’ll use this, um, these two ponds as source populations for other sites in the URS, hopefully over time.

Speaker 7: 44:15 And as red legged tadpoles grow into adult frogs Fisher says he’s excited to start hearing them singing throughout San Diego. Shalina Celani KPBS news. This story is part of covering climate. Now it’s an effort by organizations worldwide to bring about a greater understanding of real time impacts of climate change for more head to Kane, pbs.org, backslash climate change.