enterprise THE DAVIS
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2020
Davis school board hears an earful on COVID plans
Sutter Davis ER nurse Fiona Moore received the COVID-19 vaccine from fellow nurse Laura Caban on Friday morning. Moore is among the frontline hospital workers receiving doses from Yolo County’s first batch of the Pfizer vaccine.
BY JEFF HUDSON Enterprise staff writer
COURTESY PHOTO
Sutter gets its shots in Vaccine brings glimmer of hope to frontline workers BY ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY Enterprise staff writer Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Fiona Moore has been one of those healthcare workers on the front lines. A registered nurse in the Sutter Davis Hospital emergency department, Moore has spent the last nine months treating COVID patients as they’ve arrived — some who walked in with a cough or fever, others who arrived code three in an ambulance needing to be intubated.
“We’ve seen all of that,” she said Friday. It has been emotional and exhausting — the work itself and the worry of contracting the virus and passing it on to vulnerable family members. Moore said she always felt very protected by the personal protective equipment provided by the hospital, but also carried the fear and guilt that she could still catch the virus and give to her mother-in-law, her parents, her non-COVID patients. “That scares me that I would
be the cause of that,” said Moore. Still, day after day, week after week, month after month, she and her colleagues continued the work of carrying for all of their patients. “None of us expected it to go on this long,” said Moore. And while it all will likely go on for quite some time, with ever-increasing new cases followed by hospitalizations, Moore and her colleagues on the front lines at Sutter Davis at least received a
glimmer of hope on Friday. In fact, said Moore, “I was giddy driving here today.” She was also armed with a little extra PPE provided by her children: a small camo BandAid to apply after receiving the Pfizer vaccine. Moore was among the first acute care workers in Yolo County to receive the COVID19 vaccination (her colleague, Lucia Sorensen, was the first) and she says it was an emotional moment, especially thinking about how excited her children were. “It’s scary for them and I
SEE SHOTS, PAGE A4
NorCal Rapist’s learns fate: 897 years to life BY LAUREN KEENE Enterprise staff writer Roy Charles Waller, the serial rapist who counted three Davis women among his nine victims, received the maximum sentence of 897 years to life in prison Friday for his crime spree that for decades was attributed to an unknown suspect dubbed the NorCal Rapist. Of that term, 70-plus years to life stemmed from Waller’s two Davis attacks, which occurred in 1997 and 2000. “This incident has strongly impacted my daily life. It has been so many years, but I will never forget that day,” one Davis victim wrote in an impact
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statement read aloud in Sacramento Superior Court during Friday’s hearing. “I always have insecure feelings and cannot be left alone or tolerate any sudden noise.”
WALLER Reckoning has come
To preserve public safety, “he has to stay in the box. He deserves the punishment for the rest of his life,” the woman wrote. “Sitting in the box, let his conscience kill him every single moment and hopefully, he will
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think through what he has done so many years and to many victims.” Testimony in his month-long trial began on Oct. 19, roughly two years after Sacramento County law-enforcement leaders announced his arrest based upon Waller’s DNA match to multiple NorCal Rapist crime scenes, using a technique known as Investigative Genetic Genealogy. At the time, Waller worked as a longtime safety specialist at UC Berkeley, living in Benicia with his wife. The NorCal Rapist committed his first known assault in 1991 and went on to target nine
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Tod Dense fog. Today: Hig High 57. Low 35. M More, Page B9
victims in Sonoma, Solano, Contra Costa, Yolo, Butte and Sacramento counties, carrying out his final offense in Natomas in 2006.
During the Dec. 17 school board meeting, the trustees discussed the current COVID-19 situation in Yolo County, as well as the emerging plans for an eventual return to campus at some point in the future, after the health threat from the COVID virus has receded to a sufficient degree. Leading off the COVID discussion was Dianna Stommel, president of the Davis Teachers Association, who acknowledged that due to the virusrelated closure of school campuses, and the switch to distance learning (by teachers giving their lessons online, etc.) the present school year has been “difficult.” “I see how difficult distance learning is for our students, Stommel said, acknowledging as well the “technological difficulties, isolation from friends, the demands of screen time,” and other factor. She added that she is “so proud” of local students, who she said have pursued their studies diligently, despite the many changes in the daily school routine.
SEE BOARD, PAGE A4
UC Davis looks toward a full reopening BY CALEB HAMPTON Enterprise staff writer
He raped two roommates, both UC Davis students, in their Adams Street apartment on Jan. 25, 1997, then returned three and a half years later to abduct a recent UCD graduate from her Alvarado Avenue townhouse and sexually assault her in her own car.
After three quarters of remote learning during the pandemic, UC Davis leaders released an anticipated timeline this week for the eventual return of campus operations to “something very close to normal.” Winter quarter, which begins in January, is expected to look much like the fall. The incidence of COVID-19 in Davis remains high and strict precautions will remain in place. However, campus leaders said the distribution this month of the first COVID-19 vaccines, along with UC Davis’ robust testing program, has made them optimistic that students will be able to begin returning to classrooms in the spring, summer and fall.
SEE FATE, PAGE A4
SEE REOPENING, PAGE A4
Waller’s dozens of charges included 11 counts in connection to the suspect’s two Davis attacks.
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