A day after the state reported a grim new spike in coronavirus deaths, a new peak was recorded on Friday with 159 COVID-related deaths, marking consecutive record days.
Interestingly, Newsom did not report the record number of new daily deaths at its COVID press conference. Nor was he mentioned in a tweet sent to the governor’s account during his speech.
However, the record number of deaths was listed on the state reporting site.
The governor reported 9,718 new cases of the virus on Friday, below the massive peak the day before. He said the 14-day positivity rate is now 7.5 percent, which is quite static.
Hospitalizations are growing by 9 percent day after day. “The growth rate is starting to slow modestly,” Newsom said, “but that’s not something to jump from.”
ICUs are seeing an average 14-day increase of 11 percent increase each day, which the governor indicated was on a similar path to hospitalizations.
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Newsom said about 42,000 of the state’s more than 70,000 hospital beds were currently occupied.
The critical rate of R in the state is just below 1, which means that each person who gets the disease transmits it to less than someone else, which is good news. But, the state’s top health official, Dr. Mark Ghaly, warned, there are many regional hot spots with an R greater than 1.
The governor said 34 counties representing 90 percent of the state’s population are now on a watch list. In terms of school reopens, Newsom said, “This is the list you want to be out of.”
Check out his speech below.
Newsom spent much of his prepared remarks describing new protections for workers.
“Not enough attention has been given to essential workers in this state,” he said. That includes cooks, construction workers, nurses, cashiers, truckers, farm workers, and many more. However, he did not include teachers on that list, a point of conflict with P
“We didn’t get under the hood. Overwhelmingly, represented by the Latino community. “They represent half of the state’s ATMs, according to the governor.
“That is the community that is increasingly disproportionately affected. This is where we are seeing the spread: the essential workforce, the Latino community. “
Additional guarantees for workers to support workers and employers, Newsom said. “We want to extend some more durable labor protections.”
Newsom described the following proposals:
-Allow sick workers to take time off, isolate themselves
-Provide safe and temporary housing for COVID “positive and exposed” among the more than 600,000 migrant agricultural workers in the state
-An expanded public education campaign for workers and employers, including an “Employer Safety Manual”
That manual was referenced last week by Ghaly.
“We are going to do some more strategic enforcement of our labor laws,” Newsom said, “in the spirit of an open hand, not an open fist.”
“We have to keep some of those people at a higher level of expectation,” he said.
Newsom specifically said that his administration will also lobby lawmakers to strengthen paid sick leave and workers’ compensation for at-risk workers.
