SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Governor Newsom addressed Californians on Friday, updating them on a multitude of COVID-19 related issues. Newsom said the state of California is “many days not weeks away from meaningful changes to the health orders that are in place.” He noted that retail chains and restaurants could be apart of those changes.
When asked about the lawsuits filed against him challenging the beach closures by many in Orange County, Newsom said, “the lawsuits don’t surprise me.” Then with a smirk, “We will see what happens this afternoon.”
He started the briefing acknowledging May day and thanking the man frontline workers in the state. He then went on to generally update many different initiatives and issues. Those initiatives and issues included:
- The state is working with small businesses to provide sick leave. They also are working with bigger businesses in the food chain to get sick pay for workers such as farmers, preparers, distributors, and grocery workers
- Care for Caregivers- a program that provides health professionals stipends so they don’t have to sleep in their car for fear of bringing the virus home to their family. The governor said 36,000 stipends have been given out with the ability for 14,000 more to be given
- The governor said the state has done 173,000 wellness checks for at-risk Californians
- Health Corps- the state asked recently retired medical professionals to add their name to a list to help overcrowded hospitals if they should arise. Newsom said they had over 50,000 applications, but so far the state has not had to use any of the applicants
- PPE- The state signed a deal with China to provide millions of units of PPE equipment. Over the last 48 hours, the state has provided over 8 million surgical masks to those on the frontlines. He also said during the entirety of the crisis, California has issued over 40 million N95 masks
- Unemployment insurance- over 3.9 million individuals have signed up for unemployment insurance and the state has distributed over $7.5 billion to those people
- The governor addressed the massive issues the EDD line has been facing. He said the 1,340 people manning the lines were not enough and they are working on getting 600 more people trained and ready to go
- When it comes to truckers, the state has added food trucks at 14 truck stops across California. Many truckers could not eat because they are unable to go through drive thru’s
- California has administered over 655,000 tests and over 50,000 have come back positive
