Gov. Newsom Reports ICU Hospitalizations Went Up 105% Overnight

Gov. Gavin Newsom today reported sobering COVID-19 numbers from overnight in California.

• ICU numbers went up 105% overnight
• Hospitalization went up 38.6%
• 200 COVID-19 patients were in the ICU yesterday; 410 today.

Newsom said those were the key numbers he checks every morning as he works to mobilize the state's response to the pandemic. He noted that the totals, compared to other hot spots, seemed "relatively modest. But the percentage increase was not."

"I know there's a lot of appropriate attention on how many positives there are," Newsom said. "We look less to those numbers, more to the hospitalization and the ICU numbers to drive our policy."

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He also reported:

• 4,000 people are waiting for their test results to find out if they are positive.
• The state has procured and/or identified 4,252 ventilators; 1,000 of those need to be refurbished. The goal is to get to 10,000.
• California has been able to secure 101 million N95 masks from around the world.

He spoke in a live streamed news conference after touring Bloom Energy, which has pivoted from making fuel cells to refurbishing ventilators. Located in Sunnyvale, the facility has transformed its production facility so it can refurbish old ventilators that the state had held in storage.

Newsom said the capacity of private industry to meet key supply needs, from ventilators to masks and hospital gowns, will play a critical role in how Californians fare as more people are sickened.

"We can bend those curves by bending to the entrepreneurial capacity that we know resides within this state and across the nation," he said.

Newsom was joined by San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo.

The governor was asked about criticism that his recent statewide eviction moratorium didn't go far enought. Newsom indicated he could go bigger on those orders.

"To the extent that we see conditions changing in real time, we have the capacity in real time to go even further," Newsom said. He praised the mayors of L.A., San Francisco and San Jose for their efforts to protect tenants in this emergency.

We were able to ask a question about what workers should do if they're concerned that their employers aren’t following state orders or aren’t taking proper precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Newsom said anyone with such concerns should contact the Labor Commissioner’s Office.

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