COVID-19 infections are rising rapidly following the Thansgiving holiday. Plase do everything you can to avoid illness and stop the spread. Wear a mask when in public or encountering people who are not part of your immediate household. Wash or disinfect your hands frequently. If you feel ill, quarantine for 10 days and get tested. If you do feel sick, please do not interact with anyone, if at all possible. We are all responsible for the health and safety of everyone in our community. Simple safety precautions can slow the spread and save lives.
On December 3, 2020, the Governor of the State of California issued a new health order that set strict stay-at-home requirements and limitations on business for multi-county regions facing reduced critical care resources due to the increasing rate of COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and Intensive Care Units (ICU) admissions.
The Regional ICU bed availability has dropped below 15% and effective Sunday, December 6, 2020 at 10:00 p.m., outdoor dining, personal services businesses (including hair and nail salons) and all bars will be required to close down in Southern California - including Pasadena - for at least 21 days.
Affected communities, including the City of Pasadena, will have:
- Limitations of 20% on all retail establishments
- Required closing of personal services businesses, including hair and nail salons
- Required closing of all bars and wineries
- Restaurants required to return to take out and delivery services only
- Extension of current prohibition of all gatherings of more than one household
- Offices remain closed except for critical infrastructure sectors where remote working is not possible
- Sector operations closed except for critical infrastructure and retail
- Places of worship can continue to hold services outdoors only
- The Governor’s Order supersedes the City’s authority and is based on the need for regional and statewide control to address this pandemic, according to the governor.
City Officials are awaiting more specific guidance from the State regarding additional restrictions.
The city is enforcing the State’s Limited Stay at Home Order, which requires residents to stay at their own homes between the hours of 10 
Please do your part to keep our community safe. Wear a mask in public. Keep a safe distance between yourself and people not in your household. Wash your hands.
Avoid interacting with those not in your household unless you practice safe behavior.
All Pasadena in-person dining, personal services businesses (including hair and nail salons) and all bars were required to close down at 10 p.m. Sunday night. Additionally, gatherings of more than one household are prohibited, sector operations will be closed except for critical infrastructure and retail, and face coverings and physical distancing will be required in all other operations. Schools that have been granted waivers will be allowed to continue to operate, as well as child care facilities. City officials are awaiting more specific guidance from the state regarding additional restrictions.
We need your action and need your support for the California Coalition for Safe Reopening. Please invite your members to our Coalition Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/californiacoalitionforsafereopening.
Pasadena: Pasadena set a grim new record on Sunday when city officials reported the most cases of the coronavirus ever recorded in a single day. It was the third day in a row the city saw that record broken, each day surpassing the previous. On Sunday, city officials reported 120 new cases of COVID-19 and no new deaths. The 120 cases is a new record for coronavirus cases in Pasadena. On Saturday the city had set a record with 109 new cases, which broke the record of 93 set the day before on Friday. Pasadena has had a total of 4,197 cases among its residents and 136 fatalities.
The new deaths were those of a 93-year-old woman who was living at a senior care facility on Nov. 26 and a 77-year-old woman who was not living in an institutional setting on Tuesday, according to Derderian. The city’s average number of new daily cases over the prior week also reached an all time high at 47.6, city data shows.
Sixty-eight people were being treated at Huntington Hospital, including 13 people in the hospital’s intensive care unit.
LA County: At the county level, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Los Angeles County shattered its own record for new coronavirus cases for the third straight day — and the fourth time in a week — as public health officials posted 8,949 infections and 44 new deaths linked to the virus on Saturday. Officials logged 25,402 new cases during Thursday, Friday and Saturday. That’s an average of 8,467 cases per day.
L.A. County reported the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 climbed to 2,769 people, with 23% of these people cared for in intensive care units. That’s the most hospitalizations recorded in the county since the pandemic began and the fifth straight day of a new record."[On Friday] he number of new cases surpassed the previous all-time high of 7,593 reported on December 1," the LA County health agency said in a written statement. Forty-four additional deaths were announced, bringing the county-wide totals to 7,782 deaths and 421,881 cases of COVID-19. County officials said 2,572 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized on Thursday, with 23% of them being treated in intensive care units.
The county also announced Friday that it had launched at-home coronavirus testing, a pilot program aimed at people who cannot make it to countywide drive-thru testing. The program runs through Jan. 15, with hopes of testing harder-to-reach residents amid the holiday season. Targeted residents include people with COVID- 19 symptoms, those who have had contact or suspected contact with a coronavirus patient, and seniors or people with disabilities who believe they may have been exposed but are unable to visit a testing site.
Keep LA County Dining Grant Program Applications to Reopen on Monday, Dec. 7, 2020, 8 am (not available to Pasadena or Los Angeles restaurants): A new application platform is scheduled to reopen on Monday, December 7, 2020 ay 8:00 am, and will remain available until Tuesday, December 8, 2020 at 5:00 pm, or until 2,500 applications are received, whichever comes first. Click the link below for more information: Keep LA County Dining website
California: Statewide, 25,068 new cases on Friday pushed California’s total to 1,311,625; 209 new fatalities pushed the state’s death toll to 19,791. The new tallies brought the statewide totals to 1,264,539 cases of COVID-19 and 19,437 deaths, according to CDPH records. Only 12.5% of adult intensive care beds were available in Southern California, an index that triggered a stay-at-home order lasting at least three weeks starting at 11:59 p.m. today. The order will add tougher restrictions on top of the county’s current rules for travel, business activity and public gatherings, already tightened up significantly by local officials in recent weeks. The ICU availability number, a decrease from 13.1% the day.
The US: From the New York Times: This was one of the most devastating weeks in the U.S. since the coronavirus pandemic began nine months ago. On Friday, a national single-day record was set, with more than 226,000 new cases. Hospitalizations topped 100,000 — more than double the number at the beginning of November. Upticks on both coasts have more than offset the progress in the Upper Midwest, where new case numbers have started to fall. Some places in the Northeast are now reporting more cases each day than they were in the spring, in part because testing was limited then. H
As the virus has spread, infectious-disease experts have gained a better understanding of who among the nation’s nearly 330 million residents is the most vulnerable: nursing home residents, people with underlying conditions, and lower-income communities.
Jobless numbers: From the Financial Times: The US economy added 245,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate fell to 6.7 per cent, as the labour market lost momentum in the face of the latest surge in coronavirus cases.
The data released on Friday by the US labour department will fuel fears about the health of the world’s largest economy. It comes in the midst of a new push in Congress for a fiscal stimulus package to help small businesses, the unemployed and state and local governments weather the latest wave of infections, after months of stalled negotiations.
RELIEF FROM THE FEDS?: Lawmakers released a blitz of competing coronavirus-relief proposals Tuesday, reigniting stalled talks as the pandemic surges across the country, but without clear signs that Democratic and Republican leaders would reach a consensus. A bipartisan group from the House and Senate unveiled a roughly $900 billion compromise proposal, offering one route between House Democrats’ last $2.4 trillion bill and Senate Republicans’ recent $650 billion proposal. Meanwhile, GOP and Democratic leaders traded new offers as the looming expiration of some relief measures intensified the pace of year-end legislating. In another sign of the new urgency, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin held their first phone conversation since the election on relief measures and spending legislation.
The framework allocates $908 billion in total aid, including both new funding and the reallocation of previously appropriated CARES Act funding. The framework targets resources to the following key categories:
- State, Local, and Tribal Governments - $160 billion
- Additional Unemployment Insurance (UI) - $180 billion
- Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) including restaurants, stages, and deductibility - $288 billion
- CDFI/MDI Community Lender Support - $12 billion
- Transportation (Airlines, Airports, Buses, Transit and Amtrak) - $45 billion
- Vaccine Development and Distribution and Testing and Tracing - $16 billion
- Healthcare Provider Relief Fund - $35 billion
- Education Funding - $82 billion
- Student Loans - $4 billion
- Housing Assistance (Rental) - $25 billion
- Nutrition/Agriculture - $26 billion
- U.S. Postal Service - $10 billion
- Child Care - $10 billion
- Dedicated Broadband Funding - $10 billion
- Opioid Funding - $5 billion
On friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that since February, nearly four million Americans have stopped working or seeking jobs. Many jobs and workers may return post-pandemic, but some economists see three reasons the effect on the labor force could linger. First, some baby boomers seem to have sped up retirement. Second, some parents of young children, in particular women, are having to reduce hours or stop working altogether. Third, less-educated and less-skilled workers, hardest hit by the pandemic's effects, often struggle to find well-paying work, and many drop out of the workforce.
More Hypocrites on Parade: San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, went to a socialite’s birthday dinner at the French Laundry the night after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ill-conceived visit. And San Jose’s mayor, Sam Liccardo, admitted he violated pandemic restrictions and went to a family Thanksgiving dinner with people from five households. Bad looks, a columnist wrote. [The San Francisco Chronicle]. LA County Supervisor, after voting to close outdoor dining in the county went to lunch and dined outdoors at a West Hollywood restaurant.
And it get more absurd: Los Angeles decided to shut down a coronavirus testing site at Union Station for a film crew working on a reboot of “She’s All That” starring the TikTok star Addison Rae. Residents and community organizers were outraged, and the city reversed the decision. [The New York Times]
Real Estate: California’s median home price hit $712,430 in September, closing out four months of record highs. [The New York Times]