. hi there. i'm kristen sze, welcome to our daily program called "getting answers." we're asking experts your questions every day at 3:00 to get answers for you in realtime. we have lots of questions today. we are moments away from a news conference with the state's health and human services secretary, dr. mark ghaly. it is regarding to a curfew for counties in the purple tier, from 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. stick around, because, as soon as that news conference starts with more details, we'll take you there. i should also mention that this curfew order is expected to last

four weeks, so through december 21st. first let's bring in the public health officer for alameda county, dr. nicholas moss to talk about some of these. dr. moss, i want to congratulate you. i know you have been in this role on an interim basis but made permanent this week. >> thank you. thank you very much. >> it's a big job ahead. i want to ask you, what do you think of the statewide curfew? is it a good idea? >> we're still waiting to hear the secretary's remarks and get a sense of the details of what the state has in mind, but i would say more broadly we're supportive of everything that the state of california is trying to do to keep californians safe, and we think it's good for our residents here in alameda county and across the region to really take a cautious approach to covid, especially with this surge. but again, still waiting to hear the details about this latest set of restrictions. >> yeah, still waiting for the

details. we know based on what we were able to learn it's not as severe and all-consuming as the stay-at-home order back in march. are we essentially back to flattening the curve, is that where we're at? >> that's certainly the goal. i think we've been able to show here in the bay area and there are other parts of the world that have showed that there are things you can do to flatten the curve, to protect our health care system and protect our most vulnerable community residents. a lot of it is things that we've already had done that we had to do over the summer and that our residents had been living with for a long time. i think if we are diligent about applying some of these tools, that we can flatten the curve in this next surge. >> your county just got moved to purple this week. this curfew will affect you. practically speaking, can you tell us what might change, what will change? >> sure.

there are some things that have already changed effective this week moving into the purple tier. a lot of indoor activities, indoor dining, movie theaters, indoor entertainment, those had to be closed for rules the state has set for purple tier counties. those changes are already in effect for alameda county and again with the announcement today, the state's -- i think they're calling it a limited shelter at hoem order. that will apply to us as well in alameda county. so the goal is really both to limit those public spaces where people are gathering indoors but also i think some private spaces where people are gathering indoors because we know the more people are getting together, particularly in indoor settings with masks off, the risk of transmission is just higher there.

>> the indoor gatherings can take place any time of the day. i'm wondering about the curfew part, 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. which activities and behaviors does that party? is it frat parties, side shows, hanging out at the bar? >> you know, i think it's a good question for our colleagues at the state in terms of what specifics they had in mind, but i think the idea is to really limit the hours that people are in these situations, less time, fewer people. all of those things are going to help reduce the spread of covid. it could be a range of a number of things, even if it's just people are out dining, creating a system or a situation where they're going home a little bit earlier. that's just going to introduce the opportunity for virus to spread in our communities. >> folks, if you're just joining us, i'm talking with dr. moss,

the public health officer for alameda county. what we're talking about here, the statewide curfew that will be announced any minute from now. we'll take that live when it happens. that applies to all purple counties and most of the bay area is in that. alameda county is one of them. just about every county except for san mateo, san francisco, marin. right now dr. mark ghaly is starting his briefing. let's listen in. >> -- across the state, and i think you have been tracking as the governor mentioned i would be using my zoom this week to update you on our tier system, our blueprint and then also to really dig into the science and the data about what's happening across california, how we got here and really what the path forward is to make sure we keep our public health in mind, we support one another and come together as we have before.

as always, i want to begin and give you a bit of the national context. sadly we have day over day broken new milestones, whether it's in cases, hospitalizations or, sadly, deaths across the nation. the midwest in particular has been heavily hit. really no region of california, of the nation has been spared. the wave of cases that have been happening over weeks now have turned into record high hospitalizations and intensive care unit stays that a number of states are making difficult decisions about how to allocate care, and even though we have the hope of vaccine and the discussions about what lies ahead on that front, we have to take care of the urgency of the day. and in california, as we've enjoyed lower rates of

transmission, lower numbers of cases, we, too, are seeing this surge growing faster and faster and we must address it immediately. so today's numbers, although not our highest number ever, frankly, on this sort of surge we've been dealing with, this is our highest number to date, 11,478 covid cases reported widespread across the state, moving our seven-day average to 9,665. this isn't the face of frankly what is a lower than recent number of tests reported. we had been reporting upwards of 200,000 tests across the state. this isn't the face of lab efforts built by the states. we talked to you about our partnership with perk and elmer, but so many different health systems, so many different laboratory partners have stepped up in california to provide lab testing and covid testing so we

can be informed about diagnosis, track the disease and put our contact tracing and efforts around supporting isolation when necessary and quarantine at other times so we can stem the tide. we talked, the governor often focuses on test positivity, accurately so. we have seen this number come up from what had been below 3% just weeks ago to now a 14-day positivity of 5% and a seven-day positivity concerning up to 5.6%. we have a goal to keep this as low as possible, to continue to test our communities to find cases, to wraparound those cases, avoid one case becoming many. but this number is one of caution and one that intensifies our resolve to get it back under control. you take a closer look at the 14-day positivity, we knew just a couple weeks ago we were at

3.3%. we were talking to you then about how it's climbing and it's rising, and it certainly has, nearly 52% increase just over the past two weeks. i know the numbers. it feels like it's a small difference from 3.3 to 5, but it's a significant increase in the percentage increase which is, when we focus on not just increases in rates, but this notion of rate of rise in two weeks to have a 52% increase is quite concerning to us across the state. hospitals, we talk to you about hospitals all the time, that we know that 12% of today's cases will be hospitalized in two to three weeks. that helps put these numbers in context. we've seen a 63.6% increase in hospitalizations for covid-19 over the past 14 days. just days ago, reporting that we were just climbing over 3,000 cases in the hospital across the state today, over 4,500.

our icu capacity, one of our most precious resources, that signifies not just the bed in a specialized unit but specialized staff trained to use the equipment and take care of very sick individuals. and ventilators and all the medications and tools that help us support one's respiratory system, those beds have seen an increase of 40.5% over the last 14 days and have climbed to just over 1,100 individuals in those beds. just a reminder that, if we look day over day, week over week, we've seen a climb not just in the number of individuals who are hospitalized, but really in the number of new admissions coming through the front doors of emergency rooms and hospitals across the state, something that is concerning. so even though that number slowly rises on hospitals much faster are the number of new admissions because what i said

earlier, roughly 12% of those individuals, those cases today that test positive, we expect will be in our hospitals in two to three weeks. we talked about not just the rise, but the steep rise, that rate of rise. you look at what we experienced during that first significant surge early on, that's sort of the summer, june and july, a peak rate of increase of about 39.2% over a seven-day period. again here we're over 50% in the same seven-day period. this doesn't necessarily tell us where we'll end. some states across the nation have seen this double in just a week. we know we are still increasing that rate and we aren't sure where the peak will be. that is why we certainly need to be laser focused on all things we can do collectively across the state. just take a look at a couple of

important counties. we have 58 in california. we chose two, los angeles county, we're often t about how alameda counlos angel drives the state. we've seen a very populous county. just at the beginning of the month reporting 1,500 cases a day. a week before that they were hovering about about about aa today 372 cases. all signs point to continued rise in that number and potentially higher numbers today. madera county, smaller county, geographically separated but still six cases on november 1, today reporting 34 cases. you may say, well, that's still a small number but that rate of

increase, 460% over a small 2 1/2 week period is an important message to all of us that this can go very quickly. the support for madera county is important, all counties getting the support they need so we can curb this transmission and ensure our hospitals are prepared for those who need it the most. so what has caused the rise to go so high and so fast? i'm often asked this question. i've been asked on zooms and press conferences before, well, you say it is this, but where is the evidence. you say it's that. and we do have plenty of data and evidence around certain sectors, but overall i will say that there is no single culprit. it's a combination of factors. it's certainly the colder weather, more mixing which comes with more opening not just of places indoors and places where you can mask, but places that

are indoors that don't have an easy time masking the whole time. of course, greater travel. we've enjoyed some events over the last many weeks. in my home county of los angeles, the dodgers, the lakers, we had halloween. we just exited veterans day. we're looking forward to other future events and activities as we go into the winter. we've had some things to celebrate, some things to protest, coming together in ways that we don't usually always do. all of those things create opportunities for the virus to spread, opportunities where when we put our guard down, it certainly does spread and we know those are factors driving this high transmission. so what does it mean when levels are this high across the state? it really means that activities that you normally do are higherr risk today than a month ago.

we've seen reports of people who say i haven't changed my behavior, i was doing the same thing a month ago. today, because the background transmission rate, the level of covid in our communities is higher, even our everyday activities become higher risk we must be resolved to put up ouf protective guard more than ever. today we target activities that are particularly high risk while minimizing the disruptions and social connections we all need and desire. our ability to be more targeted and thoughtful is an important part of our overall message and approach. so a reminder. i've used this slide many times before about what some of those high risk activities are. we said and talked about the need to mask, and not just mask for part of the time but the whole time. we know when you're eating and

drinking the mask comes off. we ask you to keep it off as short a time as possible, to put it back on when you're done eating, done drinking, even if you're getting together six feet apart from friends and others you haven't seen outdoors, keeping that ms.ing on is an important strategy to reduce risk. activities when you're seeing people that you haven't seen in quite some time, people outside of your household, this includes close family members, friends who haven't been with you in some time, that just because you know them well on a personal level doesn't necessarily mean that they in any way wouldn't be able to transmit the virus to you or you to them. activities where it's difficult to keep your distance, i often think about playing board games and card games with my kids on the carpet of our living room or employees in a break room.

we've heard about outbreaks at hospitals, not in a patient's room, not the icu or emergency room. certainly that happens, too. but often when staff take their guard down, they think it's a moment of rest and, yes, we all need it especially under these difficult conditions, but that isn't a time to take off your mack, enjoy your meal. it's time to keep it up and make sure we do what we can to prevent the spread. activities that are longer duration, we follow the longer your potential exposure is, the more likely you are to either be infected or spread the infection to someone else. activities that don't allow plenty of fresh air to circulate. we've learned a lot in the past couple months, probably one of the most important areas of development with covid is our understanding of the criticality of ventilation, getting fresh air into rooms is really key, having that air circulate frequently over the course of time, each hour, many air

circulations, as many as we can achieve, really do reduce the risks. those settings where it's no, sir possible are indeed high risk for all of us. as i was trying to explain this to my own mother here in california, i was thinking about a simple way, almost an equation to understand how we can calculate your risk for covid and really came up with this and that discussion that your chance of being infected is sort of this simple equation on the top. the likelihood of an exposure as that goes up because there's more baseline background virus in our communities that you're in a situation, the duration of exposure going up. that sort of complementing their additive. as that goes up, our chance of getting infected certainly goes up. it's always divided by or reduced by the level of protection that we have, our ability to keep our mask on, our

own personal discipline to keep the mask on, not just when you're with those who you're not familiar with, but sometimes especially those when you're with those who you're familiar with. we know more and more the role of household transmission. what i mean by that is i don't mean when you're gathering with people in your house. it's maybe when you return from work or school and mixing with folks where you might have been infected, that being able to protect especially those vulnerable people in your home by wearing your mask, an important issue and, of course, keeping that separation, that physical distance of at least six feet helps reduce the overall risk. something that was effective with my own mom, wanted to share it with you today as you think about how we are in this situation that we're in california, that certainly that increased exposure is key. our urging to limit that

exposure helps reduce that overall risk and really amping up and elevating our level of protection through the protective factors and different interventions we've been talking about, both the governor and i. local and national public health leaders for many, many months now. so to the announcement of what we'll be doing in the state of california, we are going to, just as we did back in march, we started with a full stay-at-home order. it was very effective. californians came together. we were able to stay ahead of our curve and keep transmission low. today in a more focused way, based on many things we've learned over the past many months, i'll go over those things in just a moment, we are putting forward a limited stay-at-home order, one that is more targeted, more focused in the following ways. it impacts counties that are in the purple tier.

you'll remember on monday we announced 41 counties across california are in the purple tier. today we're not announcing additional counties in the purple tier. in fact, over the past 48 hours we looked at the data, no county across california has moved to a more restrictive tier and certainly no one has moved to a less restrictive tier. we're asking that as part of this targeted limited stay-at-home order that people are home by 10:00 and stay home until 5:00 a.m. this means that many essential businesses that we've in the past called non-essential businesses, there's a list of what's included and not included. in that category we ask that they close operations by 10:00 p.m., that people can get home by then and that they stay home and those businesses don't resume operations until at least 5:00 a.m. throughout all of the purple counties.

this order, this public health order that will be modified at the state level will be effective november 21st. that's saturday night at 10:00 p.m. and will go until december 21st at 5:00 a.m. so what does this mean? i'm sure many are asking what does this mean. i know i'll get many questions on this and look forward to answering those. what does it mean you can still do? i think about my own life and often the need with four young kids to make a late grocery store run to make sure we're stocked for breakfast in the morning or a meal. yes, it does mean i can still go to the grocery store at 11:00 if that grocery store is still open to pick up milk or eggs or whatever i need. my dog doesn't walk very well, hard to get around the block. yes, i can walk my dog at 11:00 p.m. if that's your tradition and routine.

and for restaurants that close their front door at 10:00 doesn't mean the back door to do takeout and delivery is closed. we urge people in a limited way to use restaurants in that way. and for all you restaurant operators and owners, that's certainly an opportunity to keep some amount of business going. why are we doing this and what are we hoping to gain? it's really to avoid further restrictions and we've seen in the past that covid goes from zero to 60 miles per hour very quickly, that we're in a place today but that can rapidly change, maybe not statewide, maybe just a handful of counties. further restrictions is what we hope to avoid. but all tools are on the table. we have the top shelf of the tool box. we continue to use those tools. on the bottom shelf if necessary, we will explore further restrictions, but we hope today's actions, our

collective coming together, our resolve to keep our protective behaviors up will help us stem the tide and bring these surging numbers down very, very soon. again, some reminders of why we're doing this today, why now. we want to keep the highest at-risk individuals safe. we know many people who might be out and about even between 10:00 and 5:00 are not the most vulnerable, not our oldest californians, not those with underlying chronic conditions. that said, we know that those who are out who might be enga engaging in higher-risk behaviors, that those infections can quickly spread to other settings. maybe you're a worker who is out at night with a group of friends, outdoors even and you can track covid and you go the next day to work and it is

passed on maybe not the next day but a day or two later to a vulnerable resident in a congregate care facility, exactly the situation that we want to avoid. we've learned very clearly that it's not just about our own personal covid risk, but it's about a risk that we infer on others around us because of our choices and behaviors and actions. this is, of course, to keep essential workers safe as well. those who continue to pick our food, sell our food, prepare our food and many other essential workers across the state, allowing them to come to work with confidence and safety, part of the reason why we do this today. we continue and haven't over the last week or two, but it's always front of my mind, the disproportionate impact of covid. as we see cases surge, that disproportionate impact still holds.

we will see brown and black communities across our state disproportionately impacted, more latinos, more african-americans, more of our asian neighbors infect ed beca d of some of those conditions of work and other situations. we want to make sure we do all we can to support and protect those populations. frankly, this is going to help us stop the surge faster and avoid more severe actions and restrictions as we've talked about, and ever so important to remind you that our hospital capacity, although we did a tremendous job preparing and have those resources in place, some have been activated. many wait to be activated, but we want to make sure we protect that hospital capacity so those who need care get it and get it in a timely way and in a way that's high quality so they get all of the benefits that they can. so california, as we've reminded

before, we were the first state to do a stay-at-home order. we saw its impact back in march, those difficult days adjusting to the reality of covid. but that kept us ahead of the curve. while other states were experiencing high rates of rise and were working on flattening their curve and a transmission, we didn't really in march experience that radical rise. and just like then, today's actions will help us bring down transmission and flatten our curve this time in a very important and urgent way. this graph, we haven't heard it in many months, but we showed you back in martha without an intervention we see these rapid rises, and yes, it comes down, but after a really important toll on all of californians, that without interventions we see high case rates, high impact on our hospitals, but with interventions, with the things

that we're emphasizing today, along with the many other actions that are already in place, that we can bring this curve down, we can flatten it. we can get it to a point where our health care system is able to do what it's intended to do, which is take care of the sick in a high quality and complete way. i wanted to remind people because we, today -- i've already gotten questions, our own team talked about it. why are you focused on the time period from 10:00 to 6:00? why are we not doing what we did in march as we have significant concern around surges. we've learned a lot. we're a state guided by data and by science. in that data is a great amount of learning, focusing our thinking, our interventions in a way that allows us to be more

targeted and do things not in all tiers, not statewide, not for 24 hours of every single day but more focused ways. what are some of those lessons? it's that masks do protect us, not only those around you, but the evidence is clear that they protect you as well. moving things outdoors significantly reduces the risk of exposure and transmission. we mentioned it already here. we mentioned it for many months. move things outside, keeping it short. both of those things helps us reduce transmission. the whole concept of ventilation, about bringing outdoor air indoors, even in -- >> all right. dr. mark ghaly a curfew for california, the purple counties. beginning this saturday, you should not be out between 10:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. in purple counties unless they are essential trips such as to the grocery store. this is expected to last through

december 21st. you can continue to watch the live stream of his news tonight several developing as we come on the air. the cdc and what they're now urging involving thanksgiving. urging americans not to travel. it comes as nearly 200,000 new cases and nearly 2,000 deaths reported in just the last 24 whos. the cdc's alarming new prediction about the death toll by mid december. authorities in new york city and across the country taking new action. in california issuing a new curfew tonight. ohio's governor warning hospitalizations are reaching critical levelings. dr. anthony fauci at the white house podium for the first time in months and reporters asking where is the president on this virus. what we're now learning about a third vaccine tonight showing promise. late today president-elect joe bi