. the pandemic results in lower rental prices in san francisco, and a jump in demand in the suburbs. realtors are preparing for another shift in the bay area housing market. with that, we say good evening and thank you for joining us, i'm dion lim. we look at the pandemic's impact on tenants and landlords. the economy is one topic we focus on in our commitment to building a better bay area. today a group of mom and pop

landlords spoke out in san francisco against a rent relief bill. abc 7 news has a preview of what they can expect. >> reporter: real estate agent eli micekin says right now might be the best time to rent in san francisco. this one brmd apartmeedroom apas for 2,000 a month, the first month is free. >> 600, 650 square feet, nice, classic san francisco apartments in any other given time, they would have been rented immediately. >> reporter: crystal chen is an analyst at zumper. she says 2020 was a year of unprecedented decline for rents in the braay area. down 23%. >> the priorities of renters have really shifted away from

big city amenities like nightlife and going out and stuff like that toward really space and affordability. >> reporter: but many predict people will start to return to the bay area in 2021. mns peopl were priced out before will start to move back. >> i spent the last ten years, you know, having people move from here to oakland. and just in the last eight months people moving from oakland back to san francisco. >> reporter: chen expects a bigger shift this numberesummer. >> i don't think it will be nearly as expensive and crazy as it was before the pandemic. >> reporter: on the flip side, this group held a rally through san francisco's chinatown to protest the eviction moratorium. janie zhou says with renters behind on payment her family is suffering. >> we have to pay mortgage. and we have to maintain, do repairs for the bidding. so how do we survive? >> reporter: despite the

difficulty on both sides, micekins is optimistic. >> i think the city is going to be better in the long run. it needed the recalibration. there are new developments in the pandemic to share with you. california hit a new state record for the number of covid patients in the icu with more than 4500 people admitted yesterday. california is the hardest-hit state in the nation now with the worst coronavirus diagnosis rate in the u.s. southern california funeral homes are turning away bereaved families because they're running out of space. and california's vaccination rate stands at just more than 1,000 per every 100,000 people. that is on pace with the rate in most states. nationwide, the cdc says more than 4 million people are vaccinated. the goal was 20 million people by the end of last year. abc 7 news reporter kenneth moton has a look at how states are handling vaccination

challenges. >> the u.s. has surpassed 20 million cases of the coronavirus. more than 348,000 lives have been lost, california particularly hit hard. los angeles county the epicenter. the l.a. supervisor requesting the navy ship "mercy" return. >> i've never seen a health care system pushed to the level that we're at. coming to work is just a constant, it's stressful to say the least. >> reporter: utah senator mitt romney blasting the lack of a plan. >> we've sat back and assumed that somehow creating the vaccine was all we had to do, and that was simply inadequate. >> reporter: he says authorizing the health department to open the first free vaccination clinic. >> received about 250,000 calls today. so the system literally was overwhelmed. and so we went to blplan b.

and plan b was on-site registration. >> reporter: georgia working on its vaccination plan as vaccines set on ice. >> there's vaccine available and literally sitting in freezers. that's not acceptable. we have lives to save. >> reporter: this doctor in michigan drive almost three hours to a remote part of the state to administer vaccines. >> what i saw was really just hope. >> reporter: in florida, senior citizens waiting in line for hours after governor desantis expanded eligibility to those over 65. those 75 and older were eligible for the vaccine. former cnn host and talk show legend larry king is in the hospital with covid-19. the 87-year-old is be being treated for the virus at cedar sinai in los angeles. he has fought a number of health issues this year. san francisco's main library has stopped its to-go service

this weekend over concerns for covid-19. abc 7 news was at the location on larkin and grove streets earlier today. one of the staff members may have the virus, so the library is being thoroughly cleaned, and contact tracing under way. it also affects the tip line service. other labibrary locations are on this weekend. a soggy start to the first weekend in 2021 in the bay area. whether you were up in the hills or down by the beach, just about every one of our cameras picked up some degree of rain today. more rain could be headed our way over the next few days. let's get a first check of our weather with drew tuma. i like to think of this as a cleansing of the new year. >> we're going to track several storms. today was cloudy, rather wet and we're still tracking showers.

it's really in the heart of the bay area where we find that drizzle, light rain from san francisco to oakland, south san francisco up into san rafael, sanford and pretty active ocean current. we have a high surf advisory until tomorrow morning. we are tracking a stronger storm moving in monday morning. we'll have the timeline in a few minutes. a group of senators in washington announced a new challenge today to president-elect joe biden's win. their reason for opposing the vote count, and we will learn whether it could have any impact on inauguration day. plus, first congresswoman nancy pelosi's home was

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some developing news to get to now. a group of republican senators plan to reject the electoral college results. they're demanding that a commission be appointed to do an emergency ten-day audit in so-called disputed states. congress will count the electoral college votes on wednesday. this last-ditch challenge is being led by texas senator ted cruz. they say they are trying to restore faith in the democratic process. it will not change the outcome of the election though, president-elect joe biden is set to be inaugurated on january 20th. vandals hit a second congress member's home with graffiti. the words "where is my money" were spray painted on mitch mcconnell's door.

other expletives were written on his home in kentucky. it happened this morning. that graffiti presumably a reference to mcconnell blocking the delivery of a $2,000 relief check. he released a statement saying vand lich a vandalism and the politics of fear have no place in our democracy. vandals hit nancy pelosi's home. it apparently referenced lawmakers' failure to address the $2,000 checks. a special investigation unit is trying to determine who did it. backers of a petition to recall gavin newsom held a signature drive in the east bay today. supporters of the recall say they are more than halfway to the number of signatures needed

for a recall vote. it took place outside the dublin hobby lobby store. they have complaints about the governor and the handling of the coronavirus. >> kids should be in school, and they're not except for his kids because they go to a private school. he's doing things he says we can't do like going to french laundry. >> newsom was the first u.s. governor to act boldlien tdliede pandemic a spokesman said. well, amid all of the numbers and grim developments, there are some stories of help and healing as we all deal with this pandemic. just ahead, meet a covid-19 survivor who doctors are calling a miracle. and i'm meteorologist drew tuma. we are tracking a cloudy night with areas of drizzle and a stronger storm

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president trump has vetoed a bipartisan bill aimed at presenting endangered sea life off the california coast. it would have banned drift nets. environmental activists say sea turtles, whales and other species can get caught in them and even die. the hope is to push it through again with dianne feinstein after joe biden is sworn in. >> these gentle, giant animals that have outlived the dinosaurs really have an opportunity to survive, to survive us. >> the federal waters off california's coast are the only place drift nets are allowed. they are banned everywhere else. people in some parts of the south bay were shaken away

during an earthquake this morning. a 4.3 earthquake hit monterey county just before 6:h45. it was about 25 miles from salinas. people report feeling the earthquake in parts of san jose. despite two smaller aftershocks as well, there was no report of major damage or injuries. work on the san francisco giants' mission rock project of the future is finally starting to take shape. the chronicle reports the first concrete was poured last week for the space across from the ballpark. originally all marsh land, the parking lot will transfer into a green shore park with office towers and buildings. it's been in the works since 2008. it is expected to be completed at the end of next year. a georgia patient who spent three months in the hospital bed because of covid-19 started off

her new year in her own home. [ applause ] oh, nice to see her walking there. lisa martin got a standing ovation as she left memorial health in way cross georgia. she was admitted september 27 after spending 59 days in a ventilator and 40 days in an indeuced coma there. she even survive add frontal lobe stroke. hospital workers call her a miracle patient. good to see hergeting in that car, leaving that facility. taking it back over to drew, more on this wet weather pattern we're going to experience the next few days. >> yeah, it's pretty active. we saw anywhere from a trace to as much as a quarter of an inch of rainfall today. the highest amounts were in the north bay. even right now, tonight this evening with a lot of cloud cover out there and mist and drizzle. live doppler seven showing pockets of light rain and drizzle from san francisco,

oakland and points to the north. and we'll keep the drizzle in the forecast over the next several hours, but really, we're not seeing any terms of substantial rainfall coming our way tonight. numbers out there, we've kind of been stuck in the 50s today with limits of any sunshine breaking through the cloud cover. it's been hard to heat us up. 51 in san francisco, 56 in san jose. 50 that current temperature in santa rosa. so tonight the cloud cover is most certainly sticking around. it's going to act like a blanket tonight. so temperatures mainly in the 40s overnight tonight. but the bigger issue is we'll likely find areas of dense fog developing, and likely in our sheltered valleys in the north bay. we're going to keep our eye on that in the next couple hours. be aware if you're traveling overnight tonight you may encounter a pocket of dense fog. tomorrow is not a bright day. we're going to hang onto overcast skies for the most part but certainly a drier day

compared to today. numbers slightly warmer. upper 50s to lower 60s to finish off the weekend. but the next storm is quickly approaching by monday morning. this will be a moderate two level storm we are tracking. possibiliti pockets of heavy rain at times and more ponding on the roadways as downpours move through. we start the clock 7:00 p.m. tomorrow evening. early monday morning we'll again to find light showers moving through. and right around sun rise, that's when we expect some of the downpours to begin developing. pops of yellow, even even even your screen. as it moves through it's going to kick up our wind. future tracker wind gust. you look at monday morning at 10:00 a.m. as the front is moving through, and we really do expect winds gusting anywhere from 20-40 miles per hour.

i think a really good estimate for a lot of us is a quarter to three dwar tequarters of ain in rain with higher totals in the mountains. also getting snow in the sierra. we could siee up to two feet in the highest peaks. do not try to travel monday into the sierra. it's going to be a mess. cloudy tomorrow. there's that rain and wind with the level two storm monday morning, and we'll track another storm wednesday night into thursday morning and likely another one coming friday into saturday. certainly a very active period, watching monday morning very closely. >> not too long ago we said we needed the rain, and here it is. >> here you go. it arrived. >> drew, thanks. chris alvarez with a look at sports. >> coming up in sports, the nhl season less than two weeks away. we go camping with the san jose

sharks, warriors getting

dub nation can breathe a sigh of relief for center james wisen who tweaked his ankle. he had no issues, he was a full go in practice. they open their seven-game home stand with a loss to portland last night. the other two losses were by 26 and 39. damian lillard, cj mccollum

combined for 62 points. draymond green held scoreless. and with the warriors off to a slow start, there's a lot of work to do. >> i think every team is a work in progress. if you are a team that don't think you're a work in progress you'll be looking back in july trying to figure out where you missed the work. if you're not a work in progress in six or seven games, good luck. >> this team is just starting to figure out each other and grow together. and i'm very confident with our leadership that we have internally and the competitive level of guys, we're going to come out and bring plenty of energy tomorrow. the san jose sharks have relocated to arizona due to santa clara county covid restrictions, and they're going to get ready to open up against the coyotes in two weeks. they're practicing right now. sharks' last game was the 11th. there are a lot of things to figure out. patrick marleau played in the

bubble with pittsburg. has a few tips for getting through the season. >> it is going to be a different situation than what we're used to. so we have to embrace it, know that that's going to happen and prepare ourselves. if we're the best-prepared team and ready to go and have everybody going at the tasame te you're going to have an advantage. that's the biggest thing i can pass on to our club here. >> the niners' finale is tomorrow in arizona. saturday, today, playing host to the fiesta bowl. iowa state brock purdy in for the score. his family in the stands, and boy, they got to love that. ensuing kickoff, the ducks accidentally touch the football and iowa state jumps all over it. oregon had four turnovers, ensuing possession, hall scores from a yard out. his family excited as well. iowa state head coach matt campbel, there's the gatorade.

oh, that looks cold but feels so good. there was some speculation the former niners and jim harbaugh would be out, but several reports say harbaugh will sign an extension soon, keeping them there through 2026. he's been at michigan six years but never beaten ohio state, they'll play for the national title a week for monday. good news for coach harbaugh as he stays at michigan. but the fans want them to win. >> they are intense fans. we've dealt with all kinds of feelings during the pandemic and a new business

this is fun. an indiana entrepreneur says her new business is helping folks get the therapy they need after a tough year. this, ooh, is called rage therapy. ashley finney is behind the e idea, allowing customers to take a baseball bat to all that frustration. the concept came to be after the local glass recycler stopped taking glass. it was too heavy for them. so she turned glass bottles into items of destruction, including tvs. one of her biggest clients so far have been corporate teams and they want to do building events with each other. looks like a lot of fun.

hopefully they have goggles on and headgear. i'm dion lim. we appreciate you being her tonight, several developing stories as we come on. with a dangerous storm threatening to snarl one of the busiest travel days of the year, the one-two punch. heavy snow and ice sweeping across the u.s., stranding some drivers for up to 14 hours and knocking out power to thousands. tonight, flash-flood fears as a new system batters the southeast and makes a run north with millions who ignored warnings to stay put for the holidays trying to get home. the superspreader scare. new images tonight of new year's eve parties in full swing coast to coast. guests gathering in close quarters, many without masks. all of it fueling concerns of yet another surge. california hospitals pushed to the limit coming off that state's deadliest day. ambulances reportedly waiting up to eight hours to drop off