businesses. >> reporter: we're here at the usually popular chinese food restaurant on north 1st street in san jose, the owner's distress about today's announcement is simple. the stay-at-home order was extended down south. will it happen here? tony zhang is counting the days until santa clara county can hopefully end the current stay-at-home order in early january, reopening outdoor dining and many other businesses. the restaurant owner hoped the state would allow los angeles county and the san joaquin valley to reopen today and offer new hope to other regions. >> we cannot handle it anymore. there are already a couple months rent we haven't paid. continuing like this we may have to close it down. >> reporter: zhang and many others got the worse possible news. in southern california hospitals have been so overrun they have to now track available oxygen. >> so, today the order will

remain because those projections do not so the san joaquin valley and southern california have projected four weeks out icu capacity over 15%. >> santa clara county's office of emergency management says the south bay is down to 21 icu beds, 7% capacity. >> we're still at the point where we can come back from the brink. it's definitely not a time to give up hope. >> shutting all this down, what else can we do? i don't know what. >> reporter: one encouraging trend is that the icu numbers in the south bay have improved slightly since the thanksgiving surge. but the possible christmas surge is scary. in san jose, robert handa, nbc bay area news. >> we feel for those small businesses. there are signs the bay area surge is starting to slow down. but a big disclaimer here, we have not yet felt the full impact of the holidays. those numbers will soon start coming in.

let's look at contra costa county. here are the new cases since october, an average of 286 cases a day, thanksgiving here, and december 15th, just a couple weeks ago, 596 cases per day. the latest number, december 26th, we're down to 428. let's look at san francisco now, a similar trend. we peaked on december 16th. here we go, 286 cases -- excuse me, 289 cases here. and then a slight decline after that. again though we are waiting for the holiday numbers to start coming in. keira. >> raj, while the numbers seem to be promising there, today a plea from san francisco's health director. ring in the new year at your home. dr. grant colfax says the stay-at-home order has slowed the surge, but he warns that a new surge could be more than 500 deaths within san francisco by the spring. that's why traditions like this, the city's annual new year's eve fireworks have been cancelled. >> hundreds of families in san francisco will have a chance to

spend next new year's eve together in good health because of the choices we make this week. >> san francisco police also are urging people from other parts of the bay area to stay away from the city on new year's eve. we spoke with police about how they're enforcing the city's new mandatory travel quarantine. we'll have that at 6:00. here's disappointing news. at this rate we won't get the majority of americans vaccinated for years. today president-elect joe biden blamed the trump administration for failing to meet its vaccination goals by a long shot. so far the cdc says about 2 million americans have received vaccines. white house officials promised 20 million americans would be vaccinated by year's end. >> i directed my team to prepare a much more aggressive effort with more federal involvement and leadership to get things back on track. we'll find ways to boost the

pace of vaccinations. >> mr. biden says he will ramp up the rate of vaccinations to 1 million shots per day as soon as he gets inaugurated. let's do simple math here. is joe biden's goal realistic? right now the u.s. has vaccinate about 2 million people over the last two weeks. that's about 250,000 shots each day. joe biden's plan, 1 million shots a day. so, we've got to increase times four. biden vows to give 100 million shots in his first 100 days in office. that would vaccinate about 50 million people by april 30th. that's about 15% of the u.s. population. the target is to vaccinate 70% of the u.s. population, so we could be doing this even at the accelerated rate, we could be doing this well into the next holiday season. >> vice president-elect kamala harris meanwhile received her first dose of the covid-19

vaccine today in washington, d.c. after she received that moderna moderna shot, harris thanked the nurse saying she barely felt it. harris took the moment to urge americans to get it when it's their chance saying it will, quote, literally save lives. >> i trust the scientists, and it is the scientists who created and approved this vaccine. so, i urge everyone, when it is your turn, get vaccinated. >> harris' husband, the incoming second gentleman also got vaccinated. you may recall president-elect joe biden received his first dose last week. if you're wondering where you are in the vaccine line, you can check out our interactive tool. it'll ask you a few questions including what county you live in and whether you're an essential worker. i am 13000000th in california. we put a length to it right on the front page. click on where you stand in the vaccine line. it's at the top on our trending

bar. it is a very cool tool. now from covid vaccine to covid relief, those $600 stimulus payments may show up in your bank account as soon as tonight. the treasury department says if you're signed up for direct deposit, you'll see that money soon. but the battle for the bigger $2,000 payment is still happening on capitol hill. nbc bay area's susan mcginnis joins us live from washington with that. hi susan. >> reporter: hi, keira. that's right. some of the payments are going out tonight from the treasury department. they said they will start to be received. if you're getting a paper check they're going to go into the mail tomorrow. as for those $2,000 payments, there's no telling yet whether congress is going to agree to those. from the legislative drama that took place today on capitol hill, it's clear the fight is not over. on the senate floor today, democrats trying to force republicans to pass a bill, raising covid relief payments

for americans from $600 to $2,000. >> the fastest way to get money into americans' pockets is to send some of their tax dollars right back from where they came. >> reporter: the effort blocked by senate majority leader mm. >> object. >> reporter: mcconnell breaking with the growing number of gop members and president trump, who earlier today called on republicans to deliver t $2,000 payment. as the issue pit the president agnst some in his own party, it also unites congressional democrats wit him. vice president-elect kamala harris today joining president-elect joe biden signaling support for the measure. >> a while back i recommended that folks receive a $2,000 check. so, i would urge mitch mcconnell to put my bill on the floor for a vote. >> reporter: meanwhile the senate plans to vote tomorrow on overriding president trump's

defense spending bill. >> i would urge my colleagues to support this legislation. >> reporter: democratic senator bernie sanders now trying to link the stimulus payments with that override vote. >> working families need help now. not next year, but right now. >> reporter: sanders threatening to delay the veto override vote unless leader mcconnell allows a full vote on the increased stimulus payment, leaving struggling americans still not knowing how much relief they'll get. now, while mitch mcconnell did block that stand-alone bill raising the payment to $2,000, he introduced a new bill tonight that raises the payments to $2,000, but attaches two new things to it, look into election security and stripping technology companies like facebook and twitter, two things the president wants but two things that will likeunlikely g

past democrats. we have dramatic video today from vacaville. it's raising a lot of questions. this video may be hard to watch. someone started what we later found out was a vacaville k-9 officer pinning down and punching his four-legged partner. the man who shot the video claims this wasn't even the worst of it. thom jensen is in vacaville with a response from the police department, which says the video does not tell the whole story. >> reporter: roberto was just rolling up to a work warehouse next to a fire station when he heard a dog yelping loudly. >> the dog was crying. the dog was crying like somebody was running him over. >> reporter: he couldn't believe what he saw, a man later identified as a vacaville police officer repeatedly punching a dog. in the video the officer has the

dog pinned and appears to strike the animal in the head. vacaville police captain tells nbc bay area the incident is being investigated but says the video may not tell the whole story and believes it's too soon to call this animal abuse. >> there is times during k-9 training, as i understand, that the dog is -- can be struck. >> captain matt lieden says the department has reached out to a third party vendor that it uses for k-9 training to determine if this was appropriate discipline. as far as sitting on the dog goes, he says the officer had to gain control of the animal after it lunched at him and tried to bite him. >> this required immediate action in the training of the k-9, and to create that and establish dominance over that dog to let the dog know that the handler is in charge. >> reporter: but roberto pal amino says it looked like and

sounded like abuse to him. >> i think he should have a better life at all. >> reporter: captain lieden says that the department would love to talk to roberto about what he witnessed. and if it is determined through investigation there was abuse, the officer could be forced to give up custody of the dog. but for now the k-9 cop is still in the custody of his assigned partner. in vacaville, thom jensen, nbc bay area news. coming up, breonna taylor statue first vandalized and now gone. what the artist wants the city to do about it. also that much talked about fleet of the future is on hold. the problem that has b.a.r.t. putting on the brakes to this multimillion dollar project. i'm chief meteorologist jeff raniere tracking changes arriving as soon as tomorrow. we'll talk about some clouds, some showers and our rain outlook hour by hour right into

next week with several storms on the way. i'll see you back in about seven minutes. just ahead, the worsening covid emergency in america's most populous county. one nurse now calling it a war zone. and on board a boeing 737 max returns to service.

unfortunately it's gone from bad to worse. a few days ago we told you about this, the breonna taylor statue in downtown oakland was vandalized. today the artist says someone stole the statue from its base. breonna taylor, who was killed by louisville police earlier this year, is a central part of the recent social justice movement. so, what happens now? nbc bay area's melissa colorado

joins us from downtown oakland. melissa, what do we know at this point? >> reporter: well, raj, i can tell you that the oakland sculptor who really constructed this breonna taylor statue, and all afternoon we've watched him reinforce what's left standing. as you can see, he's placed flowers over where the breonna taylor statue once stood and filled the stand with concrete to better reinforce the base. he said it's going to take months to create a sculpture and he will cast it in bronze. he says someone likely used a bat to pound away at the statue. it was here only two weeks before it was damaged. then this morning carson says the statue vanished. >> last night the racists returned and they removed the remaining sculpture bust, and this is what's here now.

i want this to be a symbol of joy for breonna taylor, and no matter what they do, we can rebuild it. when you mess with a sculptor, i know how to build things. you can't defeat that. >> and speaking of rebuilding, carson says he's got plenty of money, donations to do that. after the statue was vandalized, carson created this gofundme page which raised more than $21,000. the unemployed server says that's enough money to reconstruct the statue from scratch and any leftover money will be donated to the family of breonna taylor. and carson says someone did file a police report on his behalf. a spokesperson for opd says they are looking into this this. that's the latest in oakland. i'm melissa colorado. b.a.r.t. is slowing down the arrival of new cars, refusing to accept them until software problem is fixed. b.a.r.t.'s fleet of the future, as its called, is manufactured by germany's transportation, the

problem is that the software makes the new cars stop in a way that forces the operator to spend five minutes rebooting them. >> we're experiencing these malfunctions, if you will, on a regular basis, and we want to make sure we get it corrected before we continue to accept additional cars and it becomes a larger and larger portion of our fleet. >> b.a.r.t.'s engineering are working to solve that problem. if you go to a new year's eve party this week, you're breaking the rules. people are pushing the boundaries. according to sf gate event promoter event bright removed listings for at least two big ticket new year's eve parties scheduled for the bay area. one was near union square, the other at fort mckinley restaurant and bar in south city. in a statement, the company says, quote, when we became aware of content on our platform that violates our community guidelines, we investigated and

took appropriate action. a high end restaurant in monterey county is hit with a fine for repeatedly violating covid health orders. the owner of the tuck box, a vintage restaurant in caramel, has been fined 35,000 bucks. the district attorney cited the restaurant twice in the past two weeks for allowing customers to eat inside and outside. monterey county says continued non-compliance may result in tuck box losing its permit to operate. just two more days to get the famous blue cheese garlic gip at el charo. after more than 70 years, the restaurant is closing its doors for good. the owners made the announcement today on facebook. they said the pandemic has hit them hard. and with the sale of the property looming, they didn't see a way forward. el charro will be open for takeout until thursday. jeff raniere, we have a to do list for you. go to el charro for the last

couple of days in business. >> and send it to all of us here at the station since you can't come to the station. >> that's getting -- that's going to be a big list for the news room, you guys. but i'll see what i can do. i've got some favorites there of my own. great spot here in the east bay. so, starting to hear that news. back here across the bay area, the great news in our weather is we are still holding on to the chance of several different storm systems heading our way. so, i want to spend a lot of time on this forecast, really showing you when those storms move in and move out. so, it's a forecast, so let's go ahead and move it ahead to that forecast into tomorrow morning. and you'll see we are looking at cloud cover to start. that's the biggest change as we start off tomorrow morning. no sunglasses needed here. 46 in the tri-valley, 43. clouds acting like a blanket. it's going to insulate us a little bit. not nearly as cold as it has been.

we were down to the freezing mark this morning. but you can see for tomorrow morning not that cold. 48 in san francisco and north bay at 4 is. i want to encourage you to look at the bottom of the screen at the scrolling seven day forecast for the daytime highs because we're going to spend a lot of time on those incoming rain chances. so, as you move through tomorrow, there's the cloud cover for the start. you can see all that gray. that's the clouds rolling in. once we hit tomorrow night we'll see the chance of showers turning. not a big storm system. only .1 of an inch late wednesday night into early thursday morning. when we get into several back to back systems would be on saturday. we're beginning with spotty rain as we head into saturday's forecast. that will be good for us. overall i don't think it will be extremely heavy on saturday. what i want you to focus on is really these waves of on and off rainfall because the timing's probably going to change a little bit here. you can see the first wave of

wet weather arriving as we head throughout saturday. then we're going to see a second wave of rainfall as we head into sunday's forecast. you can see it pretty widespread impacting northern california, eventually down to southern california and also the sierra. as we roll into monday, here comes another wave of rainfall here. by monday morning. then on tuesday we'll see another chance of some wet weather. and then likely as we head into wednesday, an additional storm system approaching. so, i want to caution all of this with it is extremely early out but i really want to make sure you guys see what's headed our way as it would be the wettest weather pattern. if everything stays on track we've seen so far this season. so, about four systems possible. rainfall we're looking at ranging anywhere from three-quarters to 2 inches. sierra snow one to three feet with that. we'll see timing and intensity changes, but i wanted you to see the whole wrap up of what would

be coming our way. new year's eve looks dry. we're expecting 2021 to have partly cloudy skies. right here for the inland valleys, temperatures staying similar here, 50s for daytime highs. notice on new year's eve we will be dropping to colder 30s with clearer skies and overall temperatures rebound to the 40s in the morning, 50s for daytime highs with that wetter weather pattern from saturday into tuesday's forecast. so, raj and keira, we've got that rain still on the way. and if everything stays like this, this could really put a big dent in our rain season. what a way to start off 2021. >> what a way. we hope it happens. jeff, thanks so much. >> thank you, jeff. we'll see you at 6:00. up next, the push to get more people tested in santa clara county. new sites that are popping up with tests much easier to take. stay with us.

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a new pop up covid testing site in palo alto might be the key to getting more people to take the test. that's because this site doesn't require that deep nasal swab, which some say have made them hesitant. instead, people can give themselves an oral swab, under supervision. the test site is located at mitchell park library in palo alto. the tests are believed to have a 90% rate. making sure no food goes to waste. like nearly every giving organization, the white pony expression in pleasant hill is seeing a record number of families asking for help during this pandemic. every day workers pick up about

14,000 pounds of fresh surplus food from grocery stores and food distributors and deliver it to needy families. >> we deliver it with as much love and care and awareness that we're just one big family here and we need to take care of each other. >> they are doing it in a great way. over the past 7 years, white pony express has recovered and repurposed more than 14 million pounds of food that would otherwise be thrown away. it's a great program. our nursing neighbors food drive is also helping needy families. you can may a $10 donation at any safeway throughout the bay area. that money goes directly to local food banks. our annual campaign ends tonight. the annual list of most admired americans is out. president obama is out. who's in? raj mathai? find out after this.

tonight at 6:00, what lies ahead for jobless renters? once the eviction moratorium ends? that story and more coming up on our 6:00 news cast. funlly at 5:00, the story of a match that could only be made in 2020. >> is this real? president trump and michelle obama, the gallup poll has named them the year's most admired man

and woman. president trump edging out president obama, who held the honor for 12 straight years, a record that was only matched by president eisenhower. joe biden third on the list. dr. fauci is fourth. >> among women, vice president-elect kamala harris, melania trump, and oprah winfrey. >> thanks for joining us. tonight, the first case of that new covid strain discovered here in the u.s the very first known case of that highly contagious covid variant from the uk detected in colorado what we know about the patient. and it comes as california extends its stay-at-home order hospitals so overwhelmed ambulances waiting for hours for patients to be triaged. one nurse saying it's like a war zone. president-elect joe biden blasting the trump administration's vaccine rollout, saying it's falling far behind 20 million doses were promised by year's end but only about 2 million administered