695 COVID-19 deaths reported in California; record high for state
California health officials added 695 deaths related to the novel coronavirus Saturday, a record high since the pandemic began. The total death toll is now 29,233 in the state.
Data from the California Department of Public Health also shows 52,636 more confirmed cases were added, bringing up the total to 2,621,277. Health care workers in the state account for 74,589 of total confirmed cases and 281 of total deaths.
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This comes after an order by the state's public health department that requires some nonessential and non-life-threatening surgeries to be delayed in counties with 10% or less of ICU capacity in regions where ICU capacity is at 0%.
This hospital surge order impacts San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties, along with several other Central Valley and southern California counties.
Gov. Gavin Newsom in December announced a new stay-at-home order that divvies up the state into five different regions: Northern California, Greater Sacramento, Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. Under the new guidelines, any region that hits less than 15% ICU capacity triggers restrictions that force several businesses to close or limit services.
Of the five regions, Northern California is the only region that has not been placed under the new restrictions because its ICU capacity is above 15%, as of Saturday evening. The Bay Area's ICU numbers will be assessed in the coming days to determine if the region can exit the orders. The other three regions do not meet the criteria to exit orders, according to four-week ICU capacity projections from the state.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. —
On Saturday, the owner of Sacramento cleaning company, Forensiclean, said they immediately fired an employee seen pulling out a knife on the job earlier in the week.
“I’m sorry that that happened. That is not what Forensiclean is about at all, whatsoever. That’s not the type of company that we are,” said owner Dawn McGuire. “We do not at all condone the behavior that our employee presented that day. He was not representing Forensiclean the way that we want to be represented. He was fired immediately. That behavior was absolutely not acceptable.”
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The incident happened on Thursday morning. According to McGuire, her crew was cleaning an abandoned homeless encampment on Alhambra Boulevard. She said the City of Sacramento hired them on a one-year contract as the homeless crisis continues to worsen.
“We started working with the Sacramento Police Department on an impact program which to go around and clean up, not the homeless themselves, but the garbage that they’re leaving behind or areas of illegal dumping,” she said.
McGuire said in many ways they work for the homeless, helping them move their belongings from one location to another. Another company spokesman said they clean the portable bathroom and hand washing station for the homeless near that location nearly every day.
“They give us their garbage. They give us their sharps. We give them dog food,” McGuire said.
On Thursday morning, she said her crew was called in to clean a couple of tents after one homeless person was moved to a motel and another was arrested on an outstanding warrant.
Two self-described artistic storytellers with the organization Black Zebra documented the cleanup for at least an hour on video. Eventually, the situation escalated after a worker threw a mirror into a trash heap alongside the pair recording video and some other people standing along the sidewalk.
“A community member that was standing next to us, and they had said something like, ‘Do that again, and I’ll beat you up.’ And then that’s when three of the city crew people had came and approached us really aggressively and then the one on the outside just pulled out his knife and was like, ‘Come at me,’” said one of the Black Zebra members.
The Black Zebra team requested their identities be kept anonymous out of safety concerns.
“It definitely was a traumatizing moment,” the Black Zebra member said. “We didn’t know what was going to happen.”
McGuire said while she does not condone what her employee did, her team felt ambushed by Black Zebra.
“I don’t apologize for being there and doing our job that day,” McGuire said. “They were the ones that were antagonizing my employees. They were yelling over their shoulders telling that they were going to kill them, that they were going to mess ‘em up. That they should get out of there. That they should quit their jobs. And they just kept needling them and antagonizing them as if they wanted us to react and unfortunately one of my employees did react.”
While people can be heard in the video shouting at the cleanup crew calling them “f***ing terrorists” and an “f****** piece of s***,” the Black Zebra team said they did not threaten the crew and that upset community members were the ones yelling.
“All that we’re doing is showing up to document things that are going on in our community,” Black Zebra said. “I don’t know how words can warrant an escalation physically like that.”
McGuire said her team works under tough conditions that were made more difficult by the video crew that day.
“There’s dead rats falling on them. There’s rat feces. There’s rats crawling all around them,” she said. “I think that they are more of a bully at this point.”
Thursday’s incident was a moment captured on video. McGuire said she wishes it was more than just a moment, rather a true dialogue.
“Had they come in, with their cameras that’s fine, and said, ‘What are you guys doing today? Why are you here? Can you explain to me why you’re doing this?’” McGuire said. “Nobody was giving anybody a chance to say why they were there or what they were doing or what their belief system was. It just turned into this completely escalated episode of violence in a matter of moments.”
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McGuire said she believes they all have a common goal and that her team has a good rapport with the homeless community.
“Everybody wants the best for the homeless community. If we could all just somehow get together and work together as a team as opposed to offending sides, I think we could make a much bigger impact because I believe we all want the same thing.”
McGuire said her team received death threats after the video was posted online.
“I understand that that’s a stain on our reputation, but if you look at all the other things that Forensiclean does and all the other helpful things that we do for the homeless community and the community in general, you’ll see that’s not who we are,” she said.
No one has been charged following the incident. According to the Sacramento Police Department, Black Zebra refused to provide statements and were uncooperative with the investigation. A Black Zebra member said they are not pursuing charges because they are not interested in communicating with police in that way and are not looking to harm. Instead, the video team said they were looking for accountability from the company.
“It was inhumane to see it in person and I’m pretty sure those community members are a little traumatized seeing that,” a Black Zebra member said.