COVID-19 State Policy Update 04.29.20

Today, Wednesday April 29thGovernor Gavin Newsom held his daily briefing to provide an update on the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  The Governor announced the “Farm to Family Program” to support farmers and food banks.   This plan will help farmers and ranchers who have excess produce and food they are currently unable to sell because of a plummet in demand.   Meanwhile, Newsom said, food banks are desperate for more food.  There is a “mismatch” that Newsom contends can be solved through this effort. 

Additionally, Newsom added that this program will be a  public/private partnership between federal government, state, philanthropy, farmers, and farmworkers.   The partnership currently has 128 farmers/ranchers providing food to 41 food banks, distributed in 58 counties.  The goal is to provide 21 million pounds of fresh produce to food banks in May.  Newsom also said, “We’re now providing a tax credit of 15 percent to farmers.”  Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Karen Ross joined Newsom in speaking about the program.

Further, Newsom announced that California has gotten two waivers from the federal government.  The first allows those who have a CalFresh debit card to buy groceries online and “at scale”, starting with Amazon and Walmart.  Second, California is the recipient of a new Pandemic-EBT program, which Newsom said is through the help of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.  The Pandemic-EBT program will provide an additional $365 for children and families that would have gotten free or reduced breakfasts and lunches at school.  Up to 3.8 million kids will be eligible for these benefits.   Additional information on these announcements can be found here

Consistent with past briefings, Newsom provided the latest COVID-19 hospitalization and intensive care unit (ICU) patient figures.   He reported that the hospitalization rates increased by 1.2 percent from the previous day.  The number of coronavirus patients in ICU beds increased modestly at 0.4 percent. Specifically, there are 3,495  hospitalization cases and of those 1,186 are ICU cases.

On unemployment insurance (IU) claims,  Newsom reported 3.7 million have filed for unemployment insurance since March 12th.   He stated there was a spike in applications yesterday with about 235,000 individuals applying for UI and the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program, and also stated that a new chatbot for UI claims to assist with information will be up and running soon.

As an update on Project Roomkey, Newsom said there’s now more than 12,000 hotel rooms available throughout California to shelter “thousands and thousands” of homeless individuals.  Regarding testing, Newsom reported California has been averaging 20,000 a day.  “We’re almost there,” he continued, as it relates to hitting that 25,000 tests per day goal by end of April.  Finally, Newsom promised to give an update tomorrow on contact tracing efforts and progress the state has made to hire more people to do that work.

In closing, Newsom said California is flattening the curve.  However, he warned,  “We can undo our progress in a very short period of time.  Why put ourselves in that position?” Newsom encouraged people to stay the course so that low-risk sectors of the economy can reopen in the coming weeks. 

Following yesterday’s briefing, the Governor’s Press office issued a news release regarding California’s Pandemic Resilience Roadmap, which discusses how the state is planning its path forward, in phases based on science, health and data.  A copy of Newsom’s and California Department of Public Health Director and State Public Health Officer Dr. Sonia Angell’s Presentation can be found here.  A copy of the Governor’s Office news release can be found here.

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