A pedestrian walks past a mural which reads "Stay at Home, Life is Beautiful" Thursday, April 2, 2020, in Los Angeles. California. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
While warning residents not to take the information as a trend, California Governor Gavin Newsom said the state's number of ICU hospitalizations had fallen nearly two percent over the past 24 hours
However, Newsom also revealed that cases now total 18,309, with 492 deaths up by 50, in the same period, and the number of people hospitalized up to 2,825, slightly more than a four percent increase from yesterday.
"These are not statistics, behind every stat is a real person, real lives that have been torn apart," he said.
Despite the casualties and nearly three weeks after ordering the entire state to begin social distancing, the Golden State governor said “stay-at-home is working in the state of California.
"I caution anybody to read too much into that one point of data, but nonetheless, it is encouraging and it just again reinforces all of the incredible work that all of you are doing to practice physical distancing," Newsom said, warning against complacency. The state now expects the peak of cases to extend into May.
“The curve has been bent in this state, but it also, again, has been stretched. We continue to be vigilant," and California needs to do more to take care of the “deeply stressed out, deeply stretched” healthcare workforce, including psychological support, according to the governor.
Newsom announced a program to fund lodging for those "stretched" healthcare and frontline workers. He said the state will provide vouchers and stipends for workers who need to stay closer to patients or away from their own families. For low-wage workers, he said the state will provide 100 percent reimbursable cost at hotels. The voucher program will be funded with help from FEMA.
The governor also said 350 people should receive letters today to begin work in California's Health Corps and will be considered part-time state employees.
Meanwhile, in the past few days, California sent 500 ventilators across the country to help other states struggling to keep up with the coronavirus pandemic. In response to criticism he sent ventilators out-of-state, Newsom said those states have committed to returning them when California has its own needs and said there are more than 8,000 ventilators not in use currently within its hospital system. Newsom said this does not include the number of ventilators in the state's storage or those that have been sent out.
“We can’t just sit on assets when we can save lives and help our fellow Americans,” he said, stating it was the moral and ethical decision to lend aid.
McDonald's missed on both the top and bottom lines in its Q4 earnings, marking the fourth loss for the fast-food giant in the past eight quarters. It comes as higher costs from food to wages ate into the blue-chip company's profits. George Seay, CEO of investment advisor Annandale Capital, joined Wake Up with Cheddar to discuss the recent numbers and the better-than-expected success of the McPlant burger made with plant-based Beyond Meat. "They're changing with the times, and they have to," Seay noted. "You can just sell a Big Mac to everybody. There's a lot of people who don't want to eat a Big Mac anymore."
Business communication platform Slack, recently released its fifth wave of results from its global workplace survey from its Future Forum consortium, showing that the workforce has already moved to a split between working from home and going to the office. “We are now officially in the hybrid era of work,” Slack Future Forum VP Sheela Subramanian said when discussing the findings. "Hybrid is a work model where people can come into the office as well as work remotely, and what we're seeing is that the majority of knowledge workers are now in this arrangement — and that number is set to grow."
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, founder of Strategy + Rest,
joins Cheddar News to discuss UK's pilot four-day workweek and its impact on workers' mental health.
Ed Gaussen, co-founder and CEO of Mantra Health, and Matt Kennedy, co-founder and COO of Mantra Health, joined Cheddar News to discuss the digital mental health startup's latest funding round and plans for the future.
Charles Platkin, executive director at Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center, joins Cheddar News to discuss how food insecurity affects our mental health.
Actor Sydney Sweeney, who plays Cassie Howard on HBO's "Euphoria, recently addressed how she feels about the stigma attached to nudity in acting for women versus men. Sweeney noted she also made a request to avoid doing unnecessary nude scenes, which was supported by series creator Sam Levinson.
Actor and singer Chrissy Metz, who stars as Kate Pearson in "This Is Us," is partnering with Capital One Auto Navigator to share her story of purchasing her first car to help make car buying easier for others. "For me, I know a car was so important because of course it took me to the auditions to get me to the place I have today," she said. "But it also means empowerment and freedom and accessibility, and I think everybody is deserving and in need of that." Metz also discussed the final season of her hit show, noting that expectations for the finale "will probably be exceeded."
