Just west of healdsburg. There is a lot of work that has to be done on the walbridge fire. There is a good plan in place. Working tirelessly every day in that section. Good news for firefighters on the front lines. They have got reinforcements on the way. Kpix 5s emily turner shows us. Reporter there is good news on the fires that are burning in one country. Not only is the good news with regards to the weather and what firefighters have been able to accomplish but also, who will be helping them. In this area behind me, they are expecting it to be full by the afternoon hours of national guardsmen. They are expecting 260 crews to move in this afternoon. Over the last couple of days, they have taken a crash course in wildland firefighting, getting them up to speed and prepare to go out and help firefighters in the field. They wont be in the really dangerous situations like the lines. They will, however, bna sub capacity, mopping spot f and aw from the dangerous spots. 260 additional hands is helpful for firefighters who will then be able to be freed up to run containment lines. The crews that we have will go in behind some of the fire lines and they will reinforce those to make sure that the fires wont jump those lines. Reporter the new numbers, when it comes to this fire in one country, three and 57,046 acres and is now up to 33 containment. That is great news. Firefighters have a window to utilize the community and the cooler temperatures to get this fire under control. Emily turner, kpix 5. Here is new video just in, showing the devastation left behind by the hennessy fire near lake berryessa. Take a look at these homes, completely leveled with piles of ash. Many miles of roads are blackened and smoke from the fires still lingering in the area. Governor newsom is now speaking. Lets listen in to him. This is a new approach we are pursuing in an effort to disrupt the testing market, to bring our market share into that market to bring down costs for everybody and improve reliability and access for everybody in terms of getting tests and more importantly, test results back. There is an old saw that says continue to do what you done, you get what you got. Right now we are facing the prospects moving forward over the course of of moving into flu season. Flu season puts tremendous stress and demand for testing. People that develop flulike symptoms are going to understandably and likely request that they get tested not only for flu but also get tested for covid19. In anticipation of some of the stress that will place on our testing system, in anticipation of addressing some of the existing and persistent challenges with getting timely test results, as well as providing the kind of access that provides lines of equity in terms of the testing. We are moving now in a new direction. Lets give you an overview on what we are currently doing in terms of tests in the state of california. We have averaged roughly 100,000 tests every day in this state. You saw a few weeks ago it was over 132,000. We have been challenged by this heatwave and by these wildfires. We will put the slide to test 100,000 or so a day. The average turnaround time on the test we have seen go north of 10 days. The current average is 5 to 7 inch days turnaround on the test. Each and every day is a precious day in terms of the test results. Once you get past a few days, the test results lose their meaning and significance in terms of our capacity to mitigate the exposure and mitigate the spread of the disease to do the kind of work that needs to be done. In essence, when you are north of 12 days, dare i say that tests are quite useless. They are also quite expensive. The average cost of a molecular diagnostic test, these are the pcr tests that many of you are familiar with. The average costs of those tests is 150 dollars to 250 which is quite significant. Consider the state of california has done just shy of 11 million tests. You can pull out your calculator and do the math. 10. 8 million tests, averaging anywhere from 150 200, the extraordinary cost of that diagnostic. We are now moving forward in a different direction to disrupt the market by partnering with someone who is familiar, someone who has had four kids. The perkinelmer test that many of you who have had a newborn baby are familiar with. In the state of california we have had a partnership with perkinelmer doing to no diagnostic testing over 30 years. They are a partner that has proven to be effective and efficient and reliable for decades in this state. They are moving, and have moved very aggressively, in this space. As a consequence of the development of the partnership that goes back years and investigation of what is available in the market today by our Testing Task Force, a Needs Analysis that was put together over the course of the last number of months, we have formalized a partnership now with perkinelmer to build out a new laboratory here in the state of california. With perkinelmers capacity to provide the full supplychain in terms of the reagents and the roughly 20 different ingredients that go into a test. The state will be accountable for logistics and billing. We have other work that we are responsible doing but this provides us the ability to have much more stability and the ability to provide more reliability to people that are at risk, essential workers, to address the issue of the supply chain constraints that we think will only grow, not diminish into the flu season, to provide some insurance against what we lazily return to as the flu and covid season, to provide guarantees in terms of turnaround time for results. And ultimately, to drive down the cost for everybody. This is what the federal government should be doing. Had the federal government done this some time ago, you would not see average costs of test at 200 costing the taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, costing employers billions and billions of dollars, costing the health plans billions of dollars as well. We think by advancing this partnership as only california can with the scale of our purchasing power and the need to test more people in the state than any other state in this nation, that we will be able to use that market scalability to drive down costs across the spectrum for employers, for plans, for our medicaid system and of course, medicare. That is currently reimbursing over 100. California is committing to a diagnostic Testing Partnership that will provide an additional 150,000 tests per day. We are averaging over 100,000 tests a day. We were doing well north of 130,000 before the wildfires. We will get back up into that range shortly. This is additive. It is not a supplement. All of the testing protocols that are currently in place, all of the partnerships we have advanced up and down the state, we are only looking to disrupt the costs of the system but not the access to those tests and those diagnostics. We want to add on top of it. What is significant in this partnership is we are demanding test results back within 24 hours and we have provisions in the contract to guarantee that turnaround time. You get in without 48 hours have the ability to make decisions in real time that will advance our efforts to reopen our schools or in person education, reopen our businesses in a more effective and efficient manner. By the way, we will be putting out to those guidelines friday in terms of the new strategy we are advancing as it relates to reopening based on some of the positive news that we will advance here in a moment in terms of our Positivity Rate and terms of hospitalizations. On testing, that is foundational. If we are going to sustainably reopen, we have to have the Testing Capacity. We have to have the results in a much more efficient period of time to allow us to make decisions on Contact Tracing, isolation, quarantine. Here is a new cost rate down. 150 200 is the average her test under this new partnership. Our cost breakdown works accordingly. Up to 40,000 tests, the cost per test will be 47. 99. Lets just take the lower end of the average. That is a third of the cost on the lower end of the average, current cost for a test. If we get our tests up to 100,000, that price drops from 49. 99 to 37. 78. If we reach that 150,000 Testing Capacity, which is part of this contract, we will get the test down to 30. 78. The goal is to get down cost of tests that are averaging 150 200, costing you directly and indirectly as taxpayers and as people that have gotten the diagnostic test through your employer, through your insurance, or through taxpayer subsidized insurance, up to 200 to bring those costs down to a little over 30 a test. We have new contract protections. We went to Great Lengths to put the protections into the contract. By the way, we will be making it public. It is not just one contract. This is a contract for the labs. This is a contract for third party payment. These are independent contracts. All of these will be made public and will be forthcoming. They hub rackprovisions, best price guarantees. Lets be specific about what that means. If this partnership develops an Additional Partnership with even the federal government to bring down costs even lower than 30, our contract requires what we refer to often as favored nation status, best price guarantee. If there is new technology and we are working to advance we have new technology to really drive down the costs of diagnostic and access to testing. We wanted within minutes, not just days. We have recognized that is the direction we are all heading as a nation. We have change in Technology Provisions that protect the taxpayers, protect us in this contract. Either this Company Provides that technology or we have the ability to offer out and partner with those that do. We also have provisions that allow us to opt out. We advance at scale the therapeutics that mitigate the spread of this disease and or a vaccine that ultimately presents itself as a cure to covid19 where we can pull back. We also have upgrade capacity at zero cost for the blue package. This is something many of us will get familiar with over the next few weeks and months as we get tested for influenza a and b and these respiratory tests. Basically you can get four tests in one with covid. It is a zero cost upgrade as part of a package and partnership with this contractor. We also have genomics upgrades and pooled testing upgrades as well, all of the areas where we are trying to push the envelope where we see the proverbial puck going. We want to skate to it but right now we need to scale. We need to provide insurance. We need to use our market muscle to do that using a more businesslike approach to bring down the cost and time in terms of the diagnostics. We have been working with our partners, not only through the Testing Task Force let me think the Testing Task Force or their entrepreneurial spirit, their independent mindset, for all the work they did to scour existing providers to see what is available. I can assure you there will be questions about who else is out there. We have contacted some of the most wellknown brands in this nation. We have tested their assertions. We kicked the proverbial tire and what they are capable of doing but we needed more than 100,000 tests. We needed guarantees in terms of the supply chain. We needed guarantees in terms of the turnaround on test results. We landed on this provider because we felt this provider was the one that could deliver and has Proven Results but can deliver on what we are promoting here today. We could not do what we are doing here today without Additional Partnerships. I just want to thank mike in particular members of the california legislature, their leadership, the senate, and the assembly, the budget chairs, and the respective houses of the legislature for their guidance, for their feedback. We went out and talked to a number of our legislative caucuses about what theyre hearing, what they need, what they are demanding in terms of equity, response times, diagnostic they are looking for in terms of whether or not they wanted to move forward with pcr or antigen tests. What are the merits and demerits of the same . Ll of that took shape over the course the last number of weeks. Two people in particular really helped shape the expectations that we are putting out and promoting today and that is the respective chairs of the Senate Health committees and the Assembly Health committee. I want to personally express my appreciation to senator penn and Assembly Member would who has been dealing with all kinds of challenges, particularly these wildfires for their commitment to this cause of improving testing here in the state of california and helping support this effort. I am very pleased that both are on the line and i want to turn it over now to senator penn who has been very generous and wants to offer some words as well. Senator . Thank you, governor. Thank you for your leadership. I am dr. Richard pan, a pediatrician, a father, and chair of the Senate Committee on health. As a father, i have one child who started school doing distancelearning. I have another child about to start school. In order for us to get our kids back to school, in order for us to get our businesses back open, in order for people to get back to their jobs, we need to be able to contain this pandemic. In order to do that, we have to have reliable testing. Our governor, california is taking the lead in establishing a reliable form of testing for the people of california. I am really grateful to the governor for his leadership in making this happen. This is going to be essential so that we are able to test people in a timely manner, get the results in time to support Contact Tracing efforts as well. Without that, we will not be able to contain the outbreak, not be able to safely send our kids back to school, reopen more businesses. This is an essential step. In addition, i am pleased to know that this arrangement will also allow us to not only test for covid but also for flu. We are approaching the fall. Blue will rise. The symptoms are similar. It will be hard to tell the difference. We will be able to have a test at no additional cost. It will be very important diagnostically as well as trying to track our epidemiology. I have to urge everyone to get their flu shot. We want to prevent flu, not just try to treat it. Building our Testing Capacity is an essential step to us moving forward. The plan is something that i know the Governors Office has been working intensely on. We are pleased to be part of this announcement where we are going to build our capacity here in california even if other states in our country are struggling with this. Even here in california, where we said we need to be sure that we create a reliable source of ppe, we now have to have a reliable source of testing where we can get results back in a timely manner so that we can move our state forward. We can protect the people of california. We need to be sure our health facilities, hospitals, as well as other places are safe and our schools are safe. This is so essential. I want to thank the governor for his leadership in making this happen. As a physician and a father and chair of the Health Committee in the senate, i am strongly in support of this proposal. Thank you. Thank you, senator. Thank you for all of your hard work. Thank you for your support and thank you for your leadership in this space. Also, in reminding people the essential nature, where it is appropriate to get the influenza shot, to get the immunization as we move into the flu season. Also, i am pleased to have Senate Member wood who also happens to be a doctor. Assembly, who also has been advising and supporting our broader efforts in this space and has been very impactful in getting us to this point. Thank you so much, governor newsom. Thank you so much for your efforts. I know you have been working hard and so many have in the background. I guess you could use the phrase game changer. We use that a lot but i really mean it. This is a game changer for us. The ability to be able to test potentially 150,000 more a day and get those results back very quickly will really impact peoples quality of life. Certainly as we approach flu season, the challenges everybody is coughing. To be able to know right out front who is infected and who is not will be important. As we look right now, one of my concerns has been fires in my district and that concerns about our frontline firefighters, law enforcement, and all the county ems people that are out there. The ability to have increased Testing Capacity is absolutely critical. This is a big day, to be able to use californias amazing market power and strength. I am proud to be a californian today. I cant thank you enough for your efforts, governor newsom. Thank you, dr. Thank you, Senate Member. Thank you both for everything you are doing. Thank you both for forcing us to raise our standards and forcing us to raise the expectation in terms of what we can deliver and allowing us to flex our market muscle at scale. I appreciate the reference on ppe as well. It should be noted as it relates to the wildfires, just in the last week, we have been able to distribute some 1. 3 million n95 masks to our ad commissioners all up and down the state of california as it relates to impacts and air quality associated with these wildfires. We would not have been in a position had we not secured hundreds of millions of procedure masks, surgical masks, and n95 masks. Over 300 million in inventory. I appreciate in the spirit of that effort and spirit of scale and scope of estate as large as ours that we are bringing that spirit into this effort. We thank you both for your leadership in that space. With that, let me transition. I cannot impress upon you more how proud we are. We we are working with a newly constituted Testing Task Force to push the envelope here, demand more, and prepare for the next 8 to 10 weeks to build this capacity so we can get this contract in effectd start seeffort. Within the next 8 to 10 weeks, we should see the fruits of this effort as we build out the lab space, as we work to get logistics work done and we meet all of provisions set forth in the contract. Speaking of setting forth, we are putting every single asset we possibly can, every conceivable resource to battle these historic wildfires. Historic because we have already crossed the threshold this year in terms of acreage burned. That puts us not on pace to have a historic wildfires season but actually sets the pace for an historic wildfires nd crews, efighters dozers, fire engines, every conceivable asset. You have been watching an update from governor newsom. Our coverage continues on cbsn bay area, streaming on www. Kpix. Com. The governor put a big focus on covid19 testing and a new added layer in the state. California is now partnering with perkinelmer to build a new lab with a full supplychain. This, the governor says, will drive down testing costs, improve reliability, and provide better turnaround times for results. We are talking 24 to 48 hours. People will also be able to be tested for the flu at the same time. Again, more from the governor right now on cbsn bay area. Air quality concerns continue around the central area. Regions a live look across the teorologry lee s a lookg at bet quality rdaythis time. Really, along the coast and right around the bay we are looking at good to moderate air quality. Still unhealthy airquality in parts of the east bay at this hour. Still looking at unhealthy air because of all about smoke from the massive wildfires burning in our region. A spare the air alert in effect today through friday. That could get extended beyond that as well. You can see these smokies guys in our mt. Hamilton camera. Mid 80s in san jose. Upper 60s to low 70s ou y. Cica. O looking at oak for today, we are looking at a hazy and smokies guys with near normal daytime highs. We will continue with those hazy skies, the smoke lingering for us through thursday and friday. Temperatures will be on the rise as we move through thursday and friday and we will continue with those warm temperatures for the weekend d ks like the smoke will linger in our area for quite some time. A reminder, our virtual telethon with the red cross continues all week. You can donate to the fire relief efforts calling the number on your screen, 1855848 give. That is it for kpix 5 news wscast is at 5 00. Have a good afternoon. Brooke a part of me will always love you. I will love you for the rest of my life, but the man that i truly love and want to spend the rest of my life with is ridge