Square today empty space that would usually be packed with visitors. San franciscos lack of tourists could mean cuts to programs that residents rely on. A brks krrbc 7 News Reporter me woodro has the story. Reporter suns around San Francisco say welcome, were open and visitors are few and far between. One of the campaigns is our gate is open. While that gate just got closed two days ago. Reporter steve rizzo is general manager at hotel g. The hotel has been closed for eight months. Rizzo estimates theyve lost 8 to 12 million in that time. I imagine that a lot of places are in the same boat as we are. Your cash flow runs out when you have no Revenue Source coming in. Reporter according to the quarterly status report released this month by the controllers office, the hotel tax is expected to drop 43. 4 million below the expected 126. 2 million. One of the things that visitors really do is help to pay the cost of living in San Francisco and without them, its going to be noticeable for all of us, frankly. Reporter joe is president and ceo of the San Francisco travel association. He says its not just hotel tax, visitors pay sales tax and car rental tax that all go into the citys general fund. That pays for everything from parks and police to education and roads. Reporter without that money. Programs will have to be cut or new taxes will have to be generated. Reporter the budget status report predicts the hotel tax will not recover to the prior peak until Mass Gatherings of large conferences, sporting events are safe and attended at prepandemic levels by visitors traveling by air. Rizzo says hotel g will reopen eventually. Our investors and owners see the Bigger Picture and despite what we may see now in union square, you know, we have every intention of reopening as soon as we see that there is signal or some sort of trending for travel demand coming back to the city. Reporter in San Francisco, melanie woodro, abc 7 news. On abc 7 news at 4 00 we spoke with contributor and chronical insider phil it is resembling the north where the lumbering stops, the businesses stop and the inside is just empty. Thats what were seeing in San Francisco because here the business isnt lumber or making sheets. Its tourism. Its gatherings and businesses downtown attracting people into that core spending money whether its on restaurants or hotels and thats not happening and the dominos are being felt and will be felt more severely as this shutdown continues. Remember, you can read phil mat matiers columns every wednesday and sunday. Thanksgiving ushers in the Holiday Shopping season if youre traditionally a lastminute shopper, Small Businesses have a plea this year. Come early. Kris reyes paid a visit to local shops to find out why they need extra support and understanding from customers this year. It may look like the holidays inside the stores but there is a quiet thats eerie at this time of the year. Inside this boutique, only five customers are allowed inside at a time. In downtown San Francisco, ten customers. Were just trying to encourage everyone to shop early this year because of social distancing protocols and Different Things like that. Its not going to be your normal holiday season. Being San Francisco, i have gone from over 150 plus years we survived because of our local support from our Customer Base here in San Francisco and across the country. Reporter its a normally Small Businesses would rely on foot traffic, word of mouth but this year thats not as effective so we reached out to a stro strategists for tips. Go digita if you havent already. Share stories on social media about your customers that you have. Have a small contest maybe. Make them aware youre struggling, talk to them on a regular basis. You can really transform your business in days. Reporter a new American Express poll shows 75 of customers plan to shop local to support Small Businesses through the pandemic. From Online Stores to private shopping to fast deliveries, Small Businesses are trying to go above and beyond. Their only ask, shop early because their suppliers are also struggling. There will be shortages of merchandise. Were already seeing it. To make sure that perfect present gets to the person on time, we definitely suggest you shop as soon as possible. Reporter Small Business saturday is on november 28th. In San Francisco, kris reyes for abc 7 news. With thanksgiving next week, Health Officials are urging families not to get together if they dont already live together. Some of us or some people are already looking ahead to next months holidays. Oakland mayor libby shaft is changing her familys tradition. I have spent every christmas for the last 20 years pennsylvania. This is the first year well stay home. Do you know the riskiest tradition . Take the exclusive holiday riskl k calculator. Find this tool on the abc 7 news app. Building a better bay area, means taking care of our health and that makes it hard. 9800 were diagnosed in krav k f coronavirus in the past 24 hours. 61 people lost their lives. The death toll topped a quarter of a Million People nationwide. Dr. Patel helps put that into perspective. This should not be normal. We should not be normalizing or getting desensitized to nothe numbers. Imagine three boeing 737s crashing every day, thats what were looking at right now. The bay area is part of the pandemic. Weve been tracking cases every day since march. The rolling average represented by the yellow line is climbing steeply right now approaching the peak we set in august. Hospitalizations hit a new record across the bay area with several counties seeing the most patients admit in a single day since the last wave in july. It raises the question will hospitals have to ration care . Stephanie sierra is digging into it. I have not been in the military and ive not been in war, however, it sort of feels that way. You gear up, gearing up for battle. Reporter strong words coming from a strong sense of fear as parts of the bay area hit a grim new daily record of covid hospitalizations. Stanfords department of emergency medicine chair is preparing for the worst, rationing care. At that point, it becomes a prioritization based on morbid did. Reporter according to an abc 7 data analysis. 36 new Covid Patients were admitted into hospitals across the bay area yesterday. A majority in contra costa and santa clara. While thats not the highest percentage in the state, its the highest stake since julys surge. They are preparing triage centers. Well probably start having to open them up shortly after thanksgiving because i predict some people will just not be able to resist the temptations to meet with family and thats when i expect a big spike ev. Reporter this video provided by stanford gives you an idea what the centers will look like if needed. The e. R. Can open up portions of the parking garage like this and transform waiting rooms. Within the walls, we have oxygen and suction and all those things we might need to if we had to line up beds within the waiting room. Reporter according to state data, both contra caosta and santa clara doubled the number of Covid Patients than icu beds available right now. That likely wont become a problem. There is that spectrum and in this most recent surge we noticed that a lot more people had covid, had the disease but werent necessarily at that very sick stage. Reporter aside from season st stanford, they are adding mobile Treatment Centers similar to this one. As well as the Field Hospital in San Francisco that can accommodate close to 100 patients, both are not being used yet but will be ready if needed in the coming weeks. Stephanie sierra, abc 7 news. This week, the entire bay area ended up in either the red or purple tier in the states restriction categories. Those are the worst two. Its because case counts are rising. Abc 7 news was in napa county where purple tier restrictions took effect. Napa county relies, as you know, heavily on tourism. Tourists are good for business but not so much for health. Everybody is tired of it. I get it. I get theyre tired of it. Were tired of it. Everyone was getting a little complacent, i think. In the purple tier, wineries are only allowed outdoor operations, restaurants cannot offer indoor dining. Now, the reopening rules are changed frequently, very confusing at times with case counts rising as rapidly as now. You can see where your county currently stands with our interactive tracker on abc7news. Com. Coming up, new at 6 00, the coronavirus like youve never seen it before. Were getting a better picture what were fighting thanks to some super computing using chips from the bay area. Im spencer christian, some sunnier days are coming our way but also some very chilly mornings. Ill have the accuweather forecast coming up. And get out your phone, go to abc7news. Com vote to take part in the live poll happening now. Store shelves running out of toilet paper and paper towels similar to march. Are you stocking up and buying what you need or ordering do you recall, not long ago we would walk on the sidewalk all around the wind blows we would only hold on to let go blow a kiss into the sun we need someone to lean on blow a kiss into the sun all we needed somebody to lean on the volvo xc90 recharge plugin hybrid. Your shoulder seems to be healing nicely. Im sorry baby. I dont want you to play with that. singing twinkle, twinkle little star. How i wonder what you are. How are you doing . Schedule a video visit with your doctor. Kaiser permanente. Thrive. If you havent gotten a flu shot yet, san joses mayor is offering encouragement to do so. Mayor sam shared his experience as he got a flu shot today kizer. The flu shot drivethrough will be open through february 1st. The county is offering free flu shots on saturdays through mid december at the fairgrounds. A previously hidden layer of the covid19 virus was revealed by researchers using a Silicon Valley graphics chip. The simulation has become a valuable tool as work continues on vaccines and drugs to slow down this pandemic. Health obviously, a vital part of building a better bay area. Abc 7 News Reporter david louie sat down with the bio chemist whose breakthrough is being used around the world. This is the image of the covid19 virus circulating since spring however new Computer Generated simulation gay ve researchers a look at the invisible covering in blue. If you want to develop drugs or vaccines, in general we think scientists aim for the parts of the virus that arent covered with this sort of reporter the blue shield is a sugarcoating the human body considers benign. The simulation by the doctor at u. C. San diego and an initial team of 28 from the u. S. And the United Kingdom visualize. This helps with human infection. We showed why the spike has to undergo these shape shifting changes because sometimes its hiding and sometimes its attacking. Reporter advanced graphics chips coupled with Software Generated data freely shared by an estimated 4,000 or more researchers across the world to work on vaccines and drugs. As i was showed, the spike retreats when in defense mode but emerges in attack mode. What causes that attack mode to happen and can we stop that attack mode from ever engaging . Can we figure out a way to lock this weapon in the hidden confirmation. Reporter the simulation has given researchers access at the part of the virus we couldnt see. It will help researchers to prepare for future mutations of the virus and get a head start to vaccines. The doctors team is a finalist for the gordon bell prize, the highest honor in the super computing field. David louie, abc 7 news. Panic buying is back. Store shelves are once again empty if things like toilet paper. We want to know what youre doing, stocking up, buying what you need or buying online. Go to aabc7news. Com vote to weih in we in. Reporter with covid19 cases on the rise, panic buying is back throughout the bay area. We have to try to remind ourselves to push back on fear and to be logical and not overly psychological. Reporter Santa Clara University psychology professor says when people are under stress, they might be more likely to buy basic goods like toilet paper or nonperishable foods. When they are scared, they will circle the wagons and find coping strategies that may be again more psychologically consoling. Reporter not all stores are seeing the chaos, which is certainly a relief for shoppers. Were all in it together. Everything is going through the same thing. Reporter in willow glenn, carter king stopped by to shop before going into quarantine ahead of visiting family. Its the golden rule. This time of year its so important to think about what you would want other people to do for you. Reporter Company Executive says theyve had no problem keeping items in stock. Very careful how many people are in our stores. Weve kept our six feet markers this whole time. Were eliminating a lot of displays on the sales floor to allow people to spread out. Reporter they have extended their operating hours to make it easier for folks to shop. Theyre also encouraging customers to buy shelf stable items like boxed stuffing or canned vegetables this week rather than next. That way when we come into thanksgiving week, we have a little smaller basket sizes, were maybe missing dry goods so we can keep moving people faster. A reminder to take a deep breath, simple steps to make your holiday a little more pleasant. All of Public Health guidelines and if we do so, you know, there will be enough toilet paper and supplies for everyone. Reporter chris nguyen, abc 7 news. So lets take a look at the results from the live poll at abc7news. Com vote. About 10 of people who were voting saying they are stocking up. The majority, 79, 80 are just buying what they need, not causing others panic to cause them to panic. And 9 are saying they are ordering online. So thats good to see, dan. It is, ama. It snowballs, doesnt it . If there is enough, the supply line is okay. We dont need to panic. Did you get rain where you live today . I did. How about you, ama . I think we got a little bit. Me, too. This is the last bit of wet weather for awhile. Spencer explains what is next in the fo california phones offers free specialized phones. Like cordless phones. phone ringing big button, and volumeenhanced phones. Get details on this state program. Visit right now or call during business hours. For members like martin. An air force veteran made of doing whats right, not whats easy. So when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. Thats how you do it right. 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The tree will be open for socially distant public viewing starting tomorrow. Thats nice to see. We need that. Thanksgiving dinner cooked by a James Beard Award winning chef. A group of women were served a meal by the highly acclaimed chef in multiple San Francisco restaurants but today her gusts we guests were survivors of Domestic Violence or came from prison for fighting back. This thanksgiving is their first for being released. I think my mashed potatoes im told are always very special. People clamber for them. I made those earlier today and some roasted brussel sprouts. Only until 2013 could imprisoned survivors of Domestic Abuse submit evidence at their trials or hearings. California is the first state to allow that potentially saving women from decades of undeserved jail time. What a fa