System will be overwhelmed. We dont act now, well continue to see a death rate climb more lives lost. With that Governor Newsom said hes pulling the emergency brake issuing a stayathome order for three weeks with any region with icu capacity falling below 15 . Its all part of a regional strategy well defined within the hospital and Health Care Delivery system. Weve defined these five regions, northern california, greater sacramento, bay area, San Joaquin Valley and the larger region in southern california. For the bay area, the stay at home coorder could come soon to late december. Hair salons, gyms, nail salons could shut down again. They are asking californians not to gather with anyone outside the household. The governor made the case with californias surging covid19 numbers. With spikes in the sevenday positivity rates, hospitalizations and deaths. Just in the last 14 days, close to 1,000 californians have lost their lives due to covid19. What can stay open, critical infrastructure, retail at 20 capacity, restaurant wills have to move to takeout and delivery only. Some schools can also stay open. Schools opened that have received waivers with the appropriate oversight and safety protocols. After close to an hour explaining his stayathome order, the governor begged for people to be patient with what he hopes will be the final lockdown. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Were a few months away from truly seeing Real Progress with the vaccine. The first shipment of 327,000 doses is expected between december 12th to 15th. Health care workers are first in line but this line group has been broken down to tiers. Acute care, psychiatric and correctional facility hospitals, Skilled Nursing facilities, assisted living similar settings, paramedics, emts. Tier two is Immediate Health care facilities, Community Health care workers, public field health staff and lab workers and dental clinics. This went through the drafting work group. This went true through the comm advisory. These are their recommendations based upon an equity and fairness lens looking at this wholistically, bottom up, not top down. We know the details are a lot to digest. We are having to remember tiers and regions and colors. We do break it all down on our website and of course, well continue to report on the impact and enforcement of this new stayathome order and lets hope the governor is right on his assessment that were in the home stretch and this will be the last lockdown. Dan . Lets hope so, kris. For the person watching not in any of the designated tiers, can they still get a vaccine . The short answer is no thats because the first shipment is very limited and the governor was very clear today, dan, there will be no cutting lines or paying your way to get to the front. This first bach will only go to the most vulnerable and the most at risk. In those three tiers but of course, we know that more vaccines are on the way. Thats true. Okay, thank you. Now, this stayathome order will roll out regionally and the state is divided into five regions. The bay area region is made up after 11 counties, alameda, contra costa, marin, monterrey, napa, San Francisco, san mateo, santa clara, santa cruz, salola and sonoma. Its triggered based on icu availability for the region as a whole dropping under 15 . Currently the bay area region stands at 25 . Now, on an individual basis, most counties are comfortably above that threshold. Alameda, contra costa and San Francisco are in the 30 range. Not all counties in our region report these numbers, keep that in mind. Santa clara is under 15 today. Sonoma is the Lowest Reported percentage and no, thats not a typo. 3. 6 of icu beds are available there. The regional approach could have some benefits according to ucsf doctor. Theyring a gae ing putting bay area into one group that seems appropriate because there is some wiggle room there. If one hospital is filled and a hospital in a neighboring county has plenty of capacity, then patients can be moved around like that. Very practical. Patients have been redistributed in prior surges of the pandemic, however, the doctor points ocho up that coronavirus is now much more wide spread. Its not isolated in hot spots like before. There was construction today outside the kizer Medical Center in walnut creek. Crews appear to be building tent structures. Its unclear specifically what they will be used for but earlier in the pandemic, we saw tent structures in hospitals from patient check in to housing overflow patients. The governors new stayathome orders are an unwelcome case of dejavu. We visited a local mall. Reporter its a more suburban version of main street usa. Farmers lane plaza where Small Businesses plant themselves and try to grow. That American Dream in california became a bit more difficult today. Very frustrating. Reporter rachel in the last year endured multiple electrical shutdowns, fire scares and almost five months of being closed because of covid19 restrictions. Today, she learned that governor gavin knnewsom is likely to end her here with a few more weeks. Does the governor still have credibility with you . No, he lost that quite awhile ago. Reporter by the very nature, the governors stayathome order does affect Small Businesses if they can stay open because there wont be as many people wondering around. It affects the restaurants or gym moving outside. Just finishing up with the structure i hired them to build. Reporter coach l. P. Owns a gym in the shopping center. Hes watched enrollment drop from 250 to 50 members, a business hanging on. As long as they say we can do outside training, well be fine. Reporter what if not . If not, we wont do it until they say we can. Reporter how much does that hurt . A lot. Reporter retail stories are worried too. Home wares, an institution here, the state will limit retail to 20 capacity, which may not make a difference in this store, but the health of a mall depends on the strength of all its businesses, especially at christmas. There are so many businesses that are just right on the verge. I mean, right on the line. You cant take anymore. Like you said, this is our bread and butter time of year. You make it or break it. Reporter now add a pandemic to the mix and shutdowns again. In santa rosa, wayne freedman, a b bc 7 news. Many people have questions with this latest order that again, new region is affected by yet but Officials Say its only a matter of time. Abc 7 news contributor dr. Patel joins us now. As always, thank you for being here. What do you think about the elements of this new stayathome order . Do you think they will befect ti effective . They have to be. Were hitting a breaking point in terms of how many cases were seeing and breaking records and our hospitals are getting jam packed as we heard. The important thing is its in our control and the shutdown is not happening yet. The target is a50 icu beds available. People have to do their part to avoid that. Okay. Lets talk a little bit about the way this order is triggered based on regional icu capacity. What do you make of that technique . You know, dan, if you would have asked me this this morning when it was first announced, i would say there needs to be more transparency and Everyone Needs to understand what exactly the 15 entailed and is it why is it lumped together in the region . From what i understand, the California Department of Public Health will put daily updates on the website. That will be extremely important. We want to make sure there is transparency and people really understand that the there is something they can look at every day to see how close or far we are from that inevitable goal not goal but that 50 number, which we dont want to hit. Right. Yeah, that transparency is something you really have hammered home during this entire time with the pandemic. Lets talk about the three tier Vaccine Distribution plan the governor laid out talking about the first doses. California is getting less than 300,000 doses from foopfizer. Do we know when each tier could get the vaccine . The tiers could start as early as december 15th if everything goes according to plan and the vaccines get approved, the earliest is december 10th and could move around. The one underlying question were trying to figure out is why did 327,000 for california, 170,000 for new york, 1. 4 million for texas when what we understood is that the vaccines will be distributed on per capita of adult in each state. So then that may change as distribution changes and hopefully, well have the right amount to make sure everyone at high risk of spreading or catching covid19 gets at least one shot in their arm by the end of the year. Were asked not to travel during thanksgiving. Looking ahead to the winter holidays and new years day, should people be prepared for a lockdown and start cancelling their Holiday Travel plans now . I imagine the answer is yes . To the latter, absolutely. People should start think about cancelling holiday plans. Its not ideal but its inevitable. Its what we need to do. The important thing is were not home stretch. Were almost there. We saw people traveling for thanksgiving. We may very well see a spike from that in a couple weeks from m no now, which is awful and we should prepare for a lockdown. If we hit the 50 number, well go into lockdown. Be optimistic, scientists succeeded and well have a vaccine and be out of this soon. Good to hear. Especially, as long as we follow all of those protocols, always all. Many thanks to you dr. Patel. We should point out were in power. We can do this. Together we can do anything. Thats right. Dr. Patel is part of the abc 7 News Vaccine Team along with anchor c anchor Michael Finney and you can follow the latest vaccine news at abc7news. Com coronavirus. Stay with us, a lot more to come. E. D. D. Fraud suspects arrested here in the bay area. Tonight, 7 on your side Michael Finney joins us live with the crime that allegedly netted up to a Million Dollars from fake unemployment claims. Three people who work for the city of vallejo dont work there anymore. They say they were fired for being whistleblowers. Our iteam has both sides. Thats next. Im spencer christian. The dry mild weather continues but new at 6 00, three former vallejo former employees were fired for being whistleblowers against city manager. The three employees have filed a claim for damages against the city. Abc 7 news iteam reporter melanie woodro spoke with them and has the city managers response. Reporter on april 23rd of this year, vallejo city manager greg fired three. Two were his assistants. Moratt managed the economic division. I was terminated and they didnt give a reason why. Reporter he managed special projects and communications. I was told the city manager decided to go in another direction and my services were no longer needed. Reporter she was his special advisor. I mean, i was shocked but not surprised. Reporter because one month prior, the city compelled all three to participate in an investigation into nihoff. They called for an investigation after receiving a complaint and then interim City Attorney hired outside counsel Christopher Boucher to oversee it. He had been doing seminars related to harassment and bullying. I dont know he was unknown to city staff but i dont know i dont think city staff really knew him beyond the conducting of the seminars. Reporter he says his office in turn hired independent labor and employment attorney and l k workplace investment. We were looking into whether or not there were city policy violations and or issues related to the city managers conduct. Reporter he interviewed ten city employees. But according to boucher it was those three interviews that stuck out. These individuals did not work well with mr. Nihoff and did not care for mr. Nihoff as a city manager and frankly, they wanted to get him removed as the city manager. Reporter they say they were he he sitant to share their feelins but were told it would be anonymous. I said hell get ahold of this report and use it as a hit list to go after anybody thats critical of him. Reporter boucher insists anyone privy was himself, risner and dobby. When she presented reports to me, reredacted and came up with our separate report that did not include witness names. Reporter his paraphrased version of the report was turned over to city counsel. The investigation exonerated nihoff on all claims. There is no evidence to support that city manager nihoff engaged in harassment. Reporter boucher says based on the facts he learned, he advised the firing of the three which nihoff did on april 23rd after the investigation was complete. There was bona fide independent reasons for their terminations unrelated. Reporter the city will not share those reasons. These are at will employees. There doesnt need to be a reason. The city manager can fire them if he doesnt like them. And he doesnt feel they fit on his team. I unwittingly walked myself into the jaws of the lion basically. We all had blown the whistle on concerns that we had around corruption, potential unethical decision making, discrimination and harassment. We whistle blew and we were terminated because of that. I can tell you the two events are not related at all. Greg to this day has no idea who was interviewed or said what during the interviews. Reporter the three filed a wrongful termination claim for damages against the city. Thats what our clients want out of this is compensation for what theyve lost, which is significant, and hopefully, there will be changes made in the way the city is run. Reporter the claim alleges the employees were wrongfully terminated for complaining about discrimination, harass mment an bullying and his conduct with respect to city contracts as well as participating in the investigation regarding the same. In an email statement, city manager writes it appears the intention is to distract and deflect from the good the city is doing to reform the police department. Moratt suggests otherwise. We tried to protect the city but nihoff was more interested in protecting himself. Reporter in his statement nihoff says ill continue to work with my Diverse Group of talented Department Directors focussing on city counsels goals. Napa county authorities filed violence charges against political strategists nathan ball lard accusing him of trying to suffocate a child with a pillow. According to poll lit cow. Authorities say ballard laid on top of the child with a pillow after he charged and pushed a woman against a glass door. Ballard is scheduled to be arraigned this month on felony Domestic Violence and felony child abuse charges. That report said the incident happened at a napa resort in october and ballard consumed a large amount of alcohol and marijuana. The 51yearold long time advisor to Governor Newsom said quote, i will be exonerated. A lot more to come here, can you believe were talking about fire danger in december . Its true. Spen 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. Twto treat acute, nonlow back stmuscle and joint pain doctors with topical nsaids first. A formulation they recommend can be found in salonpas. A formulation they recommend can be found in salonpas. Salonpas. Its good medicine. Hisamitsu. We have the power to harness californias Abundant Solar and wind energy, but its not available all day long. Use less energy from 4 to 9 pm for a cleaner california. More than 25,000 people remain out of their homes in Orange County tonight due to a fastmoving wildfire tfanned by 70 mile an hour winds. It began near silverado and burned 7200 acres already and destroyed several structures that fire is zero percent contained. Its burning not too far from the site of octobers silverado fire which burned more than 13,000 acres and dan, this is tough. When you think the season is over for this kind of weather behavior. Thats what we talk about, the fire season because of Climate Change and factors extended in it all year long, spencer. In years past, we have not talked about real fire danger this late into december at all. No, we certainly have not, dan and dion but over the least several weeks, we had a very dry pattern and as it gets drier and drier, the winds kick up a bit it increases fire risk. Were looking at calm conditions over San Francisco from sutro tower, 58 across the bay in oakland and mid 50s san jose and gilroy and 50 Half Moon Bay. Looking westward from emeryville, beautiful. 55 santa rosa and novato and getting chilly and mid 50s concord and livermore and here is the view from the rooftop camera looking across the embarcadero. Sun sunny and warmer but cooler with a slight chance of sprinkles. Gusty winds kick in late sunday into monday and that increases the fire danger. We also have a beach hazard statement in effect through tomorrow afternoon. Our surf is rough. There is a risk of sneaker waves and rip currents. Be cautious. Overnight low temperatures mainly low to mid 40s then tomorrow as i said, sunny and mild with highs ranging from mid 60s at the costa mid 60s around the bay shoreline to upper 60 its to near 70 degrees. We expect 70 fairfield and morgan hill and up at the clover dale. It will be quite a mild day and a beautiful one but this dryness is a concern. Here is the accuweather sevenday forecast. It will cool slightly over the weekend sunday night the winds become gusty continue through the day on monday. Thats the day of the highest fire concern. No red flag warning yet but concern will be elevated and the remainder of the week well see calmer wind and continued mild dry weather and it just goes on and on, dan and dion. No rain in sight for awhile. Were searching for it. Not in the next seven days will