What some officers are accused of doing and how the police chief is responding tonight. But first, help is on the way. The new covid testing method that could speed things up. Tonight there is an urgency to clear the backlog of covid19 tests as people are sometimes waiting more than week for results. So the fda is now giving the green light to major Testing Companies to use a new technique to speed up the process. Nbc bay areas ian cull explains. Reporter in the beginning, covid testing was scarce. Then it ramped up. But now the time to get results is backed up so much, some people are waiting more than a week to find out if they have it. Got tested 11 days ago. Reporter christine hoffmans son just went back to preschool. Her husband is an essential worker in san jose. So just to be safe, she got tested for covid19 july 18th. This is my first test and i have g and his first test a few weeks ago, it took ten days for him to get results. Her story is becoming common. But today the fbi cleared the way for commercial testing Lab Quest Diagnostics to use new testing to cut down delays. This is smart move by the fda to give authorization to private companies that saying okay, you say you can do faster testing. They do it. Reporter ucsf dr. Monica gandhi says to slow the spread, people to know if theyre infected as soon as possible so they can quarantine. Otherwise they can unknowingly pass the virus tories. By time you get the test back, youre not even social distancing anymore. It doesnt make sense to have tests that take a long time. Reporter Quest Diagnostics which has 2200 labs throughout the u. S. , says the fda approval speeds the extracting dna from specimens. The turnaround time should be two to three days for most. Lab corp. , its rival says its already meeting those numbers. This comes as Health Officials say people should only get tested if they really need it so the labs dont get backlogged even more than they are right now. But for many, they just want answers. If you got faster results, i feel like you could get faster treatment and find out who you might have exposed faster. Reporter in san jose, ian cull, nbc bay area news. California has set a new record for covid deaths. Yesterday 197 people died from the virus that is a new high again. The previous record was 159 deaths on july 23rd. As for the total cases here in the bay area, 400 new cases added in Contra Costa County bringing their total to more than 1300 new cases. Santa clara county also seeing a spike, adding more than 250 cases today alone. One county without big case numbers had been San Mateo County. Its why that county stayed off the governors watch list so long and residents could enjoy fewer restrictions. Well, theyre now on the list. And as nbc bay areas Sergio Quintana explains, change is coming. Reporter landing on the states covid19 watch list means San Mateo County now has three days before being ordered to reimpose some restrictions. But some Business Owners say customers are already reacting. At evolve training in south San Francisco, the evening class usually has a few kids gearing up for punching bag exercises, but no students showed up tonight. Instead one of the coaches is hosting a training on zoom. I think they automatically assume that we are closed. But i think the watch list means that were on the watch list for three days. And i think saturday, when they check the hopefully the decline in the numbers, then we can stay open. Reporter the last several months have been rough for evolve training center. Owner john janero teaching a contact sport like martial arts during a pandemic has taken lots of modifications. Unfortunately, he cannot take his classes outside because of a lack of parking lot space. So a second shutdown will be even more painful. Were continuing to pay our staff and were paying our rent. Our landlords and i are going to have a meeting very soon. They want to be very supportive and understanding about whats going on. And thats going to be the key. Reporter the new watch list designation means schools will not be open for inperson classes and hospitalizations dont stabilize in three days, gyms, personal care businesses like barber some and hair salons and nail sal long, shopping malls and places of worship will have to shut down or figure out a way to safely move their services outside doors. Supervisor david canepa says the situation is serious. He proposes fines to people and businesses that dont follow mask rules. Whats becoming clear to me is that we need to protect them, and there has to be consequences. For inappropriate action. In is an markets Sergio Quintana, nbc bay area news. An dwriep a story we first told you about last night, a covid outbreak at a south bay costco. Confirming multiple employees at the sunnyvale s coucostco have virus. A Bulletin Board says nine work verse it. Some say it was around the 1st of july but they werent told until july 18th. Because youre not showing any symptoms, but you came in contact with it, its going through my head and a lot of the employees. They dont know if they have it or. No. The Health Department says costco has been following proper protocols which includes isolating the infected workers and conducting extensive sanitation. Nationally, 21 states have now been declared their infectis are rapidly climbing. Nbc news medical contributor dr. Vin gupta says it will take strong leadership to turn things around. That means that those states are in a very tenuous position. Where hospital overload is likely. If strong leadership and strong policies are not realized soon. That basically means we need to consider moving away from just mandating masks. And a lot of the states havent even mandated mask, like tennessee, for example, like georgia. We need to move away from mandating to enforcement. Dr. Gupta is also of the opinion the states should consider keeping schools closed in the fall, much like california is doing. And speaking of Distance Learning, state superintendent tony thurman today says money is on the way to help. More than 5 billion has now been made available to schools. The money is aimed to help address learning gaps and make Distance Learning more effective. One ucsf professor told us tonight that when kids do return to the classroom, the youngest student should return first. Based on both our understanding of how their bodies work, the younger kids tend to not get covid as frequently. And when they get it, its not as severe. And they dont seem to pass it around as much as older kids. And certainly not as much as adults. There is still no statewide timeline for returning to school. It will be district by district, depending on which ones meet state benchmarks. For students around the bay area, returning to class will bring lots of changes and challenges. The nbc bay Area Response team is working to help your family prepare. Please join us for a half hour back to School Special this saturday night, right after the nhl on nbc. New at 11 00, disturbing allegations against members of the Vallejo Police department. That they had a tradition of officers bending their badges as a way to mark people they had killed. The police chief is reacting tonight. Nbc bay areas cheryl hurd spoke to him and to the outraged family of man who was shot and killed by police. The celebrating of a human being is never acceptable, and im deeply disturbed by these allegations. Reporter Vallejo PoliceShawnee Williams reacting to allegations that Vallejo Police officers bend the corners of their badges to mark people they kill. Im doing an official inquiry into the department and the allegations. The inquiry will help me to understand the culture of the department in a greater way and take corrective action. Reporter former Police Captain john whitney says he was seeking corrective action and was fired for it. Through his attorney he says he learned about the badge bending practice following the deadly shooting of 20yearold willie mccoy in a drivethrough taco bell in february last year. Thats when police moved in, when he was asleep at the window with a gun in his lap. Melissa noles represents his family and says Vallejo Police operate like a gang. Where youre having, you know, notches on your belt, essentially, doing something to commemorate harming people. Thats gang culture. We call it an execution of what happened to little willie. Reporter mccoys brother is not surprised by the allegations. The Vallejo Police union is the strongest entity and the most powerful entity in the city of vallejo, and they have been calling the shots in that city for close to two decades. Vallejo Police Union President michael nicolineis reacting to the badge bending investigation. He says he has no knowledge of this being a practice of Vallejo Police officers. All of these recent allegations of wrongdoing are being fabricated to drive a narrative that doesnt exist. Calling it a distraction. Chief williams will start out with his internal inquiry, and it could turn into a fullblown investigation. He is not ruling out bringing in a third party to look into this case. In vallejo, cheryl hurd, nbc bay area news. A controversial statue in marin county is no longer standing after the city preemptively took it down. The sculpture of british explorer sir Francis Drake was taken down in larkspur and placed in storage for now. In addition, his name was removed from nearby sir Francis Drake high school. Activists have been demanding the changes because of drakes history as a slave trader and profiteer. The city decided to take the statue down because it was recently vandalized and there were threats to tear it down. Former president barack obama is expected to give the eulogy for former congressman john lewis tomorrow. Thats according to a source familiar with the planning of john lewis funeral. George bush and bill clinton are expected to attend as well. Today a procession took congressman lewis through the capitol. Lewis presided in state several hours. Hundreds lined up to say their goodbyes. Coming up after the break, a mystery surrounding seeds. The questionable package showing up in mailboxes in Contra Costa County. And waiting for results that will never come. The frustration and confusion over covid tests that have disappeared. Im chief meteorologist jeff ranieri tracking another round of fog. Ill show you when it moves out, coming up in about eight minutes. Fire crews in San Francisco are still at the scene of the fivealarm fire that destroyed or severely damaged six commercial buildings. The fire sparked yesterday morning in the area of fulsome and 13th in the soma neighborhood. Firefighters were putting out hot spots today that popped up as parts telephone building collapsed on to each other. One firefighter was hurt, but the Department Says that crewmember is already resting at home. The cause under investigation. But fire Officials Say theyre looking into the possibility that a mattress fire at an adjacent homeless encampment spread to the building. Suspicious seeds shipped from china are arriving in the east bay. There have been multiple reports of people throughout the country having seeds from china delivered to their home, seeds they did not order. Some 30 cases have now been reported in Contra Costa County. The department of agriculture says the problem they dont know what the seeds are for. The biggest concern is those seeds may be weeds or that they may be carrying diseases that may be detrimental to californias agriculture, to contra costas agriculture, and to our natural environment. Ag Officials Say do not open or throw away the packets and certainly dont plant them. Keep them intact and call the county commissioners ag office. Covid has been hitting Nursing Homes hard since the beginning of the pandemic. Now 14 residents have died at a walnut creek facility. Loved ones of one resident say they not only lost a lifelong friend, but they never got to say goodbye. Nbc bay areas jean elle has the story. It was just a sad, lonely end for her. Reporter sylvia haguety cant stop thinking about the end of kit anys life. She knew the woman everyone called aunt kitty for more than 60 years. She and my mom did everything together. They were just like sisters. Reporter she was just always part of the family, and we loved her. Reporter aunt kitty was the god mother to her three children. Hag looking at her at manor care. They had a covid outbreak in june. 92 residents have been infected. 14 have died, including aunt kitty. They had moved her into the covid wing, along with 13 other patients that day who apparently got sick at manor care all at the same time. This according to the doctor. Reporter hegarty says she didnt learn about the covid outbreak until after she died. She said manor care did not contact her to let her know her dear friend tested positive and was sick. She said she found out she was dead when the mortuary called about her arrangements. She and aunt kittys children never got a chance to say goodbye. I would have liked to tell her i loved her. Reporter messages were not returned. Hegarty says a message did leave a message with her roommate and daughter and said he needed to talk to her but and would call but back but never did. She sent the facility a letter urging them to make sure the right people are notified so no one else dies before loved ones can connect. I would have loved to receive an apology and an assurance this wouldnt happen again. Jean elle, nbc bay area news. People who have gone through the Testing Process for covid19 says it can be uncomfortable. But for some its become outrageous. Their results arent positive or negative. Theyre missing. Several people have reported to us their test results were lost. One viewer tells us a drivethrough site in Contra Costa County lost her test. Another was tested in solano county. I got a phone call from them telling me that my test was lost. And to please call them and reschedule. How does Something Like this happen . Where they lose everything . Where did it go . Where is it . We reached out to the company that administers the tests in solano county. They gave us a statement that reads in part, in about a total of 0. 3 part of the time, a sample may damaged, insufficient sample taken, or administrative error occurs where we have to ask people to get retested. For those looking to get tested in San Francisco, there a new location to tell you about. A popup testing site set up by ucsf at the 24th Street Mission bart station. It will be open for the next three weeks on wednesdays and fridays from 7 00 p. M. To 6 00 p. M. The site is aimed at helping test the latino population. The department of Public Health says latinos make up half of the coronavirus cases in the city even though theyre only 15 of the population. Many are frontline workers. Many families have been waiting for this for a while. The oakland zoo is officially back open today. It technically reopened monday, but only members were allowed in then. Today it opened for everyone. Attendance will be limited, and you must buy tickets online and wear a mask. The oakland zoo is the last major zoo to reopen in california. We have had great zoo visiting weather all this week. Jeff, it seems were in this real steady pattern of cloudy, cool mornings, and then just gorgeous afternoons. You got that right. And we are in for another repeat performance tomorrow. So whether youre going to the zoo, youre doing something in your backyard, or its a day where youre going grocery shopping, youre going take maybe even a little breck from the work from home. I think its going to cooperate with everybody here across the bay area. So lets go ahead and get you into the microclimate forecast. You can see right now, what im watching is fogged in conditions in San Francisco from our live camera. And then you can see on the righthand side of your screen, temperatures in the 50s with that fog moving all the way back into parts of contra costa and alameda county. So this means again tomorrow morning well see widespread coverage cloud cover for the north bay. Also for the east bay. Some drizzle possible at the coastline. And for those of you in the south bay, also waking up to some of the cloud cover from san jose, right on down to gilroy. Now i do think most of this should clear back by 11 00 in the morning, but keep in mind it will linger a little longer there in San Francisco. And of course for the immediate coastline at our beaches. So if youve liked the cool mornings lately, youll love tomorrow morning. Viet 55 in the trivalley. South bay at 58. And watch out with 52 degrees. And also San Francisco at 53. My temperatures tomorrow because of the fog at the coastline will definitely stay out of the 100s. So down here in the south bay, really, were staying in the 80s here for much of the view, including milpitas at 85. For the east bay, were at 92 in concord. Oakland, 72. And then closer to the coastline, at our beaches, well be in the 50s here for half moon bay. San francisco staying in the 50s to also 60s. Winds out of the west 10 to 20 miles per hour. So it will be a brisk wind for you. And the north bay, napa, sonoma, santa rosa will find more mixes of 70s to 80s in that forecast. Now my extended here in San Francisco continues with this pattern of 60s and also some morning